Sherman Hemsley - Fort Bliss National Cemetery - El Paso, TX - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

Mr. Hemsley is buried in section M1, site 73, in the very southwest corner, easy to locate. For those who are unaware, the military has been very thorough about numbering the reverse of their grave markers, and one can simply look on the back as a guide to orientation. Mr. Hemsley's headstone reads:

Sherman
Alexander
Hemsley

A3C
US Air Force
Feb 1 1938
Jul 24 2012

Peace and Love
To All Mankind

Description: Wikipedia (see Web Site) provides a very nice biography (as does the IMDB), with some excerpts here: "While Hemsley was on Broadway with Purlie, Norman Lear called him in 1971 to play the recurring role of George Jefferson in his new sitcom, All in the Family. Hemsley was reluctant to leave his theatre role, but Lear told him that he would hold the role open for him. Hemsley joined the cast two years later. The characters of Hemsley and co-star Isabel Sanford were supporting occasional roles on All in the Family, but were given their own spin-off, The Jeffersons, two years after Hemsley made his debut on the sitcom. The Jeffersons proved to be one of Lear's most successful series, enjoying a run of 11 seasons through 1985. Hemsley continued to work steadily after the show's cancellation, largely typecast in George Jefferson–like roles. He teamed with the sitcom's original cast members when The Jeffersons moved to Broadway for a brief run. He later joined the cast of NBC's Amen in 1986 as Deacon Ernest Frye, a church deacon. The sitcom enjoyed a run of five seasons, ending in 1991. Hemsley then was a voice actor in the ABC live-action puppet series Dinosaurs, where he played Bradley P. Richfield, main character Earl's boss. The series ran four seasons, ending in 1994. Hemsley retired from television acting, although he and Isabel Sanford appeared together in the mid to late 1990s and in the early 2000s, reprising their roles in guest roles on such television series as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in commercials for The Gap, Old Navy and Denny's, and at dry cleaning conventions. He also starred with Sanford in a touring company of "The Real Live Jeffersons" stage show in the 1990s. He and Sanford made a cameo appearance in the film Sprung. They continued to work together on occasion until Sanford began having health problems that led to her death in 2004. In 2001, Hemsley appeared as a contestant of the Celebrity Classic TV Edition special of ABC's hit primetime quizzer Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and won $US125,000 for his charity. Personal life and death Hemsley was a shy and intensely private man, described by some as reclusive. He avoided the Hollywood limelight and little of his personal life was public knowledge beyond the facts that he never married and had no children. In 2003, however, Hemsley granted a rare video interview to the Archive of American Television. "It [playing George Jefferson] was hard for me. But he was the character. I had to do it." On July 24, 2012, Hemsley died at his home in El Paso, Texas, at age 74. The cause of death was given as superior vena cava syndrome, a complication associated with lung and bronchial carcinomas. He had had a malignant mass on one of his lungs for which chemotherapy and radiation had been recommended, according to the El Paso County Texas Medical Examiner's report." --- There was drama and legal battles after Hemsley's death, but ultimately, he was left in the right hands, and given a military funeral at Fort Bliss, given his four years in the Air Force. Date of birth: 02/01/1938 Date of death: 07/24/2012 Area of notoriety: Entertainment Marker Type: Headstone Setting: Outdoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: Sunrise to Sunset Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

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