Unmarked

As most of my readers know, one of my hobbies is to go grave hunting and visit the final resting places of the famous who are buried in California. I have shared many of my pictures on this blog and I also have them in albums on my Facebook. I have stated many times before that the purpose of my blog is to make sure these actors and actresses of the silent screen are not forgotten, and one of the saddest things for me to see is a star from the silent era with an unmarked grave. Now, there are sometimes a reason that a grave is left unmarked. For instance, Lon Chaney, who rests in an unmarked crypt in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn, stipulated in his will that his grave remained unmarked. However, there are some cases where the deceased was too poor at the time of their death to be able to set aside anything to ensure a marker. Why their family or friends didn't step forward to make sure the grave of their loved one was given a proper headstone is beyond me.

One of the things I am most proud of in my life is the fact that I helped contribute to the fund to purchase Florence La Badie a proper headstone. Florence, who passed away in 1917, was buried in an unmarked grave at the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. It wasn't until 2014 that Ned Thanhouser, grandson of Thanhouser Studio founder Edwin Thanhouser, helped raise money to get Florence the headstone she deserved. However much money Thanhouser raised was matched by the cemetery and Florence's headstone was installed on April 27th (which would have been her 126th birthday).

Below you will find a list of the silent film stars that I have visited who currently are buried in unmarked graves. While I have visited many others who also are unmarked, I am just concentrating on those in silent film since that is the main focus of this blog. I wanted to share a little bit about each person and I also did my best to do some digging (pun not intended, but it works) as to why years after their deaths their graves remain without a headstone. I am hoping to eventually start a yearly Kickstarter or fundraising in order to purchase proper headstones, but one thing at a time!

I also want to note the trend I began noticing while researching these actors and actresses. If they spent their remaining years at the Motion Picture Country Home, they were presumably in financial straits, hence why they couldn't afford a headstone. Also, Pierce Brothers Valhalla Park seems to be THE place to be buried if you don't have a grave marker. Makes me wonder how many unmarked plots I have walked by while there.

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Page Peters

Page Peters was a handsome leading man whose stardom was at it's peak starting in 1914 and continuing until his death in 1916. He is virtually unknown today (I didn't even hear about him until a few months ago) most likely due to his untimely death.

The story goes that Page and some friends drove to Hermosa Beach for a party at a friend's house. The next morning, he and a couple others decided to go swimming in the ocean. Page and a female friend, known only as 'Miss Graves,' swam further out than the rest of their party and it was while out in the deep that he was stricken with a cramp. Miss Graves tried to grab a hold of Page and swim with him to shore, but was finding it difficult and began calling out for help. Apparently, she gave up on her efforts to save him and only managed to get herself to shore. His body was found by rescuers, who pulled him ashore and tried to revive him for a good two hours before they gave up hope on trying to save him. The medical examiner later concluded that Page had died from heart failure and not from drowning, which was interesting considering he was 27 years old and in pretty good shape. 

Page's funeral was held at what is now Hollywood Forever Cemetery. His pallbearers were a group of his industry friends, including director Al Christie.  Apparently the funeral was filmed at the request of his parents, which...I would love to see that if it still exists! 

What gives Page a little more distinction is that he is rumored to be the first actor to be buried at Hollywood Forever. Considering the fact that he was a pretty popular actor during the time and the fact that even his funeral was filmed, I find it odd that he was buried in an unmarked grave near the Cathedral Mausoleum. Unfortunately, I can't find much information on his early life other than his birth date in 1886 and that he was possibly born in Kentucky. 

Page's unmarked grave is along the wall in the back.

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Virginia Pearson

I covered Virginia a few years ago (read the entry here) so I'll just put a little refresher here. Virginia was one of the main vamps of the silent screen (although to me she still looks too sweet). She passed away in 1958 at age 72 from uremic poisoning at the Motion Picture Country Home. She was buried next to her ex husband, actor Sheldon Lewis at Pierce Brothers Valhalla Park. While the two were legally divorced, they remained as close as ever and Virginia actually died only a month and one day after Lewis. The couple had to declare bankruptcy in 1928, and this could very well be the reason why the Motion Picture Country Home paid for their burial plots. Sad that they couldn't throw in a small headstone too.

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Alice Lake

I actually thought I covered Alice in a previous entry but looks like I was mistaken! I'll have to add her to the list for sure. I mean, she was one of Buster's leading ladies, for goodness sake!

Alice was probably best known for appearing in comedies with Roscoe Arbuckle and Buster Keaton. Like many other silent film actors, the onset of the talkies signaled the end of her career. Sadly, her life after Hollywood wasn't a happy one. She was arrested in 1936 for drunk driving and had to get bailed out by a friend because she couldn't afford to pay the $10 fine that would keep her out of jail. The following year she was arrested again for drunk driving but this time the fine was $100. Not able to pay the fine, Alice spent almost a month in jail. She conducted interviews during her ordeal, telling newspapers that her days were usually spent pacing her home and waiting and waiting for a call from the studio. She passed away in 1967 of a heart attack in a sanitarium and was buried in an unmarked grave at Pierce Brothers Valhalla Park. I don't know if her situation picked up any from the time of her arrests to her death, but I hope they did. Maybe purchasing her a headstone will bring her some peace and the recognition she tried so hard to hang on to.

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Mary Alden

Mary was one of the first Broadway actresses to work in Hollywood. She also had the distinction of appearing in both of D.W. Griffith's epics, Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). Mary passed away in 1946 at the Motion Picture Country Home, ten years after she made her last film. She was buried at Pierce Brothers Valhalla Park.

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May McAvoy

May is probably most remembered today for starring opposite Al Jolson in the 1927 part talkie, The Jazz Singer. There were rumors that May didn't make many talkies because of a speed impediment, but in truth, she retired from films because her husband, a bigwig at United Artists, didn't want her to work anymore. She eventually did go back to acting during the 1940s but she was only cast in uncredited roles. She does have the distinction of appearing in both the 1925 and 1959 versions of Ben-Hur, however. Following her divorce in 1940, May mentioned that she would have to seek help from the Motion Picture Relief Fund for financial assistance. I am not sure how long her economic hardship lasted.

May passed away in 1984 and was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City. For an actress who poet Carl Sandburg once called a "starry-eyed goddess," having an unmarked grave is just awful. May did leave a son, Patrick behind when she passed way. Patrick passed away in 2012, otherwise it would be have nice to reach out to him and ask about possibly obtaining a headstone for his mother. 

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Alice Maison

I covered Alice almost a year ago when I did a series about the Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties. To read a little bit more about her, click here.

Like most of the Bathing Beauties, finding out what happened in Alice's life after she left Hollywood is a bit difficult. I know she married and divorced at least twice and that she passed away in 1976 and is buried at Forest Lawn in Hollywood Hills.

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Margaret Gibson

Margaret is one of those silent film actresses that would just be another pretty face from the past these days if it hadn't been for the confession she made as she lay dying on her kitchen floor. On October 21, 1964, Margaret suffered a heart attack at her home and while laying on the floor surrounded by a priest and neighbors, she confessed to killing director William Desmond Taylor, whose murder in 1922 remained (and still remains) unsolved. When one of the witnesses wrote down his statement of the events thirty years later, he couldn't remember most of the details due to not knowing who William Desmond Taylor was. He did remember her mentioning almost getting caught though. Apparently, Margaret had made this claim years before, but people either shrugged it off or just didn't pay attention. I mean, the murder had been so many years ago, it pretty much had faded from the Hollywood history books. 

I wish I could remember all the information that was documented in the book Tinseltown by William J. Mann but I read it back in December/January. I do remember that he covers the Desmond Taylor murder from Margaret Gibson angle and from a Mary Miles Minter angle, with tons of information included, so I definitely recommend reading it...especially since I am drawing a blank.

Anyway, when Margaret passed away, she had been living pretty much as a recluse in a house overgrown with weeds and bushes and I am sure this could very well account for the fact that she is buried in an unmarked grave at Holy Cross. 

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Alberta Vaughn

Alberta is interesting to me because while she is more remembered today than her younger sister, Ada Mae, she is buried in an unmarked grave. Ada Mae Vaughn passed away in 1943 at the age of 37 from complications during surgery and she was buried at Forest Lawn in Glendale. 

In the years following her sister's death, Alberta was arrested at least twice on drunk driving charges and once on a domestic dispute charge. Instead of paying the fine on her DUI charge, she chose to spend almost two weeks in jail. She ended up serving eight months in total in jail with the combination of the charges. When she passed away in 1992, according to an obituary in the LA Times, she left no survivors, which could account for her being buried in an unmarked grave in Pierce Brothers Valhalla Park. 

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Vera Reynolds

Vera, like Alice Maison, was one of Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties. I briefly covered her about a year ago during my series on the Bathing Beauties. You can read her mini bio here. 

Vera passed away in 1962 at the age of 62 at the Motion Picture Country Hospital. She was buried at Pierce Brothers Valhalla Park. Vera was married at the time of her death, but I can't find burial information for her husband, Robert Ellis, who was also an actor. I am just assuming the couple lacked the funds for a headstone.

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Lucille Bogan

This is the only picture of Lucille that I have found, hence why I only included one.

Lucille was one of the first female Blues singers to ever be recorded. She was also infamous for her raunchy songs, and I don't just mean for the time. When I first heard one of her songs, my mouth dropped open. She also recorded under the name 'Bessie Jackson.'

When she passed away in 1948, she had all but forgotten by the music industry that had once put her into the same category as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. She was buried in Lincoln Memorial Park in Carson, California. I have read that she is in an unmarked grave because at the time of her death she had been living in poverty. When I went to visit her, I had to have one of the groundskeepers show me exactly where she is buried. Quite sad, but I am glad I was able to pay my respects to her and let her know that she wasn't forgotten and that I hoped to get her a proper headstone one day. 

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Katherine Grant

Katherine is another actress that I covered previously, so you can read her bio here.

Katherine died from tuberculosis in 1937 at the young age of thirty two. She was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles. 

Katherine's unmarked grave is bit confusing to me because her mother, who was very vocal with newspapers and fan magazines about her daughter's condition, didn't ever go about getting her daughter a proper headstone. I know that Katherine was sick years before her death and her mother wasn't able to provide all the necessary care she needed, but it is sad to think that no one in the movie community reached out to help purchase a marker for her. I mean, when she first became ill in the late 1920's, she was sent to a sanitarium on the Hal Roach Studios dime. We definitely need to see that she gets a proper headstone. 

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Joe Keaton

Joe Keaton (left) was the father of Buster Keaton. Joe, along with his wife, Myra, and Buster toured vaudeville as The Three Keatons. When Buster was in his late teens, he ended up leaving the group due to his father's increasing alcoholism. When Buster had made it big in Hollywood, he put his father in his pictures as a good will gesture. Sadly, Buster would follow in his dad's footsteps and deal with his own alcohol addiction issues later in life. 

Joe and Myra eventually split up and he spent a lot of years living in hotels. He passed away in 1946 reportedly after being hit by a car. He was buried in Inglewood Park Cemetery. After talking with a few friends, we all kind of agreed that perhaps Joe's alcoholism had alienated his family so much that they didn't feel extremely obligated to give him a headstone. Also, around the same time Buster was going through his own turmoils in both his professional and personal life. 

Interesting to note too is that while Myra and Buster have headstones, Louise and Harry, Buster's siblings, do not. Gonna have to add them to the list as well.