Where Are They Buried? (15 page)

JULY 29, 1933 – OCTOBER 14, 2009

Colorful and kooky, crazed and charismatic, “Captain” Lou Albano was a larger-than-life pro-wrestling icon who helped turn what was once a fringe, low-rent sport into a pop culture phenomenon.

After a short stint in the Army ended in 1951, Lou’s father had nearly convinced his hard-to-handle son to open an insurance agency with him, but after a chance meeting with a distant cousin Lou was persuaded that his fortune lay in the fledgling business of wrestling instead. Following a lackluster start as “Leaping Lou,” Albano teamed up with Tony Altomare to form “The Sicilians,” and the duo played up a sort of half-assed stereotypical Italian mobster shtick all the way to a WWF (then the World Wide Wrestling Federation) United States Tag Team title.

Moving on to managing wrestlers beginning in the 1970s, he compiled a stable of some of the toughest and meanest heels in the business and, along the way, developed a unique persona as a ranting, hoarse-voiced blowhard. Under an unkempt mane he delighted in half-open Hawaiian shirts that revealed a generous portion of his flabby 310-pound physique, and he sported three rubber bands dangling from a pin on one cheek, a few others hanging from an ear, and yet another wrapped tightly around his wildly curly goatee. Portraying a streetwise bully, he challenged his rivals’ manhood and hurled politically incorrect epithets at the gathered crowds. He was a jerk and a weasel, a guy willing to talk big who remained safely situated behind his various protégés. But while his cowardice infuriated the crowd, Lou saw himself otherwise: “Sure, I yell and holler a lot, but in real life? I’m a regular guy just trying to make a living.”

Albano’s career continued along this crowd-displeasing path until 1983 when he met then-hot pop star Cyndi Lauper on a flight to Puerto Rico. Perhaps seeing a kindred spirit in one another, the unlikely duo teamed up in her new video for “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” with Albano playing her domineering father. Soon he had appeared in a string of her music videos and even briefly lured her into the wrestling world and, though the whole thing was just a logical business decision for Lou, the campaign pushed wrestling toward the mainstream. In short order there were wrestlers on talk shows and in commercials seemingly everywhere. Wrestling had been lurking in the shadows all along, but the Rock ’n’ Wrestling movement made it inescapable and Lou, a
sort of patron saint of the WWF, became its main benefactor as he was vaulted to show-business fame.

But after just a few years, Lou’s star was shadowed by younger personalities such as Hulk Hogan, though Lou seemed not to mind. “I’ve been married to the same woman for 32 years, and I’ve got four wonderful grown kids. Cyndi and I are lifetime honorary chairpersons for multiple sclerosis, and when I started doing charity work, for the first time people said, ‘Hey, fat guy, you’re not so bad after all.’”

At 76, Lou died in his sleep of a heart attack and was buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Putnam Valley, New York.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
Rose Hill is easily located on Mill Street immediately south of its intersection with Peekskill Hollow Road. The cemetery encompasses both sides of street, but you’ll be entering at the drive located nearest to the main office on the east side of Mill Street.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Drive past the office and up the winding hill, staying straight at the four way intersection. Head for and drive between the mausoleums at the top, parking at the end of the drive on the left. Walk into and through that mausoleum and then turn right. You’ll find the Captain near the end of this outside walkway in the third row from the bottom.

MAY 19, 1946 – JANUARY 27, 1993

Andre Rene Roussimoff, of French heritage and better known as Andre the Giant, was a professional wrestler afflicted with a genetic disorder resulting in gigantism. In 1973 he made his American debut at Madison Square Garden and, proving fantastically successful, wrestled more than 300 days a year for the next sixteen-odd years, becoming one of the world’s most famous professional athletes.

Though he was advertised as seven feet, four inches tall, he was probably just under seven feet and tipped the scales at around 500 pounds. Andre’s immense appetites for food and alcohol were legendary, and it was estimated he consumed 7,000 calories a day in alcohol alone.

In 1987, he played Fezzik, the gentle giant in the movie
The Princess Bride
, a role for which he was suited in both dimension and disposition, and it remained one of his most cherished
achievements—he carried a video of the film with him when he traveled and held frequent screenings.

Unfortunately, as he grew older his size caused him frequent health problems and he became increasingly overweight and immobile.

At 46, Andre died of a heart attack and was cremated. His ashes were scattered at his horse ranch in Ellerbe, North Carolina.

JULY 10, 1943 – FEBRUARY 6, 1993

Arthur Ashe was the first African American man to win tennis’ most prestigious tournaments: the U.S. Open and Wimbledon. He first learned to play tennis on a segregated playground, then parlayed that into a twelve-year career that included 33 singles and 18 doubles titles. He later became president of the Association of Tennis Professionals and captain of the Davis Cup team, which won two championships under his direction.

Though the titles and ensuing endorsement contracts made Arthur a millionaire, wealth didn’t distract him from the social issues of the day. He became a civil rights activist, fighting for all minorities that were victims of exclusionary practices. He also served as the national campaign chairman for the American Heart
Association, edited several books, and contributed generously to African American programs everywhere.

After Arthur disclosed that he had AIDS in 1992, he devoted himself to becoming a role model in the fight against the disease, and began a $5 million fund-raising effort on behalf of his namesake foundation.

At 49 Ashe died of pneumonia, a complication brought on by AIDS, and was buried at Woodland Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From I-64 take Exit 192 to Route 360 east. Turn left immediately onto Magnolia Street, then, just before the underpass, turn right onto Magnolia Road. The cemetery is a short distance ahead on the left.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
After entering at the cemetery’s main entrance, turn at the first left and proceed for 100 yards. Arthur’s grave is on the left.

Fans of Arthur’s will also want to view the statue crafted in his honor that stands on Monument Avenue, the symbolic heart of the city of Richmond and the capital of the Confederacy. As a child, Arthur had not been allowed to play on Richmond’s tennis courts because they were segregated. Today, his statue stands tall alongside those of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

SEPTEMBER 20, 1917 – OCTOBER 28, 2006

After leaving the Navy in 1946 where he’d directed the sports program at Norfolk Naval Base, basketball legend Red Auerbach signed on as coach for the Washington Capitols during the Basketball Association of America’s first season. Four years later, Red moved over to the fledgling Boston Celtics franchise even though the future of the team and the entire NBA was hardly secure—by 1955 seven of the league’s franchises had gone belly-up and more than once Red paid the Celtics travel costs out of his own pocket.

But six winning seasons drove Celtics ticket sales up and in 1956, through shrewd maneuverings, Red secured the services of gifted defensive center Bill Russell and that acquisition began the greatest basketball dynasty the country has ever seen. By the end of Red’s thirty-nine year coaching and general manager
career—a tenure marked by him berating referees and pacing the sidelines with a rolled-up program in his clenched fist—the stocky and cantankerous Red had led the Celtics to sixteen championships including a sure-to-be-unequaled eight straight from 1959 through 1966.

Defining his secret to coaching in his 2004 biography,
Let Me Tell You a Story
, Red said: “I teach my players not to accept the philosophy that being a sore loser is a bad thing. Only losers accept losing.”

A longtime tradition of Red’s had been to light and savor a victory cigar—his favorite was the Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur—during a game’s late moments as it became apparent that victory was at hand. The customary seat he occupied as elder statesman of the game in his later years at TD BankNorth Garden—Loge 12, Row 7, Seat 1—is devoid of any telltale burn marks, but to this day fans visit it briefly to have their picture snapped in the legend’s chair.

At 89, Red died of a heart attack. In a casket lined in Celtic green, he was buried at King David Memorial Gardens in Falls Church, Virginia.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From I-495, take Exit 50 to Route 50 and then use either Gallows Road or Fairview Park Drive to cut north to Route 29, the Lee Highway. A half-mile east of I-495, turn left on Hollywood Road (hold on, hotshot, that big cemetery on your right isn’t the one we want). Proceed a half-mile and at the sharp bend in the road turn left into our cemetery.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the cemetery, turn right at the first drive and stop at the top of this loop, immediately after the small grove of trees with a walkway. In the grass on your left, inside the loop, Red’s flat bronze marker surrounded in marble is at Plot 15-137-3A. To be honest, there’s not much to see. Red’s name isn’t inscribed on his marker nor does he have a metal tag with his plot number like some of his neighbors. Apparently, Red enjoyed his accolades when he was alive, which is a strategy I’ll not criticize.

DECEMBER 18, 1886 – JULY 16, 1961

As a daring base stealer, hustling outfielder, and powerhouse slugger, Ty Cobb, “the Georgia Peach,” is considered to be among the best all-around players of baseball. Lining up on a
Major League diamond for the first time in 1905, he played 22 seasons for the Detroit Tigers while his last two years were spent with the Philadelphia Athletics. Ty’s lifetime batting average of .367 still stands as a record, though most of the others he held have since been broken (due largely to the longer schedule now played). But despite an unparalleled desire to excel and win, Ty never played on a World Series champion team.

For all of his on-field heroics, Ty was never adored by his fans; they admired his athletic prowess, but the love affair ended there. This has been alternately attributed to the fact that much of Ty’s career occurred before Babe Ruth ushered in baseball’s golden age, or that the Tigers were never a powerhouse team. But there’s also a more accurate explanation: Ty Cobb was a self-centered, hot-tempered, overtly racist curmudgeon who seemed to delight in the controversy of contentious relations with other players, the press, and his own family.

In 1960, long after his playing days had ended, Ty contracted an up-and-coming sportswriter named Al Stump to write the “real story” of his life. Ty was dying, nobody gave a damn, and he now wished to counter for posterity what he felt was an inaccurate version of his life. Stump was happy to oblige but, soon enough, as Ty twisted the facts of every ugly incident to paint himself as the pitiful victim, it became clear to Stump that he was merely a hired gun; Ty, a bitter and unreasonable, cancer-ridden drunk who was deservedly lonely, was trying to use Stump as a shill to counter the “lies.”

But Stump went along with it, writing Ty’s biography the way Ty wanted it written, all the while secretly keeping notes about the real Ty on the side. In 1961
My Life in Baseball: The True Record
told the story of Ty’s life, and Ty went to his grave content that his “truths” had been established. Then in 1994, after a curious 33-year procrastination, Stump released
Cobb: The Life and Times of the Meanest Man Who Ever Played Baseball
, offering less antiseptic and sentimental insight into the baseball great.