HOLLYWOOD FOREVER CEMETERY

Eva Tanguay; the “I Don’t Care” girl

By Allan R. Ellenberger

Eva Tanguay, the ebullient music-hall performer, who made the song “I Don’t Care,” known the country over, was one of the outstanding headliners in the days of “big-time” two-a-day vaudeville. At the height of her career her salary ranked with that of Sarah Bernhardt and Nora Bayes, amounting to $2,500 to $3,500 for two shows a day in the Keith-Albee vaudeville circuit. Everywhere she played she attracted capacity audiences to see her act, which was unique because of her songs, her madcap humor, her freakish costumes and her crop of tousled hair – think Lady Gaga.

From childhood Tanguay had been on the stage. Born at Marbleton, Quebec in 1879 of French-Canadian parents, she made her first appearance on an amateur night in a variety house at Holyoke, Massachusetts. Her father had died shortly after he moved to the United States, leaving his family desperately poor. She won first prize in the amateur contest and followed it with other successes. Soon the fame of the child performer spread and at the age of 8 she received her first regular engagement, playing the title role in one of the companies presenting a dramatization of Francis Hodgson Burnett’s “Little Lord Fauntleroy” for a five-year run.

Eva Tanguay as Little Lord Fauntleroy (Henry Ford Museum)

Tanguay reached stardom in 1904 when she introduced the song, “I Don’t Care” to Broadway audiences who flocked to see her in a play called The Chaperones. She became the “oomph” girl of the turn of the century and her salary mounted to a peak of $3,500 a week, extraordinary for the period.

She did much to bring vaudeville out of its respectable front. She sang songs which were daring for the time, such as “I Want Someone to Go Wild with Me,” “It’s All Been Done Before But Not the Way I Do It,” and “I’d Like to be an Animal in the Zoo.”  The great favorite with her audiences, however, was “I Don’t Care.”

One of her most profitable acts was in Salome in 1908 and she once said that her costume consisted of “two pearls.” Censors complained loudly, while the act rolled up a record gross at the box office. Once she fashioned a costume of dollar bills and when Lincoln pennies appeared she used them for spangles. She won success also in Ziegfeld’s Follies of 1909. “I was the only one whose name was lighted atop the name Ziegfeld,” she once recalled. “For the others, the Follies always got the top billing.”

In 1910, at the height of her career as a vaudeville star, Tanguay said that the secret of her success lay entirely in her personality, and she always exploited that personality to the utmost. At times she was as mercurial and unpredictable off stage and in her business relations as she was behind the footlights.

In Evansville, Indiana, she cut a stage curtain to shreds with scissors because the house manager fined her for missing a matinee. In Sharon, Pennsylvania, she once chided the house manager from the stage because he had refused to put a larger mirror in her dressing room. She was arrested in Lexington, Kentucky when a stage hand accused her of stabbing him with a hatpin when he didn’t get out of her way as she rushed from the stage to her dressing room. At the police station, she produced a roll of bills and cried: “Take it all and let me go, for it is now my dinner time.” She was ultimately fined forty dollars.

Banner proclaims the arrival of Eva Tanguay (Henry Ford Museum)

Tanguay was married three times – first in 1913 to John W. Ford, a dancer and later to Roscoe Ails, a vaudeville actor. In 1927 she obtained an annulment of her marriage to Alexander Booke, her former pianist who was 23 and she was 46 – possibly entertainments first cougar. Her charges claimed that Booke deceived her in many ways and did not use his true name when they married, claiming his name was Allen Paredo. They were married for less than two months.

During World War I she disappeared from the public eye and it was supposed she had retired with a sizable wealth. Although she had made several fortunes on the stage, Tanguay had always spent freely and was equally liberal in helping out friends in financial trouble. The vivacious beauty, who once carried nothing but $1,000 bills, lost a fortune in the stock-market crash of 1929; some estimates of her losses running as high as $2,000,000.

A brief night club appearance in Brooklyn in 1932 was her last public performance where her pal Sophie Tucker was present. But she remained confident of a comeback to the end. “I’ll dance and sing again,” she told her infrequent visitors, mostly other veterans of the great days of show business.

When in 1933 she went blind, Sophie Tucker paid for the operations which restored her sight. Tanguay mapped plans for a comeback to raise enough money, she said, to endow a children’s hospital for the blind, but was stricken with an arthritic condition which partially paralyzed her.  At that time in 1939, it took 26 blood transfusions to keep her alive. Moving to a small cottage at 6207 Lexington Avenue in Hollywood where she was bedridden, and communicated with the world through her bedroom window. She often explained that she “looked so awful” she wanted no one to see her. “Don’t come in,” she would say. “Eva Tanguay is not here.”

6207 Lexington Avenue in Hollywood where Eva Tanguay lived the last eight years of her life and where she died. Above is the bedroom window from which Eva would speak to reporters (PLEASE NOTE: This is a private residence. Please do not disturb the occupants)

She covered the walls of her Lexington Avenue bedroom with old photographs of herself, and she talked – as she always did – about the past. Forgotten by the world except for periodic visits by reporters, she always managed a cheery greeting “for the people who still remember me.” On her 68th – and last – birthday, a reporter visited her and spoke to a pair of bare feet which protruded motionless from a white sheet that stretched away from the window into the bedroom’s darkness. “It took them an hour to get me fixed in bed,” she told the reporter from the shadows.

“There were hundreds of (birthday) messages,” she said. “And you know, there were lots from people I never heard of.” She was getting along until the previous week when she was out for a drive and the car stopped suddenly and she was thrown to the floor. “I’ll probably be in the grave,” she said prophetically when asked about her prospects for the coming year. She was still working on her autobiography titled, “Up and Down the Ladder,” and hoped to sell the rights to a studio. “They’re interested in it,” she said, “but just because you’re sick and broke, they think they can get it for nothing.”

“Miss Tanguay,” said the reporter, “I have a photographer with me and we were wondering –“

“Close the window! Close the window!” the voice in the shadows cried.

On the morning of January 11, 1947, Eva Tanguay suffered a stroke and died amid the yellowing photographs pasted on the walls around her depicting her as the “I Don’t Care” girl.” With her were her niece, a nurse and a neighbor.

Tanguay’s funeral was held at Pierce Brothers Hollywood Mortuary. From the forgotten wings of show business it was a standing-room-only audience. Among those who attended were Trixie Friganza , her friend, and Harry Leonhardt, her first manager; Joe Whitehead, who once appeared with her before President Woodrow Wilson, and bearded Tex Cooper, a vaudeville cowboy who taught her how to ride a horse 45 years earlier.

There was stillness in the chapel as Rev. Elizabeth Garrick-Cook spoke simply of Eva Tanguay, of her humor and sparkle and her quality of greatness, of her talent and her open heart. “We should not feel that she is gone, but rather that she has been freed from the pain she endured in her last years,” she said. “Aside from her artistry, she had the quality of opening her heart and her purse to the needy.”

Tanguay was buried in the ermine coat she bought nearly twenty years earlier when she attempted a comeback. Her casket was placed in a crypt in Hollywood Cemetery’s Abbey of the Psalms mausoleum. When her estate was settled, the woman who was once worth 2 million dollars, left personal effects valued at $500.

Below is footage of Eva Tanguay with French language narration

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HOLLYWOOD FOREVER CEMETERY

James Waller Somers: “He Knew Lincoln”

By Allan R. Ellenberger

It’s surprising the number of Hollywood Forever Cemetery residents that have a unique connection to Abraham Lincoln. There is Senator Cornelius Cole, a close friend who visited Lincoln on the day of his assassination. And Joseph Hazelton, who as a boy, was present at Ford’s Theatre on that night. Now we profile James Waller Somers, who knew Lincoln in his boyhood in Urbana, Illinois and continued that friendship into adulthood.

James Waller Somers, the son of Dr. Winston and Mary (Haines) Somers, was born at Mt. Airy, North Carolina on January 18, 1833. His father was a physician, and in 1843, moved his family to Urbana, Illinois. Somers became friends with Abraham Lincoln while in Urbana, one of the towns of the Eighth Judicial Circuit where Lincoln once practiced law.

“My recollections of Lincoln,” Somers said, “date back to 1843 or 1844, when as a boy ten years old, I arrived in Urbana, Champaign County, Illinois, with my father’s family from North Carolina. Urbana was then a mere village, containing a population of perhaps 150 persons. The Courthouse was a double, one-story frame structure, unpainted, and of primitive architecture. It was in the center of the village, surrounded by about an acre of ground enclosed. It was in this court yard I remember first seeing Mr. Lincoln. He was tall and ungainly but of very striking appearance.

“It was court week, and he was striding across the yard toward the Courthouse, in that peculiar manner characteristic of him, a sort of meditative shambling gait, head drooped forward and his hands behind him. He was lank and angular, with a massive head, covered with a short, stubby, dark-brown hair, brushed up in front, without any pretense of parting in the middle or anywhere else. He had a high forehead, thick lips, cheek bones of an Indian-like prominence, and a wart on the side of his face near his large nose, which was eliminated from his later photographs by the retoucher’s brush. His face was smooth shaven. His ears, hands and feet were abnormally large and his arms unusually long.”

At the age of 21, Somers studied law in the office of his uncle, William D. Somers, with whom he became a law partner after being admitted to the bar in 1856.

“When I was studying law with my uncle, Judge Somers, Mr. Lincoln frequently came into our little one-story office, near the hotel, to swap stories with ‘Uncle William,’ who was himself a good story-teller, though Lincoln far surpassed him as he did everyone one else. He used to sit on a rush bottomed chair with his feet on the rung, telling stories, hour after hour. He frequently laughed more heartily than anyone else, but the laughter was neither boisterous nor vulgar. His whole body swayed with merriment, wholesome and infectious, and his eyes would sparkle with amusement, while he ran his fingers through his close cropped hair, always standing on end.”

Originally a Whig, Somers helped to organize the state Republican Party and actively campaigned for Lincoln in 1858 and 1860. Henry Clay Whitney called Somers “the promising orator of our Circuit of the young men.”

By 1860 Somers had developed serious hearing problems which made the practice of law difficult. He wrote to Lincoln seeking advice on his future career. Lincoln responded on March 17, 1860 recommending that he resettle in Chicago where Whitney had offered him a partnership. Lincoln closed saying that his advice was given, “with the deepest interest for your welfare.” A week later Lincoln wrote a recommendation:

“My young friend James W. Somers I have known from boyhood and I can truly say that in my opinion he’s entirely faithful and fully competent to the performance of any business he will undertake.”

In 1861, President Lincoln appointed Somers to a position in the Department of the Interior, which led to a distinguished career of 25 years of public service in Washington

During the Civil War, Somers received news that two of his nephews, both minors, had been forced to join the Confederate Army in North Carolina and were then captured as prisoners of war in Elmira, New York. Somers asked Lincoln to have them released and sent to Urbana, with the assurance that they would not take an active part in the war.

“I was cordially received at the White House,” Somers said, “in his old familiar way. After talking a few moments on home affairs I stated my errand and he at once wrote an order to Adjt.-Gen. Fry of the War Department, directing the release of the young men and upon their taking the oath of allegiance to send them to their uncle in Urbana. In a few days my cousins were on their way West and did not again take up arms against the North.”

When Somers retired from the Department of the Interior in 1895, he moved to San Diego where his brother resided. In 1903 he moved to Hollywood to live with his niece, Mrs. H. G. (May) Condee at her home on what is now Cherokee Avenue. There the library was adorned with some of Somers valuable collection, which included various portraits, busts and autographed letters from Lincoln.

On June 6, 1904, at 7:25 pm, Somers was returning from the post office and was crossing Hollywood Boulevard at Whitley Avenue when he was struck and killed by an electric cable car. At that intersection there was a strong arc light and it was supposed that Somers confused it with the headlight of the electric car and, not being able to hear the warning bell, crossed the track just as the car came upon him.

Above is the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Whitley Avenue where J. W. Somers was killed by an electric cable car.

J. W. Somers funeral was held at the home of his niece and internment was at Hollywood Cemetery.

Above is the grave of James Waller Somers at Hollywood Forever Cemtery. It is located in Chandler Gardens (Section 12), just a short distance behind the J. Ross Clark family mausoleum.

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TODAY IN HOLLYWOOD

Small bush fire at Hollywood Forever swiftly extinguished

A burning bush at Hollywood Forever was quickly extinguished today by cemetery security. Let’s hope it wasn’t a heavenly messenger with additional commandments – we can’t keep the ones we have. (PHOTOS: Allan R. Ellenberger)

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HOLLYWOOD FOREVER CEMETERY

Rose Williams, the little old lady in red

 By Allan R. Ellenberger

March 27, 2010 

Rose Williams spent her life dusting other women’s homes so she could indulge in what her few acquaintances believed was her solitary love: wearing red – red dresses, red hats, red shoes, red nightclothes. Red, for Rose.

But after her death on December 30, 1964, her acquaintances learned she had another love. For money.

Since arriving in California in the early 1930s to work as a domestic, the tiny English-born spinster had amassed $133,638. When county officers opened her safety deposit box after her death, they found it contained that much in gilt-edged securities. “And there may be a lot more in other banks,” one officer said.

How “The Little Old Lady in Red,” as she was known in the community, had saved to buy the stocks was anyone’s guess since no one really knew her.

“I wish I knew who her financial adviser was,” said Dep. Public Administrator Glenn Coffey. “She didn’t have a bad stock in the bunch. What bugs me is that I don’t know what she did with her dividends.”

When Rose was entombed in the Abbey of the Psalms on January 13, 1965, about two dozen persons, mainly those curious about the tiny woman who dressed all in red, were present. Also attending were Rose’s stockbroker, representative of the public administrator’s office and another little old lady, this one in black.

Just before Rose’s red casket was placed in the crypt, the latter put three red roses at the foot of the coffin with a note which read, “To an English rose from an English lady.”

A year later, based on a vague will that was found in the safety box, a Superior Judge divided Rose William’s fortune between the American Cancer Society and CARE, Inc.

To Find Rose Williams, the little old lady in red, go to Clifton Webb’s crypt in the Abbey of the Psalms, walk past it several feet and look up about two crypts from the top and you will find Rose.

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HOLLYWOOD FOREVER CEMETERY

James A. Whitaker, founder of Buena Park, California

By Allan R. Ellenberger

James A. Whitaker was a successful businessman and the founder of Buena Park, California, the home of Knotts Berry Farm. Whitaker was born near Cherry Valley in Otsego County, New York on April 8, 1827, the son of James T. and Prudence (Sydleman) Whitaker. His grandfather, Maj. Thomas Whitaker, was a soldier in the Revolutionary Army.

His father died when he was a child and this limited his education to the local Cherry Valley Academy. However, he quickly moved forward in business, first in Norwich, Connecticut where he formed the firm of Whitaker & Price for a $500 investment. After eight years of profitable trading, the firm dissolved leaving him with a profit of $8,000 cash.

In 1853, Whitaker moved to Chicago and formed Whitaker Bros., a wholesale grocery business. Later he joined Loomis & Whitaker, and within two years he bought out his partner.  Over the years Whitaker continued to merge with other companies and rapidly forged a successful name for himself in the commercial world.

In 1885 Whitaker moved to what is now Orange County, California and acquired 690 acres for raising cattle. However, George Fullerton, a land agent for the Santa Fe Railroad, persuaded Whitaker to subdivide his property as an alternative. Since Whitaker’s property surrounded the rail route, the deal included a rail terminal to be built later. On June 17, 1887, when Whitaker registered his platted map with the county, he used the name Buena Park (the city was incorporated in 1953).

Though the exact derivation of the name Buena Park is uncertain, a grassy area where Artesia and Beach Boulevards (formerly Grand Avenue) now meet had been named Plaza Buena (the “good park”) by early Spanish-speaking settlers, so Whitaker apparently adopted the name ”Buena” for his town. Within a short time, a little business district sprang up at Ninth Street and Beach Blvd. around Whitaker’s General Store, near the railroad depot. 

Another theory is that Whitaker used the name of a Chicago suburb – Buena Park, Illinois. Both communities were named in 1887, and Whitaker’s brother, Andrew (who is also buried at Hollywood Forever) lived in Buena Park, Illinois before moving to California to join his brother.

In 1888, Whitaker allowed a group of local worshippers to use a room above his general store for holding church services and then donated $3,000 and 100 square feet of land at Tenth Street and Beach Blvd. for a new church. The church became the First Congregational Church of Buena Park and is still worshiping at this location today.

Twenty acres of land within the subdivision was sold to one of James’ two brothers, Andrew. Andrew was an experienced farmer who later helped James operate the Pacific Condensed Milk Company after a local group of investors took over its operation in the early 1890′s. This company was Orange County’s first non-agricultural industry and was commonly referred to by its brand name as the Lily Creamery.

In the early 1900’s, Whitaker and his wife Ella, moved to Highland Park, near Pasadena, where he died on March 13, 1908 and was buried at Hollywood Cemetery.

Whitaker’s imprint can still be seen in Buena Park. Whitaker Street is named for him as is the James A. Whitaker Elementary School on Montana Avenue. The home of his brother, Andrew Whitaker, is now known as the Whitaker-Jaynes Estate, and has been restored and moved to become the cornerstone of Buena Park’s newly established Historical District.

Whitaker’s grave is located at Hollywood Forever in Section 7, behind the Griffith obelisk and facing the sandy path.

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HOLLYWOOD FOREVER CEMETERY

Beautiful Hollywood Cemetery…

By Allan R. Ellenberger

Someone once asked me what it would have cost to be buried at Hollywood Cemetery back in the early days. I have an ad for the cemetery from an old 1931 Los Angeles telephone directory that listed the prices for the various ways to be interred there.

Just as the cost of real estate in the living world depends on “Location, Location, Location,” the same holds true once you pass to the other side.

The ad qualifies the price by saying “and up” which probably means that it depends on where the “inurnment” is. For example, the price for crypts would depend where on the mausoleum wall it was. Crypts that are around eye level are usually more expensive than those at the top. The same would apply to niches. Outside graves would also depend on location: those that surround the lake would cost more than those in the rear of the property next to the wall. Remember, these are 1931 prices!

Mausoleum, private — $1,800 and up

Crypts — $225 and up

Family Plots — $162 and up

Graves, Single — $42.50

Cremation: Adults — $50 / Children — $10 to $25

Niches — $35.00 and up

Urns — $12.00 and up

 Hollywood Cemetery circa 1925 (LAPL)

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HOLLYWOOD FOREVER CEMETERY

Gideon Curtis Moody, first Senator of South Dakota, and former state justice

By Allan R. Ellenberger

Gideon Curtis Moody was a forceful, brilliant speaker, a man who detested shams and subterfuges, whose professional and private reputation was stainless. He commanded the profound admiration of his neighbors and friends, and his vigorous, pleasing personality made him a figure of prominence in the Northwest. He was South Dakota’s first Senator and that states Moody County is named in his honor.

Moody was born in Courtland, New York on October 16, 1832 where he spent his early years. He studied law at Syracuse and was admitted to the bar when he was only 21. He practiced law there and moved to New Albany, Indiana in 1852 and was appointed prosecuting attorney for Floyd County in 1854.

Moody married Helen Eliot of Syracuse on September 21, 1855. In 1860 he was elected to the Indiana State Legislature and served until the outbreak of the Civil War. In  April 1861 he enlisted in Co. G, Ninth Indiana Infantry and was commissioned a Captain. He was with that unit until the fall of 1862 when he was promoted to Colonel and assigned to the command of the Nineteenth United States Infantry, which was stationed at Indianapolis and Fort Wayne.

Moody was given a command at Murfreesboro, Tennessee and was named chief mustering officer with Major-General George H. Thomas.

After the Civil War he moved to Yankton, Dakota Territory and took an active part in the development of the Northwest. He was appointed associate justice of the Supreme Court by President Rutherford B. Hayes, and his district at that time comprised all the territory west of the Missouri River. He filled this position from 1878 to 1889.

On November 2,1889, as a Republican, he was elected the first United States Senator to the new state of South Dakota along with Senator Richard F. Pettigrew. He remained a senator until 1891. He was also a member of the Territorial Legislature for two years, and was Speaker of the House. He was a member of the State Constitutional Convention and was the first provisional Senator.

Moody’s specialty as judge was in corporation law and riparian rights and he ruled on many important cases. For many years he was the confidential attorney of the Homestake Gold Mining Company at Deadwood, South Dakota, which was the richest gold mining corporation in the world, and of interest to then Senator George Hearst, the father of William Randolph Hearst. Until his death, Moody was the confidential attorney of Hearst’s mother, Phoebe.

Around 1899, Moody began making occasional visits to Los Angeles and found the climate beneficial to his health. After his daughter and her husband settled here he spent the last nine months of his life with her while building an elegant mansion next door at 1019 Beacon Street. He and his wife moved into their new home only two months before his death.

On March 17, 1904, Moody died at his new residence from Bright’s Disease; he was 71. He was survived by his wife Helen and five children: Helen Dickenson of Los Angeles; Charles, editor of the Sturges Record (South Dakota); James, an attorney at Deadwood; Burdette, a civil engineer with the Homestake Company, and Warner, recently graduated from Yale and in a law office in Deadwood.

Moody children also buried at Hollywood Forever

Moody’s grave is located at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in the Chandler Garden’s (Section 12) just east of the Harrison Otis obelisk and a short distance from the road.

For the past 105 years, all published biographies have stated that Moody was buried at Rosedale Cemetery. This error is included in the official Biographical Directory of the United States Congress and is listed as such on Findagrave. The confusion probably came from his obituary which noted that his body was “placed temporarily in a receiving vault at Rosedale.” Hopefully that inaccuracy can now be corrected.

To read more about Gideon Curtis Moody, check out this article at Deadwood Magazine.

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HOLLYWOOD FOREVER CEMETERY

Caryl S. Fleming, an immortal of magic

Caryl S. Fleming (above) does not find a rabbit in his hat (Photo:  IBM Ring #21)

The Magic Castle, located at 7001 Franklin Avenue at the foot of the Hollywood Hills, is currently observing the centennial of it’s headquarters which was built by banker Rollin B. Lane in 1909. To celebrate, I will post a biography of Lane and the history of the mansion on January 2, 2010, the 47th anniversary of the organization’s opening. Today, the last in a series of articles on magic and magicians in Hollywood, is about Caryl S. Fleming, a banker and one-time film director whose true love was magic!

By Allan R. Ellenberger

Since the early days of film, Hollywood has always been the land of make-believe where tricks and sleight of hand are evident in almost every frame. Hollywood has also been a friend to the magical arts – Harold Lloyd was a lover of magic and held meetings in his expansive estate in Beverly Hills. Other Hollywood celebrities such as Chester Morris, Sterling Holloway, Ramon Novarro, Johnny Mack Brown, Gene Raymond, Max Terhune, Bert Kalmar and Edgar Bergen also had an interest in magic.

Caryl Stacy Fleming is a name which may not be as familiar to the magically-challenged, but yet he was the major reason for the well-being of conjuring in the Los Angeles area from 1933 to 1940.

Fleming was born on October 13, 1890 (although his grave marker reads 1894, official records give his actual year of birth as 1890) at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the son of Frank Fleming and Grace Rosemary Stacy. As a child he moved with his family to Chicago, where his parents were divorced by the time he was 10 and his mother ran a boarding house on Michigan Avenue.

It was in Chicago that a family friend — the dean of magicians, Harry Kellar — sparked his interest in magic. He would spend time at Ed Vernello’s magic shop, learning the basics of conjuring.

In 1910 he moved to New York and was educated at Columbia University. He soon found work on the legitimate stage and in early motion pictures. Around 1916 he married Constance Ethel Norton and they had a daughter, Marjorie Gladys Fleming in August 1917. That same year, he was employed by Film Craft Corporation in New York City as a motion picture director. His final film as a director was The Devil’s Partner (1923) which starred Norma Shearer. This was Shearer’s last film before being signed by Louis B. Mayer Productions (later Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios).

Eventually Caryl and Constance were divorced and he left for California in 1927 while Constance and Marjorie remained in New York. By all accounts it was a bitter divorce and reportedly he never saw his ex-wife or daughter again.

In California, he became involved with banking and was a director of several institutions, while still devoting himself to the organization of magicians. He was president of the Pacific Coast Association of Magicians and the associated International Alliance of Magicians and was a member of more than fifty magic clubs.

He was one of the founders and a one-time president of Los Magicos which met on Wednesday nights, sometimes at his Beverly Hills home. Caryl was the perfect host and loved to manufacture gimmicks in quantity and pass them out to his friends. He was a true friend to magicians everywhere and wanted to have the whole world share the fun he had found in magic. A lover of animals and an ardent amateur photographer, he also dabbled in chemistry and developed a rope cement and several chemicals for use in card tricks.

Caryl Fleming, 2nd row, far left with glasses. Bess Houdini in center front row. 

In October 1936, Fleming attended the tenth, and final, Houdini séance which was held atop the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood. A close friend of Bess Houdini, Fleming sat in the inner circle with her and other distinguished magicians in a final attempt to contact her husband. However, no message was received from the great Houdini and it was announced that no further attempts would be made by his widow.

Many individual magicians were helped by Fleming’s counsel and directions. His advice was always constuctive, and usually in a humorous way. When he did not like some part of an act, he would say so and then do everything to help the magician change the act for the better. He was a stickler for accuracy. He credited audiences with having too much knowledge to allow a magician to get away with false claims.

On Labor Day, September 2, 1940, Fleming was entertaining at his Beverly Hills home (924 N. Beverly Drive). He was showing some card tricks to a friend, Joe Evedon when he suddenly complained of indigestion. He drank a glass of bicarbonate of soda but said that it didn’t seem to help. Then without warning, he slumped into Evedon’s  arms and died from a heart attack just a month shy of his 50th birthday.

Tributes poured in from around the country:

“Caryl S. Fleming was the true magician,” wrote Edward Saint, past-president of Los Magicos. “He recognized neither race, creed, nor color; and his magic vision drew no geographical borders. Anyone, anywhere in the world, if they had the love of magic in their heart, Fleming called them ‘brother.’ He was of the world, for the world, of magic.”

Bess Houdini wrote:

“Marble may coldly mark the name and passing of our friend Caryl, but the memory of his prodigious efforts and intense love of magic, the warmth of his handclasp, and his kindly friendliness is engraved on our hearts as one of the Immortals of Magic.”

Fleming’s funeral service was held on September 4th from Dayton’s Mortuary in Beverly Hills. Amidst an array of floral tributes, more than 250 magicians gathered to pay last homage. A Universalist minister spoke first (Fleming’s great-great-grandfather established the Universalist church). Then, Bill Larson (the father of Milt and William Larson, founders of the Magic Castle in Hollywood) spoke to those gathered:

“Caryl would have been successful in anything he wanted to undertake,” Larson said. “His achievements in the fields of the theater and motion pictures were pronounced. Retiring, he turned his genius to magic. In a few short years he built, in the West, one of the largest and most prosperous organizations of magic the world has ever seen.”

Gerald Kosky then gave the S.A.M. ritual and wand breaking rites. Later Caryl S. Fleming was interred in the Cathedral Mausoleum at Hollywood Cemetery.

Fleming left an estate worth almost $100,000 to his mother, Grace R. Glaser but bequeathed only one-dollar to his daughter Marjorie, who resided in Glenmoore, Pennsylvania. It was understood that a property settlement, making provisions for his daughter and former wife, was effected when the Flemings were divorced several years earlier.

Fleming’s mother, Grace is interred below him. She remarried shortly before her death in 1948.

In 1947, Fleming’s mother, Grace, married James E. Miller. When Grace died just a few months later in February 1948, she left her considerable estate to her new husband. Grace’s secretary, cousin and Irva Ross, Fleming’s fiance at the time of his death, all were named benefieciareis under an earlier will. They contested the new will, claiming that Miller, who also had an alias, had married the wealthy widow in order to obtain control of her property. The court awarded each of the three contestants a specific amount and allowed Miller to inherit the remainder of the estate.

The Caryl S. Fleming Trophy for the most original amateur trick of the year was soon created and awarded yearly. In 1938, Fleming had helped charter the International Brotherhood of Magicians Hollywood RING 21 which, after his death, was changed to the Caryl Fleming RING 21 and is still in existence today.

A year after his death, a tribute in Genii magazine memorialized Fleming saying:

“Years will pass. But the name Caryl Fleming will remain firmly in the minds of magicians. We, along with hundreds of others of our conjuring craft, will see to that.”

I would like to thank Bill Goodwin of the Magic Castle for providing  biographical information on Caryl S. Fleming for this article.

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HOLLYWOOD FOREVER CEMETERY

The grave of Golden Girl, Estelle Getty, is finally marked!

Click here to see what her grave looked like back in August

Click below for an example of Estelle Getty’s comedic talent

Thanks Louis for the heads-up!

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HOLLYWOOD FOREVER CEMETERY

Marguerite Favar, that dainty dancy soubrette

 By Allan R. Ellenberger

She’s now a forgotten name but in the early 1900’s, Marguerite Favar was widely known as a dancer, and for several years toured vaudeville circuits in the South and West. She was born Adelaide Farvarth in 1887 and came to the United States from Australia with her mother Alice around the turn of the last century.

Marguerite first began appearing in music halls until 1905 when she created a sensation in Portland at the Lewis and Clark Exposition as the “Peacock Girl” at the Turkish village. She then toured the United States on several vaudeville circuits, making a name by her charm and daintiness.

In 1908, Marguerite and her mother moved to Los Angeles from St. Augustine, Florida. That same year she appeared at the old Empire Theatre and also had an act on the Pantages circuit called “Marguerite Favar and her Dolls.” In August she costarred in the comedy, Paris Upside Down, as a “soubrettish young person.” The following month she was in Little Robinson Crusoe at Mishcer’s Theatre in Los Angeles. One reviewer said, “Miss Favar is a lively dancer and creates a demand for more of her work…”

Although beautiful in every feature, Marguerite’s attractiveness lay in her large brown eyes, which sparkled across the footlights and won the hearts of her admirers.

“All Miss Favar would have to do was to look at a man,” said one of the chorus girls in her company. “Men seemed to be hypnotized by a glance of her eyes. Of course, on the stage she made good use of her crowning beauty – her wonderful brown eyes. After a performance the stage door used to be crowded with men just waiting for a chance to see Miss Favar off stage.”

It’s believed that Marguerite may have been married twice. Her first marriage was reportedly to a man known as Creatore, a famous bandleader of the day. However, after her death Creatore’s manager declared that Favar was never the bandleader’s wife but that she may have been the wife of a musician who had recently been enjoined from giving performances under that same name. 

In any event, Marguerite was married in August 1909 at the Episcopal church in Santa Ana to Captain Frank D. Tompkins, a retired army officer. Tompkins had enlisted in the Hospital Corps as a volunteer in the Philippines and was given an officer’s commission for distinguished bravery in action. He retired in 1908 and came to California. He stopped for a while in Oakland with his uncle, formerly a warden of San Quentin, and then came south to Los Angeles where he found a job as chief of the property division for the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

Soon after their marriage, Marguerite had a try at the new industry in town – motion pictures. It must have a been a brief career because there are no records of her film appearances. However, she probably worked at one of the studios in Edendale because in early May 1910, she was thrown from a buggy while filming near Elysian Park which is nearby. She was severely injured and had to stay at home for two weeks.

On May 19, Marguerite kissed Frank good-bye and returned to her first day of filming since her accident. She noticed that Frank appeared sick but left the house with no foreboding. He seemed to be suffering from nothing more serious than an attack of the stomach flu. Several hours later, Marguerite’s mother arrived at the house and found Frank in convulsions and called for help. Marguerite was notified at the studio and raced home, but it was too late; Frank was dead at the age of 36. It was later determined that Frank committed suicide by taking poison,  however the reason for the act was never known.

Marguerite confided to a friend that she loved Tompkins sincerely and his death caused her great sorrow. “His death resulted practically in Miss Favar forming a barrier against marriage,” her friend stated. “She said she would never marry again. And I know she kept this vow.”

After Frank’s death, Marguerite returned to the stage; at first as a solo act, she was billed as ”Marguerite Favar, That Dainty Dancy Soubrette.” Soon she put together a dance company and called herself, “Miss Marguerite Favar and Her Dainty Dancing Dolls,” and began touring the country. During one performance, a moving picture of the breaking sea at Atlantic City played in the background as the “dainty dolls” pretended to plunge into the surf.

Marguerite’s mother died in November 1913 and was laid to rest at Hollywood Cemetery. The following March she brought her act back to Los Angeles to the Republic Theater as “Marguerite Favar and her Dancing Darlings.” The Los Angeles Times reviewed her act and reported the following:

“Girls are the principal attraction at the Republic Theater this week, for Margaret (sic) Favar and her seven dainty dancing girls are presenting a veritable feminine vaudeville turn de luxe. Magnificent stage settings, elaborate costuming, comely maidens, new songs, novel dancing and catchy music make it one of the biggest and best girl acts seen here for a long time. Miss Favar is clever and pretty, and quick with her feet, and her support is none the less agile.” – (Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1914).

Marguerite was a success and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle. Her alluring beauty caused men in every city she visited to become infatuated with her. In letters to a close friend she continually referred to her many suitors that she encountered. Many wealthy men promised her happiness if she would become their bride. In her letters she made light of these proposals. Her friend warned her that this would mean that she would get in trouble one day and that it would be better if she married and settled down. She laughed at his warning.

In early 1915, Marguerite and her act was touring the south when they arrived in Greenwood, Mississippi. While there, disagreements arose between the young women and the act was disbanded. During her stay, Marguerite met James C. Crowell, millionaire manager of the Buckeye Cotton Oil Company, and the two began an affair.

Marguerite went to Memphis in August to direct a musical performance for a fraternal organization, and stayed on in that city to conduct private dancing lessons. Crowell soon joined her in Memphis where on September 21, 1915 she gave a dancing exhibition at the Women’s Club Building. After the performance, Crowell met Marguerite backstage and dismissed her chauffeur, Thomas Porter, saying he would drive the car himself. They returned to the Benham Flats apartment house where Marguerite was staying and they presumably retired for the night.

Shortly after sunrise the next morning, firemen were summoned by a janitor who discovered the apartment occupied by Favar was on fire. After putting out the blaze, they found Marguerite’s body lying on a bed, her skull crushed by the blow of a blunt instrument and her feet charred by the fire which had enveloped the bed. Crowell’s body was found in a hallway just outside her room. His head was badly battered and his throat was cut.

The room was in disorder, and the drawers to a dresser was ransacked, which the police at first believed confirmed a theory that burglars committed the crime. This, however, was partially discredited when jewelry valued at several thousand dollars was found.

Other residents of the apartment building reported that they heard a slight disturbance shortly before daylight, but the commotion ceased within a few minutes, and they knew nothing of the murders until they were aroused by the janitor when he discovered the fire.

The next day Guy Palmer, the janitor who discovered the fire and Thomas Porter, Marguerite’s chauffeur, were arrested for the murders. According to police, it was Palmer’s duty to go into the building about 5 am each morning and light a hot water heater, but on the morning of the murder, he claimed to have overslept. With very little else to go on, no formal charges were lodged against them and they were eventually released. Over the next two months four other men were questioned about the murders but were released for lack of evidence. 

 Marguerite Favar

When news of Marguerite’s murder reached Los Angeles, friends here were quick to set detectives on the track of the slayer, but the evidence they provided was not considered sufficient to warrant the arrest of a suspect. They were convinced they knew who the guilty man was but could not supply enough evidence to place before a jury with a reasonable hope of obtaining a conviction. It was their belief that Marguerite, who aroused many storms of jealousy during her stage career, was, with Crowell, the victim of a slighted lover who followed them from Greenwood to Memphis.

Memphis police were baffled by the murders. They finally began working on what they termed the “love trail,” which they hoped would lead them to the jealous mad lover of the actress who committed the murders. Members of Marguerites former dance troupe were questioned and all agreed that the actress played with love.

“She would encourage one man just long enough to make him a jealous suitor,” said Lovis Heyman, one of Marguerite’s Dainty Dancers. “Then she would turn to the next. She seemed to be proud of her ability to lure men to her. She cared no more for one than the other. It was certainly love of a man for her that resulted in the tragedy.”

Crowell’s body was released and returned to Greenwood the day following the murder. Marguerite’s body had to remain in Memphis until all legal matters were settled. As the actress apparently left no will and had no living relatives, friends arranged to have the body buried at the side of her mother in Hollywood Cemetery. It took some time to arrange for this, as legal matters connected to her estate had to be settled. Finally, after lying in the Memphis morgue for six months, the body of Marguerite Favar was returned to Los Angeles for burial.

The service was held at 2 pm on March 23, 1916 at the cemetery where friends gathered in the open air beside the Favar plot. Rev. Dr. James A. Francis of the First Baptist Church officiated. Earle C. Houck, who sang at Marguerite’s mother’s funeral, sang a similar tribute at her funeral.

Marguerite Favar’s killer was never found.

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