Death Hags of the World Unite and Take Over
Amanda By Night stalks fresh corpses with FindADeath.com
photos by David Cohen

Scott Michaels leads the living on a tour of glamorous graves.

"It's a nice day for a walk in the cemetery."

This is one of the first things I hear as I join the group of Death Hags (their unofficial title) that have united in front of Bette Davis' grave at Forest Lawn Cemetery during this Sunday afternoon meeting. It's a beautiful spring day and all I can think is I'm on my way to see John Ritter's grave, and Dawn of the Dead opened this weekend. I think I just might fit in.

This meeting couldn't have happened without its cult leader...uh...
mastermind, Scott Michaels. His website Find A Death is one of the best on the internet, especially if you love to read about the deaths of the rich and famous. Los Angeles natives may be more familiar with him as the owner of Graveline Tours. Scott and his crew guided tourists to L.A.'s death hot spots in their signature hearses. "Graveline Tours was started in '87 by a friend of mine named Greg. He was going to shut it down. I paid my own way out here and took the company over. They used to have a rule saying they would (wait) five years until after someone died before they added them to the tour. That was the first thing I got rid of when I took over. Coincidentally, about two months later, O.J. (was accused of) killing his wife." Being the entrepreneur that Scott is, he added the infamous Brentwood estate to the tour. "We were all over the papers. It was our bread and butter."

Scott gave up Graveline and headed to England where he found himself stranded. It was during that time he wrote Rocky Horror from Concept to Cult. "It's a collection of interviews of everyone involved in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The film, the original play, the cult and the fan club people. I've tracked down a few of the people that no one has ever found. I managed to dispel a lot of legends among Rocky Horror fans. It was a really rewarding thing to do. I didn't get a dime for it. But it's a hoot to go down to a shop on Hollywood Boulevard and see a book with my name on it."

The lovely view at Forest Lawn.

But tracing the steps of celebrities' demises was becoming a passion for him. "Actually I started Find a Death while I was in London. When (Princess) Diana died, through my visa requirements, I was unable to get to the tunnel. It made me crazy not being able to leave, Paris was right next door. When I finally got the chance to do it, I started taking pictures and showing them to friends online. I started assembling these biographies, or the ends of people's biographies, on my website."

Scott now spends his days investigating the deaths of the rich and famous. "It depends on who you're researching. People like Cary Grant are easy. People like Aunt Bea from The Andy Griffith Show are a bit more difficult. I read something about Susan Cabot (Wasp Woman). On a whim someone sent me the autopsy report. By the end of the day I was done because I had all the information. This woman was murdered by her dwarf son with a weightlifting barbell. He hid it in a box of laundry detergent and claimed some ninjas beat her up. Susan Cabot isn't marked at Hillside Cemetery, so (at the last gathering) we all signed a little memorial thing for her so she'd have a marker. It's silly but it was heartfelt."

Is Susan Cabot the most interesting death featured on his site? Not by a long shot. Scott reveals to me who he thinks takes the Find a Death cake. "Albert Dekker was not a very huge star. He was in Dr. Cyclops and East of Eden. They found him in a bathroom, locked from the inside, hanging from a shower curtain with a horse's bit in his mouth, a noose around his neck, tied around the shower pipe, tied up to his hands which are handcuffed behind him holding on to the noose. He had a vagina drawn in lipstick on his stomach. He had a sunrise on one of his nipples. On one of his buttocks was 'make me suck' on the other was 'whip'! It was suicide. Auto-erotic-asphyxiation. The policeman said the only thing missing was a vampire bite!"

After viewing his informative site you're likely to find yourself addicted to the bitchy yet respectful text. Scott can boast to up to 5,000 hits a day. His dark sense of humor and cynicism belie the fact that he is a genuinely nice guy. At this, my first Death Hag meeting, he greets me with open arms and seems thrilled that I recognize the tattoo on his arm as Schlitze from Freaks. His knowledge of old Hollywood is one to be reckoned with and his passion for the subject has brought all of us strangers together.

After he takes us on a tour of the graves as Liberace, Andy Gibb and yes, John Ritter (I admit it was a strange thrill) the Death Hags congregate at the Bette Davis Picnic Grounds to finish up the day with lunch and good conversation. As the warm suns beats down on us, I begin to wonder what Scott's take is on our undying fascination with dying. "It's historical and it's hysterical. Death is the one thing no one can explain. It's the last sort of mystery that no one will ever have the answer to, though a lot of people claim to. I think that's the attraction."

And he gets an attraction. There are at least twenty of us in attendance. I guess it was ignorance, but I was expecting a group of gothy grave-hunters in Dead Can Dance T-shirts. Instead I'm surrounded by many interesting people who come for very singular reasons.

This is Bonnie Mannion's second gathering. She laughs and says "Scott really knows what he's talking about with all these deaths!" A life long fascination drew her and her friend Steve, who likes to attend funerals of the famous (they had recently attended Ann Miller's).

The owner of Beneath Los Angeles, Steve Goldstein, is in attendance. By day he works in payroll services, and by night he's the guy you see taking pictures of gravestones of the 'Famous, Infamous and Just Plain Dead.' "The site was created to promote the book Beneath Los Angeles, which still isn't published," Steve explains. "The website grew out of the book idea. It's been about four years now and really taken on a life of its own. It's not a guide. It's mostly photographs of the graves with captions, information, and wherever possible a little humor." Steve admits that most people are taken aback by this odd hobby, but once he begins to talk about the historical interest he says most people tend to lighten up and are a bit curious as to how he finds graves. "(I do) all kinds of research. I read a lot of books and watch a lot of documentaries. Sites like Find A Grave and books like Final Curtain (helped me). It took some of the challenge out, but some of the fun out too." However there are still rewarding parts to the hunt. "Charlie Chaplin's infant son's name is Norman Spencer Chaplin, but it doesn't say that on his gravestone. It just says 'The Little Mouse.' I searched for him for years. I finally found him and I literally fell to my knees."

I'm also introduced to Mike Steen, better known as the Mortician to the Stars. "I knew I wanted to be a funeral director by the age of 10. My uncle died after a massive heart attack but he looked the same. To a 10 year old, if he looked the same, how bad could it have been? I just took one look at the family funeral director and I said I wanted to be like him." Mike has been able to take this most unusual profession and parlay it into a fascinating book titled Celebrity Death Certificates which goes hand in hand with his beautifully concise website of the same name.

Eric Willis tells me his brother was a fan of the site. When he died Eric sent his brother's bio to Scott and they began corresponding. Coincidentally, Eric's first 'Death Hag' meeting fell on his brother's birthday. Eric comes as a tribute.

Even love can be found at a gathering. Scott informs me "Christine met her boyfriend at my first 'Death Hag' meeting in L.A. And now they live together. Even relationships have formed!"

You can call it a tribute, you can call it a hobby or you can just blame it on pure fascination but regardless you're bound to find yourself caught up in Scott's clever site. He may even get back into the tour business. "My plan is to start another tour. The Dearly Departed Tours, the Tragical History Tour. That's where it all going very soon."

But if you're worried that he's going to give up Find a Death, never fear. He's still got fish to fry. "I really want to do (something) on Tor Johnson. I've got his death certificate and I've been to his grave. I'd love to do the whole thing on him because he's such a cool person. His mask is one of the biggest selling Halloween masks." Scott does know such interesting things…

As for the gatherings, he says there's no rhyme or reason to them yet, but join his mailing list and he'll let you know when he plans to go-a-hunting again!

The Death Hags: looking suspiciously like Star Trek fans.