Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren Vogelbon.
Speaker 1: Here in Glendale, California's Forest Lawn Memorial Park, there are
Speaker 1: plaques scattered throughout that detail its creator's vision. When doctor
Speaker 1: Hubert Eaton took over the three hundred acres FO one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy hectors in nineteen seventeen, he installed a
Speaker 1: massive stone tablet engraved with what he called the Builder's
Speaker 1: Dream and the Builder's creed. It speaks of a quote,
Speaker 1: a great park devoid of misshapen monuments and other signs
Speaker 1: of earthly death, but filled with towering trees, sweeping lawns,
Speaker 1: splashing fountains, beautiful statuary, and memorial architecture. The plaques are
Speaker 1: all signed the builder. Before the article of this episode
Speaker 1: is based on how Stuffworks. Spoke with James Fishburne, PhD,
Speaker 1: Director of the Forest Lawn Museum. He said, that's how
Speaker 1: we refer to Eton the builder. It's very grand. You
Speaker 1: get that grand sense when you visit. There are rolling hills,
Speaker 1: studding landscapes, mountain views, and you can see the ocean
Speaker 1: in the distance. And then the art collection is also
Speaker 1: very grand. Forest Lawn is a cemetery, but it's not
Speaker 1: like any burial place before it. While more than three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people are buried there, including some of America's
Speaker 1: most famous names, it also boasts gardens, churches, a huge mausoleum,
Speaker 1: and an art museum. It's lively enough that over sixty
Speaker 1: thousand people have actually gotten married there. Fishburne said it
Speaker 1: was designed quote so it didn't feel like a place
Speaker 1: of death and decay, but rather a celebration of life,
Speaker 1: a place you would want to visit today. There are
Speaker 1: six Forest Lawn Memorial Park locations in southern California, but
Speaker 1: the original is in Glendale. From the beginning, the art
Speaker 1: has been a major draw a. Fishburne said, one of
Speaker 1: the early ideas was to sort of recreate what the
Speaker 1: Grand Tour used to be. If you were very wealthy,
Speaker 1: you could go to Europe and travel all over and
Speaker 1: view amazing cathedrals and sculptures and paintings. To bring that
Speaker 1: to Southern California in a time when international travel was
Speaker 1: prohibitively expensive and time consuming, and when there were relatively
Speaker 1: few publicly accessible art collections in Southern California. The museum
Speaker 1: houses original art and replicas of famous works, including one
Speaker 1: of the largest replica collections of Michelangelo. There's even a
Speaker 1: reproduction of his famous statue of David that stands seventeen
Speaker 1: feet tall that's about five point two meters, which is
Speaker 1: the same grand size as the original. They built an
Speaker 1: entire building to house another piece in their collection. The
Speaker 1: largest painting in the West during the United States, Jonstka's
Speaker 1: The Crucifixion, which is one hundred and ninety five feet
Speaker 1: wide and forty five feet tall. That's about sixty by
Speaker 1: fourteen meters. That's more than twice as wide as an
Speaker 1: Imax movie screen and nearly as tall. European cemeteries evolved
Speaker 1: over the centuries alongside different periods of art and religion
Speaker 1: and thought about death. In the United States, the largest
Speaker 1: cemeteries on the East Coast were established in the early
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds and thus were tied to the conventions of
Speaker 1: those times. But when Forest Lawn began on the outskirts
Speaker 1: of the growing city of Los Angeles, Eton and the
Speaker 1: founders could rethink those conventions and they got the timing
Speaker 1: just right to be a new cultural center. Fishburne said,
Speaker 1: when Forest Lawn was established over a century ago, it
Speaker 1: was immediately between two population centers. It's located between Pasadena,
Speaker 1: which was already booming in the early twentieth century, and
Speaker 1: downtown Los Angeles. A few years after we opened, the
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Aqueduct was constructed, and there was just a
Speaker 1: population boom. At the same time, the film industry was
Speaker 1: exploding in southern California and movie stars needed a final
Speaker 1: resting place. Forest Lawn is the burial place of celebrities
Speaker 1: like Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, Nat King, Cole Clark Gable,
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson, Will Rogers, and Elizabeth Taylor, just to name
Speaker 1: a few. But don't expect to see a list of
Speaker 1: who's who, or rather who's where a Forest Lawn employees. No,
Speaker 1: people come to see the famous graves, but they won't
Speaker 1: help you find them. Fishburne said, we try to respect
Speaker 1: the privacy of the families that we serve, so we
Speaker 1: don't do celebrity grave tours. We don't advertise X, Y
Speaker 1: and Z are buried here. Many of the final resting
Speaker 1: places of celebrities are openly accessible to the public and
Speaker 1: people are welcome to come visit them. Others are in
Speaker 1: locked gardens or in private areas. A Walt Disney is
Speaker 1: also buried in Forest Lawn, but that's not the only
Speaker 1: connection between him and this memorial park. A. Forest Lawn's
Speaker 1: tutor inspired architectural style extends through its many burial sections,
Speaker 1: which have names like Eventide, Graceland, Inspiration Slope, Sweet Memories,
Speaker 1: Whispering Pines, and Dawn of Tomorrow. There's also a heart
Speaker 1: shaped area called Babyland for infant burials and Slumberland for
Speaker 1: children and adolescents. It's reminiscent in many ways of the
Speaker 1: different areas and esthetics of Disney's nearby amusement park. Fishburne said,
Speaker 1: Eton and Disney ran in some of the same circles,
Speaker 1: and Forest Lawn and Disneyland share the zeitgeist of the
Speaker 1: early and mid twentieth century, the sort of storybook style
Speaker 1: that you see in a lot of early Disney movies
Speaker 1: and in Disneyland. Forest Lawn is sometimes called the Disneyland
Speaker 1: of Saries, but Fishburne sets the record straight quote forest
Speaker 1: Lawn was founded first. We like to joke that actually
Speaker 1: Disneyland is the amusement park of Forest Lawn's. Ultimately, as
Speaker 1: with all cemeteries, it's a place as much if not
Speaker 1: more for the living than for the dead. Fishburne said,
Speaker 1: when you visit on the day of a family member's funeral,
Speaker 1: that's obviously going to be a very intense and very
Speaker 1: sad moment. But we want you to be able to
Speaker 1: come back time and again, bring friends and family and
Speaker 1: celebrate that person, and celebrate Southern California and celebrate life.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article inside LA's Forest
Speaker 1: Lawn where the biggest celebrities rest in Peace on how
Speaker 1: stuffworks dot Com, written by Kate Morgan. Brainstuff is production
Speaker 1: of Byheartradio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and
Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler klang A. For more podcast It's
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