The American Way of Death Revisited - Jessica Mitford [59]
* This article first appeared in the Funeral Monitor, March 25, 1996. Reprinted with permission.
9
Shroudland Revisited
Nothing in Los Angeles gives me a finer thrill than Forest Lawn…. The followers of a triumphant Master should sleep in grounds more lovely than those where they have lived—a park so beautiful that it seems a bit above the level of this world, a first step up toward Heaven.
—BRUCE BARTON,
quoted in Art Guide to Forest Lawn
Forest Lawn Memorial-Park of Southern California is the greatest nonprofit cemetery of them all; and without a doubt its creator—Hubert Eaton, the Dreamer, the Builder, inventor of the Memorial Impulse—is the anointed regent of cemetery operators. He has probably had more influence on trends in the modern cemetery industry than any other human being. Mrs. Adela Rogers St. Johns, his official biographer, sees Forest Lawn as “the lengthened shadow of one man’s genius.” Even as she was writing those words, that long shadow was creeping over much of the cemetery land in the territorial United States; today it spans oceans, extending to Hawaii and even to Australia.
The Dreamer and his brainchild are already known to tens of thousands of readers through The Loved One, by Evelyn Waugh—to whom Mortuary Management refers as “Evelyn (Bites-The-Hand-That-Feeds-Him) Waugh.” If there are skeptics who think that Mr. Waugh may have been guilty of exaggeration, a visit to Forest Lawn should set their minds at rest.
I was among the one and a half million who passed through the entrance gates one year; the guidebook says they are the largest in the world, twice as wide and five feet higher than the ones at Buckingham Palace; and (presumably to warn anyone rash enough to try hefting one) adds that each weighs five thousand pounds.
It is all there, just as Mr. Waugh has described it, although in the intervening years since The Loved One was written, there have been many additions, so the overall impression is that today it far transcends his description.
There are the churches, ranging from wee to great, the Wee Kirk o’ the Heather incongruously furnished with wall-to-wall carpeting, the Great Mausoleum Columbarium, primarily patriotic in theme, with its Memorial Court of Honor, Hall of History, Freedom Mausoleum, and Court of Patriots. “Does one have to be a citizen or sign a loyalty oath to get into the Hall of Patriots?” I asked a guide. “No, ma’am!” was the answer. “Anyone can be buried there, as long as he’s got the money to pay for it.” (This is not strictly true; Forest Lawn refused convicted rapist Caryl Chessman’s last remains “on moral grounds.”)
There are statues, tons of them, some designed to tug at the heartstrings: Little Duck Mother, Little Pals, Look, Mommy!, others with a different appeal—partially draped Venuses, seminude Enchantresses, the reproduction of Michelangelo’s David, to which Forest Lawn has affixed a fig leaf, giving it a surprisingly indecent appearance.
A 1996 visit to Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale confirmed the extraordinary stability and vigor of the business.
There has been no change in style. The Dreamer has been put to rest in the Court of Honor, but the vulgarity of his Dream is being maintained with a sure and faithful hand—shooting-gallery statuary, gift shop, Wee Kirk o’ the Heather. Changes are in terms of scale only. There are now five Forest Lawns in Southern California where once there stood one—Hollywood Hills, Cypress, Covina Hills, and Forest Lawn-Long Beach, “formerly Forest Lawn-Sunnyside,” complete the roster.
Forest Lawn’s “life size replica” of Michelangelo’s David was toppled from its pedestal and demolished, fig leaf and all, in the Sylmar earthquake of 1971. Another replica, sans fig leaf, installed a decade later fared no better. David was removed when ladies’ groups took