The Resurrection Men Hall of Fame The Resurrection Man Hall of Fame is located near the corner of Montana and Allesandro, in Los Angeles' Echo Park. The museum sits between a checking cashing joint and an empty storefront that, for several years now, has seemed resistant to the developmental efforts of any would-be tenant. The backs of display cases fill the museum's windows, blocking all light from entering the space and preventing any passerby from looking into the museum. The only items on display are a single paper- back book on an adjustable white wire bookstand and a single framed photograph. The two items are displayed several feet from one another, as if the window designer wanted to ensure that each item is studied individually. Instead of reinforcing the importance of each item, the overall impression is one of isolated irrelevance. The book's title, barely legible because of the curled cover, is "The Great Resurrection Men." Joel Campbell is given as the author's name. Once black and white, and now almost entirely a uniform ghostly gray, the photo shows a young man in formal clothes. He's wearing a top hat and carries a cane. Careful study of his smile reveals pride mixed with competent, disdainful humor. His left hand is extended in presentation. Standing up next to him is an open and empty coffin. Once there was a rich, velvety curtain visible behind the figure and his coffin, but the sun has burned it away. Insanity was a constant threat for even the most accomplished resurrection men. Whenever he was buried, the Bostonian great resurrection man Christopher Michener used to suck on randomly selected puzzle pieces that his wife and assistant, Iris, would hand him before his coffin was nailed shut. In the endless silence and unfathomable darkness, he would worry the small wooden pieces with his teeth and tongue (this was before cardboard puzzle pieces) Using only the sense of taste, Michener would attempt to discern what was on the individual piece and creatively extend the piece to hypothesize the image on the completed puzzle. A display of two hundred of his pieces is on display at the Hall of Fame. Mounted in a hanging display case like pinned exotic insects and organized by some cryptic taxonomic scheme understood solely by the museum's curator, these tiny bits of color, seemingly random lines and curves connect us to the master's mind as he struggled against psychological collapse. On one piece, known to scholars and enthusiasts as Piece 37, a small water wheel, perhaps from an old mill, is visible. Taped to the back of the Hall of Fame's front door is a yellowed, hand-written sign. The spidery handwriting betrays the effort and care that went in forming the words, though the shaky, uneven shape of the letters mockingly undermines that very effort. In all caps, underlined, slightly off-center, the sign reads "The Resurrection Men Hall of Fame." Under that, following the standard rules of capitalization and lacking the aggrandizing underline, the sign reads, "Joel Campbell, curator." The era of competitive resurrections ended tragically in 1928. It was a horrific end to one of resurrection's most splendid rivalries. After years of acrimonious remarks to the press, Leo "Red" Groves had challenged his long-time rival, Richard Domenica, to a showdown. The event was held at B. F. Keith's Palace Theater in Times Square, New York City. According to vaudeville scholar Robert W. Snyder, ten tons of soil was transported to the theater. Groves and Domenica were buried simultaneously. Sometime during the night, nobody can be quite sure when, Groves's coffin imploded and the star was crushed. Always the gentlemen, Domenica declared the contest a draw and, even to his death of natural causes in 1979, refused to accept that he had ever defeated his rival. Prior to housing the Hall of Fame, the shop that now holds the museum was a pharmacy. The once mint green, now scuffed dull gray vinyl floor tiles and smoke-yellowed fabric roof tiles date back to that era. During the Great Depression, a horde of marginally talented semi-amateur resurrection men swelled the ranks of the profession. Unable or unwilling to devote themselves to the special disciplines unique to resurrections, they relied instead on specially designed trick coffins to accomplish their resurrections. These over-sized coffins were known as "cheaters." The cheater on display in the Hall of Fame belonged to a justifiably obscure hack that performed under the name Skeleto the Magnificent. The coffin uses its extra space to incorporate a battery-powered electric light, a small ice box, a system of fans driven by an ingenious collection of pedals, and a modest bookshelf. While the technological cleverness of the cheater begs for some sneaking admiration on the part of museum goers, genuine resurrection men detested the use of cheaters. The cheater's bookshelf includes a volume of Herbert Spenser, several books by Mark Twain, a novel by Booth Tarkington, and one anonymously edited collection of lewd poetry. Though he is a bottomless pit of information on the lives of resurrection men, the culture in which they thrived, and secrets which they tried to keep, there is one topic which Joel Campbell will not discuss with museum patrons. He refuses to be drawn into a conversation about the Still. This is the term for the possibly mythological class of resurrection men who opted to be buried forever. Of this shadowy subculture, the most famous example is the mysterious performer Adolfo, who was active in the American travel show circuit during the Reconstruction era. This elusive, but apparently prolific, performer disappears from the published records in 1878. Popular legend has it that he was willingly built into the walls of the Winchester home. Despite lack of any hard evidence and repeated denials by the Winchester estate, the rumors persist and Adolfo has become something of the patron saint of the Still. Campbell says he finds the whole idea distasteful. He'll tell curious patrons that the persistent interest in the Still is the disease symptom of an era that is morbidly compelled to replace artistry with pathology. A people so interested in death do not deserve resurrections. Among the small and shattered clan of resurrection enthusiasts, it is a widely held that Joel Campbell was himself a resurrection man. The old man vigorously denies it, but the theories persist. Some erroneously claim the man into photograph on display in the Hall of Fame's front window is a shot of Joel from his resurrection days. Even the most cursory research positively identifies the subject of that photograph as Brian Constance Hale, a minor figure on the Atlanta resurrection scene in the first decade of the twentieth century. A Chicago-native of Irish and German heritage, Charles Robertson was buried and exhumed several hundred times as Huang Hongdau, the Famous Chinese Resurrection Man. His photograph hangs in the Hall of Fame. When Robertson first started performing resurrections in 1878, he spent two years being buried and exhumed under his own name. However, fame eluded Robertson until he moved to London and adopted the persona of Huang Hongdau. He took the idea from a newspaper article about Huang Yuanyong, a little-known but extremely talented resurrection man who performed in China. Ironically, during a short tour of United Kingdom, Yuanyong, the genuine Chinese resurrection man, was denounced as a fake and pretender. The British press, which was used to having their Gilbert and Sullivan-informed ideas of the Far East pandered to by Robertson, found Yuanyong unconvincing. Robertson kept up the racial deception both on and off stage. He was not the only resurrection man to completely submerge their own identity in a fictional persona. Birtish resurrection man David Chelsa disappeared into Ivan the Undying, a fake Russian. New Yorker Mort Finkelstein was swallowed by Houdin Feuillet, a supposed Frenchmen. The Canadian Gerald Michaels vanished into the role of Grant Bolster, another Canadian, but a more interesting one. Cost of admission – $7.00 adults, $3.50 children and seniors, ask about discounts for groups of ten or more – includes the curator tour. Despite the Hall of Fame's diminutive size, the tour takes almost two hours. Sadly, much of this is due to the curator's failing health. He walks between exhibits with the determined but enervated focus of a bumblebee that one might find, in the last moments of its life, trudging pointlessly on foot. When the museum first opened in 1986, Joel greeted patrons in the too-large tuxedo and top hat of the aforementioned hack Skeleto the Magnificent. As Joel's body thinned with age, the suit grew too cumbersome and Joel was forced to retire it to the collection. Joel now tends towards style-inert tennis shoes, khaki slacks, and a rotating collection of garish panama shirts. The only hold-over from the formal days is Skeleto's top hat which he wears throughout the tour. The hat still fits perfectly. There were almost no female resurrection men. In the Swados Playbill Collection at the Seattle Academy of Music, diligent researchers have found a performer who went by the name of Diamond Jill. According to the short biography in the playbill, she was first buried as part of a father and daughter act in Chicago in 1923. The biography goes on to list several performing venues where Diamond Jill was buried and resurrected, though researchers have yet to confirm her appearance at any of these venues. It is possible that Diamond Jill's biography was faked for promotional purposes. Unfortunately for the meticulous historian, less than honest marketing was a hallmark of resurrection men biographies. Two photographs of an unidentified hack resurrection woman can be found hanging, framed, next to the cheater. The first photo shows the young woman, light hair, clinging evening gown made of some shiny fabric, standing next to a coffin, her arms raised in a "V." The coffin is shut. On its lid is the carved shape of a crescent moon. The second photo is a less professional and staged shot. The nameless performer is in standard street clothes. She's wearing circle-rim glasses and a small beret-style hat. She is sitting on a coffin, perhaps the same one. She's leaning back slightly, her hands are stuck out behind her, palms flat on the coffin lid, propping herself up. From the camera's angle, you can see the side of the coffin. There are several clearly visible seams, tell-tale signs that she's sitting on a cheater. She's smiling at the camera. There's writing in the lower right corner: "S – The worst thing about it is being so alone. You are MAGNIFICENT!!! I love you." Historians have searched for the identity of this performer for years, but all efforts have been in vain. The Resurrection Men Hall of Fame closes around 7:00 or 8:00, depending on the how busy the place is and whims of Joel. These days, Joel says, even standing around and doing nothing is tiring. After locking up, he walks home alone. He lives ten blocks away. He says that even when the neighborhood was bad, he was never bothered on the way home. "I'm lucky that way," he says.