Tombstone Humor - They Left Us Laughing

(by Sam Ewing, Senior Magazine, Central Coast Edition September 1994)

Many well-known wits, who lived by the show business maxim "always leave 'em laughing", composed humor for their own tombstones. They quipped in marble for that last belly laugh. One of the most memorable of all such epitaphs was created by gagman Harry Hershfield, star of the long running Can You Top This radio show and often called America's funniest after-dinner story teller. As his epitaph Harry submitted: "Here lies the body of Harry Hershfield If not, notify Ginsberg & Company, Undertakers at once!"

Robert Benchley, grandfather of Peter Benchley, author of Jaws and other novels, was a brilliant humorist, drama critic and comedy star of a number of popular MGM movie shorts. Benchley characteristically had a witticism for his tombstone: "This is all over my head"

In the late 1930s and World War II years, Walter Winchell, the country's leading gossip columnist and "through-the-keyhole" radio commentator, who opened each program with "Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North America and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press!", was an especially clever wordsmith. Winchell coined hundreds of expressions, such as "the couple is going to middle-aisle it", now they're "infanticipating", and "The marriage has gone pffft!" Winchell's special knack with words was applied to tombstone wisdom: "Here Lies Walter Winchell In The Dirt He Loved So Well."

Comedian W.C. Fields wanted his epitaph to read: "On The Whole I'd Rather Be In Philadelphia".

Lionel Barrymore, who spent a long lifetime in the theater, topped off by a career on the classic Dr. Kildare movie series, preferred: "Well, I've Played Everything But The Harp".

And Dorothy Parker, humorist in both poetry and prose, chose "Involved In A Plot" for her tombstone.

Playwright George Bernard Shaw ordered this headstone comment: "I Knew If I Stayed Around Long Enough Something Like This Would Happen!"

Constance Bennett, the beautiful actress, mother of talk show personality Morton Downey Jr. and co-star with Cary Grant in the famous Topper movies, asked for these words on her grave marker: "Do Not Disturb".

For his exit Roland Young, the solemn-faced British comic actor who played the role of Topper, chose "Resting".

A sentimental epitaph, "Not Dead, Just Sleeping" composed by a one-time Scottish music hall performer, and chiseled on his Nineteenth Century tombstone in an Edinburgh cemetery, intrigued a 12-year-old American boy, vacationing in Scotland with his parents. After thinking about the phrase for a while, the youth told his folks, "That guy isn't fooling anybody but himself."

Jokes about lawyers aren't new. They go back to the 1920s when the most colorful of all criminal lawyers was Earl Rogers of Los Angeles. This amazing attorney, whose career inspired the Perry Mason books and TV shows starring Raymond Burr, not only excelled in the courtroom but doubled as a popular social wit. His self-composed epitaph proves it: "Here Lies A Lawyer And Honest Man Who'd Ever Think There's Be Room For Two Men In This Little Grave?"

Humorist Don Herold submitted: "This Is Too Deep For Me".

Actor Clive Brook, "Excuse Me For Not Rising".

Sage William Haines, "Here's Something I Want To Get Off My Chest".

Clever folk are still at work proposing their own epitaphs. Radio and TV program producer Pat Cooney, who has been accused for decades of being a hypochondriac, says a fitting tombstone would read: "I Told You I Was Sick".

Milton Berle says, "This One's On Me" would suit him.

Henny Youngman, king of the one-liners, offers: "I Had A Hunch Something Like This Would Happen".

As for me, a simple "good-bye" will be sufficient.