Cemetery of the Stars

Jill's Journal: It’s been a hoot running all over the greater Los Angeles area seeing former homes of family members. We’ve also visited several cemeteries to sort of document deceased relatives for the girls in case they’re interested someday. And I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but we have visited one cemetery just for “fun.” Yes, we went to see Marilyn Monroe’s gravesite. Happily, we weren’t alone – numerous other tourists were doing the same thing.

Almost completely hidden by tall buildings in the Westwood Village area of L.A. is a tiny, two-acre cemetery called the Pierce Bros. Westwood Village Memorial Park. It’s better known as the “cemetery of the stars.” There’s been famous people buried at all the other cemeteries we’ve visited here in L.A., but the concentration of celebrities at Pierce Bros. is mind-boggling. Other than Marilyn Monroe, who is obviously the biggest attraction here, the other graves I snapped pictures of below were ones we just happened to walk past on our way to or from Monroe’s. Apparently we missed a lot too: later we learned others like Natalie Wood, Truman Capote, Donna Reed, Peter Falk, Burt Lancaster, Frank Zappa, Janet Leigh, Walter Matthau, Roy Orbison, and a host of others are here as well.

Note the lipstick kisses on the crypt.

Look how discolored Monroe’s crypt is, apparently from so many people touching it over the last 50 years. And see that empty spot right next to her? That’s where Hugh Hefner will rest someday.

The inscription on Rodney Dangerfield’s grave cracked us up: “There goes the neighborhood.”

Mel Torme.

Fanny Brice.

Farrah Fawcett.

Jack Lemmon.

Dean Martin.

Merv Griffin must have had a sense of humor: "I will not be right back after this message.”

Don Knotts.

Carroll O’Connor.

We had no idea who Billy Wilder was, but I loved his sentiment: “I’m a writer but then nobody’s perfect.” It turns out he had won Academy Awards as writer, director, and producer. Among the movies he wrote were Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, The Seven Year Itch, and Sabrina. He may not have been perfect, but he was awfully successful.