Santa Monica Lays to Rest Cemetery Filming Plan

Santa Monica expects to earn $140,000 this year by allowing film makers to use local sites, such as its famous pier, and city officials envisioned bringing in thousands more by opening up a location much in demand for filming, the century-old Woodlawn Cemetery.

They insisted that it could be done tastefully: production companies would not be allowed to interfere with funerals and there would be no filming for horror movies.

But the officials apparently did not envision the reaction they would get from the descendants of pioneer California families, whose ancestors are buried in the picturesque cemetery.

A parade of people came before the Santa Monica City Council to complain that graves would be desecrated and film crews would tromp on tombstones.

“I’ve counted the votes on this one, and it’s a loser,” Mayor James Conn told the audience even before the council voted unanimously Tuesday night to reject the proposal to allow television and movie crews to use the cemetery.

The protesters appeared after Councilwoman Christine Reed alerted Louise Gabriel, a past president of the Santa Monica Historical Society, that the council would be considering lifting an 8-year-old ban on filming at Woodlawn.

“They’d be turning over in their graves if they knew this was being considered,” Gabriel said, referring to several of Santa Monica’s early settlers who are buried at Woodlawn.

“My great-great-grandfather Juan Carrillo is buried there, and I don’t want to risk having people walk all over his grave and the other graves,” said Andrew Carrillo, referring to one of Santa Monica’s first mayors in the late 1800s.

The city manager’s staff, which recommended lifting the ban, said it receives two or three requests a week from film companies asking to use the 26.5-acre graveyard at Pico Boulevard and 14th Street, which served as the Carrillo family burial ground from 1876 until the land was donated to Santa Monica in 1898.

Granting one request a week would bring in an estimated $62,000 a year, Stanley Scholl, director of general services, told the council. Opening the cemetery to filming also would help a state program to promote movie making in California, he said.

City Manager John Jalili argued that income from film making would serve as an “insurance policy” guaranteeing maintenance of for the cemetery.

But the measure was quickly voted down amid the protests.