'Surprise Me'

Yes, that hearse and motorcade winding through the Valley this morning carried Bob Hope to his final resting place. Hope's daughter Linda says her father was recently asked where he wished to be buried, and he quipped "surprise me." It turns out to be San Fernando Mission Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in the Valley, Hope's home for most of his 100 years. Originally for the Indians who died at the mission in the early 1800s, it's where Hope's mother is buried, along with his fellow actors Walter Brennan and William Frawley, Hope sidekick Jerry Colonna and teenage rocker Ritchie Valens. The penultimate scene in the Valens biopic La Bamba shows his funeral caravan entering the cemetery. Had he wished, Hope might have been eligible for entombment at Arlington or the downtown Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels.