If I read one more Michael Jackson related report that incorrectly states Lucille Ball is buried at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, I'm going to scream.
While spot-checking internet sites that carried the now debunked Jackson-Gordy crypt story, I ran across a real gem on RadarOnline, the first outlet I've seen to rip off the original ripper New York Post by claiming the "discovery" as their own detective work.
No honor among thieves meets the Credibility Darwin Awards.
RadarOnline also joined a long line of press outlets to (erroneously) give Lucy top billing among celebrities buried at FLHH.
Two people bothered to leave comments. One by a fellow do-gooder who tried to set the record straight followed by this response from one very confused soul:
"Then they never took Lucy's Tombstone away, because I just saw it on TV."
Now that is just sad.
I wrote about Lucy's relocation back in March 2006 in order to explain why it happened. (Her kids moved her and her mother back east to their hometown in conjuction with big doings at The Lucy-Desi Museum.) Now I feel compelled to offer a refresher course.
Let's start by clarifying that Lucy never had a tombstone at FLHH. Her cremated remains were put in a niche next to the one occupied by her mom, Desiree "DeDe" Ball. It had a small, simple name plate that no longer exists there. The original marker was stolen but later replaced with this version:
Snapped by me in November 2001
Now you see them...
Photo by Findagrave.com contributor Kevin Mannara
...now you don't!
Snapped by me in March 2006
Lucy does, however, currently share a tombstone with her parents at Lake View Cemetery in Jamestown, NY, which is probably what the commenter saw on television.
Photos by Findagrave.com contributor Randall Burt
I still can't quite figure out why it's so difficult for reporters to get with the program. A Google search of any combination of keywords Lucy, Lucille Ball, grave and Forest Lawn all return the same top results ~ celebrity grave sites that offer updated information about her whereabouts.
One top site even tells you exactly how locate her grave in person, in painstaking detail beginning with "Go by automobile, train or bus...."
Most of those pages, however, show photos of her former FLHH niche and only indicate corrections in text. Maybe it's a case of reverse Playboy magazine reader syndrome: people only look at the pictures and ignore the stories.
If Findagrave.com stats are any indication, it's not just the press who can't come to grips with Lucy leaving FLHH seven years ago. Virtual flower tallies are running neck and neck with 2,886 on the Jamestown page closely followed by 2,658 on the FLHH memorial, despite a notation stating where she was moved to and when.
I know that this is a losing battle, but I just had to give it a shot.
Snapped by me on July 12, 2009
