Hollywood Forever Cemetery
A trip to Los Angeles is all about movies and stars - from the Hollywood sign to the pavement directory of personalities along the Walk of Fame, and Rodeo Drive, where camouflaged celluloid celebs go into retail action. Since September 11, it's been impossible to see them in their natural habitat by taking a tour around Paramount Studios, but for a glimpse of the stars of movies past, go next door to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. On one side of the wall, stars are created; on the other, they're cremated.
A cemetery might seem an unlikely tourist site, but Tyler Cassity, 34, and his brother, Brent - the inspiration for television series Six Feet Under - have created a peaceful and pleasant place in this unashamedly go-getting city. Banish notions of trekking around Bronte-inspired, windswept graves covered in dead leaves. Instead, think immaculately manicured lawns with shiny headstones and imposing mausoleums beneath a smattering of palm trees waving under the bluest sky. After all, this is California.
The brothers own seven cemeteries in the Forever Network. Inspired by a tape they found of their late grandmother, they set up a business creating video biographies so other people could be remembered in the same way. They've now emerged at the forefront of the so-called death- care industry.
But life, or rather death, wasn't always so rosy. Former owner Jules Roth was allegedly given the cemetery as payback for a fall he took for gangster Bugsy Siegel. By the time the Hollywood Memorial Park, as it was then called, was up for sale in 1998, he was bankrupt and the place was a mess, with waist-high weeds surrounding crumbling, vandalised monuments. Tyler came to the rescue, although Brent was convinced they were taking on a turkey.
Today, a stroll around the grounds, with its 80,000-plus souls, is like a journey through time, featuring as it does many of Hollywood's once hottest, now somewhat cooler, personalities.
Douglas Fairbanks and son, Jayne Mansfield, Cecil B. De Mille, Peter Lorre and many other stars rest here. Rudolph Valentino, the first male sex symbol of the movies, remains a firm favourite, despite, or perhaps because of, his modest memorial - a result of dying penniless. 'I like Joan Hackett,' says Tyler. 'Her marker says, 'Go away, I'm sleeping'.'
There are more stars and celebrities to be noted along the immaculately manicured Pathway of Remembrance, through the newly renovated Abbey of the Psalms, the Historic Columbarium and Clark Island Mausoleum - the likes of Hollywood mogul Harry Cohen, Charlie Chaplin's mother, Hannah, and 20s sex symbol Barbara La Marr.
Tyler says he can't choose whether to end up in one of his forthcoming, eco-friendly green cemeteries, with biodegradable coffins and native boulders in place of headstones, or be interred on an island in the lake at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery ... under a statue of Narcissus gazing at his reflection in the water.
For now, the cemetery provides a tranquil retreat for him and its legion of visitors. It's the one place in Hollywood where you can rest in peace without the inconvenience of being dead.
