GRAVE CONSEQUENCES; STAR-STUDDED HOLLYWOOD CEMETERY FACES AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE TODAY WHEN IT GOES ON THE AUCTION BLOCK.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

When Rudolph Valentino died in 1926, more than 20,000 fans swarmed his funeral.

But movie buffs who weren't even born when ``the sheik'' lured Agnes Ayres into his desert tent still seek out his final resting place: Crypt 1205 in the Cathedral Mausoleum at Hollywood Memorial Park.

A long-stemmed red rose and a stalk of purple orchids decorate the bronze vases flanking his marker: Rodolpho Guglielmi Valentino 1895-1926. On the cool white marble below his name plate, three fresh, bright red lip prints had been planted inches from a name - Estrellita - painstakingly scratched into the stone.

In this 100-year-old Santa Monica Boulevard burial ground, tributes to Hollywood legends abound. For, in eternity, Valentino's compadres in this 60-acre cemetery include the great and small of the Hollywood history - from directors Cecil B. DeMille and John Huston to the Little Rascals' Carl ``Alfalfa'' Switzer and tap dancer Eleanor Powell.

``It's one of Hollywood's treasures,'' said Leron Gubler, executive director of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. ``Most stars fade away, but it's amazing after all these years, people still go there to see their favorites. It's part of the magic and mystique of Hollywood.''

But property values have hit rock bottom in the stars' final neighborhood.

The Hollywood Cemetery Association, which owned the cemetery for decades, filed for bankruptcy nearly two years ago. For 19 months, the venerable Tinseltown landmark has been run by a court-appointed trustee.

It has fallen into disrepair, with grass dying for lack of water, mausoleum stained-glass windows broken out and some marble crypts crumbling.

And today, the cemetery will be auctioned off in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles.

Bids will start at $500,000.

There have been a few inquiries, but, once they learn the magnitude of the cemetery's financial problems, the serious buyers bow out, said cemetery broker Maureen Hoagland.

The property and its assets are worth $2 million to $3 million, but it would take $1 million to $2 million to restore damage from vandalism, daily wear and tear and the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, she said. And since the bankruptcy court prohibited the sale of new grave sites, income has slipped to $25,000 to $30,000 a month - roughly a third of the income they'd need just to break even, said cemetery office manager Homer Alba.

If nobody buys the old cemetery at the auction, there will be a Dec. 12 Bankruptcy Court hearing to decide whether trustee Duke Salisbury should hand it back to the cash-strapped owners, said David Isenberg, the trustee's attorney. If that happens, the owners would likely fire the remaining office and grounds staff, cease operations and padlock the gate of the burial ground, the attorney said.

``There would be no visitation of graves, even by people who have family buried there,'' Isenberg said. ``No maintenance, no security and no new interments ... It would be perhaps unavoidable but tragic to see it padlocked and forgotten.''

Hollywood Memorial Park would cease to be a stop for tourists seeking a glimpse of movie magic.

``It's scary,'' said Laurie Lopp, business development and marketing director at the Bank of Hollywood and a member of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. ``This should be one of the proudest things that Hollywood has to offer. And instead, we're looking at the place being padlocked. We can't let that happen.''

``The kings and queens of early Hollywood are buried there,'' said Roxana Tynan, economic development deputy for Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg. ``It should be a real jewel.''

So Lopp, Tynan and other Hollywood movers and shakers are quietly, but desperately pleading with executives of local film studios, hoping they'll find a way to save the rapidly failing cemetery that holds the remains of the stars who helped build those studios.

No commitments have been made yet, but Lopp is hoping somebody - or a bunch of somebodies - with a soft spot for movie nostalgia is willing to invest enough money to keep the landmark open.

And it will take a commitment to Hollywood's past. The $2.5 million maintenance endowment generates about $167,000 a year, which can be spent on daily operations. But sales of new grave sites are anticipated to reap only $473,233 in revenue, so if someone buys it for the rock-bottom price, he will just about break even. But, Lopp said, a new owner could charge for cemetery tours or even rent some outlying undeveloped areas as parking spaces to bring in more income.

``There is money to be made there, but not a lot,'' she said.

Those working to avoid the cemetery's demise hope they can demonstrate to bankruptcy Judge Thomas B. Donovan that they're on the way to finding a permanent solution, buying themselves more time to raise money and establish a nonprofit entity to buy and run the cemetery.

``We need to find someone, and we need to assure them that they're not taking on a liability that is going to bankrupt them,'' Tynan said.

In the peaceful burial ground that backs up to Paramount Studios, the only inkling that things are awry is a kind of shabbiness that has settled over the cemetery since the grounds crew was cut from 18 to 10 men. In spots, weeds encroach on headstones, and monuments need a good polishing. The lake that is the park's centerpiece, picturesque with water lilies and a flock of ducks, needs a good cleaning, as does the reflecting pool that is part of swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks Sr.'s impressive marble monument.

But still, you can almost feel the magic that was old Hollywood as you roam the cemetery with a free map you can pick up at the office near the entrance.

The white marble bench that sits over Tyrone Power's grave rests on the lakeshore, next to the family tomb that holds the remains of Marion Davies, longtime mistress of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. A few steps away is the grave of starlet Virginia Rappe, who died in 1921 of a burst bladder. (Screen funnyman Roscoe ``Fatty'' Arbuckle was accused of raping her during a drunken party; tried three times, he was acquitted, but his career was ruined.)

Near a clump of reeds on the lakeside is a pink marble monument to blond bombshell Jayne Mansfield, who was buried in Pennsylvania after dying in a 1967 traffic accident.

Across the lake are the graves of director Huston, Bogart-buddy Peter Lorre and Adolph Menjou, the suave actor who made many enemies during the Red Scare of the late 1940s by pointing fingers at people he claimed were communists.

Seattle movie buffs Susan Despenich and Gillian Gaar roamed the cemetery last week, heading excitedly toward Mansfield's headstone and Power's bench.

``I love old movies,'' said Despenich. ``I could care less if Tom Cruise got his handprints at (Mann's) Chinese Theatre. I'd rather see where the old movie stars are buried.''

Andrew Chojecki, who came from Poland 12 years ago to live in Los Angeles, was acting as tour guide for movie-buff friends visiting from Germany and Poland. They paused to admire the twin marble sarcophagi of DeMille and his wife, Clara - and gasped when told the cemetery will be put up for auction.

``Oh, no, that's awful,'' Chojecki said. ``I hope it will be sold into good hands. Let's hope the new owner will keep it up nice.''

That's a prayer Homer Alba says every day as he fields questions from tourists and tries to keep the old cemetery operating as best he can.

``I'm real optimistic about it,'' he said. ``But I have to be or I wouldn't have a reason to get up in the morning. I have to believe something good's going to happen here.''

CAPTION(S):

15 Photos, Box, Map

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) ON DEBT'S DOORSTEP

Final resting place of Hollywood legends to be auctioned today in bankruptcy court

(2) At Hollywood Memorial Park, tributes to Hollywood legends abound. Unfortunately, so do the cemetery's financial problems.

(3--4) In the peaceful burial ground, with the Hollywood sign in the background, the only inkling that things are awry is a kind of shabbiness that has settled over the cemetery since the grounds crew was reduced. At left, The white marble bench that sits over Tyrone Power's grave draws movie buffs to the historic cemetery from near and far.

(5--6) A pink marble monument to blond bombshell Jayne Mansfield, who was buried in Pennsylvania after dying in a 1967 traffic accident. At far left, Starlet Virginia Rappe's death in 1921 began a legal nightmare for comedian Roscoe ``Fatty'' Arbuckle.

David Sprague/Daily News

(7) Rudolph Valentino

(8) Peter Lorre

(9) Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

(10) Tyrone Power

(11) Marion Davies

(12) Cecil B. DeMille

(13) John Huston

(14) Carl ``Alfalfa'' Switzer

(15) Bugsy Siegel

Box/Map: ETERNAL HOLLYWOOD

Of the 79,000-plus people buried in Hollywood Memorial Park, a handful are among Hollywood's brightest stars. Thousands of fans and movie buffs seek out their grave sites each year.

SOURCE: ``Permanent Californians: An illustrated guide to the Cemeteries of California'' by Judi Culbertson and Tom Randall

Bradford Mar/Daily News