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Hollywood Forever Cemetery movie screenings
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Mel Blanc's tombstone (from wikipedia)
Hollywood Forever Cemetery, formerly Hollywood Memorial Park, is the final resting place for many film luminaries, and it’s also a unique place to watch movies on Saturday and Sunday nights in the summer. Where some communities have “Shakespeare in the Park,” Hollywood has “Movies in the Cemetery.”
Founded in 1899, some of the stars interred at Hollywood Forever date back to the days of silent movies, including Florence Lawrence (1886-1938) who’s known as “The First Movie Star.” Do the names Rudolph Valentino, Fay Wray or Douglas Fairbanks ring a bell? How about Tyrone Power? Cecil B. DeMille, perhaps? There are definitely some big names on the Hollywood Forever tombstones, but Mel Blanc (who you may remember as the voice of Bugs Bunny) deserves the “Cleverest Tombstone” award.
The park’s former owner mismanaged its endowment funds, which led to many years of decline. Things deteriorated so badly, in fact, that the State of California eventually forbade the sale of plots there, and families were actually digging up and moving their loved ones to other locations. In 1997, following that former owner’s death, a young man, Tyler Cassity, partnered with his brother and bought the park for a mere $375,000. They were the only bidders, actually. Several million dollars and lots of blood, sweat and tears later, Hollywood Forever has been restored to its former grandeur.
The Hollywood Forever summer movie events began in 2002, when the Cinespia (chin-eh-SPEE-uh) organization founded by L.A. set designer John Wyatt needed a larger venue in which to screen movies to its handful of movie-buff-diehards. Over the years, the screenings evolved into their present status as guests-of-thousands, see-and-be-seen, full-on Hollywood Happening events.
Armed with picnic baskets, coolers and beach chairs, folks line up early to snag prime spots from which to watch classic mid-century films and cult favorites projected on the wall of Valentino’s white-marble mausoleum. DJ’s are on hand to entertain until sunset, and if you’re not creeped out by the venue’s dead-people aspect, it can be a lot fun.
Hollywood Forever Cemetery is located at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard, between Gower Street and Van Ness Avenue, near the rear of the Paramount Studios lot. Visit cinespia.org for more information about the movie screenings, or you can visit the Hollywood Forever site to learn more about this beautiful and unique historical cemetery.
The slideshow below contains some interesting Hollywood Forever photographs. The first five are the work of vmiramontes from flickr and the last five are from Alan Lite's flickr photostream. All are Creative Commons licensed for commercial use.
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