Harold Washington. Ernie Banks. Al Capone. George Pullman. Everyone knows they are buried in Chicago, and where. Their lives and achievements are part of the city’s history. Here are some well-known characters, however, that you may be surprised to learn that they rest forever in Chicago or one of its suburbs. Many of them made their names outside of Chicago – Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Robert Reed played a TV dad in Hollywood – but a connection to the city brought them back to home forever.

Mike todd

Beth Aaron Cemetery, Forest Park

Hollywood producer Mike Todd was Elizabeth Taylor’s third husband – and the only one she did not divorce. He died in a plane crash in 1958, prompting the gossip to comment: “How strange God is to take Mike Todd.” Todd was born Avrom Goldbogen and raised on the Northwest Side, where his father was a rabbi of an Orthodox Jewish congregation. The first film he produced, Around the world in 80 days, won the Oscar for best film. A year later he was dead, leaving a widow and a toddler daughter. In 1977, grave robbers broke into Todd’s coffin and removed his charred remains, which had been stuffed into a plastic bag. A few days later, according to a Chicago magazine story, they were discovered “under a pile of branches, leaves and dirt” by future private detective to the stars Anthony Pellicano.

Jack Ruby

Westlawn Cemetery, Norridge

Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer was born Jacob Rubenstein near Maxwell Street, where he started his association with organized crime, skipping school to sell horse racing tip sheets. Ruby moved to Dallas in 1947 to engage in pimping. There he operated a series of shady nightclubs where he made his customers drink alcohol and chicks. After his death from cancer in 1967 while awaiting a second trial for shooting Oswald, his body was sent home.

Robert reed

Memorial Park Cemetery, Skokie

Robert Reed’s gravestone simply reads, “Good night, sweet prince. Reed, who grew up in Highland Park as John Robert Rietz Jr., was a dedicated Shakespearean actor and teacher. Much to his dismay, this is not how he remembers. He is remembered as prototypical sitcom father Mike Brady, prototypical family sitcom star The Brady Group. Reed was so distressed by The Brady GroupIt’s stupidity that he drank off the set and wrote angry memos to producer Sherwood Schwartz, demanding that the scripts be rewritten to make the show more realistic. “If Bob had bombed Hamlet, he would have blamed the bad writing,” Schwartz later said. Unlike his role on television as paterfamilias, Reed was gay. He died in 1992 at age 59 from colon cancer, with complications from HIV.

Eddie Gaedel

Sainte-Marie Catholic Cemetery, Evergreen Park

Standing 3 feet 7 inches tall, Garfield Ridge native Eddie Gaedel was the shortest man to ever play in Major League Baseball. St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck sent Gaedel to the plaque on August 19, 1951, numbered ⅛, as a publicity stunt. Gaedel walked four fields, was pulled out for a pinch runner, then banned from baseball. Gaedel next appeared on a baseball field in 1959, when Veeck owned the White Sox. Dressed as a Martian, he was brought down to the pitch from a helicopter, where he abducted shortstop Luis Aparicio and second baseman Nellie Fox. Gaedel died two years later at the age of 36 after being beaten up in a Chicago bowling alley or on his way home, possibly following a drunken argument. His killers have never been identified.

Stephen A. Douglas

Douglas Tomb State Historic Site, Chicago

It’s not the fact that Douglas is buried in Chicago that is surprising: he lived here when he represented Illinois in the Senate, and his Illinois Central Railroad Act made the city the nation’s rail hub. That’s the pharaonic nature of his memorial, the grandest in Illinois – even more so than that of his former rival, Abraham Lincoln. Douglas is buried in a 96-foot-high column at the end of 35th Street at the site of his estate, Oakenwald. On either side is a frieze depicting pioneer life in the state. Around every corner are statues of women, labeled Eloquence, Justice, History, and Illinois. At the top is a statue of the Little Giant. After the statue and portrait of Douglas were removed from the state capital due to his views on race and slavery, three South Side state officials offered to remove the column, while leaving the crypt in place. However, she is not on the list of 41 statues of Mayor Lori Lightfoot to review for, among other things, “promoting white supremacy.”

Clara peller

Waldheim Cemetery, Forest Park

Peller’s gravestone describes her as a “beloved wife, mother, grandmother and talented actress”. The world didn’t discover Peller’s acting talent until she was 81, when she was cast in a 1984 commercial for Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers, as one of three little old ladies who examine a competitor’s burger and find it lacks meat. Peller’s reply consisted of only three words: “Where’s the beef?” – but she uttered it with such irritated indignation that it became a national slogan. Walter Mondale used it in a presidential debate to criticize the lack of detail in Gary Hart’s proposals. Wendy’s sales increased by a third. Peller, a resident of Hyde Park, had only three years to enjoy her fame, who died in 1987 at the age of 85.

Ignaz Schwinn

Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago

Ignaz Schwinn’s last name is known the world over; his first name, not so much. Schwinn was apprenticed to a bicycle maker in his native Germany, but moved to Chicago in 1891 to take advantage of the bicycle craze in the United States. In 1895, Schwinn founded Arnold Schwinn & Co. with funder Adolph Arnold and made it the world’s largest bicycle company, a brand virtually synonymous with its product. Schwinn closed its Chicago operations in the 1980s due to workforce issues and declining market share. It is now owned by Pacific Cycle and holds only 2% of the bicycle market share. Ignaz will still be there, however.

Jack johnson

Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

The heavyweight boxing champion is buried with his first wife, Etta Duryea Johnson, who committed suicide a year after their marriage began while the couple lived in what a newspaper described as “a lavish home on Wabash Avenue “. There is a gravestone marked simply “Johnson” in the graveyard, intended to be the boxer’s resting place, but Johnson is not buried there; he is buried at the foot of Etta’s tomb located elsewhere on the ground. Johnson died in a car crash in North Carolina in 1946 at the age of 68 as he angrily walked away from a separate restaurant that refused to serve him.

Death Sahl

Unknown location

The comedian once joked that “I made arrangements with my executor to be buried in Chicago because when I die I want to stay politically active.” Sahl died on October 26 at his home in California. The disposition of his remains is unknown.