Not-So-Final Resting Places

The Godfather of soul died on Christmas Day, but he is still center stage in a family dispute over where he should be buried. As of mid- January, James Brown’s body remained in his air-conditioned South Carolina home. But Brown is in good company; his is just the latest chapter in the sordid history of celebrity burial tugs-of-war.

TED WILLIAMS When the Red Sox slugger died in 2002, his son had him cryonically preserved in Arizona. His daughter sued, saying his will called for cremation, but she lost owing to a family pact Ted had signed.

EVA PERON Argentina’s First Lady died in 1952, but after a 1955 coup her body was “lost” for 16 years–at one point hidden in an army major’s office–then sent to Spain. She was entombed, finally, in Buenos Aires in 1974.

BUFFALO BILL CODY The showman had wanted to be buried in Wyoming, but six months after his 1917 death, the owner of the Denver Post schemed to bury him at Lookout Mountain, now a tourist attraction.