Permanent Californians: An Illustrated Guide to the Cemeteries of California

by Judi Culbertson, Tom Randall

Offers brief profiles of celebrities buried in major California cemeteries

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

First published June 1, 1989

Reviews

[Julie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I remember reading this long ago from our library, which no longer has a copy. Maybe I'm the only one who ever read it. At any rate, I love the Permanent Parisians and Permanent Londoners books. With a trip looming soon to take Rose to L.A., this seems a natural thing to pull from my "to read" shelf.

UPDATE
Interestingly, still reading the Los Angeles cemetery part of the book, I am finding it profoundly depressing. Much more so than the other "Permanent" guides I've read? Why? Because it is a collection of shallow, sad, lonely, misguided entertainers for the most part. The only praiseworthy person I've read about thus far is Jack Benny (and I'm including Bing Crosby in this sad crowd). I'm not sure if that is just because of the authors' choices of people to bio or whether that is just the L.A. history coming out. There must have been pioneers and suchlike but I figure I'll have to skip to the San Francisco section to get to those people.

Because of that, however, I have lost interest in reading more for now and will be putting it down for a while.

FURTHER UPDATE
When pulling my marker out of the book so I could shelve it, I realized that I was just a few pages from the San Francisco section. OH FRABJOUS DAY!

With that in mind, I shall continue and see if we get some stalwart pioneers, newspaper moguls, or practically anything except entertainment stars. :-)

[Loren · Rating 4 out of 5]

From Fatty Arbuckle to Daryl Zanuck, many of the legends of Hollywood can be found between these covers. The rough maps guide you to the cemeteries of the stars, but once inside, directions can be a bit vague. (This is true of all the "Permanent Citizens" series, which were published before the advent of GPS.) Leave yourself lots of time to wander.

Unlike most of the other books in this series, this one doesn't limit itself to a single city -- which is, perhaps, much of its trouble. Permanent Californians covers two enormous Forest Lawns (Glendale and Hollywood Hills), along with Westwood (where Marilyn is buried), Holy Cross (last address of Bela Lugosi), and Hollywood Forever (back when it was still called Hollywood Memorial Park), before moving north to Colma, San Francisco, Oakland, a handful of Mission cemeteries, and some miscellaneous graves (Jack London, Luther Burbank, John Muir). There's too much ground here to cover in depth. Despite that, the book is a whole lot more helpful than asking the officials at Forest Lawn where you can leave flowers for Walt Disney.

Unfortunately out of print and expensive when you can find it, this book truly is a bible, especially if you're living in Los Angeles.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this back in the early 90's. It's now a seriously dated book, and it was always incomplete (they left a lot of famous graves out) and not always reliable (some of the biographies contain incorrect info).

Anyone interested in exploring California cemeteries would be MUCH better served by an Internet search.

I'm giving it 3 stars for the personal nostalgia factor. And it is an interesting read, though flawed.

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this walking through the stacks, interesting. Never thought anyone wrote a book on the cemeteries around LA or San Francisco.