By the time of JFK’s inauguration, Humphrey Bogart, Carole Lombard, Jean Harlow and Errol Flynn had already joined the ranks of celebrities interred across Forest Lawn – Glendale’s 300 rolling acres; Rudolph Valentino, Tyrone Power and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. were among the leading men buried within the 62-acre confines of Hollywood Memorial Park (since renamed and immortalized in song as Hollywood Forever Cemetery).
Situated on a mere 2.5 square acres adjacent to the UCLA campus, Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary is minuscule by comparison. Begun as a graveyard for workers and ranchers in the 19th century, when the area was still part of a sprawling Mexican land grant, Pierce Brothers was officially opened in 1905. As the 1960s dawned, its prospects as a future final resting place for the famous still seemed beyond remote. A visitor in January 1961 could inspect every crypt and stone in the cemetery, and probably the most recognizable name they’d come across was that of Clyde Van Dusen — best known for training the winning horse at the 1929 Kentucky Derby (who also happened to be named Clyde Van Dusen).
Take a photographic stroll through the famed cemetery here:
When Marilyn Monroe died of an overdose in August 1962, her ex-husband Joe DiMaggio bought her a space in Crypt 24 along Westwood Memorial’s Corridor of Memories. Dozens of deceased celebrities followed. Today, the earthly remains of hardboiled movie stars like James Coburn, Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas keep company at Westwood Memorial with those of Oscar nominees Natalie Wood and Janet Leigh, as well as 1970s TV icons Carroll O’Connor, Peter Falk and Farrah Fawcett. Famed residents from the music world Buddy Rich, Peggy Lee, Mel Tormé and Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys are interred here, along with literary lions like Ray Bradbury, Truman Capote and historians Will and Ariel Durant.
Yet despite Westwood Memorial’s sky-high celebrity quotient, there’s an understated calm that prevails as you stroll its tiny grounds. You’ll see no statuary on the scale of Forest Lawn – Glendale’s full-size replicas of Michaelangelo’s David and Moses; no 120-foot reflecting pool to grace the tomb of a silent movie star; no private, neoclassical mausoleum set apart on its own artificial island, as at Hollywood Forever. The phalanx of high-rise buildings to the north on Wilshire Boulevard only makes the cemetery seem all the more intimate — a refuge from L.A.’s ceaseless development.
Enjoy a virtual walking tour of Westwood’s historic places.
There’s no shortage of wit among the tombstones of Westwood Memorial’s renowned. I’m a writer, but then, nobody’s perfect, reads director Billy Wilder’s marker. Merv Griffin, talk show host and Jeopardy creator, left the parting words, I will not be back after this message; and Rodney Dangerfield’s stone sums up his residency this way: There goes the neighborhood.
Perhaps the two most profound statements at Westwood Memorial were made by Oscar-winning actor George C. Scott and musician Frank Zappa. Though both were larger-than-life personalities, they both chose to be buried in unmarked graves — final feats of modesty in Westwood’s most unlikely gathering place for the famous.
Read more from UCLA Magazine’s Spring 2025 issue.
