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1 Bobby Driscoll was discovered by chance at the age of five and a half in a barber shop in California. Over the next few years he had a golden career as a child actor. At the age of 13 he had his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But when he suffered severe acne at the age of 16, his film career stalled and shortly after voicing Peter Pan for Walt Disney in 1953, his contract was terminated. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he had numerous run-ins with the law, and was known to be a drug addict. In 1968, his body was found by two children in an abandoned tenement block in New York and, believed to be homeless and unclaimed, he was buried in a pauper’s grave on Hart Island, New York.
2 By bizarre coincidence, Gavin’s mother Janet remarried. Her new husband is called Jay Jackson, so her married name is now Janet Jackson.
3 The headlines in The Mirror on 5 April 2015 claimed that ‘Michael Jackson Paid £134m Hush Money To Keep As Many As 20 Sex Abuse Victims Quiet, Layers Claim’. This story was related to the claims of abuse brought against Jackson’s estate by Wade Robson and James Safechuck. On 28 May 2015, The Guardian reported that Wade Robson’s May 2013 action, which saw him sue Jackson’s estate over molestation, cannot be pursued as he had waited too long to file legal action. (The Guardian, ‘Child Sex Abuse Claims Against Michael Jackson’s Estate Ruled To be Too Late’ by Associate Press, 28 May 2015.)
4 Also known as the ‘Country Club for the Dead’.
5 Walt Disney, too ill to attend Eaton’s funeral in 1966, was an honorary pallbearer at Eaton’s funeral. Eaton was entombed in the Great Mausoleum and when Disney himself died a few weeks later, he was cremated and interred at Forest Lawn.
6 Only family members are allowed inside the building.
7 Following Jackson’s death in June 2009, there were rumours that he was going to be buried at Neverland ranch in a resting place assigned to him there. The exact place where he would be buried at Neverland was going to be opposite the Neverland train station. It was a personal spot for the singer, as he would ride a train, named Katherine after his mother, from his house to the private zoo at Neverland. However, there were also concerns that Jackson’s final resting place would be desecrated and vandalised or even his remains being exhumed, as there was still a campaign of hate against him following his child abuse charges. In addition, it is also a violation of Californian law to bury a body outside a cemetery, although Jermaine Jackson said that, ‘The people who make the laws can change the laws’. Residents living near Neverland ranch would also be concerned, as a pilgrimage of fans would be anticipated, in excess of the 600,000 fans that visit Elvis Presley’s tomb at Graceland.
8 It is believed that Jackson’s sarcophagus is located on Holly Terrace in the Sanctuary of Ascension at the end of the Corridor of Covenant.
9 HollywoodLife.com, ‘Why Conrad Murray Can’t Visit The Grave’ by Bonnie Fuller, 25 June 2014.