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Los Angeles Memorial Park |
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Perhaps this was one of my stranger vacation excursions but after a day at Universal Studios it was the perfect way to unwind. There are a number of memorial parks in Los Angeles where you can find celebrities at their final resting place, but this one drew my attention because of Stan Laurel of Laurel & Hardy fame. My interest in Stan Laurel isn’t because of his movies, although as a child they did make me laugh, but rather because of a geographic connection as we were both raised in the same part of the world, the North East of England, so when I learned that he was buried in LA, I thought it would be nice to pay my respects to one of my country’s lost comedy greats. Other notable residents at Forest Lawn include Lucille Ball and Liberace.
The Forest Lawn Memorial Park wasn’t quite what I expected, and that was a positive thing. With all the hype around celebrity status in LA, I was expecting guided tours and big posters showing where each person’s remains were to be found. This could be true of some of the other memorial parks, but not this one. I was able to obtain a map of where to find various celebrity graves, but there wasn’t a lot of interaction, although I did find the grounds staff helpful when I was unsure about how to go about finding Stan!
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| There were a few other tourists around the Memorial Park, but they weren’t the cotton candy eating, loud talking kind that I’d encountered elsewhere in Los Angeles. Instead, despite being multi-national (judging by their languages and the flags displayed on camera bags etc), they were respectful of the fact that this was a graveyard, and talked quietly, acknowledging other sightseers with a small nod and a smile. It might have been an odd place to visit, but I’m glad I went and I’d recommend it to anyone else who feels the need to spend a couple of hours away from the general buzz of LA. |
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