Headstone Reading

Above, Rodney Dangerfield's headstone at Westwood Cemetery. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Here's an idea. 

During your travels or even within your city or town, visit a cemetery and just wander around and read the headstones. 

That is the topic in RV Travel.

They start with:

I like to visit cemeteries when I travel. How about you? Here’s an idea: This weekend, stop by a cemetery — any cemetery. Just walk around. Take your time. Read the headstones. Soak up the history.

You can learn about the people buried there from their headstones, and often about the hardships of life in times more challenging than ours today. For example, you see many children’s graves or those of adults who died young. In many Old West ghost towns, it seems every other grave is a child’s.

Sometimes you come across a headstone that makes you laugh — like the one of Douglas Kiss, pictured here. Whether he wrote the epitaph himself or someone else did after he was gone, the message is a good one. I think I would have liked him.

To read more, go here. 

Dearly Departed Tour - Part Four

One of the highlights of the Dearly Departed Tour was a 25 minute stop at the Westwood Cemetery, were several celebrities are buried.

Here are some of their graves:

Above, Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, singer Minnie Ripperton. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, the unmarked grave of George C. Scott. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Walter Matthau. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Merv Griffin. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Farrah Fawcett. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Rodney Dangerfield. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Jack Lemmon. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Archie Bunker himself, Carroll O'Connor. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Peter "Columbo" Falk. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Armand Hammer. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Dearly Departed Tour - Part Three

One of the highlights of the Dearly Departed Tour, was a 25 minute stop at the Westwood Cemetery (located behind the Avco Center) where many celebrities are buried.

Here are some of them:

Above. Don Knotts. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Mel Torme. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Truman Capote. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Heather O'Rourke (from the original Poltergeist). Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Marilyn Monroe. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Dean Martin. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Burt Lancaster. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Louis Jourdan. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Dorothy Stratten (1980 Playmate of the Year). Photo by Armand  Vaquer.

Above, Billy Wilder. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

End of part three. More celebrity graves in part four.

UPDATE (3/17/24):

I was reading about director Peter Bogdanovich earlier today. I enjoyed his interviews about director Howard Hawks in several Hawks-directed John Wayne movies. I went to Find a Grave and found that he is buried next to Dorothy Stratten, the Playboy Playmate murdered by her estranged husband in 1980. She was living with Bogdanovich at the time of the murder. He later married her sister.