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These days they line up to ride in Smith's Caddy crypt. They weave down Benedict Canyon Drive, tracing the path Richard Dreyfuss took on Oct. 10, 1982, when he hit a palm tree and flipped over his Mercedes, after which he pleaded guilty to cocaine possession. They hear the strains of Dead Man's Curve as they reach the intersection where Jan Berry, of the pop duo Jan and Dean, crashed his sports car in April 1966 and was partly paralyzed. They trace the route Montgomery Clift took the night of May 13, 1956, when he lost control of his car and slammed into a telephone pole at the bottom of the hill. The plastic surgery he endured never restored that beautiful face.
Yet Smith sees beauty in the Hollywood bestiary he has compiled. "Everybody says to me, 'Isn't it a morbid job?' and I think, God, no, working in a bank would be a morbid job. That would be death to my soul." This spring he will open a Hollywood shop to sell audio- and videotapes, Xeroxes of celebrity death certificates, T-shirts and mugs. "It's illegal," he says, "but I'd love to sell 5-lb. packets of celebrity trash. I think they'd make great gifts."
Is this marketing of death and detritus the ultimate in gruesome groupiedom? Or is it just another clue to America's fascination with its own decayed glamour? If Elvis can survive beyond the grave, why can't Greg Smith thrive in it? As he says, "The only certain things are death and taxes -- and nobody wants to see where the stars paid their taxes."
Anyway, it's a living.