Remaking the Long Goodbye

Bugsy Siegel can rest easy. The mausoleum where he resides will crumble no more. Rain will no longer sweep its corridors. Pigeons will not roost in the flowerpots.

The old Hollywood Park Cemetery, which contains more dead movie stars than any other spot on the face of the Earth, has been rescued. Two decades of neglect and decay, which brought the cemetery to near ruin, have come to a close. And it shines once more.

The road past Douglas Fairbanks Sr.’s grave has been repaved. The grass has been cut around Cecil B. DeMille’s tombstone. The skylights over Rudolph Valentino’s crypt have been fixed.

Frankly, I didn’t think rescue was possible. Since falling into bankruptcy a few years ago, it had been inspected by a dozen cemetery operators who took one look and walked away. It was a disaster, a financial sinkhole. The place seemed headed for a lock-down, the gates permanently shut and interior turned over to the rabbits.

“The place was really degraded,” says Tyler Cassity. “Everything was falling apart and I could see why the other cemetery operators had turned tail. But the first time I saw it, the experience was incredible. Crumbling buildings were everywhere, filled with old movie stars. The place seemed to speak with voices. I had never been so affected by a cemetery.”

Cassity, as you might guess, turns out to be the hero. The scion of a funeral home family in St. Louis, Cassity looks like a mild-mannered Brad Pitt and admits that he grew up loathing the death business. He even fled to New York and Columbia University in his college years to put a distance between himself and his family’s enterprise.

But the visit to Hollywood Park turned him around. He went home, persuaded his father to invest in the cemetery, and came back to commence the renovation. Now, barely six months later, the fate of Bugsy, Rudolph and all the others seems secure.

For most people, that would be enough. But for Cassity, no. He now plans to use the old cemetery--now renamed Hollywood Forever--to launch a series of innovations in the funeral business. In fact, he wants to change the death biz in a big way.

Do not be surprised by this. California has long played the role of pioneer in developing new ways to send the departed toward their big sleep.

Earlier this century, Hubert Eaton, a.k.a. “The Builder,” created Forest Lawn. It eliminated tombstones, transformed burial grounds into parks, and elevated death to big business. Eaton also introduced sublime euphemisms such as “before need” to connote transactions by those whose blood had not yet gone cold. So wonderful and bizarre were Eaton’s creations that he inspired one of the century’s great satires, Evelyn Waugh’s “The Loved One.”

In any case, Cassity believes that the time has arrived for fresh innovation. Hollywood Forever will soon offer an array of video and digital services unmatched anywhere.

“In terms of funerals, California represents a special market that’s different from the rest of the country,” he says. “People here do not attach themselves to specific funeral homes like they do back East, or even to the idea of a grave site. Roughly half of all funerals here involve cremations, and that figure is growing.

“What matters, out here, is not putting someone into the ground. What matters are the memories. The lives, the experiences of those who have died. So we are now offering video Biographies and the Memorial Kiosk.”

I know what you’re thinking: this idea sounds like a trashy version of “This Is Your Life.” The same thought occurred to me. But then Cassity took me to the Memorial Kiosk, which turns out to be a small viewing room equipped with a giant-size TV. And we sat back to enjoy a few Biographies.

The first one began with a man in his 50s, hearty and healthy, describing his clarinet lessons in the fifth grade. Then he talked about his college years and his career in business. All the time his hands waved descriptively and his eyes sparkled.

“When did he die?” I ask.

“He’s not dead yet,” Cassity says. Then he smiles, like a man who gets the joke. “This Biography was made pre-need.”

You bet. As it continues, the Biography comes across as a well-made home movie. Friends and relatives appear, telling stories from the past. The stories get juxtaposed with still photographs from the man’s childhood.

Then Cassity drops a nugget. Soon, he says, all the Biographies will be available on the Internet. Any relative wanting a dose of the past can dial up Foreverarchive.com from any spot on the Earth and see their Loved One talking and laughing.

The cost, as they say, is adjustable according to the Family’s Needs. A no-frills Biography goes for $400. The all-out number hits $5,000.

It just might work. In future months, Cassity says Hollywood Forever will also offer a genealogy service to create family trees for the deceased. The trees could then be included with the Biographies on the Web site.

And there’s more! Once the Biography system is fully operational, Cassity will turn his attention to a more scientific service. Namely, the cemetery will offer to analyze the DNA of the deceased and have the analysis inscribed on a CD-ROM. The CD, along with a lock of hair, will be stored safely at the cemetery.

“We can only guess how DNA will be used in the next 20 to 30 years,” he says. Disease prevention, cloning, whatever. You can’t predict the future.

So there you have it. A young man appears on the scene, saves a historic treasure, and simultaneously promotes ideas that are half-creepy, half-brilliant, and may change the way we think about dying.

As I walked out the door, afternoon sunshine poured over the cemetery. Peter Lorre, Tyrone Power and Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer slept peacefully under the grass. I looked back at Cassity, standing in the doorway. He was smiling like a man who knows something the rest of us do not.

And, he just might.