Saturday, January 21, 2012

Finding the grave of Edward Saint

Embolden by our success at finding the grave of Jacob Hyman, my fellow Houdini buffs and I recently went in search of the final resting place of Charles David Myers aka Professor Sesrad aka Sir Edward St. Ra-Diem aka Dr. Edward Saint. Saint was the business manager, companion, and some claim secret husband of Bess Houdini in her later years. Saint tirelessly promoted Houdini's name and legacy and was the driving force behind the Final Houdini Seance. He died in 1942.

The location of Saint's grave has long been somewhat of a mystery. But then Joe Fox discovered that he was buried under his real name, Charles David Myers, in Hollywood Forever, a famous old cemetery in the heart of Hollywood which holds Valentino, Cecile B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. & Jr, and many other stars from the early days of Hollywood.

So on Sunday, January 15, 2012, we set out to find the long forgotten grave of Edward Saint. Instead of telling the whole story in words, I'll let this 7 minute video (from the new WILD ABOUT HARRY YouTube Channel) tell the tale instead. As you'll see, Saint turned out to be as tricky in death as he was in life.



Thanks to Lisa Cousins, Joe Fox, Patrick Culliton and Mark Willoughby for letting me film and share our adventure. This video-blog post was somewhat of an experiment, so let me know what you thought of it in the comments below.

15 comments:

  1. For a brief moment I was afraid you were going to dig up the grave the way you guys were poking around, lol! I don't know how deep they bury folks who were cremated. Fun to watch though. I've been on many of these kinds of trips myself, always an adventure.

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    1. Oh, we were just poking to see if we could find the marker. The ground was very uneven so we thought it might have been buried over the years. We weren't looking to poke old Ed himself. :)

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  2. Interesting cemetery - good work!

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  3. Looking for graves, isn't that a little weird???

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  4. Great stuff!

    You mind if I use the scan of the Genii magazine for MagicPedia http://geniimagazine.com/magicpedia/Edward_Saint?

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  5. GF in DC

    Good Job!
    I sense a wink and a smile from "Ed" from the Other Side at your discovery.

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    1. Ha! I think you might be right about that. :)

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  6. could you give a summary of the video for those of us who's hearing isn't good enough for youtube videos?

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    1. Sure. Lisa Cousins, Joe Fox, Patrick Culliton and I travel to Hollywood Forever Cemetery to look for the grave of Edward Saint. After some joking around (we find a "Harry Weiss" and a "Harry Kellar") and a good few hours of searching, it becomes clear that we can't find Saint's grave.

      Two days later I return with Joe Fox to meet Mark Willoughby who says he's solved the mystery. Turns out Saint was cremated and his grave is in a small section of cremations (ironically it's on camera during our first search around 3:10). At first we think the marker is buried (as a few others are around it are), so we poke around with a screwdriver, but it appears the marker is gone. But at least we know where he is.

      Oh, and we see a blimp! Which might have been the most exciting part of the video. ;)

      Maybe video-blogs aren't the best idea after all.

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  7. Did Saint have any children or relatives? Who knows what may have been passed down from Bess through Saint to his relatives? Maybe that elusive wristwatch of Houdini!

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    1. He didn't have children. Don't know about relatives. His mother is also buried in Hollywood Forever, but we've yet to find her.

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