Cultural Icons: Dead and Buried, but Where ?

Tennessee’s got Elvis. Washington state is where guitar god Jimi Hendrix is buried.
And exactly where Screaming Jay Hawkins has gone is anybody’s guess.

The High Priest of Voodoo Jive, best known for his creepy Halloween anthem
‘I Put a Spell on You,’ passed away in 2000. During a long musical career featuring
eerie stage performances with voodoo props, Hawkins proclaimed:
‘When I go, I don’t want to be buried. I’ve been in too many damn coffins already.’

Three years later, fans are wondering just where Hawkins ended up.

So where are some of the late cultural icons buried?

Some simply went home. Jack Kerouac is buried in Lowell, Mass.; James Dean
rests in Fairmont, Ind.; and Buddy Holly is buried in Lubbock, Texas.
Former Doors singer Jim Morrison chose picturesque Paris to spend eternity.

Halfway across the globe, Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery holds the remains of Russian Premier Nikita Khruschev, composer Sergei Prokofiev and writer Anton Chekhov.

Back in North America, a pair of Hollywood-area cemeteries hold the best-known stars of all.

Interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park, Janis Joplin and Roy Orbison share
the grounds with Frank Zappa and Peggy Lee. Walter Matthau is also there,
reunited with Jack Lemmon on acreage that also includes burial sites of Dean Martin
and ‘Pink Flamingos’ and ‘Polyester’ star Edith Massey.

Sammy Davis Jr. is interred across town at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills, along with Humphrey Bogart, George Burns, Nat King Cole and the former ‘IT Girl,’ Clara Bow.

Allman brother Duane and Allman’s bass player Berry Oakley are both buried in Macon, Ga.

Former New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders is interred alongside longtime drummer accomplice Jerry Nolan at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Queens.

If politics make for strange bedfellows, consider the interments in Los Angeles’
Inglewood Park Cemetery.

Jazz legends Chet Baker and Ella Fitzgerald, burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee,
actor Cesar Romero - best known for his role as The Joker on ‘Batman,’ and one-time
boxing champion Sugar Ray Robinson are all at rest there.

Among the ashes scattered at sea are those of singer Maria Callas and comedian Bud Abbott, writer Lester Bangs and composer John Cage.

A little closer to home, Rod Serling of ‘Twilight Zone’ fame is interred in Interlaken. Leonard Bernstein shares Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery with infamous New Yorker ‘Boss’ Tweed.

Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx is the burial site of writers Herman Melville
and Damon Runyon. Jazzmen Miles Davis, Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington are also at Woodlawn.

A few miles southeast, John Coltrane and Count Basie are at rest at Pinelawn Memorial Park
on Long Island.

Marilyn Monroe, one of the most notable icons of the 20th century, is buried at Westwood Village. The plot next to Marilyn is vacant. It is the future burial site of Hugh Hefner.
You can find more information on who’s where in the hereafter, at the Web site: findagrave.com

by Thomas Dimopoulos
published in The Saratogian, Oct. 31, 2003.