Tag Archives: Angelus Rosedale Cemetery

My Cemetery Work Crosses over into Fiction

When I’m not writing about cemeteries as travel destinations, I am a novelist. Whenever I can, I work cemeteries into my ficiton.

In the Nineties, just as I was beginning to explore cemeteries, I collaborated with Brian Thomas to write an epic love story between an angel and a succubus. As part of our location scouting for the books, Brian took me to cemeteries all around Los Angeles.

The first cemetery we visited was, of course, Forest Lawn. Brian lived in Glendale at the time, so Forest Lawn was practically in his neighborhood.

As we developed the story, I wrote some chapters and Brian wrote others. One of the pieces he wrote was about the angel Azaziel meeting a teenage runaway named Ashleigh amidst the statuary at Forest Lawn. Further into the story, Brian returned to Forest Lawn and particularly to the stained glass Last Supper window for a wonderful scene where the fallen priest Joseph regains his faith.

My Cemetery of the Week listing for Forest Lawn is here: https://cemeterytravel.com/2011/05/04/cemetery-of-the-week-14-the-original-forest-lawn/

Marilyn’s lipstick-stained marble niche in Westwood Village Memorial Park

I’ve written about exploring Westwood Village Memorial Park in the dark on Cemetery Travel before. When I was revising the second book in the angel/succubus series in 2019, I realized that Lorelei and Azaziel needed a place to have their first real date, so I wrote Westwood into Angelus Rose.

The Cemetery of the Week listing for Westwood is here: https://cemeterytravel.com/2012/10/31/cemetery-of-the-week-82-pierce-brothers-westwood-village-memorial-park/

In that same revision, I found a place to work the cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels into the book, too. When Brian and I initially wrote the books, the cathedral was still under construction. All these years later, when the books were finally being completed, it felt weird that the cathedral — such an important part of the religious life of Los Angeles — didn’t appear in our story. I revised the scene where the high school choirs perform for all the angels in the city and set the concert in the courtyard at the cathedral. I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

The Cemetery of the Week listing for Our Lady of the Angels is here: https://cemeterytravel.com/2021/03/26/cemetery-of-the-week-173-the-crypt-of-our-lady-of-the-angels/

Angels in Angelus Rosedale, Los Angeles California

Once we imagined the trajectory of Lorelei and Azaziel’s love story, Brian knew where the books had to end.  He took me time and time again to explore Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery. The angels, palms, family tombs, chapel, and columbarium all appear in the book Angelus Rose, although they end up worse for wear.

The Cemetery of the Week listing for Angelus Rosedale Cemetery is here: https://cemeterytravel.com/2012/02/15/cemetery-of-the-week-51-angelus-rosedale-cemetery/

If I’ve piqued your curiosity about our angel/succubus love story, it’s available in paperback, ebooks, or as an ebook set of both books.

Here are the links for Lost Angels:

Here are the links for Angelus Rose:

Or you can pick up both books in one ebook set at https://amzn.to/31L5U1G.

 

 

 

Cemetery of the Week #51: Angelus Rosedale Cemetery

Angels in Angelus Rosedale

Angelus Rosedale Cemetery
1831 West Washington Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90007
Telephone: (323) 734-3155
Email: info@angelusrosedalecemetery.com
Founded: June 9, 1884
Size: 65 acres
Number of interments: An estimated 100,000
Open: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily

In 1884, when Los Angeles was a small city of under 30,000 people, Rosedale Cemetery was founded on 65 acres of land facing Washington Boulevard between Normandie Avenue and Walton and Catalina Streets.

Designed as a lawn cemetery with beautiful trees and flowering shrubs, Rosedale now has mostly upright headstones, interspersed by some beautiful sculptures and family mausoleums. The cemetery also sports several pyramid crypts, including one for George Shatto, who first developed Catalina Island as a resort.

America’s first crematory west of the Rocky Mountains — and only the second crematory in the country — opened at Rosedale in 1887. By 1913, it had already performed almost 2400 cremations.

Rosedale was the first cemetery in Los Angeles to accept all races and creeds. Among those buried there is Hattie McDaniel, the first Black woman ever to sing on the radio. While her cinematic career spanned over 300 movies, she is best remembered for playing Scarlett’s Mammy in Gone with the Wind — a role that earned her the distinction of becoming the first African-American recipient of an Academy Award.

Ms. McDaniel’s last wish had been to be buried at Hollywood Memorial Cemetery amongst the glittering stars of Hollywood. Because of the color of her skin, she was rejected. Her very modest headstone lies near the gates of Angelus Rosedale. (Hollywood Forever put up a cenotaph to her memory in 1999. The story is here.)

Other permanent residents include Tod Browning, director of the Bela Lugosi version of Dracula; Eliza Donner Houghton, who survived the Donner Party’s winter in the Sierras at the age of 3 and went on to marry a Congressman; Maria Rasputin, daughter of the mad Russian monk; Harry Kellar, a stage magician whose performances influenced Houdini; various Los Angeles pioneers, as well as mayors, governors, and politicians; and Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American movie star. She appeared in Douglas Fairbanks’s Thief of Baghdad and with Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express.

The Angelus Funeral Home on Crenshaw purchased the graveyard in 1993. At that time, it was renamed Angelus Rosedale Cemetery.

Palms at Angelus Rosedale

With its photogenic lines of palm trees, Angelus Rosedale has appeared in the Clive Barker film Lord of Illusions, Nightmare on Elm Street 4: the Dream Master and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, as well as many episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, and Six Feet Under.

Every autumn, the West Adams Heritage Association presents a cemetery tour featuring costumed actors speaking as people buried in the cemetery. Each tour is different. Watch for this year’s tour here.

Useful links:

Angelus Rosedale website

Lots of historical information

Google Maps virtual tour

Books I’ve reviewed that reference Angelus Rosedale:

Permanent Californians

Laid to Rest in California

Other graveyards of the Hollywood stars on Cemetery Travel:

Cemetery of the Week #5: Hollywood Forever

Cemetery of the Week #14: the Original Forest Lawn

Cemetery of the Week #40: Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery

Cemetery of the Week #45: Hillside Memorial Park

 

Graves of the Stars

Permanent Californians: An Illustrated Guide to the Cemeteries of CaliforniaPermanent Californians: An Illustrated Guide to the Cemeteries of California by Judi Culbertson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

From Fatty Arbuckle to Daryl Zanuck, many of the legends of Hollywood can be found between these covers. The rough maps guide you to the cemeteries of the stars, but once inside, directions can be a bit vague. (This is true of all the “Permanent Citizens” series, which were published before the advent of GPS.) Leave yourself lots of time to wander.

Unlike most of the other books in this series, this one doesn’t limit itself to a single city — which is, perhaps, much of its trouble. Permanent Californians covers two enormous Forest Lawns (Glendale and Hollywood Hills), along with Westwood (where Marilyn is buried), Holy Cross (last address of Bela Lugosi), and Hollywood Forever (back when it was still called Hollywood Memorial Park), before moving north to Colma, San Francisco, Oakland, a handful of Mission cemeteries, and some miscellaneous graves (Jack London, Luther Burbank, John Muir). There’s too much ground here to cover in depth. Despite that, the book is a whole lot more helpful than asking the officials at Forest Lawn where you can leave flowers for Walt Disney.

Unfortunately out of print and expensive when you can find it, this book truly is a bible, especially if you’re living in Los Angeles. Copies occasionally turn up on Amazon: Permanent Californians: An Illustrated Guide to the Cemeteries of California

View all my reviews

This review initially appeared in Morbid Curiosity #5.