McCurdy, McCrew, and McLean

One could argue that Elmer McCurdy and Anderson "Andrew" McCrew didn't amount to much in life, but man oh man, if anyone ever earned eternal rest, it was these two. We'll begin with McCurdy.

Image copyright, Teece Aronin

Elmer McCurdy robbed banks and trains around the turn of the last century, and according to AllGov.com, someone really did say, "You'll never take me alive!" and that someone was McCurdy. As a result of that defiant determination, the posse that had hoped to take him alive, just shot him instead. He died on October 7, 1911.

The AllGov post continues, explaining that no one claimed McCurdy's body, so the undertaker charged a nickel to anyone who wanted to take a peek at the embalmed corpse. Aside from that, I don't know what happened to him for the first five years he was deceased, but it is said that five years after his death, a carnival snapped him up, thinking him quite the moneymaker, and for the next 60 years McCurdy was sold and resold to carnivals, wax museums and haunted house attractions.

In 1976, a Universal Studios television crew was prepping part of a Long Beach, California amusement park to shoot a scene for The Six Million Dollar Man. When they came across McCurdy hanging from a noose, they assumed it was a wax figure. But when they moved the corpse and the arm fell off, exposing bone, the truth was shockingly clear. Arrangements were made, and McCurdy was buried in Guthrie, Oklahoma on April 22, 1977.

Anderson "Andrew" McCrew was a one-legged hobo who fell from a moving train, and according to at least one source, lost the other leg when he was killed. McCrew was an African American man in his mid-forties, and this all went down - McCrew included - in 1913 Marlin Texas.

Like McCurdy, no one claimed McCrew's remains, and after being embalmed by a heavy-handed mortician who preserved him to within an inch of his life (so to speak), a traveling carnival picked him up, dressed him in a tuxedo and propped him in a wheelchair. He toured the country that way for some 50 years. Some sources say he was billed as "The Amazing Petrified Man," and others as "The Famous Mummy Man." It might have been one, it might have been the other - it might have been both - but it's a pretty safe bet that McCrew never aspired to either.

According to AllGov.com, the carnival shut down in the late sixties, and McCrew landed in a Dallas warehouse where he was discovered by Elgie Pace. Pace felt he deserved a proper burial, but stored him in her basement since she couldn't afford a proper buriel. 

Singer and songwriter Don McLean read an article in the New York Times about McCrew and wrote a song about him, The Legend of Andrew McCrew. The official Don McLean website says the song inspired Chicago radio station, WGN to air McCrew's story and played the song to raise money for a headstone. The station's campaign raised enough funds to have McCrew exhumed and laid to rest in Lincoln Cemetery in Dallas, this time with a marker. It reads: Born 1867; Died 1913; Buried 1973.

The next time you tour a haunted house attraction, visit a wax museum, or pop your head into the curtained doorway of a carnival side show, take a good long look at any "dummies" you see - because they might be anything but. 

Peg Entwistle and the HOLLYWOODLAND Sign

I am afraid I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. ~ P.E.

Poor P.E. If she had hung on a little longer, she might have been remembered for her life and not her death, and she might have spared herself the fate of becoming the ghost who haunts the grounds around the Hollywood sign - assuming, of course, that the rumors are true.

Peg Entwistle, photo source/licensing: Wikipedia Commons

P.E. was Peg Entwistle, the 24-year-old starlet who jumped to her death from the H of the HOLLYWOODLAND sign, the one with the freestanding letters high up on Mount Lee, the one that now reads simply, HOLLYWOOD and is an icon of the movie industry.

It was 1932. Entwistle had grown despondent over her career; after all, she was a washed-up almost was, having accomplished nothing more than a Broadway debut in her teens and a performance in Ibsen's "The Wild Duck" that inspired a teenaged Bette Davis to rave ". . . I want to be exactly like Peg Entwistle!"

Such is the lie of depression, that it has convinced some of the world's greatest overachievers that they are worthless and have nothing to live for. No doubt, Entwistle could be hard on herself, and reports indicate that she could be "moody." She is said to have shared the following about her struggles to nail a performance:

"To play any kind of an emotional scene, I must work up to a certain pitch. If I reach this in my first work, the rest of the words and lines take care of themselves. But if I fail, I have to build up the balance of the speeches, and in doing this the whole characterization falls flat. I feel that I am cheating myself. I don't know whether other actresses get this same reaction or not, but it does worry me."

According to IMDb, under the direction of Blanc Yurka, Entwistle played Hedvig, the girl in "The Wild Duck" whose life would end by suicide. Bette Davis, who was roughly the same age, saw a performance with her mother, Ruthie and was transformed. Two years later, as Entwistle headed to Hollywood, Yurka hired Davis to play Hedvig.

Entwistle, whose family moved with her to the U.S. from England when she was about five years-old, took some hard hits early on. Her doting stepmother died as the result of an illness, and her father was killed in a hit and run accident. Peg and her younger brothers were entrusted to the care of their uncle, an actor and theatre manager said to have gotten Peg at least one of her early breaks. 

Eventually, Entwistle and her uncle made their way to Los Angeles where Peg hoped to break into films. It was at the height of the Great Depression, and she landed a role in the play, "The Mad Hopes," which also featured Humphrey Bogart and Billie Burke. The play ran its course at the Belasco Theatre in downtown L.A. and earned Entwistle some helpful industry buzz. Billie Burke, by the way, went on to play Glinda, the Good Witch in MGM's 1939 production of "The Wizard of Oz." But according to online sources, while Entwistle was no doubt grateful to be earning a living, she longed to venture outside her "type," which was shaping up to be the amiable ingenue.

Entwistle got her chance to leave girlish roles behind in her one and only film, Thirteen Women, starring Myrna Loy and Irene Dunne. She played Hazel Cousins, a role with scenes running roughly 16 minutes in the first cut but slashed to just four minutes after the film failed to win over test audiences. Some say that the encroaching presence of the Hays Code, a massing force for Hollywood censorship, was to blame for some of the challenges the film experienced. All the same, having her most promising work to date snipped onto the cutting room floor, was a tough blow for Entwistle. "Thirteen Women" premiered in New York on September 16, 1932, the month following her death, and in L.A. the following November.

Entwistle's death is said to have happened like this:

On the evening of September 16, 1932, she left the house she shared with her uncle, saying she was going to the drug store for a book and then to visit friends. Whether that was a ruse, or she impulsively changed plans, no one knows. What we do know is that she made her way to the Southern slope of Mount Lee, site of the Hollywoodland sign, 13 letters, 50 feet tall, advertising a real estate development. She climbed the maintenance ladder at the back of the H and dove off.

According to reports, two days later, a woman desiring to remain anonymous, phoned the Los Angeles police saying she'd discovered a woman's shoe, purse and jacket while hiking near the sign. She added that she'd found what appeared to be a suicide note, and that when she gazed down the hilly terrain, she'd spotted a body. After the body was recovered and a postmortem conducted, the cause of death was determined as "multiple fractures of the pelvis."

Entwistle's uncle identified his niece after reading a newspaper account of an unknown female corpse and a suicide note signed P.E. found near the sign. He told police that she had been "suffering an intense mental anguish."

One macabre side note: When Entwistle was 19, she married actor, Robert Keith. Two years later she was awarded a divorce after alleging cruelty and claiming that Keith neglected to mention his previous marriage and six-year-old son. That boy grew up to be the actor, Brian Keith. Sadly, that Keith's daughter, Daisy died by suicide. Her death came at a time when Keith's health was declining. Two months later, he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. His death was ruled a suicide, but Keith's friend, actress, Maureen O'Hara, insisted it was an accident and that Keith had been in good spirits. She added that being a Catholic, he would never have taken his life.

Entwistle's suicide caused one of those sensations vintage Hollywood is famous for. Her funeral was held at the W.M. Strathers Mortuary on September 20, and she was cremated and her ashes buried next to her father in a cemetery in Glendale, Ohio.

But that isn't the end of Peg Entwistle. Since her death, people have reported encountering a young blonde woman near the Hollywood sign, dressed in 1930s era clothing. She has been described as "sad," "brooding," and in one case, "disoriented." The smell of gardenias, Entwistle's favorite scent, has been detected during these sightings. She is said to vanish as suddenly as she appears.

If you should ever stumble across a time machine, set the dial for September 16, 1932, go to the Hollywoodland sign and wait for Peg. Maybe you can change her mind.  




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