Gay Playgirl Model Dirk Shafer Will Be Interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Dirk Shafer, a well-known figure in the gay community who was found dead in his car last month, will be buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

There will be a private memorial service for Shafer on April 19 that will include his parents, who live in Oklahoma. A Hollywood Forever spokesperson stressed that the service is not open to the public. WEHOville has agreed not to name the time or specific location of the service for that reason. Hollywood Forever, which lies on Santa Monica Boulevard east of West Hollywood, is where celebrities such as Rudolph Valentino, Fay Wray and Douglas Fairbanks are buried.

Shafer, a West Hollywood resident, was named Playgirl’s “Man of the Year” in 1992. Shafer directed and starred in a 1995 film called “Man of the Year” in which he gave a fictionalized account of his life as a gay man under pressure to deny his homosexuality.

Shafer made another film, “Circuit,” a look at the gay circuit party world, that won best film at the 2001 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. In recent years he has worked as a fitness trainer.

Shafer, 52, was found dead in the passenger’s seat of his car on Laurel Avenue between Fountain and Sunset on March March 5. While he appeared to have died of a heart attack, the cause of Shafer’s death remains unclear. The West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station said there was no evidence of a criminal act.