Western RoundUp: Final Resting Places, More Western Filmmakers 3

More Western Filmmakers Final Resting Places

This
month it’s time for another of my periodic tributes to Western filmmakers as we
visit their final resting places throughout the Los Angeles area.

During
my visits to these sites over the years I’ve spent time reflecting on the
enjoyment each person’s work has given me, especially in the Western genre. I
hope following along here enables readers across the country and around the
world to do likewise.

In this column we’ll start with Oscar-winning actor Burt Lancaster, who appeared in numerous Westerns over his long career, including Vengeance Valley (1951), The Kentuckian (1955), and The Unforgiven (1960); I reviewed Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), in which he played Wyatt Earp, in my column in 2023. Lancaster died in 1994 at the age of 80, and his cremated remains are interred in an unassuming little spot in Westwood Memorial Park.

Back in 2018 I reviewed another Wyatt Earp film, Tombstone: The Town Too Tough to Die (1942). The actor who portrayed Earp in that film, Richard Dix, died in 1949, age 56, and is buried at Forest Lawn Glendale. He’s interred next to his son Richard, who sadly died in a logging accident a few years later. Richard Dix’s other Westerns include Cimarron (1931), an Oscar winner for Best Picture, as well as The Conquerors (1932), The Arizonian (1935), and The Kansan (1943), among others.

I included Oscar-winning actor Edmond O’Brien in my 2019 column here on “Unexpected Western Leads.” While viewers might first think of him as a “city” type who was in numerous well-known crime and film noir titles, he appeared in a significant number of Westerns, most notably John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1961) and Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1968). My favorite O’Brien Western is a little-known Western called Cow Country (1953) which I’ve enjoyed numerous times. He died in 1985 at the age of 69 and is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Like
Edmond O’Brien, Ricardo Montalban was in a John Ford Western, in this
case Cheyenne Autumn (1964), and also like O’Brien, Montalban
is buried at Holy Cross. Montalban also appeared in William Wellman’s Across
the Wide Missouri (1951), where he unfortunately suffered an accident
that would leave him with lifelong back issues. Montalban was 88 when he died
in 2009; he was preceded in death by his longtime wife Georgiana, who was the
younger half-sister of Loretta Young.

I’ve
visited the graves of several other cast members of Across the Wide
Missouri, including Richard Anderson. Anderson, perhaps best known today
for his TV roles on The Six Million Dollar Man and The
Bionic Woman, had his second movie role in a Monte Hale Western, The
Vanishing Westerner (1950). He was also in John Sturges’ Escape
From Fort Bravo (1953). Anderson died at 91 in 2017 and is buried at
Westwood Memorial Park.

Another cast member of Across the Wide Missouri, John Hodiak, was sadly only 41 when he died of a heart attack in 1955. He’s buried interred in the mausoleum at Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles. Hodiak’s other Westerns included the classic Judy Garland musical The Harvey Girls (1946); a favorite Robert Taylor “Cavalry Western,” Ambush (1950); and Conquest of Cochise (1953), in which he played the title role.

Like
Richard Anderson, three-time Oscar nominee Eleanor Parker appeared in the
excellent Cavalry Western Escape From Fort Bravo (1953). She
also played the lead opposite Robert Taylor in the comedic Western Many
Rivers to Cross (1955) and was Clark Gable’s leading lady in The
King and Four Queens (1956). In 2013 she died in Palm Springs at the
age of 91 and is buried at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills.

Richard
Conte had an early career role in the MGM Western Big Jack (1949)
opposite Wallace Beery. He only made a couple of Westerns, including
Universal’s Riders of Vengeance (1952), but I wanted to
include him here as he’s such a favorite. He also appeared in the military
Western They Came to Cordura (1959) with Gary Cooper. He died
in 1975 at the age of 65 and is at Westwood Memorial Park.

Director
Frank Lloyd had a long career beginning in silent movies, including filming
silent versions of Zane Grey Westerns. His sound-era Westerns included Wells
Fargo (1937) starring real-life husband and wife Joel McCrea and
Frances Dee; the delightful The Lady From Cheyenne (1941) with
Loretta Young as a Wyoming settler crusading for women’s suffrage; the
“Northerner” Alaska-set film The Spoilers (1942)
starring John Wayne, Randolph Scott, and Marlene Dietrich; and his final
film, The Last Command (1955), about the Battle of the Alamo.
Several sources list Lloyd’s birth year as 1886, while his gravestone says
1888. He died in 1960 and is buried at Forest Lawn Glendale.

Finally,
we return once more to Westwood Memorial Park, the final resting place of
director Louis King. Like Frank Lloyd, King’s early directing career included
silent Westerns. He made several modern-era Westerns which might also be called
“horse” or “ranching” films, including Thunderhead,
Son of Flicka (1945), Smoky (1946), and Green
Grass of Wyoming (1948). He also directed Dick Powell and Evelyn Keyes
in the fine Mrs. Mike (1948), set on the Canadian frontier,
and his final film was Massacre (1956) starring Dane Clark.
King, who was the younger brother of better-known director Henry King, was 64
when he died in 1962.

For additional photos of the burial sites of Western filmmakers, please visit my columns from May 2019, February 2022, November 2, 2022, November 29, 2022, April 2023, November 2023, March 2024, and July 2024.

…

– Laura Grieve for Classic Movie Hub

Laura can be found at her blog, Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, where she’s been writing about movies since 2005, and on Twitter at @LaurasMiscMovie. A lifelong film fan, Laura loves the classics including Disney, Film Noir, Musicals, and Westerns.  She regularly covers Southern California classic film festivals.  Laura will scribe on all things western at the ‘Western RoundUp’ for CMH.