Actor Don Adams' Valentine's Day Display

While visiting Hollywood Forever Cemetery last week, I arrived at actor Don Adams' (Get Smart) grave site and found his Valentine's Day Display had fallen. So I picked it up and set it right. Here it is for you to enjoy.

Composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco 1968 Westwood Village Cemetery

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (April 3, 1895 – March 16, 1968) was an Italian composer. He was known as one of the foremost guitar composers in the twentieth century with almost one hundred compositions for that instrument. 

In 1939 he migrated to the United States and became a film composer for MGM Studios for some 200 Hollywood movies for the next fifteen years. He also wrote concertos for such soloists as Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky. 

He died in Beverly Hills, California at the age of 72. He is buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.

Blues Musician T-Bone Walker 1975 Inglewood Park Cemetery

Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker (May 28, 1910 – March 16, 1975) was a critically acclaimed American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who was an influential pioneer and innovator of the jump blues and electric blues sound. In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at number 67 on their list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time." 

Walker's career began to wind down after he suffered a stroke in 1974. He died of bronchial pneumonia following another stroke in March 1975, at the age of 64. T-Bone Walker is interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery.

ESOTOURIC TOURS THE UNFAMILIAR

While other Los Angeles tour companies will take your cash to drive you around in their double-decker red buses and show you the touristy celebrity sites you could find on your own, Esotouric's "Bus Adventures Into the Secret Heart of Los Angeles" focuses on the long-forgotten treasures of our city's notorious history. Esotouric co-founders and social historians Kim Cooper and Richard Schave, also the co-founders of LAVA (Los Angeles Visionaries Association) and producers of the L.A. podcast "You Can't Eat the Sunshine," dig deep into the "morgue files" (library and newspaper archives) to find the gory and sordid stories hidden in the stacks.

Esotouric doesn't drive you around in an unshaded conveyance, a tightly-converted SUV, or a family mini-van. When you go on an Esotouric Tour, you climb aboard one of those huge commercial buses usually used to drive across the country. Comfortable chairs, air-conditioning, and several audio-visual monitors furnish the interior. (There's even a toilet in the rear.) Kim and Richard deliver their riveting lectures via the microphone, illustrated with photos and video on the monitors, while a trained professional driver captains the bus. You are free and encouraged to bring aboard your own chosen refreshments.

Recently, I took their "Wild Wild Westside" tour of the west-Westside, which included Venice, Ocean Park, Santa Monica, Brentwood, and West L.A. As a west-Westside resident myself (Santa Monica and Westwood) for over 20 years, I know and give private tours of the more popular crime and death locations here (most notably, Marilyn Monroe, Dorothy Stratten, Ted Healy, Chris Penn, Freddie Prinze, Gail Russell, Julia Redding, and Thelma Todd). On this day, I happily traveled downtown east of Alameda to board the Esotouric bus and returned to my side of town to see what new horrors Kim and Richard had to show me. What a terrific day! Esotouric vividly introduced me to religious cult scandals, serial killers, and other assorted freaks of mankind that I had not known about before. My favorite story proved to be Kim's narrative describing the remorseless life of killer Stephen Nash, who murdered one of his victims beneath the Santa Monica Pier. (I also enjoyed Richard's charming sidebar about his youthful adventures at Crossroads School.) Before returning back downtown, the Esotouric bus stopped at Santa Monica's Woodlawn Cemetery to point out a few related tombstones as well as snacks of coffee and cookies.

Los Angeles Morgue Files eagerly recommends the Esotouric Tours of Los Angeles. Check out their schedule of tours all over Los Angeles and with many different themes. For more information:

www.esotouric.com
www.esotouric.com/canteatsunshine
www.lavatransforms.org

By the way, check out Kim Cooper's new book, "THE KEPT GIRL," a novel set in 1929 Los Angeles, starring the young Raymond Chandler, his devoted secretary and the real-life Philip Marlowe in pursuit of a murderous cult of angel worshippers.

Showman Sid Grauman 1950 Forest Lawn Glendale Cemetery

Sidney Patrick Grauman (March 17, 1879 – March 5, 1950) was an American showman who created one of Southern California's most recognizable and visited landmarks, Grauman's Chinese Theater as well as Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre, the home of the first Hollywood movie premiere. 

Sid Grauman was the son of David Grauman (who died in 1921 in Los Angeles, California) and Rosa Goldsmith (1853–1936). Grauman's parents were theatrical performers on various show circuits.

Grauman died of a coronary occlusion at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on March 5, 1950. He was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

"Thin Man" Actor William Powell 1984 Desert Memorial Park, Cathedral City

William Horatio Powell (July 29, 1892 – March 5, 1984) was an American actor. He typically played highly self-confident characters, with a sophisticated sense of humor and wit.

A major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the popular Thin Man series based on the novels of Dashiell Hammett in which Powell and Loy played Nick and Nora Charles. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times: for The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936), and Life with Father (1947).

Powell was engaged to actress Jean Harlow. After her sudden death in 1937, It is reported that a single white gardenia with an unsigned note was placed in her hands before she was interred, presumed to have been written by Powell. The note read, "Good night, my dearest darling." He also paid for her final resting place—a $25,000, 9×10-foot private room lined with multicolored imported marble located in the "Sanctuary of Benediction" of the Great Mausoleum, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.

William Powell died of heart failure in Palm Springs, California, on March 5, 1984, at the age of 91, some 30 years after his retirement. He is buried at the Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California, near his son William David Powell and wife Diana Lewis.