Now the bridge is closed and demolition is about to begin before years of rebuilding, a final tribute to the people who chose that bridge as the place to end their lives:
Mose A. Garber, 43, who was found with just 1 cent in his pocket in February 1936,
and also an unidentified man “aged about 30” who flung off his leather jacket and jumped on March 16, 1934.
Below is my piece for the LA Weekly is about the fab Scott and Troy at Dearly Departed and how they planned to acquire Jayne Mansfield’s car – the one she and others died in in 1967.
“Sorry, my brain’s fried right now,” says Scott Michaels.
He’s sitting among an eclectic selection of movie posters, Hollywood souvenirs, kitschy lamps, paintings of creepy clowns, cabinets, parts of a bed, a hotel room door, old L.A. Country Coroner signs, and endless cardboard boxes – a random one contains plastic bags of rocks.
In the corner however, unmissable under the harsh florescent lights and set apart by barriers of empty glass-topped counters, is the rusted and smashed wreck of a vintage gray Buick Electra. It almost looks like an art exhibit, the roof pulled back like it’s been attacked by the Hulk, a hood shaped like a jagged, inverted “v” and, when it’s lifted, revealing a concertinaed engine.
This was the car that blonde bombshell actress Jayne Mansfield – and her boyfriend and the driver – were killed in on a foggy night in 1967, when they slammed at high speed into a tractor. Faded, off-brown streaks on one passenger door are the bloody remnants of Mansfield, who was virtually scalped when that roof was sheared away.
The “Mansfield Death Car,” as it was named long-ago at the US Tragedy & History Museum in Florida, is the culmination of phone calls, visits, fundraising, complicated insurance policies and secret nighttime transportation.
The chance to buy the car from its private owner was sudden, but Michaels, 54, had no hesitation to cross this off his bucket list, even though he knew it probably meant moving somewhere larger than his spot on Sunset Boulevard near Amoeba Records.
Also, the magnificent Cadillac Hearse outside (known affectionately as “Torchy” and a throwback to the days when Michaels worked on the famous Grave Line Tours) had to be put on the block for $9,000.
Originally from Detroit, Michaels’ family home was near a busy cross street, and he recalls regularly hearing the sounds – and seeing the results – of countless car accidents, though he and his siblings saw it as something normal, and almost a free show.
In 2004 he was back there visiting his sister and brother-in-law, who asked what he was planning to do now he was a tour guide in Hollywood.
Michaels had first dabbled in movie memorabilia when he lived in Chicago, but now he was in L.A. he said he wanted to start his own company. “In those days there were only about a dozen companies,” he explains. “Despite the fact we had all been drinking and I had no idea what a business plan was, nor why we ever needed one, they backed me to the hilt,” he says, seemingly still amazed at their decision.
“We’re not the Smithsonian,” he laughs, “but we are a home for the remnants of a Hollywood that’s really long gone, but that people still love.”
Some of the artifacts are literally part of Hollywood history: bricks from the Tate House, tiles from the Ambassador Hotel kitchen where RFK was assassinated, the hotel room door where Divine died and the bed Rock Hudson spent his last night in.
Fans donate souvenirs to him too. He recently received Lana Turner’s director’s chair to go with her cigarette lighter and perfume bottle he already owned, but he also buys from thrift stores, yard sales, collectors and auction houses.
Michaels himself has often jumped fences and dodged security guards:
“I was always picking up stuff and putting it in my pocket when I was a kid, and I still do it now. Only it’s more contrived,” he laughs.
Gourmet Ghosts 