Dia de los Muertos at Hollywood Forever Cemetery!!

Yesterday, we did the coolest, most quintessentially-LA thing I’ve ever done. More diverse than a Dodger game. More physically impressive than the Hollywood Bowl. More interesting than the Rose Parade. We went to the Day of the Dead (or Dia de los Muertos) celebration at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

First, some background . . . Hollywood Forever Cemetery (HFC) was established in 1899 as Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery and from the 1930s to the 1990s was run by a downright dastardly character who (after serving time in prison for securities-related fraud in the 1920s) basically took the money that was supposed to be held in trust for upkeep and squandered on stuff like a yacht for himself and his wife to tool around the 1960s in. By the 1980s, the State of California was on to him (way to be on top of things, California!) and barred the sale of plots. By the 1990s, the owner had died and the place was in receivership.

Enter a couple of Brad Pitt-looking brothers (check one of my photos for a fleeting glimpse of Tyler Cassity in his tux and calaveras-painted face) from a Midwestern mortuary family, who bought the place in 1998 for a mere $375,000. Of course, they had to sink literally millions of dollars into the property, just to remedy what had become a horrible state of affairs: the huge cemetery, located adjacent to Paramount Studios on Melrose and Santa Monica Boulevards, was riddled with broken/vandalized tombstones, earthquake damaged crypts, and dried up/cracked fountains. No amount of barbed wire was keeping the bad guys out of what had become a favorite hangout for hooligans of all sorts in the run-down section of Hollywood.

Long story short: the Brothers Cassity have not only cleaned the place up, but they’ve turned it into a model of what the 21^st century may look like for cemeteries, full of video display terminals playing short movies about the deceased found nearby. Many famous people are buried here, particularly old-time movie folks (most famously, Rudolph Valentino).

But the very best part is that they invite the community into the now-gorgeous grounds by having programming that is surprisingly cool. In the summertime, they do a movie series called Cinespia that is sort of like a drive-in movie except that people bring picnics and sit on the lawn while movies are projected onto the wall of a crypt. Often they will show old movies starring actors who are actually interred right there- so cool!





The greatest day ever, though, is the one night per year they open the place up for the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead for my non-Angeleno readers) celebration. The Day of the Dead is a Mexican celebration that takes place coincident with All Saints and All Souls day (November 1^st and 2^nd). It is the annual remembrance of the near and dearly departed, when offerings are made to the deceased. Traditionally this may take the shape of a favorite candy, bright orange marigolds, sugar candy skulls, and even spirits like tequila. Such a cool way to remember people, and so incredibly festive. HFC organized a contest for the best-decorated “altars,” so there were probably 100 of these thoughtful and fascinating displays. [Some of John's photos are here.]

The thing that surprised me the most about the Day of the Dead party at HFC was that it sounded like a recipe for disaster: Invite thousands of people in to a cemetery in a rough part of town, charge a mere $10, have alcohol available, provide great live music, encourage people to dress up like skeletons and other creepiness, and do it all basically in the dark. I was more than a little concerned about bringing the babies (dressed in glow-in-the-dark skeleton costumes, thank you), but the crowd (and I do mean crowd) was downright nice.

Tons of families and not a ne’er-do-well to be found. I cannot think of a time when I’ve seen a more diverse group of people: blue-haired old ladies, handsome gay men, hipsters of every stripe, Latino families, skinny people, fat people, boring people (us), cool people (dressed up). The funniest thing was that, even with the spectacle of all this craziness and so much visual overload of incongruous images, people noticed the boys non-stop!

After many hours, we sadly departed the celebration, just as I was starting to mentally process the totally surreal thing I had just experienced, LA again threw me for a loop when we were walking back to the car, past a marquis at Paramount Studios announcing we were passing the studio for . . . the Dr. Phil Show. Only in LA!