Ten Strange Send-Offs

Sometimes when individual die, they leave behind unusual requests for their send-offs. For example, Arch West, creator of Doritos, asked to have Dorito chips scattered into his grave. Ten more strange send-off requests are below:

1. Frederic Baur (creator of the Pringles tube) requested that his remains be stored in, you guessed it, a Pringles tube.
2. Malcolm McLaren (the Sex Pistols’ former manager) requested his coffin be spray painted to say “too fast to live, too young to die,” asked for four black horses to bring his coffin to a deconsecrated church, and requested a “minute of mayhem” in lieu of a moment of silence.
3. Gene Roddenbery (creator of Star Trek) had his remains launched into space in 1997. His remains re-entered the atmosphere in 2002.
4. Hunter S. Thompson (the gonzo journalist) had his ashes fired from a cannon (paid for by his friend Johnny Depp) from a 150 foot tower topped with the symbol of Thompson’s journalism.
5. Tupac Shakur (rap artist) allegedly asked his rap group to mix his remains with marijuana and smoke them. The group claims to have followed Shakur’s request, but Shakur’s family says the rapper’s remains are closes guarded.
6. Eugene Shoemaker (one of three people who discovered the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet) had some of his remains sent to the moon on the Lunar Prospector in 1999.
7. Frank Sinatra had a bottle of whiskey, a Zippo lighter, and ten dimes included in his coffin. The ten dimes, it’s reported, were for any emergency phone class.
8. The wife of Brian Tandy (a geologist) had her husband’s remains turned into three synthetic canary yellow diamonds for her and their two daughters.
9. Elizabeth Taylor, a fan of being fashionably late, stipulated that she wanted her funeral services to begin fifteen minutes after the scheduled time.
10. Sandra West (a Beverly Hill’s socialite) left a hand written request to be buried in a lacy nightgown, while sitting in the front seat of her blue Ferrari.

See Kate Dailey, 10 Surprising Final Send-Offs, BBC News Magazine, Sep. 27, 2011.

Special thanks to Susan N. Gary (Orlando J. and Marian H. Hollis Professor of Law, University of Oregon School of Law) for bringing this to my attention.