Cemetery tours - a who's who of Hollywood

The location is right out of central casting - the Hollywood sign on the nearby hills can be seen between the crypts. There is no southern wall of the Memorial Park - the graves back up right to the workshops and sound stages of Paramount Studios.

Hollywood Forever has a split personality. It's still an operating cemetery - on the day of my visit the lanes were filled with cars parked for a funeral. But Hollywood Forever celebrates its permanent residents. In the flower shop, an attendant sells maps of the cemetery's main attractions, with top celebrity grave spots marked with stars.

It's a new role for Hollywood's oldest cemetery, which dates back to 1899. Along with Hollywood alumni, Hollywood Forever is the final resting place of early city power brokers like the Los Angeles Times' Otis and Chandler families.

Prior to Marilyn, the most famous celebrity grave was undoubtedly the crypt of silent-screen heartthrob Rudolph Valentino, star of "The Sheik" and other sword-and-sandal epics. Thousands have filed past the silver-screen shrine, including the mysterious "lady in black," who made annual visits on the anniversary of the star's death.

Johnny Ramone, "legendary guitarist for the Ramones" as the tombstone is inscribed, arrived in 2004. The New York punk pioneer (whose real name was John Cummings) is shown playing guitar, the black rock block inscribed with salutations from famous friends.

"Forever here today, never gone tomorrow, my eternal friend, I love you," wrote Lisa Marie Presley.

Nearby is a more abstract black rock monument for bandmate Douglas Colvin (aka Dee Dee Ramone), who died in 2002. His epitaph: "OK ... I gotta go now."

The Los Angeles area's most famous cemetery is as fan-frosty as Hollywood Forever Cemetery is fan-friendly. The sprawling 300-acre Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale hosts the remains or memorials of dozens of classic Hollywood names: Bogart, Stewart, Harlow, Gable, Flynn.

But celebrity grave spotters aren't embraced. No map. No directions.

I was looking for the garden with Walt Disney's grave, marked by a little mermaid, when a security guard pulled up and politely said the park was closing.

Driving down the twisting lane that led out into the crush of L.A. traffic, I recognized a connection between the two most visited graves along my route. Marilyn and Valentino had followed the old Hollywood maxim.

Live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse.

If you go:

GETTING THERE: To the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park at 1218 Glendon Ave. in Los Angeles, take Interstate 405 north, exit Wilshire Boulevard and turn right on Glendon Avenue. To Hollywood Forever at 6000 Santa Monica Blvd. in Los Angeles, take Highway 101 north and exit Santa Monica Boulevard. To Forest Lawn Memorial Park at 1712 S. Glendale Ave. in Glendale, Calif., take the California Route 2 Freeway north, exit left onto San Fernando Road and turn right on South Glendale Avenue.

GENERAL INFORMATION: Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park (310) 474-1579; Hollywood Forever Cemetery (323) 469-1181; Forest Lawn Memorial Park (800) 204-3131

ON THE NET: http://www.beneathlosangeles.com/ ; http://www.hollywoodforever.com/ ; http://www.forestlawn.com/visitors_guide/memorial_parks/glendale/

MORE FROM U.S. & CANADA

U.S. & Canada Section Front

TV tours a big attraction for N.Y. tourists America’s most attractive people America’s favorite cities Which Hawaii is right for you? Twilight-themed restaurant for Washington town Uncle Remus museum still grapples with race Explore Savannah’s squares, parks and homes Winter Olympics 2010 trip guide Top 13 most scary U.S. haunted attractions Park service to take on Clinton’s first home U.S. & Canada Section Front   Add U.S. & Canada headlines to your news reader: