Nathan Masters: So, Eric, we start a lot of our episodes in archives now.

There are no acid-free folders here, but in a certain sense, a cemetery like Forest Lawn is an archive.

Eric Avila: Absolutely.

I think in more than one sense, a gravestone is a record of a human life.

It provides data about individual lives and communities connected to a cemetery, but also a cemetery, especially like Forest Lawn, is a cultural institution that has a prominent place in L.A. history, one that generations of Angelenos have been connected to for a whole variety of reasons, not just for memorials and funerals, but also to connect with nature, to connect with art, and to connect with a landscape that is somewhat different than the typical urban experience.

Masters: It almost tries to put a cheery face on death.

Avila: It does.

And that's a very modern way of thinking about death, and also a very American way as well.

Masters: So, there's a lot to unpack here.

Avila: Definitely.

♪ Announcer: This program was made possible in part by a grant from Anne Ray Foundation A Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropy The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation and the Los Angeles Culture and Creative Recovery L.A. Masters: Forest Lawn sunk its first graves in 1906, but it wasn't until 11 years later that a man remembered simply as "the builder," Hubert Eaton, took over.

He transformed what was then called a cemetery into a memorial park and changed the business of burying the dead forever.

To learn more about this fascinating place, Eric and I met up at the Forest Lawn Archive with Museum Director and Art Historian James Fishburne.

Fishburne: Let's take a look at some brochures.

These are actually 1950s wedding and church brochures from our archival collection.

We have a brochure here for "The Little Churches of Forest Lawn."

We have 3 here at Forest Lawn, Glendale, and we have had funerals, memorials, and weddings at all of these.

Avila: And each church has its own kind of architectural theme that are distinct from each other.

Fishburne: Yes, absolutely.

They're re-creating various English and Scottish churches, often inspired by churches, rather than exact re-creations, sort of hearkening back to the late Middle Ages.

Avila: And that English and Scottish design theme tells us a little bit about who Forest Lawn was aiming to bring to the Memorial Park.

Masters: And who was that?

Avila: I think it was Midwesterners, East Coast European-Americans who have a stronger identification with that heritage than, say, Olvera Street, which speaks to the Mexican, albeit Spanish, fantasy past.

This, in a way, is kind of asserting the English, Scottish, Anglo-Saxon heritage of Los Angeles, which isn't real.

It's an invention.

Southern California in the early 20th century was a distant, remote province of a newly fashioned American empire.

It needed heritage.

It needed art.

It needed architecture.

It needed these things to make it legitimately not just American, but European-American in the Anglo-American tradition.

Fishburne: This is really a beautiful pamphlet from the mid-1950s--"The Wedding of Your Dreams."

Avila: Yes.

Fishburne: And it takes you through the entire wedding planning process, from flowers to bridal attire to celebration.

Avila: I mean, this is essentially an advertisement advertising the services of weddings and a presentation of what an ideal wedding would be within the Forest Lawn experience.

Fishburne: One of the things, you know, that set Forest Lawn apart early on was the idea of everything all in one place, having our own flower shop, our own mortuary.

Avila: It's also important to think of this as a very modern, very 20th-century model of business efficiency-- the consolidation of services and businesses within one enterprise.

Masters, voice-over: In fact, thousands of couples have wed at Forest Lawn over the decades.

Eric and I just had to learn why so many chose to exchange their vows at a cemetery.

So we met up with Sandra Zaldana and Joe Sampson, who married at Forest Lawn's Church of the Recessional in 2022 and just happen to be Forest Lawn employees.

Masters: What made you get married at a cemetery?

Zaldana: Ha ha ha!

Masters: Have you been asked that question?

Zaldana: So, we both work here, and I thought it would be very, very meaningful.

This church has a lot of history, and it's absolutely beautiful.

I love how it's architecturally been designed, also meaning to Joe because he's English and Scottish.

That was important to me to honor part of his background.

I told Joseph that we will be here until death do us apart and beyond, because we have property at Forest Lawn.

I'm not the only one that has chosen to get married at Forest Lawn.

We have had over 70,000 weddings.

Masters: It's a huge tradition.

It goes way back.

Ronald Reagan got married here.

Regis Philbin got married here.

Avila: But also, many couples get married at churches that have cemeteries next to them.

So, is this that different than that?

Masters: Every church in Europe, though, right, will have a graveyard next to it.

Avila: Exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

So, if people ask those weird questions, you can say, "Well, how many people get married in churches next to graveyards all the time?"

Sampson: Where were you, Eric?

We needed you then.

[Laughter] Avila: So, walking through this older, original section of Forest Lawn really drives home just how much Forest Lawn changed not just the idea of cemeteries, but the look of them.

Where we're standing, you can see the two different cemetery concepts.

The tombstones that we're looking at reflect very traditional 19th-, 18th-century forms of marking gravesites.

What was innovative about the Forest Lawn idea were these grave markers that were flush with the lawn.

Masters: So, you could mistake it almost for--for just a park without any burial sites.

Avila: Right, right.

That was part of the illusion to eliminate what Hubert Eaton recognized as unsightly, dismal, depressing reminders of death.

Masters: So, in the same way that this older section reminds us of how cemeteries used to look, it also reminds us of how cemeteries used to be quite exclusionary on racial and ethnic grounds.

When these gravesites were sold first, non-White people couldn't buy here.

Avila: That's true.

Changing the tombstones to these flush markings and the social composition, the connecting thread is the idea of the suburb.

Because in the early 20th century, many suburban neighborhoods were racially exclusive through either formal or informal practices.

Masters: And that was true to what, the 1960s?

Avila: Until the 1960s.

It's also important to remember the context.

Glendale, throughout most of its history, is what we know as a "sundown town"-- that if you're not White, you better leave before the sun goes down.

And that was true of many suburban neighborhoods of Southern California, of the United States in the early 20th century, in the mid-20th century as well.

Masters: But during that same time period, there were places where people of all races were admitted.

Avila: Working-class neighborhoods like Boyle Heights, which was an area that did not include the same kinds of racial restrictions that defined so many suburban neighborhoods of Los Angeles.

Masters, voice-over: Boyle Heights is home to one of L.A.'s oldest cemeteries: Evergreen.

Founded in 1877, Evergreen is a classic example of a pre-Forest Lawn cemetery, one that took its design cues not from Hubert Eaton but from cemeteries back east.

And there's no better guide to this storied place than local historian Shmuel Gonzalez.

Gonzalez: I normally make the joke "Welcome to Nevergreen Cemetery," because unless it's recently rained, we really depend on nature for this.

We still don't have irrigation in this oldest operating cemetery of Los Angeles, but it's lovely right now after the rains.

Masters: So, what was Boyle Heights like when Evergreen opened?

Avila: Well, Boyle Heights began as a wealthy suburb of downtown in the late 19th century, but by the 19-teens, it started to transition to a more working-class, immigrant, ethnically and racially diverse neighborhood.

So, when we talk about L.A. diversity, to me, Boyle Heights is kind of where that began.

Gonzalez: When that subdivision is officially on the map, it's actually a real up-and-coming community of some ranchos that are now starting to establish beautiful parks.

The cemetery is part of that.

♪ Here we're at the grave of the Lankershim-Van Nuys family.

We know those names in Los Angeles because they were influential for helping establish the areas of Hollywood in the San Fernando Valley.

In fact, they're part of the story of Hollywood, selling some of their first land to RKO, Paramount, and then later to Hollywood Forever Cemetery as we know it today, just then-- Masters: Really?

Gonzalez: Hollywood Cemetery.

Avila: These guys, Lankershim, Van Nuys, were part of that late 19th-century generation of very rich and powerful Americans who wanted to put their names in concrete forever.

Gonzalez: And trying to keep up with each other.

Masters: Keeping up with the Lankershims!

Gonzalez: Yeah, yeah.

Keeping up with the Lankershims.

Yeah.

Masters: It's interesting, though, that a lot of the names here are the connections to the early Spanish-Mexican aspect of Los Angeles, and then the American aspect that the links are in the cemetery.

Gonzalez: In fact, many of these names that we think of as American names, they came a decade prior to this becoming the United States, when this was still Mexico and there wasn't even a thought of the Mexican-American War.

Avila: Right.

Masters: Even just this burial site is a multiethnic burial site.

Gonzalez: It is.

Avila: Also cross-class as well, it would seem.

Gonzalez: Yes.

Avila: I mean, you have the rich and the powerful and famous, but I imagine in other parts of the cemetery there were ordinary folks who needed a place-- Masters: Who couldn't afford the giant obelisk.

Avila: Who couldn't afford the giant obelisk.

That's right.

Gonzalez: Yeah, well, that's what the unique thing about this cemetery is, is that it's the oldest continuously operating cemetery within our city of Los Angeles, and it's the first of the privately owned cemeteries.

Our early cemeteries are pretty much owned by the city and the Catholic Church.

So, they create a privately owned cemetery, which is a brand-new idea at the time, and it's actually frowned upon.

It's necessary, but it's not liked by the city that someone should be profiteering off of death.

And so, they do have to make an agreement with the city in order to make provisions for people who couldn't afford to be buried.

And that comes into Potter's Field.

Masters: That was the concession they made.

Gonzalez: 9 acres of land.

But the cemetery is unique, is that it's the first of our cemeteries that makes an attempt at egalitarianism by, like, allowing Black people in, allowing Jewish people in, allowing Armenian people in.

You go down the list.

Avila: You really have a glimpse of the origins of the rich diversity of Los Angeles and class differences as well.

Gonzalez: As we come this way, we're gonna pass a memorial that we have to early pioneers that are often left out in the cultural storytelling.

The only way that we knew that there was a historical old Chinese cemetery here was the presence of these two sacred burners.

Masters: When you say sacred burners, just to be clear that these were not for cremation.

Gonzalez: These were not for cremation.

And so that's important to know.

They were made for the giving of offerings.

The largely White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant people of the neighborhood at the time saw people offering these offerings up in smoke--paper money, you know, for your ancestors to be able to pay their way in the afterlife and food and drink which they loved.

They saw that as some form of paganism, and surely they were going to burn down the neighborhood.

So, what they decided to do was to give a gift to them and to build here these incinerators in which you could put your offerings, and they would be offered up in smoke through the stacks.

Masters: So, these Chinese-Americans, where were they buried?

I mean, not right here.

Gonzalez: No.

Interestingly, because they were considered heathens and such a thing, they were pretty much relegated to be buried outside of the main fences of the potter's field.

Most of us had theorized that the actual cemetery was located right in the intersection of First Street and Lorena, right in the middle of our modern neighborhood.

In 1917, as the city and county is taking more control of that land, they just want the Chinese out.

And so they are pretty much paying people to disinter the Chinese dead, and to move them as fast as possible to the furthest parts of East Los Angeles.

And they didn't capture everyone.

They did start construction in 2005 of the MTA Gold Line, and when they started excavating, they found almost 200 souls buried there.

Let me show you right over here some of these markers.

The Chinese Museum and the different groups, they were able to acquire land here inside the heart of the cemetery.

So, they're no longer outsiders of the outsiders.

Avila: So, the fact that there are markers in Chinese, English, and Spanish reflect the different cultural and language backgrounds of 19th-century Los Angeles.

Gonzalez: Absolutely.

That they're part of this story all the way through.

Masters: "Always in our hearts."

Avila: "Always in our hearts."

This one says, "Una vez olvidado ahora recordado," which means "One time forgotten, now remembered."

Masters, voice-over: Eric and I were intrigued by the story of the Chinese burials at Evergreen.

To learn more, we visited the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California and met with leaders Eugene Moy and Susan Dixon.

So, Eric and I were just at Evergreen Cemetery, and we understand that this organization, the Chinese Historical Society, is responsible for maintaining that shrine.

Dixon: We bought it.

Masters: You saved it.

Dixon: We saved it and restored it, because actually we had information that they were going to destroy it, fill it in, and bury more people there.

We jumped on board.

In Old Chinatown, when they were digging for the MTA line, they saw these Chinese artifacts, but they never notified anybody in the Chinese community, Chinese- American community, that graves had been unearthed.

We actually had somebody who was a member, she said, "I'm sending this secret e-mail to you.

This has happened."

And so we immediately, in 2006, got involved.

Masters: You heard about this from a whistleblower?

Dixon: It was--she was a whistleblower.

Masters: Wow!

Dixon: Roberta Greenwood, who was the archaeologist involved at the dig.

Masters: In the 1880s, there are these really shady business practices that are, again, are exploiting the--the local Chinese community.

120 years later, you have Metro acting in bad faith.

I mean, let's be real--in an insensitive way, really not notifying the community.

It's a very political story.

Moy: Thinking back to when the cemetery was created, 1877, that was shortly after the Chinese massacre of 1871.

The state constitution was amended to exclude Chinese from government employment.

There were other discriminatory passages in that new constitution.

Masters: So, this was just one form of discrimination that was against Chinese at that time.

Moy: Right.

But nevertheless, people had to be buried somewhere.

We have a letter from 1923, where they kind of quietly asked the Chinese community if the Chinese burials could be removed.

Masters: May I?

Moy: Oh, absolutely.

Masters: "It would be highly desirable if the bodies buried in the County Cemetery could be transferred to your new location."

Moy: The city of L.A. basically sold the land back to Evergreen, but in the meantime, there had to be some way to deal with the continuing reburial of bodies.

So the county retained about a 3.5 acre portion of the southeast corner of Evergreen Cemetery.

Masters: Mm-hmm.

Moy: And it was in that area that Metro sliced through when they did their excavation back in 2005.

That crematorium site has remained as a crematorium operation.

What they do with the ashes of unclaimed persons is they just bury it actually on the grounds.

As we were walking along the garden path, we saw these little pieces of stone lining the flower beds, and we looked at that and said, "That looks like marble.

You know, what is that?

It's got writing on it.

It's Chinese.

It's a headstone."

Masters: Wow.

Moy: We really don't know the source of those, but the crematorium caretakers had just been using these old headstones.

Masters: Using for landscaping.

Moy: They were using it as landscape edging, basically.

Masters: Wow.

Moy: We were outraged.

This is total disrespect for the people who are departed.

The community was either powerless or just didn't have the resources to fight that inequity.

So, this is what happens when you're part of the working- class-- Avila: Disadvantaged.

Moy: and the disadvantaged or an ethnic minority in L.A. Masters, voice-over: The Chinese community was right to be outraged about how their ancestors' gravesites were treated.

Unfortunately, we all too often forget the dead and where they're buried.

Across town, Hollywood Forever would seem to have the opposite problem.

Although it began as the local burial ground for the buttoned-up town of Hollywood, founded by Kansans Harvey and Daeida Wilcox, it was soon taken over by the burgeoning film industry.

Today, few cemeteries can boast more movie stars, rock idols, and film industry titans.

Masters: Right here at Hollywood Forever, you have probably the entire history of the surrounding community-- Hollywood as a geographic district documented.

Avila: Absolutely.

The cemetery started before Hollywood was Hollywood, when it was a dry town founded by migrant Midwesterners.

And then the film industries came in roughly the 1920s.

Masters: Yeah.

Avila: And for about 50 years, this cemetery served the film industry.

Masters: Well, when the film industry arrived, I mean, that was a complete 180 in terms of values, right?

Because the movie industry had this-- Avila: Right.

Masters: these libertine associations.

Avila: Right.

Masters: Not exactly what Harvey Wilcox was going for.

Avila: Not at all.

No, it went from this kind of upright, upstanding Midwestern culture--dry-- to Hollywood-- Masters: Right!

Avila: boozy crowd that was partying and everything.

But then fast-forward to the seventies, when the film industry begins to leave and this whole area falls into decline, and this cemetery absolutely reflected that decline as well, until it was kind of revived in the 1990s as new immigrant groups came into the area.

And their presence is a part of the cemetery as well.

Masters: And you can see that reflected in, you know, the names on the markers or even just the style of markers, the style of monuments.

Avila: Absolutely.

Different ethnic groups, immigrant groups, religious groups.

It all kind of comes together on this site.

Masters: So, we should talk about Paramount, because the histories of this cemetery here and the Paramount lot are intertwined.

Avila: Right.

Paramount sits on land that used to be part of the cemetery.

Hollywood Forever sold its land to Paramount Studios.

Masters: That must make this place unique among cemeteries.

Avila: Yeah.

Masters: And there is a lot of Hollywood film history to see here.

Woman: I am the tour guide at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

I've been doing this a little over 21 years.

Masters: And the main reason people take tours is to see famous people.

Woman: Well, they want to see famous people, but also, this cemetery is such an absolutely gorgeous place.

And for a place that is, of course, about death, it's also about life, about celebrating those lives.

And this is a really unique, innovative place.

We have outdoor movie screenings, indoor/outdoor concerts, yoga classes.

I think the cemetery is also a very creative space.

And you'll see by a lot of the monuments, it's not cookie-cutter.

It allows people to express themselves and their creativity, and I think that's a major draw for many people.

Masters: All right, who are some of the most famous people buried here?

Woman: Well, it kind of depends on what era you love, but we have Johnny Ramone, Rudolph Valentino, Marion Davies, Douglas Fairbanks, Burt Reynolds, Chris Cornell, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland.

We have an all-star lineup of incredible people here.

♪ Masters: Well, this is a truly impressive building.

Woman: This is the Beth Olam Mausoleum here at Hollywood Forever, and we are about to see the most notorious resident at Hollywood Forever.

This is the grave of mobster Benjamin Siegel, also known as Bugsy, although you would never say that to his face.

Masters: Didn't he have something to do with making Las Vegas what it is?

Woman: He did, he did.

He went out, and there were already casinos in Las Vegas, by the way.

But he got the idea of kicking it up a notch or two and building a super-glamorous resort called the Flamingo.

Masters: This man died nearly 80 years ago.

Woman: Right?!

Masters: People only really know about him through the history books.

Woman: Yeah, and also the film.

In the early nineties, Warren Beatty and Annette Bening made the biopic "Bugsy," got a lot of Oscar nominations.

And so I think that film kind of helped prolong the legend, perhaps.

Someone once told me that if people leave coins on his grave, it's gambling karma.

Avila: I mean, look at--these are--people have kissed.

Woman: I think in the case of the old-school mobsters, they were good-looking, they were extremely well-dressed, they were rich, they were powerful, and they were very explosive and unpredictable.

And I think some women found that very exciting.

Next, we're coming up to an area with some very, very heavy-hitters in Los Angeles history, and that would be the Chandler and the Otis families, who are largely behind the "Los Angeles Times."

Masters: I mean, if there was a ruling clan in the early 20th-century L.A., it was the Chandlers, right?

Avila: Some would say that these were the original founding fathers of modern Los Angeles.

Masters: They apparently dedicated this memorial back here to the-- Woman: The 1910 bombing of the "Los Angeles Times."

We've got the rock up here with the eagle on it, and the eagle's wings are missing.

I don't know why that is.

Masters: And that was the symbol of the "Times," right, the eagle?

Avila: Yeah.

So, the old "L.A. Times" building had an eagle perched at the very top of the building on Second and Broadway.

Masters: Most Angelenos have never heard of the 1910 "L.A. Times" bombing, but when this was dedicated in 1911, it was called "The Crime of the Century."

Now, one of the people responsible for bringing the film industry to Hollywood is this guy, Cecil B. DeMille.

Woman: Yes.

Cecil B.

De Mille was one of the great moguls and, really, founders, directors in Hollywood.

Masters: Isn't there the story about how he came out West, there were agents for the Edison Trust on his trail, and he landed in Hollywood and made one of the first feature-length Westerns out here.

Woman: Mm-hmm.

That was "The Squaw Man" in 1913.

[Smack] Man: What the heck, boy!

Masters: So, they may not be at the top of most tourist lists, but if you really want to understand L.A., you can't go wrong visiting its cemeteries.

Avila: No, I mean, thinking about places that we visited, they're an incredible record of community change over time and how different areas of the city connect with different communities that have come and gone.

Masters: All of L.A. history, right, the high points and then the low points, too-- the exclusion and the discrimination.

Avila: Sure.

The times of boom and prosperity and the times of bust.

I think cemeteries are a fascinating record of a city's history, as well as a community and a neighborhood's history as well.

Masters: So, cemeteries are obviously where we bury our dead, but I like this line you have that cemeteries are actually for the living.

Avila: I think there's a stereotype of cemeteries as dead spaces, but cemeteries are really vital connections to the history of Los Angeles, to the history of the city's communities, the history of the city's diversity.

And people use cemeteries in all kinds of different ways.

Masters: Yeah, people get married at cemeteries.

Avila: They get married in cemeteries, they watch movies in cemeteries.

Masters: That's right, and I think it's "Royal Tenenbaums" tonight.

Avila: As we're about to see, yes.

Masters: All right.

Should we go check it out?

Avila: Let's do it.

Masters: OK, cool.

Avila: It has like a total carnival atmosphere to it in the middle of one of L.A.'s oldest cemeteries.

I love it.

I think it works, it works.

Masters: It does work, it does.

[Woo woo woo woo woo] Woman: Look right into the lens for me.

Hold your pose till after the flash, OK?

Masters: No, it's deadpan.

Avila: It's meant to be deadpan, yeah.

Masters: Ha ha ha!

Ah.

Thank you.

Very cool.

Avila: Ha ha!

Woman: Yeah, we're big fans.

Masters: Oh, thank you!

Oh!

Woman: I appreciate this so much.

Thank you so much.

Masters: Thank you.

Yeah.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to have met you.

Yeah.

Woman: Spread the word about our group.

Masters: Oh.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Woman: How do I get my photo?

♪ Announcer: This program was made possible in part by a grant from Anne Ray Foundation A Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropy The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation and the Los Angeles Culture and Creative Recovery L.A.