The Life and Times of Pauline Frederick and Where are her ashes????
Pauline Frederick (born Pauline Beatrice Libbey, August 12, 1883 – September 19, 1938) was an American stage and film actress
Pauline in 1916
Early Life
Frederick was born Pauline Beatrice Libbey (later changed to Libby) in Boston in 1883 (some sources state 1884 or 1885),the only child of Richard O. and Loretta C. Libbey. Her father worked as a yardmaster for the Old Colony Railroad before becoming a salesman. Her parents separated when she was a toddler and Frederick was raised primarily by her mother to whom she remained close for the remainder of her life (her parents divorced around 1897). As a girl, she was fascinated with show business, and determined early to place her goals in the direction of the theater. She studied acting, singing and dancing at Miss Blanchard's Finishing School in Boston where she later graduated.
Her father, however, discouraged her ambitions to be an actress and encouraged her to become an elocution teacher. After pursuing a career as an actress, her father disinherited her (he died in 1922). Due to her father's attitude towards her acting career, Pauline adopted the surname "Frederick" as her stage name.She legally changed her name to Pauline Frederick in 1908.
Career
Pauline in 1918
he made her stage debut at the age of 17 as a chorus girl in the farce The Rogers Brothers at Harvard, but was fired shortly thereafter. She won other small roles on the stage before being discovered by illustrator Harrison Fisher who called her "the purest American beauty." With Fisher's help, she landed more substantial stage roles. Nicknamed "The Girl with the Topaz Eyes", Fredrick was cast in the lead roles in the touring productions of The Little Gray Lady and The Girl in White in 1906. She briefly retired from acting after her first marriage in 1909, but returned to the stage in January 1913 in Joseph and His Brethren.
A well-known stage star, Frederick was already in her 30s when she made her film debut in 1915 as Donna Roma in The Eternal City. In March 1927, she received some of her better reviews when she appeared in the play Madame X in London. Frederick was able to make a successful transition to "talkies" in 1929, and was cast as Joan Crawford's mother in This Modern Age (1931). Frederick did not like acting in sound films and returned to Broadway in 1932 in When the Bough Breaks. She would continue the remainder of her career appearing in films and also touring in stage productions in the United States, Europe and Australia.
Personal Life
Frederick's personal life was beset with marital and financial problems. Despite having reportedly made a million dollars for her work in silent films, Frederick filed for bankruptcy in 1933.
Frederick was married five times. In 1909, she married architect Frank Mills Andrews. Frederick then briefly retired from acting, but returned upon divorcing Andrews in 1913. She married her second husband, playwright Willard Mack, on September 27, 1917. They divorced in August 1920. Her third husband was Dr. Charles A. Rutherford, a physician, whom she married in Santa Ana, California in 1922. Frederick filed for divorce in December 1924.Their divorce was finalized on January 6, 1925.
It was around this time that the then 43-year-old first met the much younger Clark Gable, then a struggling actor, with whom she allegedly had a two-year affair. Whenever Gable would see her afterwards he would drop to one knee and kiss her hand.
Frederick married her fourth husband, millionaire hotel and Interstate News Company owner Hugh Chisholm Leighton (1878-1942) on April 20, 1930 in New York City. Leighton had the marriage annulled in December 1930 claiming that he was Frederick's husband "in name only".
Frederick's fifth marriage, in January 1934, was to an ailing United States Army colonel, Joseph A. Marmon, commander of the 16th Infantry Regiment. They remained married until Marmon's death on December 4, 1934.
Death
On January 17, 1936, Frederick underwent emergency surgery on her abdomen. Her health steadily declined, which limited her ability to work. She was dealt a further blow when her mother died in 1937.
On September 16, 1938, Frederick suffered an asthma attack. She suffered a second, fatal asthma attack on September 19, 1938 while she was recuperating at her aunt's home in Beverly Hills. According to her wishes, a private funeral was held on September 23 in Hollywood, after which she was buried at Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Pauline Frederick has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard.
Grandview Memorial Park 2005 Scandal and possible mishandling of her remains
Grand View Memorial Park and Crematory is a historic cemetery located in Glendale, California, in the United States. Established in 1884 as Glendale Cemetery, it changed its name to Grand View Memorial Park in 1919. The cemetery was the focus of a scandal that began in 2005, during which the operators were accused of leaving thousands of remains unburied. New owners changed the name to Grand View Memorial Park and Crematory in 2015 and began a restoration of the property.
In the spring of 2004, the state of California enacted legislation giving the CFB authority to inspect cemeteries and other burial sites on an annual basis (not just when a complaint was filed).
The first annual inspection of Grand View Memorial Park occurred in May 2005. The results of that inspection were made public in late October 2005. During the inspection, CFB inspectors discovered about 4,000 cremated remains in cardboard boxes and plastic containers in storage rooms and on the floor of the mausoleum, in mausoleum crypts which should have held full-body remains,in the chapel, and in a dumpster. Most of the remains dated to the 1930s and 1940s (Pauline died in 1938 and the last time her remains were seen was September 28, 1938 by her Funeral Directors after she was cremated at Grandview). with smaller numbers from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. A few remains were from the 1990s Some containers had spilled, and the remains of several people were mixed together on the floor. The remains of seven individuals were found in the chapel in temporary crypts, having never been permanently interred.
CFB inspectors found the cemetery's records in very poor condition. The records room was infested with rodents, and records regarding some of the remains were so incomplete or were missing altogether that the remains could not be identified. Maps of in-ground burials, mausoleum full-body crypt and cremains niche burials, and chapel burials were missing or extremely inaccurate, sometimes showing remains where none were found and sometimes not depicting burials which others records indicated had occurred' Later investigations revealed that a large number of cremated remains had been buried throughout the cemetery without records kept regarding their location. Crematory records were in similar poor condition.
The cemetery itself was in general disarray. Most areas were overgrown, and there were numerous dead trees and bushes. All buildings were in disrepair. Groundskeeping tools, trash, caskets and grave markers were scattered over the property and throughout public buildings. So much trash and rodent feces had accumulated in the mausoleum that visitors could not access some crypts or niches. In the below-ground portion of the mausoleum, cremation niches were broken (exposing urns), some urns had been removed from niches, and trash was scattered on the floor.
As state officials combed through the cemetery's records, they discovered that Grand View had sold the same plot several times,disinterred bodies from graves and then resold the plots, disinterred bodies without state authorization, buried multiple bodies in a plot that should have held one person, and either failed to place markers on graves or willfully discarded or recycled markers. Advance purchase contracts for plots were inaccurate or incomplete. They also discovered that Howard had removed $40,000 from the perpetual care trust fund as a "loan" but never repaid it.
The CFB issued an order suspending all operations at Grand View Memorial Park. The cemetery was prohibited from selling new graves or soliciting new business. Burials could continue if already planned, or if planned for plots which had already been purchased. Howard and Goldsman's state licenses to operate a cemetery were suspended, and Howard was no longer permitted to act as the burial ground's superintendent. The CFB launched a broader investigation into the cemetery's practices with an eye to turning over evidence to the Los Angeles County District Attorney for possible criminal prosecution. Howard denied knowing that any cremated remains were being stored or that bodies had been improperly buried in the chapel.
Those with loved ones buried at Grand View Memorial Park, and those who had purchased plot there, were outraged at the revelations, and within 10 days of the news had filed a numerous civil lawsuits against the cemetery in Los Angeles Superior Court.Actor Dolph Sweet's (Gimme a Break) Family removed his body and scattered his ashes at sea.
The CFB executed a search warrant against Grand View Memorial Park on November 2, 2005. An examination of the cemetery's financial records indicated that Howard had commingled corporate funds with her personal assets and those of other businesses she owned. She used cemetery income to pay her personal bills and purchase items for her personal use. Inspectors also found some cemetery records had been destroyed. The agency then accused Howard, Goldsman, and the cemetery as a corporation with 14 major violations of state law and regulations, including fraud, improper use of funds, mishandling of remains, negligence, and reselling graves.
I have inquired as to the whereabouts of Pauline's remains because her wikipedia page and the cemetery's wikipedia page state she's interred at Grandview but her Find a Grave Page states the location of her ashes are unknown. If there is actually a Gravesite for Pauline I would like a photo to update her Find a Grave record. Why would Grandview say she is there if they don't know?
RIP Pauline
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