For the 42nd year, the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles “digs up the dirt” on Hollywood history - including a few scandals - via a living history walking tour of the 126-year-old Hollywood Forever Cemetery at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard. Visit the gravesites of early Hollywood stars, movie moguls, and the pioneers who shaped Los Angeles, to hear fascinating tales about their lives (both their accomplishments and misdeeds) from historians and living history performances.
Featured on the tour are those who mapped Hollywood---including Col. Griffith J. Griffith and Hollywood founder Harvey Wilcox---and those who put Hollywood on the map: silent film swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks, heartthrob Rudolph Valentino, the first African American Oscar Winner Hattie McDaniel (Best Supporting Actress, GONE WITH THE WIND), actress and William Randolph Hearst mistress Marion Davies, filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille, screen siren Barbara La Marr, slain director William Desmond Taylor, and over twenty other legendary Los Angelenos (including one dog!).
Tours will commence every 20 minutes, rain or shine, between 9:00 and 11:00 AM. Please note that the time 9:00 AM will show on your ticket because it is the start time of the full event, HOWEVER your actual selected tour time will also appear on your ticket.
TICKETS:
$20 for ADSLA members (tickets at the door are $25 cash if available)
$30 general admission (tickets at the door are $35 cash if available)
All online tickets are subject to processing fees. Please note that when you click “Buy Tickets” on the ticket sales page, it pops up with five different departure times even though the main time displayed says 9:00 AM. Choose your time.
Ticket holders will check in off a list at the door. If the tour is not sold out in advance, tickets will be available at the door, CASH ONLY. Exact change will be applauded!
No Refunds. Tickets can be sold or gifted to a friend. Email us with the friends name or transfer the ticket via your Agile account.
This information is subject to change, so watch this space:
Guided walking tours will depart (rain or shine) from the parking lot behind the Cathedral Mausoleum (follow the main road, Dr. Stanley & Regina Aizin Drive, through the front gate around to the southeast corner of the cemetery) every 20 minutes, from 9:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. Tours are approximately 3-hours.
Comfortable walking shoes (tour goers will be walking on uneven, grassy terrain), water, hats and sunscreen are recommended.
Parking and check-in are at the parking lot behind the Cathedral Mausoleum. Parking is free.
We bring in a very posh portable restroom just for this tour. It sits at the edge of the parking lot. Please use it! It is there for you and did we mention that it is very posh?
FAQ
The tour is mostly outdoors, but it culminates in the cemetery’s Cathedral Mausoleum. Comfortable walking shoes (tour goers will be walking on uneven, grassy terrain), water, hats and sunscreen are recommended.
You may take photos on the tour. ADSLA and/or performers hold all rights to the content of the tour and strictly prohibits recording audio or video of the tour content. This includes docents speaking or performing. All photos and video taken are for private use only. Any other use must be cleared with Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
The cemetery prohibts Halloween horror/scary or morbid type costumes out of respect to mourners who may be in the cemetery during our tour. Halloween flourishes such as bat shaped earrings or a t-shirt with a pumpkin on it, would be considered acceptable.
Tickets will be scanned (please bring your ticket on your phone or a print out) or we will check you in off a list at the door. If we are not sold out before the tours begin, tickets will be available at the door, CASH ONLY. Exact change will be applauded! You can also purchase online on our website on the day of the event. You must bring proof of purchase on your phone if you buy same day tickets. You will not appear on our list.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
Tourgoers are asked to please take care not to go near any funeral services that may be in progress; allow mourners their space, speak quietly, and refrain from photographing mourners. Kindly avoid touching or standing on headstones or monuments, as doing so might cause damage. Restrooms are located in the parking lot behind the Cathedral Mausoleum.
We are required to bring in a deluxe portable restroom, so please use it! It will be in the same parking lot where you arrive and check-in.
We generally film and photograph our tours. If you do not wish to be filmed, just let the videographer know.
Our check in area is in the far southeast corner of the back parking lot. The photo collage above shows you some “landmarks” you will see on your path to get to the back parking lot. You will start at the entrance and proceed straight ahead until you see the obelisk (and Paramount water tower). You will veer left. You will see the large white wall of the mausoleum on your right and a hedge on the left. Then you will come to the back of a mausoleum where you will find us.