OnTheGround: Under and Above The Stars

First published April 17, 2003

By C. W. Oberleitner

Summer's back, at least in Southern California, and so are outdoor events that take place at venues other than theme parks. Our own DizBiz and OTG correspondent C. W. Oberleitner begins an occasional series of fun things to do in and around L.A. besides riding rides, eating churros and having your picture taken with a cartoon character.

Sunset Mausoleum

In Billy Wilder's classic 1950 film Sunset Boulevard Gloria Swanson as long forgotten silent film star Norma Desmond turns to struggling hack writer Joe Gillis, played by William Holden, and laments the passing of the silent era greats.

They took the idols and smashed them, the Fairbankses, the Gilberts, the Valentinos! And who've we got now? Some nobodies!

Little could Miss Swanson have realized while making Sunset Boulevard that one day those words would echo into the night just scant yards away from both Fairbanks' and Valentino's final resting places.

Saturday April 12, Sunset Boulevard kicked off the 2003 Outdoor Cinema Series of Cinespia, a non-profit film society dedicated to bringing together film enthusiasts in Los Angeles. Cinespia's outdoor cinema series is held at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The films are projected on one of the alabaster white walls of the cemetery's Court of The Apostles mausoleum.

The audience for Sunset Boulevard spread out in an open meadow immediately adjacent to the Court of The Apostles mausoleum. Just to the audience's left is the magnificent marble tomb of the very same Douglas Fairbanks to whom Norma refers in the film. Some sixty feet behind the wall the film is projected on stands the Cathedral Mausoleum. The Cathedral Mausoleum is the final resting place of Rodolfo Alfonzo Guglielmi (Valentino).

There are still more eerie parallels between the film and the site of Saturday's showing. Paramount Pictures and legendary Paramount director Cecil B. DeMille play integral parts in the Sunset Boulevard story. Hollywood Forever Cemetery's south boundary is the Paramount Studios lot. As the film unfolds the audience had only to gaze to their right to see the shops and backs of some of the very buildings being used as locations in the film.

In one scene Norma Desmond returns to Paramount for a meeting with DeMille. Oddly enough Mr. DeMille's final resting place is about a hundred yards away on a grassy knoll. It overlooks Paramount Pictures, the studio he helped to create.

Sunset Boulevard was a wonderful choice to kick off Cinespia's 2003 season. The screenplay by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett was considered such a scathing assault on the film industry's view of itself that it was kept "under wraps" even as the film went into production.

Watching the film some fifty-three years later in the heart of Hollywood with an audience of film fans it's easy to see how little the film industry has changed over the intervening years. The night air was filled with giddy and sometimes knowingly nervous laughter when in scene after scene the struggling Gillis comes face to face with the realities of the business end of the "picture business."

Through Gillis' eyes we see how quickly and easily even the talented and gifted can become just so much grist for a mill that must turn out picture after picture, month after month, year after year.

At the other end of the spectrum is Norma a living ghost. Once the most sought after woman in the world she haunts her palatial Sunset Boulevard estate surrounded by the trappings of wealth. With the exception of her manservant -- played by notorious silent film director Erich von Stroheim -- she is virtually alone, quite miserable and very depressed. Her only desire is to return to the pinnacle of her lost fame.

The Cinespia Outdoor Cinema Series runs twice a month on Saturday evenings throughout the summer at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Film buffs arrive early to stake out a good spot, picnic, sip wine and chat with friends in the shadow of the Hollywood Hills and world famous Hollywood sign. Almost everyone who arrives before the film spends some time walking among the tombstones and monuments of the famous and not so famous.

To learn more about Cinespia, the cinema series and the history of Billy Wilder's homage to the Hollywood system, Sunset Boulevard, visit cinespia.org.

Where Hollywood Weeps

Like so much else in Southern California the Hollywood Forever Cemetery started out as something quite different. It was once a wheat field. In 1899 one hundred acres of that wheat field became the Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery. Later, twenty acres was sold off to become the Paramount Studios and RKO Pictures film lots.

Despite being the final resting place of some of the most famous names in the film industry and Los Angeles public life Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery fell on hard times. For years it suffered from neglect until it was purchased in 1998 by Forever Enterprises and became the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

The new owners take great pride in Hollywood Forever's charming grounds, magnificent monuments and unique place in LA history. You don't have to wait for a movie to experience that history for yourself. The Hollywood Forever Cemetery is open daily for self-guided, group or private tours.

You can stroll among tombstones and monuments, walk the lavish grounds and visit the final resting places of Hollywood's once famous elite. Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer and Darla Hood of Little Rascals fame are there. Writer, director, actor John Huston, actress Jayne Mansfield and the original voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd, Mel Blanc all share space here with Las Vegas and organized crime kingpin, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.

Hollywood Forever Cemetery is located in the heart of Hollywood at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard about eight blocks West of the highway 101-The Hollywood Freeway. For a complete listing of the significant sights at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and biographies of some of its most famous inhabitants visit their website Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

C'ya real soon!