Pardon My Hearse: A Colorful Portrait of Where the Funeral and Entertainment Industries Met in Hollywood (16 page)

At Ernie Kovacs’ funeral, Allan leads the pallbearers, including Jack Lemmon (third from left).
Photo originally appeared in
Photoplay
magazine
.

A friend of mine, Deidi Kramer, who has listened to many of my stories, located an old copy of
Photoplay
magazine with an article about Ernie’s funeral. She purchased it online and had it mailed to me directly, sight unseen and to my great surprise. It wasn’t the magazine with the cover shot, but it had a spread of a different photo showing us crossing the lawn at the cemetery.

We provided the family car for the funeral of actor Robert Vaughn’s mother. The services were held at Christ the King Catholic Church on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Accompanying Vaughn was the most unusual entourage I’d ever encountered up until that time. There was one attractive blonde and an assortment of male groupies. The only conversation in the limo was not about the funeral or his mother, but about his blossoming career. Vaughn had a big hit with the television show
The Man From U.N.C.L.E
. and was quite good as the heavy in
Bullitt
, with Steve McQueen.

Bullitt
had an outstanding car chase scene, and McQueen performed the stunt driving himself. He also did his own motorcycle riding in
The Great Escape
, except for an amazing jump that, he was told, was too dangerous for a big star like him. Ron and I were lucky to meet him at a live TV show called
Larry Finley’s Strictly Informal
very early in his career. After the show we went out and saw his Jaguar, called a “D” Jag. It was built strictly as a racecar and was the prototype for the popular XKE Jaguar production car. He said the only time he ever got past second gear was at the Riverside International Raceway, because this car could easily reach sixty miles per hour in second gear alone.

The first death call we made for a well-known movie star was Peter Lorre, who died in a three-dollar-a-night fleabag hotel in Hollywood. The motion picture industry realized that many of its own ended up this way, so it founded the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills. Just as the military cares for its wounded and dead, Hollywood took up the challenge for the health care of movie veterans in the twilight of their lives. We made many calls there over the years.

Another memorable service was for the funeral of David O. Selznick, the highly acclaimed movie producer-executive. His wife, actress Jennifer Jones, whom he had met while making a movie together, was the only occupant in my limo. The funeral concluded in the hallway of the mausoleum at Forest Lawn Glendale, where his casket was to be placed into
the marble-covered wall. The funeral director instructed me to drive her home, but as we pulled out of the cemetery she asked me why the casket hadn’t been placed in the crypt while she was there. The crypt closing is normally done after the family has left, because it is difficult for a family to watch. Nevertheless, she told me to turn around because she wanted to witness the closing personally. After returning to the garage, the crew who cleaned our cars each night found a boar-bristle hairbrush on the rear seat of the limo she was in and gave it to me. It was marked Harrods, so she probably purchased it in London. Kathy kept it as a souvenir.

On a private limo drive, my instructions were to pick up a Mr. and Mrs. Stacy in Hollywood. They immediately stood out as some of Hollywood’s “beautiful people.” The girl was wearing a green skin-tight dress and the man an expensive imported suit. He eventually called her Connie, which made me realize who they were. It was singer and actress Connie Stevens and her husband, James Stacy. During the ride to the airport she handed me a few letters and asked me to mail them for her. The name on the return address was Concetta Ingolia, her birth name.

Many years later, Stacy’s life was changed dramatically when he and his girlfriend were riding his motorcycle down the very curvy Mulholland Drive. A drunk driver crossed the centerline and struck them almost head-on. His girlfriend was killed outright and his left arm and leg were torn off by the impact. The medical expenses wiped out his savings so some friends and his ex-wife Connie gathered for a benefit, which raised a great deal of money for him. Because Stacy was a well-known movie star, a state law was passed making any bartender serving a customer alcohol after he can no longer drive safely liable for any accident occurring from that customer’s intoxication.

The biggest funeral we ever worked on after Marilyn Monroe’s was a few years later, for William H. Parker, the highly respected Los Angeles police chief. Even Sam Yorty was there, the colorful mayor of “Los Ang-gah-leez,” as he pronounced it. Parker’s service was held at Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral, beautiful but located in what had become the center of downtown’s skid row.

We routinely took funeral processions on the Los Angeles freeways, and Ron became the official liaison between the CHP and the Los Angeles County Funeral Directors Association. We had to maintain a speed of at least fifty-five miles per hour on the freeway and have at least one escort for each of the twelve cars.

At Chief Parker’s funeral, we took freeways to reach the San Fernando Mission Cemetery at the north end of the valley. When we pulled up onto the freeway we saw that the CHP had completely closed the northbound side, with motorcycle officers blocking every on-ramp. It was an amazing display of respect for Chief Parker, for whom the Parker Center Police Building was named, depicted on many TV programs and movies such as Jack Webb’s
Dragnet
.

Over the years, the most well-attended funerals in which we were involved were those of policemen. This was especially true in cases where the officer had been killed in the line of duty. It wasn’t unusual to have as many as thirty black and whites show up with the names of their city or county displayed, many of whom had arrived from hundreds of miles away. In the case of one fallen officer from Torrance, California, we were barely able to fit all the flowers into our largest truck. The church was only about eight miles from the cemetery, but this was the only time I ever had CHP motorcycle officers breaking red lights and escorting me in our flower truck all the way to the cemetery, so I would have sufficient time to set up the flowers before the funeral attendees arrived.

We were eventually transporting so many remains up and down the state that I had to design a truck with an electrically operated platform. This enabled the driver to put two remains on it and raise it halfway up from the floor, which then enabled us to place two more cases underneath. As usual, my expertise in building something without consulting a knowledgeable designer wasn’t the best, but it served the purpose.

The platform was steel, with four collapsed legs in the down position. Our mechanic welded a steel A-frame mount between the bucket seats, using my drawing as a guide. We purchased a cable wench that could be powered by the van’s twelve-volt battery, which pulled the table halfway to the roof. This allowed the truck to carry four bodies at a time. Jack LeVan, who had worked for us in the late ’50s, built the second lift van. He powered it with two small aircraft landing-gear actuators under the truck, with legs that came up through slots in the floor. Later, he informed me that my first, somewhat inefficient design was based on an engineering principle called a “dead man’s lift.” That was certainly appropriate.

We became aware that a man named Russ Monroe had a long-distance transportation company operating in Northern California. We made an agreement with him to work together and exchange cases in mid-state, which saved us both a great deal of additional driving. We determined halfway points along the highways. Through this system, both drivers would meet at a designated place and time, make the switch, and head back to home territory. Our arrangement lasted for over fifteen years, with each of us tabulating our ongoing charges. When we discontinued this service, the balances owed to each other came to less than $200.

Automobile leasing was pretty much in its infancy at this time, and it had some real benefits compared to purchasing vehicles outright. With leased cars it wasn’t necessary to come up with a down payment, as most leasing agencies now require. We had been purchasing Dodge station
wagons from a dealership called Harger-Haldeman, which had established a leasing division within the dealership, so we decided to make the switch to leasing.

We would put only about 30,000 miles a year on the ten smaller local wagons, but as much as 120,000 miles on our long-distance lift vans. One year we put an incredible 135,000 miles on a large Dodge Polara wagon. Car-leasing companies all use similar calculations to determine the number of miles you are allowed to accrue on any given vehicle over the length of the lease period. If you run over the predetermined allowable mileage, a penalty is assessed when the car is returned. Because of their high mileage and excessive wear, our vehicles were rarely turned back to the leasing company at the end of the one-year lease, so I would sell them to a wholesaler.

One of our employees took such good care of his vehicle that we assigned it to him for his exclusive use. Vern Steen had owned Steen Mortuary in North Hollywood, which we served for many years before he sold his mortuary. He said that he had retired much too young and decided to ask us for a driving job. When it was time to retire his vehicle, it was so pristine that I decided to return it to Sam Conrad, who owned the leasing company. When Sam came out to inspect Vern’s big Dodge wagon, he immediately commented on its nice condition. He stuck his head in the driver’s window to check the odometer and commented with surprise in his voice, “Oh, 35,000 miles!” I replied, “No, Sam, it has 135,000 miles.” In those days, vehicles had only five digits on the odometer, so if a vehicle ever reached 99,999 miles, it would then zero out again. Sam still took the car back and gave us a fair price for it. I’m
sure
that the true mileage was disclosed to the next purchaser of the vehicle.

Each time we changed to a new model, it was necessary for me to remove and install the radios and the necessary hardware, and extend the rear doors. This was not my favorite time of year, because all this work took up many hours. As the cost of converting a growing number of wagons increased, it was time to come up with a less expensive approach, while still ensuring privacy inside each vehicle. After placing half-inch masking tape strips on the inside of the side and tailgate windows, I sprayed them with cans of black spray paint. When the paint dried it was simply a matter of pulling off the tape, leaving very nice stripes on the windows, much like Venetian blinds. The driver could easily see out the windows, but the public could not see inside the darkened interior. With a helper, I could complete all ten cars in just two days.

One day, a first-call driver of ours was pulled over by the police and given a citation for having painted windows. After a quick trip to Georgia Street Receiving Hospital with my camera, I showed the judge photos of Los Angeles’ ambulances, which had all the windows behind the driver completely painted out. The judge dismissed the charges and admonished the officer about issuing any more invalid citations. You’ve got to love that.

An Abbott & Hast 1967 Dodge Coronet conversion.

Many people have commented to me about cemeteries over the years because they knew of my profession, saying things like “I learned how to drive a car in a cemetery” or “That’s my favorite place to walk my dog.” Many people jog or picnic in cemeteries because there is no traffic and exhaust fumes are absent. In fact, it seems that many people over the years have had pleasant experiences in this serene environment.

In the past fifty years, there have been more changes in funeral customs and the accompanying terminology than there were in the entire century before that. In the United States, there are two common names for burial grounds, depending on age. Older ones are called “cemeteries,” while the more modern ones are referred to as “memorial parks,” coined by Dr. Hubert Eaton, the visionary behind Forest Lawn Memorial Parks. Most cemeteries have an old and a newer section. The older ones have standing headstones and monuments, while the new sections have flat grave markers.

The older cemeteries also have aboveground tombs, which are capable of holding as many as six caskets. Gypsies often purchased plots in these sections because they perceived great value in their monuments. In their unique tribal culture, they still refer to their community leader as “king.” For many years in Los Angeles it was the Adams clan, and the family tomb was marked “Adams—King of the Gypsies.” Inglewood Park Cemetery was one of their favorite cemeteries because they had space for such tombs.

Rosedale and Evergreen Cemeteries were both over a hundred years old when we began our business, and reading names on the oldest family grave markers is like reading a who’s who in early California history. One recognizable family name was Lankershim, after whom one of the main streets in North Hollywood was named. Another famous name was Hollenbeck, whose name was given to the Los Angeles Police
Department’s Hollenbeck Division, a fifteen-square-mile downtown hot spot for some of the worst gang violence in Los Angeles.