Los Angeles is notoriously quick to reinvent itself. Buildings disappear, neighborhoods change, and people who once shaped the city can vanish from public memory surprisingly fast. For more than four decades, however, the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles has made it its business to remember—not only the architecture of the Art Deco era, but the artists, designers, filmmakers, civic leaders and personalities who gave Los Angeles much of its character.
By Allan R. Ellenberger
Los Angeles interior designer Joyce Colton founded the organization in 1983, at a time when interest in Art Deco was enjoying a major revival. Colton had spent decades in the design profession and was active in several national interior-design organizations. According to the Society’s own history, the idea emerged partly from her frustration that San Francisco already had an Art Deco society, even as Los Angeles possessed such an extraordinary collection of Deco and Streamline Moderne architecture of its own. The Art Deco Society of Los Angeles was the result.
Today the nonprofit organization describes its mission simply as “Protect, Preserve, Cherish.” Its purpose goes beyond admiring beautiful old buildings. The Society promotes public awareness of the Art Deco era through preservation advocacy and through programs devoted to architecture, fashion, design, film, music, and popular culture. It is also part of the International Coalition of Art Deco Societies, connecting Los Angeles preservation efforts with similar organizations worldwide.
Over the years, its activities have ranged from architectural walking tours and museum visits to lectures, vintage dances, author programs, and social events where period dress is sometimes part of the fun. Hollywood Boulevard and the Miracle Mile have naturally been important areas of interest, with buildings such as the Pantages Theatre, Max Factor Building and the Art Deco landmarks of Wilshire Boulevard providing an almost inexhaustible outdoor classroom.
But one event has become perhaps the Society’s most distinctive tradition: its annual Hollywood Forever Cemetery Living History Tour. The tour began in 1984, only a year after the organization was founded. Its creator, Frank Cooper, had recently graduated from USC with a degree in anthropology and was fascinated by cemeteries—particularly the ways people were memorialized and the symbolism found on monuments. Cooper believed the Hollywood tour may have been the first organized cemetery fundraising tour of its kind on the West Coast. He didn't want to turn a cemetery into a Halloween sideshow, but to use it as a historical landscape. The people buried there, as the Society puts it, include those who “mapped Hollywood and put Hollywood on the map.”
That philosophy was already evident in the tour’s earliest years. In 1989, when the cemetery was still called Hollywood Memorial Park, the Los Angeles Times accompanied Cooper through the grounds. He described the cemetery as a place where visitors could revisit nearly all of Hollywood history. He was interested not only in stars such as Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolph Valentino, but in the founders, developers, and civic figures whose stories were written across the cemetery landscape. The 1989 tour cost just five dollars.
Art Deco Society representative Frank Cooper addresses the crowd during the Hollywood Forever Cemetery Living History Tour. Cooper created the annual tour 43 years ago, beginning what has become one of the Society’s longest-running traditions.
The cemetery itself was founded in 1899, decades before it became known as Hollywood Forever. By the time Cooper began bringing groups through its gates, the property had seen better days and was suffering from neglect. After new ownership took over in 1998, Hollywood Memorial Park was restored and renamed Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and the grounds eventually became known for film screenings, concerts, and cultural events. The Art Deco Society tour, however, predates that revival by more than a decade.
The tour steadily grew. More than 300 people attended in 1990, and by its fifteenth year in 1999 the Times reported that attendance continued to increase. In 2004, more than 200 people joined the twentieth annual tour. More recently, tickets have frequently sold out: both the 41st tour in 2024 and the 42nd in 2025 were advertised as sold out.
Dylan Regaldo as Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Don Lynch discussed J. Ross Clark
Will Liderdale discussed Gen. Harrison Grey Otis
Nathan Marsak discussed Griffith J. Griffith
Author and historian Joan Renner discussed Senator Cornelius Cole
On October 4, 2026, I joined the 43rd annual tour, and it is easy to understand why the event has lasted so long. Today the experience is considerably more elaborate than the modest tours of the 1980s. Groups of roughly twenty-five people leave at intervals, and the walk runs about three hours, moving across the cemetery grounds and eventually into the Cathedral Mausoleum. Historians and volunteer guides tell the stories at individual graves, with occasional living-history presentations adding a theatrical element.
This year’s route offered an unusually broad cross-section of Los Angeles history. Among the stops were Douglas Fairbanks Jr., J. Ross Clark, Gen. Harrison Grey Otis, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, Senator Cornelius Cole, Griffith J. Griffith, Vampira, Cecil B. DeMille, Adrian, Janet Gayner, William Andrews Clark Jr., Marion Davies, Fay Wray, Hattie McDaniel, Johnny Ramone, Toto, Daeida Wilcox, William Desmond Taylor, Rudolph Valentino and Barbara La Marr. That mixture is exactly what makes the tour work. One minute you are hearing about movie royalty; the next, land development, politics, architecture, scandal, or the often-surprising people who helped create the city before Hollywood became synonymous with motion pictures.
Dawn Worth discussed Maila "Vampira" Nurmi
David Saffer discussed William Andrews Clark Jr.
Chris Schneider discussed Adrian and Janet Gaynor
Michael Francis as director Cecil B. De Mille
The tour was extremely well organized. The guides were friendly, enthusiastic, and, for the most part, knowledgeable. Just as important, they seemed genuinely interested in the people whose stories they were telling rather than simply reciting names and dates. The Society’s description of the event promises accomplishments as well as misdeeds, and the tour delivers plenty of both.
I was aware of a few minor discrepancies between the historical details and the actual record, such as certain parts of the cemetery's history, the area currently held by Paramount, and one of the monuments mentioned. These were minor points and didn't in any way diminish the overall experience. Given that there is more than a century's worth of Hollywood history to deal with, it is reasonable that stories which have been told for a long time can at times end up being mixed up with established facts. A bit more factchecking would only serve to enhance what is already an excellent and worthwhile program.
Angie Aisbet Schneider discussed Fay Wray, and Hattie McDaniel and Johnny Ramone's cenotaph.
Erik Dunkelberg discussed the Toto statue.
What impressed me most was something larger. A cemetery can become simply a collection of stones unless someone keeps telling the stories attached to them. For forty-three years, the Art Deco Society has been doing exactly that at Hollywood Forever.
Film historian Mary Mallory discusses Daeida Wilcox
Ryan Cassidy as director William Desmond Taylor
The Society may have begun as a group devoted to an architectural style, but its work has always represented something broader: preserving Los Angeles memory. Buildings, monuments, and graves are physical links to people who otherwise risk becoming names in old books. Once a year, on this remarkable walk through Hollywood Forever, those names become people again. And for a few hours, Hollywood’s past is very much alive.
Kari Bible as Rudolph Valentino's Lady in Black
Actress and author Shari Snyder as Barbara La Marr
Interested in Joining the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles?
For readers who would like to do more than attend the annual Hollywood Forever Cemetery tour, the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles welcomes new members interested in architecture, preservation, design, film, fashion, and the culture of the Art Deco era. Membership helps support the Society’s preservation and educational work and includes benefits such as discounted event tickets, advance notice of ticket sales, members-only programs, and special events. Current annual memberships begin at $40 for seniors 65 and older and $50 for an individual, with additional household and supporting levels available.
Members can purchase membership directly through the Society’s website, where they can also find information about upcoming tours, lectures, dances, and preservation activities. Join the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles.
For anyone who enjoys Los Angeles history and wants to help protect the architectural and cultural heritage that still survives, joining the Society is a practical way to support that effort.
Check in tomorrow on The Hollywoodland Revue for my book review of I Am Johnny Stark: My Rock and Roll Memoir by Giovanni and Anthony Sticco—a colorful, personal look at one singer’s journey through rock and roll, old Hollywood, and the long road of chasing a dream in show business.
If you enjoyed my look at the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles and its long-running Hollywood Forever Cemetery Living History Tour, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please leave a comment, rate the article, and share it with anyone interested in Los Angeles history, Hollywood, architecture, preservation, and the remarkable people buried at Hollywood Forever. Your comments, ratings, and shares help The Hollywoodland Revue reach new readers and keep these stories—and the history behind them—alive.
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