I made my first trip to Hollywood. This trip was a long time coming given the amount of research and work I’ve done on Old Hollywood. You read, watch, hear, imagine a place…. a time period, part of land,…that when you actually visit it….the history reaches a different sense of clarity. It’s feels surreal to focus so much on the history of a place, and then finally see it in contemporary context. You thus see what’s left, and what now exists. Hollywood is such a small part of land..and what remains is even smaller.
I was lucky enough to stay in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which in itself is living history….and in my eyes, one of the most fabulous combinations of historic updated with modern amenities. If I was to be a rich fabulous hotel-living zillionaire, this would be my joint.
The other really powerful part of my trip was visiting was finally visiting Westwood Memorial Park, where Marilyn Monroe is buried. To say that I have done a bit of Marilyn research is a vast understatement. For someone so famous, it’s surprising how vague the text, conversation, and interpretations of her life are. Visiting where her remains lie seemed a necessary piece of the puzzle.
The visit was surreal, to say the least. The cemetery where she is interred is surprisingly small, and surprisingly hard to find…nestled behind a busy road and sky scrapers. You wouldn’t expect that the place that holds that holds so many famous remains (Jack Lemmon, Natalie Wood, Billy Wilder, John Cassevetes, Truman Capote, Farrah Fawcett, Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Bettie Page….you get the idea) could be so incredibly small and hart to find. These people are engrained our cultural conscientiousness, but the physical resting place of their bodies are incredibly easy to unknowingly pass by, even if you are specifically looking for them. We must have driven around it 3 times.
Aerial View of Pierce Brothers/Westwood Memorial Park
Once you find Westwood Memorial, it’s doesn’t look all that different from an ordinary small graveyard. The most striking difference may be the amount of variety of graves and markers for such a small space. There are rows of crypts, your typical run down headstones, slick fresh headstones, markers embedded in the ground that you nearly trip over, and of course the fancy more secluded areas complete with custom landscaping. There’s also your single graveyard road that makes a loop through the whole graveyard, although it seems counterintuitive given how tiny yet epic this graveyard is.
I went to Westwood Memorial with my father. He parked the rental car on the side of the graveyard road just as we had done in years past when visiting deceased members of our family in their resting palces. This is the first time I have been to a graveyard with my father that wasn’t for the purpose of visiting family members. Instead of going to the family plot, my dad took out his who’s who’s map of the graveyard that he had downloaded from the internet, and I bee-lined for Marilyn….feeling a bit odd about walking past so many recognizable dead.
A Latino man was at Marilyn’s crypt, probably not too much older than I. He saw me see him and I stepped away to let him have his moment. There was a mutual understanding and respect between us. We both knew that this woman had enough of an impact on our lives to lead us to visit her hard-to-find grave…and to want to sit with her by ourselves. He left and I walked over somewhat overwhelmed. I didn’t want to hog Marilyn, but also didn’t want to share her. I didn’t know how long I would have her to myself for before someone stopped by to either say that they’ve seen her grave, or to also have a private moment with her.
The flower holders on her crypt had wilted lilies in them and made me wish I had brought fresh flowers. Her crypt is permanently tinted pink as a result of all the lipstick kisses given that wont wash off. It is fittingly the only pink crypt in the cemetery. I felt I had to leave something for her so I went back to the car, grabbed my rarely-worn-lipstick and went back to the bench by her crypt. I put on the lipstick, sat there for a moment, and then kissed her crypt. As I left a gust of wind came and my dress blew up. It was a windy day while I am not one for superstition it clearly was very appropriate. Even in death, the woman creates a deeper, and more powerful experience than one would expect. I am glad, touch, honored, and inspired to have ‘met’ Marilyn….someone I have not only never met, I have never lived in her lifetime…yet…..there is something to be said for visiting the grave of someone we have never met. Like any other grave the person is no longer with us, but unlike a grave of someone familiar…we have an entire culture and history to figure out who this person was instead of a limited history via family and direct interaction. Sometimes…..we just need to visit someone we never knew to feel thankful for our own existences, and the impact they left behind. It was a pleasure, and privilege, to have ‘met’ you Marilyn.
