Hollywood Park Cemetery
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Hollywood Forever Cemetery
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Entrance of Hollywood Forever
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| Location | 6000 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood |
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| Coordinates | 34°5′19″N 118°19′8″W / 34.08861°N 118.31889°WCoordinates: 34°5′19″N 118°19′8″W / 34.08861°N 118.31889°W |
| Area | 62 acres (25 ha) |
| Architect | multiple |
| Architectural style | Exotic Revival, Classical Revival, et al. |
| NRHP reference # | 99000550 |
| Added to NRHP | May 14, 1999 |
Hollywood Forever Cemetery, originally named Hollywood Cemetery, is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles. It is located at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. Paramount Studios is located at the south end of the same block on 40 acres which were once part of the cemetery, but held no interments.
Those in the graves, crypts, niches, and sarcophagi at the cemetery include culturally significant people as well as celebrities, including iconic actors, directors, writers, etc. from the entertainment industry. People who played vital roles in shaping Los Angeles are interred throughout the property. The cemetery is active and regularly hosts community events, including music and summer movie screenings. In 2011, the cemetery acted as co-production company for the American silent movie Silent Life based on the story of the Hollywood idol Rudolph Valentino, who is famously entombed there in what was originally a borrowed crypt.
The cemetery, the only one actually in Hollywood, was founded in 1899 on 100 acres (0.40 km2) and called "Hollywood Cemetery" by F. W. Samuelson and one (first name needed) Lombard were in 1897 the owners of a 60-acre tract of land near Hollywood in Los Angeles county. In that year, they, with Mrs. M. W. Gardner of Santa Monica, Joseph D. Rodford, Gilbert Smith, and Thomas R. Wallace, formed a corporation known as the “Hollywood Cemetery Association. The cemetery sold off large tracts to Paramount Studios, which, with RKO Studios, bought 40 acres (160,000 m2) by 1920. Part of the remaining land was set aside for the Beth Olam Cemetery, a dedicated Jewish burial ground for members of the local Jewish community.
In 1939, Jules Roth, a convicted felon and millionaire, bought a 51% stake in the cemetery, the interment site of his parents. He used the money from the cemetery's operations to pay for personal luxuries and the cemetery, by then known as Hollywood Memorial Park, started to show signs of neglect and disrepair starting in the 1990s.
In 1952, despite her expressed wish, Roth would not allow the actress Hattie McDaniel, best known for her role of Mammy in the movie Gone with the Wind, for which she became the first African American to win an Academy Award, to be buried at Hollywood Memorial Park. At the time of her death, Hollywood Memorial, like other cemeteries, was segregated (the cemetery was desegregated in 1959). On the 47th anniversary of McDaniel's death, the cemetery's current owner dedicated a cenotaph in her honor at a prime location south of Sylvan Lake.
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Wikipedia