Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale, California)

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Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, is a private cemetery and the original flagship of Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks & Mortuaries, a chain of cemeteries in Southern California. Founded in 1906 as a not-for-profit cemetery by businessmen from San Francisco, it later grew under Hubert Eaton, who in 1917 introduced the “memorial-park” idea: park-like grounds with no upright grave markers, abundant trees, gardens, fountains, sculptures, and grand architecture to reflect a joyful view of life after death.

The park covers about 300 acres and has more than 250,000 graves and interments.

Key features and highlights:
- The Great Mausoleum: begun in 1917 and completed over several decades, with 11 terraces and more than 100 stained-glass windows.
- Memorial Court of Honor: marble replicas of Michelangelo sculptures and a large Last Supper stained-glass window.
- Court of David: a tall bronze replica of Michelangelo’s David (the first installed in 1939; later replacements followed after seismic events; a new bronze statue was installed in 2021).
- Court of Freedom: a long open space with a giant mosaic of John Trumbull’s Signing of the Declaration of Independence, made from Venetian glass and flanked by The Republic and a George Washington statue.
- Hall of Crucifixion-Resurrection: houses Jan Styka’s monumental painting The Crucifixion.
- Notable chapels: Wee Kirk o’ the Heather, Little Church of the Flowers, and Church of the Recessional, each with distinctive designs and histories.
- The architecture and art include Gothic touches, grand stained glass, and large-scale sculpture displays.

Forest Lawn also operates the Forest Lawn Museum, opened in 1952 near the Hall of Crucifixion-Resurrection. The museum hosts rotating art exhibitions and preserves a collection of sculptures and stained glass, including pieces from William Randolph Hearst. A famed painting in the collection is Song of the Angels by Bouguereau, which was restored in 2005 at the Getty Center.

The cemetery is the final resting place of many well-known people, including Walt Disney, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Michael Jackson, and Elizabeth Taylor. Its early history includes a period when access was limited for some groups due to racial segregation.