People & Places

Comments (0) BEST STARGAZING - 2009

Calvary Cemetery; Home of Peace Memorial Park

Calvary Cemetery; Home of Peace Memorial Park

4201 Whittier Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90023

323-261-3106

Map & Details>>

While late greats from Hollywood and L.A. rest in cemeteries spread throughout the county (notably at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and Forest Lawn Memorial Park), for a taste of the red-carpet Golden Age, a trip to East L.A. and the 136-acre Catholic Calvary Cemetery is necessary, along with a visit across the street to its smaller, Jewish counterpart, the Home of Peace Memorial Park. Calvary's majestic, Ross Montgomery–designed mausoleum is home to L.A.'s old Catholic elite (the Doheny family has a gated crypt located off the main aisle, near oil man Harry Sinclair and his family), as well as the Barrymore acting clan, Lou Costello (sans Bud Abbott), and early film vamp Pola Negri. Silent-screen legend Raymond Novarro and jazz great Jelly Roll Morton are buried outside. Calvary's rolling fairways are also the final resting place of local Catholic gypsies, whose graves are marked by wine bottles. Home of Peace is less noteworthy architecturally than Calvary, but offers more shade and is packed with such show-business greats as Fanny Brice (she's inside the main mausoleum, among the book-shaped urns), Curly and Shemp Howard of Three Stooges fame, movie moguls Louis B. Mayer and Carl Laemmle and, most memorably, the Warner Brothers, Jack, Harry and Sam, who are interred in separate family crypts. Legend has it that Jack, the last surviving brother, asked for his crypt to be located as far from his brothers' as possible. Calvary Cemetery, 4201 Whittier Blvd., Boyle Heights. (323) 261-3106, Mon.-Sun., 8 a.m.-6 p.m. (5 p.m. when time changes). Home of Peace Memorial Park, 4334 Whittier Blvd., Boyle Heights. (323) 261-6135, Sun.-Fri., 9 a.m.-4 p.m. (Closed Sat.)

—Steven Mikulan

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4 comments
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friday vendredi
friday vendredi

Fanny Brice was originally interred there but her daughter moved her over to Westwood someyears ago.

Harry Martin
Harry Martin

The Moorish-style mausoleum at Home of Peace is actually pretty cool, but Calvary's is mega-Hollywood impressive.

Steve Goldstein
Steve Goldstein

Nice article, two of my favorite places, but Fanny Brice was moved out of Home of Peace about 10 years ago, relocated to Westwood.

Gloria
Gloria

Ramon Novarro. And how could you forget Mabel Normand?

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