EXQUISITE BODIES

EXQUISITE BODIES

 Whenever I visit Westwood Village Memorial Park—a charming, intimate Los Angeles cemetery tucked away from the world and surrounded by towering, impersonal skyscrapers of steel and glass—I set aside a few minutes for quiet reflection beside Marilyn Monroe’s flower-adorned niche. A few meters to the right, I approach Natalie Wood’s grave—understated and simple—and then continue walking, careful not to miss Burt Lancaster’s small headstone. Nearby, a cascade of graves marks the resting places of Jack Lemmon, Farrah Fawcett, Billy Wilder, Peter Falk, and Walter Matthau. This urban cemetery differs greatly from the vast Forest Lawn Memorial Park, where stumbling upon the graves of the stars resting there is far more difficult; this is due to the zeal with which Forest Lawn guards information about the deceased and restricts access to curious onlookers and tourists. Yet, these sites remain major draws, serving as the final resting places for celebrities such as Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, and Sammy Davis Jr. In "Exquisite Bodies, I tour these cemeteries, encountering famous figures buried in a wide variety of graves—some resembling cathedrals, others marked only by a humble headstone or a simple niche. Reflecting on those laid to rest here, one finds deaths of every imaginable kind: natural causes, accidents, illness, suicide, murder, and even dying of a broken heart (as in the case of Charles Boyer). There are the horrific murders of Sharon Tate, Ramón Novarro and Sal Mineo; the alleged suicide of Marilyn Monroe; and the enigmatic death of Natalie Wood, officially recorded as "death by undetermined causes." Or accidental deaths under suspicion—did Tennessee Williams choke on the cap of a medicine bottle while trying to open it with his mouth?