Hollywood Forever: Culture, Celebrity, and the Cemetery
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Hollywood Forever: Culture, Celebrity, and the Cemetery by Linda Levitt A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Co-Major Professor: Mark A. Neumann, Ph.D. Co-Major Professor: Marcyrose Chvasta, Ph.D. Janna Jones, Ph.D. Michael LeVan, Ph.D. Louis Marcus, M.F.A. Gilbert B. Rodman, Ph.D. Date of Approval: March 28, 2008 Keywords: commemoration, fandom, cultural memory, popular culture, Cinespia, Dia de los Muertos © Copyright 2008, Linda Levitt Acknowledgements I am grateful for the extraordinary support of a group of people who helped see this dissertation to fruition. Mark Neumann has been an exceptional mentor who embraced this project with enthusiasm. His expertise and interests inform so many aspects of my research, and I am indebted to him for his kindness and support. Marcy Chvasta’s thoughtful consideration and constant encouragement for this project have been invaluable. I am grateful for both her wisdom and her friendship. Gil Rodman willingly shared his knowledge and way of seeing the complexity in seemingly straightforward answers. Janna Jones generously helped me in the transformation from student to scholar and encouraged me personally and intellectually. Through countless casual conversations, Michael LeVan made me a better scholar and writer. Lou Marcus showed me the complex emotional relationships we have with the visual world. I am indebted to my community of fellow students at the University of South Florida, in particular Wendy Adams, Chris Carden, Tony Adams, Liz Edgecomb, Jillian Tullis Owen, and Laura Bergeron. I extend my gratitude to Scott Michaels and Mike Szymanski, who were both kind of enough to share their knowledge and love of Hollywood Forever on personal tours of the cemetery. Ilene Fischer generously considered my offbeat questions through each phase of this project. I thank my parents, Lois and Norman Levitt, for their constant encouragement. Julie Levitt-Guren, Alexei Guren, Lisa and Matt Gainsley, and Matt Klein each contributed their advice, stories, and resources to the success of this project. I thank Kiffin McGinnis, a true Ramones fan, for understanding the obsessive aspects of research and for his interest in Hollywood Forever. Finally, I am grateful to my husband, Greg Smith, for his patience and support. Table of Contents Abstract iii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Situating the Cemetery 4 The Cultural Life of Death 6 Cemetery Screenings 12 Inviting Back the Dead 15 Talking It Over: Methods 17 Telling the Story: Preview of Chapters 20 Notes 25 Chapter 2: From Gardens to Gloom, Toward Grandeur 26 Sites of Cultural Memory 37 Cemetery Tours and Walks: Expanding the Tradition 47 Technology and the Cemetery 50 Notes 58 Chapter 3: The Celebrity Cemetery 60 “We Never Forget” 63 Celebrity, Situated 79 Emulating the Other 89 The Cemetery as Tourist Attraction 95 Notes 106 Chapter 4: On the Mausoleum Wall 108 Creating a Sense of Place 111 Cinespia, Nostalgia, and the Drive-in 126 What We Watch 132 Beyond Cinespia 143 Notes 151 Chapter 5: Skeletons, Marigolds, and Sugar Skulls 153 Inspiring the Creatives 159 Honoring the Family 171 Celebrating Community 177 Evoking the Political and Social 182 Cultural Crossings 187 Notes 194 i Chapter 6: Transforming Forever 195 Life (and Death) Online 201 Where Kitsch is Cool 202 Notes 205 Works Cited 206 About the Author End Page ii Hollywood Forever: Culture, Celebrity, and the Cemetery Linda Levitt ABSTRACT As the final resting place of celebrities and notable public figures such as Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Jr., Janet Gaynor, Mel Blanc, and Barbara La Marr, Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles has long served as a tourist attraction and a site of public memory. The touristic visit or pilgrimage to the cemetery can be, like the visit to a sanctioned memorial, a means of stitching oneself into the cultural past. This dissertation considers the articulation and performance of commemoration in contemporary culture, specifically situated at Hollywood Forever. I examine how the cemetery leverages its rich resources from the past to generate new collective experiences and attitudes in the present. Through the outdoor film series Cinespia, a communitywide Dia de los Muertos celebration, performances of Shakespearean plays, and annual memorial services and commemorative events in honor of celebrities interred there, Hollywood Forever invites visitors to use the cemetery as social space. Combining ethnographic research with cultural analysis, I consider how the public interacts with Hollywood Forever. This dissertation looks at the influence of celebrity culture, how shared experience in a unique iii setting can create a meaningful sense of place, and how the past is appropriated for purposes in the present. In examining the rituals and performances surrounding celebrity fan culture at the cemetery, I consider how fandom creates a sense of community that is deeply connected to the physical space of Hollywood Forever. Using the space of the cemetery for entertainment and leisure has the potential to change perceptions of the cemetery, as uneasiness with the setting fades and visitors become comfortable and enjoy their experience. As Hollywood Forever functions as a space that can provide both solitude and community, perceptions of the cemetery change in the process. iv Chapter 1 Introduction The burgeoning field of memory studies engages the social construction of memory in various guises, from consideration of the relationship between memory and history to the impact of and response to built memorials. Monuments and memorials, scattered across the built landscape, are the subject of study in an era in which our culture is driven to record, monumentalize, and historicize. This dissertation looks closely at the ways in which sites of memory can be used to connect ourselves to history and to cultural memory. Specifically, this dissertation focuses on Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, California, the final resting place of celebrities like Rudolph Valentino, Mel Blanc, and Marion Davies, along with thousands of “ordinary” Angelenos. Like cemeteries, sanctioned memorials redefine public space for commemorative practices. Some places, like the Flamme de Liberté monument near the Alma Tunnel where Lady Diana died, become significant sites of memory without being sanctioned memorials. The Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed on the balcony, was not marked as an officially sanctioned site until 1991, when the motel became home to the National Civil Rights Museum. Other sites serve as the destination for pilgrimages on the anniversaries of celebrity deaths; examples include Jim Morrison’s grave in Père 1 Lachaise cemetery in Paris, and Dealey Plaza, the site of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. These gatherings are not official, organized, or scripted events but rather mark the gesture of publicly acknowledging a cultural loss by situating oneself at a site of tragedy. The gravesite of Rudolph Valentino is the location of several memorial practices. Best-known among these events is the visit of a mysterious woman, dressed in black, who for years left roses at Valentino’s grave on the anniversary of his death. Fans, film stars, and friends also make an annual pilgrimage for a memorial service at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Valentino’s final resting place. Situated at Hollywood Forever, this project considers memorialization and cultural memory while also looking closely at the articulation and performance of commemoration in contemporary culture. Cemeteries are more significantly sites of personal or individual memory than cultural memory, yet Hollywood Forever, by virtue of who is buried there, becomes a site of cultural memory as well. As sociologist Eviatar Zerubavel points out, cultural memory is “more than just an aggregate of individuals’ personal memories” but rather comprises what a group, culture, or nation “collectively considers historically eventful” (28, emphasis original). Unlike most cemeteries, but similar to many sanctioned memorials, Hollywood Forever is a tourist attraction. As the final resting place of many celebrities, visitors are drawn to the cemetery to remember people they did not know but feel connected to through their stardom. Like a site of tragedy, the celebrity cemetery enables a sense of proximity for the visitor who can get closer to the famous person, if only by virtue of his or her material remains. 2 This dissertation considers how the touristic visit or pilgrimage to the cemetery can be, like the visit to a sanctioned memorial, a means of stitching oneself into the cultural past. Spending time at a historic site, contemplating its landscape, and listening to its stories can be a powerful means of determining one’s place in relation to the past. Our experience of significant events, spanning from the Super Bowl to September 11, is increasingly mediated. Although we are at a physical distance from these events, they have emotional affect and social relevance, and help shape our sense of the world. Because of the need to get closer, to see, touch, and hear what we know only through mediated experiences, we are often drawn to visit the sites of events that we experienced virtually. This sense of presence carries over to the cemetery as well: regardless of the commemorative acts one might perform to mark the anniversary of the death or birthday of a loved one, or even a beloved celebrity, there is no substitute for being present at that person’s grave.1 At sites of tragic events, many visitors experience a sense of connection by leaving remembrances or participating in other acts of commemoration. At Hollywood Forever, the centuries-old tradition of leaving flowers at a gravesite is expanded to include a variety of material markers and acts of commemoration that are addressed in this dissertation. Hollywood Forever leverages its rich resources from the past to generate new collective experiences and attitudes in the present.