When you dedicate your life to making people laugh, it only makes sense that you’d want that laughter to continue after your death. Surprisingly, though, not every comedian picks a funny epitaph for themselves. In fact, most of their graves don’t give you any indication that they were funny people at all. Let’s take a look at a few comics whose headstones were inscribed with something appropriately humorous.
6. GILBERT GOTTFRIED
Given his knack for making jokes about tragedies shortly after they occurred, it’s a safe bet that Gilbert Gottfried’s work will forever be associated with the phrase “too soon.” Fittingly, those two words would end up on his tombstone following his death in 2022.
5. JACK LEMMON
In his decades-long career, Grumpy Old Men star Jack Lemmon worked on more than 60 films. It should come as no surprise, then, that his final resting place would reflect that in some way; his inscription simply reads, “Jack Lemmon in”—like the opening credits to one of his movies.
4. SPIKE MILLIGAN
Goon Show alum Spike Milligan made it clear in his lifetime that he wanted his epitaph to be “I told you I was ill.” His local diocese wouldn’t allow it, so as a compromise, his relatives went with the Gaelic translation—“Dúirt mé leat go mé breoite”—instead.
3. JOE E. ROSS
Best known for his roles on Car 54, Where Are You?, and The Phil Silvers Show, Joe E. Ross also developed a reputation for being vulgar off-screen. Evidently, he wanted to carry that reputation with him into the afterlife, as his grave marker was inscribed with the pun “This man had a ball.”
2. LESLIE NIELSEN
Airplane! star Leslie Nielsen had a good sense of humor about his death. His funeral was billed as a cocktail party, and his headstone was later engraved with the words “Let ‘er rip”—a nod to his appreciation for fart jokes.
1. RODNEY DANGERFIELD
The day Rodney Dangerfield died in 2004, his website’s random Joke of the Day coincidentally was the following: “I tell ya I get no respect from anyone. I bought a cemetery plot. The guy said, ‘There goes the neighborhood.’” Upon learning that, his wife, Joan, thought it was only proper to use “There goes the neighborhood” as his epitaph.
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