Last Stop on the Hollywood Express

The Palm Springs area has been home to a good number of celebrities in its time. Tour operators still run tourists around to see the homes of the rich and fabulous.

A fair number are still with us. Desert Memorial Park is the final resting place of some of Hollywood's brightest stars, and today seemed like a good day to visit a few and pay tribute to them.

Busby Berkeley was a flamboyant and complex film and stage director, choreographer, and master showman, famous for his lavish production numbers. Among his films were 42nd Street, the Gold Diggers series, Babes in Arms, and For Me and My Girl. He had a unquestioned and monumental influence on the development of the movie musical.

Curiously, his gravestone contains no reference to his musical career, only one to his service in World War I. He died on my 25th birthday, in 1976.

William Powell is probably my favorite actor of all time. I love his quick wit, gentle charm, and naughty but charming references to the joys of alcohol consumption. He is, for me, the epitome of 1930s life. Mr. Powell, along with Myrna Loy (and Asta) , is marvelous is The Thin Man series, Mister Roberts (his last film - 1955), and in My Man Godfrey - part of a career that ran from the silent era through the end of the studio system.

After retiring from film, he lived in Palm Springs until his death at age 91 in 1984, just 9 days before my 33rd birthday.

Jimmy Van Heusen was a prolific songwriter who wrote many classic songs from the 1930s through the 70s. Among his songs are Swinging on a Star, High Hopes, Call Me Irresponsible, and Love and Marriage. Mr. Van Heusen received four academy awards for Best Song in a Movie. He died in 1990 at the age of 77.

Van Heusen wrote more than 85 songs that were recorded by his good friend Frank Sinatra, who is coincidently (or not), resting quite nearby.....

Frank Sinatra was many things to many people, though I have always had ambivalent feelings towards him. He did some wonderful songs and films, and some very bad ones - can you say High Society (1956 film, with Bing Crosby) or Something Stupid (1967 song, with daughter Nancy)?. His career was long lasting, from a crooner with the Harry James and Tommy Dorsey big bands in the late 1930s and early 40s, through his Duets albums shortly before his death in 1998. The Rat Pack, Ol' Blue Eyes, The Voice - it's difficult to find the real man through all the myths.

My particular favorite is his song It Was a Very Good Year from 1965. I was only 14 but found its bittersweet look back on life very touching.