Hollywood Forever Cemetery
A working cemetery where the Paramount lot next door was once burial ground, and summer crowds now watch movies among the headstones.
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Founded in 1899 on 100 acres, Hollywood Forever sold 40 of those acres to Paramount Pictures and RKO by 1920 — the studio immediately to the south literally grew out of the cemetery. It still operates as a full-service burial site while running live music and outdoor film screenings open to the public, collapsing a century of industry and civic history into a single block on Santa Monica Boulevard.
What to look for
- The Paramount Pictures lot at the south end of the block — those 40 acres were part of the original cemetery grounds sold off by 1920
- Beth Olam Cemetery within the grounds, a dedicated Jewish burial area set aside for the local Jewish community
- The history of Hattie McDaniel, first African American to win an Academy Award, who wished to be buried here but was turned away by segregation at her death in 1952
6000 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood; check the cemetery's public calendar for summer movie screenings and live music events before you go.
Hollywood Forever Cemetery is one of 33 sights worth the detour in Los Angeles, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Los Angeles pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Los Angeles
- Hollywood Walk of Fame2,850 names pressed into pink terrazzo underfoot — actors, inventors, fictional characters, all at six-foot intervals for 1.3 miles.
- Dolby TheatreThe red carpet runs up these stairs every awards season — where Hollywood officially crowns its year.
- SoFi StadiumA million-square-foot canopy embedded with 27,000 LED pucks bright enough to be seen from planes descending into LAX.
- Hollywood SignA 1923 real-estate billboard that refused to come down — and ended up owning the word "Hollywood" itself.
- U.S. Bank TowerLA sold the sky above a fire-gutted library to fund its own rebuilding — and got its second-tallest tower in the bargain.
- Rose BowlA century-old sunken oval where the 1994 World Cup Final was settled — and the 2028 Olympics will return to do it again.