A Visit to Forest Lawn Glendale

A few days ago we paid a return visit to Forest Lawn Glendale. It's a lovely place to walk the grounds while visiting the final resting places of numerous filmmakers.

Forest Lawn Glendale is huge, at 300 acres, so although we've been several times, there are always new places to visit. For photos from past trips, please see my posts spanning visits from 2015 to 2020: A Visit to Forest Lawn Glendale, Part 1, A Visit to Forest Lawn Glendale, Part 2, A Visit to the Forest Lawn Museum, and A Visit to Forest Lawn Glendale.

We started off this visit at the gravesite of L. Frank Baum, author of THE WIZARD OF OZ and many other OZ books, which were favorites of one of our daughters when she was growing up. Of course, THE WIZARD OF OZ also inspired the classic 1939 movie.

Next we visited an area where several members of the Lane Sisters family are buried, including actress-singer Rosemary Lane.

Rosemary was married to makeup artist Bud Westmore; their first child, Belinda, did not survive. They would later have another daughter, Susan Bridget.

The Lane Sisters were born with the last name Mullican, but all but Martha, who was not in show business, adopted the last name Lane. Unlike her sisters Lola, Rosemary, and Priscilla, Leota Lane only had a very brief film career.

The sisters' mother Cora, who also adopted the name Lane, is buried with Rosemary and Leota at Forest Lawn Glendale.

Priscilla Lane is at Arlington National Cemetery with her husband, Col. Joseph Howard, and Lola Lane was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Santa Barbara, alongside her last husband, Robert M. Hanlon.

Director Roland West was the husband of Lola Lane. He was also loosely connected to the 1935 death of actress Thelma Todd, insofar as she died at the home of his ex-wife, Jewel Carmen.

Martha-Bryan Montgomery was the infant daughter of Robert Montgomery and his wife Elizabeth; she was named for her maternal aunt, actress Martha-Bryan Allen. Martha-Bryan Montgomery was only a year old when she passed away in 1931. The Montgomerys would go on to have two more children, including actress Elizabeth Montgomery, born in 1933.

Cinematographer Archie Stout was a co-Oscar winner for THE QUIET MAN (1952) along with Winton C. Hoch. He shot many other John Wayne films, from '30s "B" Westerns up through THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (1954), after which he retired.

Frank Borzage began as a silent film actor and went on to direct many special films, including LUCKY STAR (1929), HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT (1937), HIS BUTLER'S SISTER (1943), and MOONRISE (1948), to name just a few.

Also at Forest Lawn is the great director Ernst Lubitsch, who like Borzage made countless wonderful films; I wrote about some of them at the time of the UCLA Film & Television Archive's 2018 Lubitsch retrospective.  It's said that at Lubitsch's funeral Billy Wilder sighed "No more Lubitsch," to which William Wyler replied, "Worse than that -- no more Lubitsch films."

As I wrote at the time of our last visit to Forest Lawn Glendale, one often comes across well-known names purely by chance while walking around L.A. area cemeteries. Such was the case when we parked our car, and as soon as I got out I discovered the side-by-side graves of actresses Beverly Roberts...

...and Wynne Gibson. Roberts played leading lady and supporting roles at Warner Bros. throughout the second half of the '30s, while Gibson had a longer career, beginning in the late '20s. The actresses were close friends.

Actress Astrid Allwyn is in an easy-to-find spot near the Freedom Mausoleum. In films from 1931 to 1943, she was also the mother of TV actress Melinda O. Fee.

The wonderful Carole Landis appeared in films from 1936 to 1948. She died tragically in 1948, only 29 years old. She appeared in favorite films such as MOON OVER MIAMI (1941), I WAKE UP SCREAMING (1941), ORCHESTRA WIVES (1942), and SECRET COMMAND (1944). During World War II she worked hard touring military bases as an entertainer.

Constance Lupino, who was briefly in films under the name Connie Emerald, was the mother of actress-director Ida Lupino.  She's buried next to Errol Flynn and Patrice Wymore.

Actress-Dancer Patrice Wymore was Errol Flynn's last wife, outliving him by well over half a century. They're buried side by side.

I previously shared a photo of Errol Flynn's grave marker from our 2015 visit, but as I didn't share Wymore's then, I include a new photo of his marker now.

Western actor Hugh O'Brian is buried in the Court of Freedom area.

Finally, cowboy star Tom Mix is buried at the top of a steep hill:

Additional photo posts on the final resting places of historic Hollywood figures: A Visit to Forest Lawn Glendale, Part 1, A Visit to Forest Lawn Glendale, Part 2, A Visit to the Forest Lawn Museum, A Visit to Hollywood Forever Cemetery (2014), A Visit to Westwood Village Memorial Park - The Musicians, A Visit to Westwood Village Memorial Park - The Comedians, A Visit to Westwood Village Memorial Park - The Actors, A Visit to Westwood Village Memorial Park - Writers, Directors, and More, A Visit to Holy Cross Cemetery, Part 1, A Visit to Holy Cross Cemetery, Part 2, A Visit to Holy Cross Cemetery, Part 3, A Visit to Desert Memorial Park, Los Angeles National Cemetery, A Visit to Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, Part 1, A Visit to Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, Part 2, A Visit to Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, Part 3, A Visit to Forest Lawn Cathedral City, A Visit to Oakwood Memorial Park, A Visit to Hillside Memorial Park, Part 1, A Visit to Hillside Memorial Park, Part 2, A Visit to Hollywood Forever Cemetery (2019), A Visit to Woodlawn Cemetery, A Visit to Valley Oaks Memorial Park, A Visit to Valhalla Cemetery, A Visit to Pacific View Memorial Park, A Visit to Glen Haven Memorial Park, A Visit to Forest Lawn Glendale (2020), A Visit to Calvary Cemetery, A Visit to Home of Peace Memorial Park, and Visits to Sedona and Las Vegas Cemeteries.

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