Michael's Foreverland (As much about the secret places of Forest Lawn Cemetery as M.J.)

Michael Jackson’s final home, as of Thursday, is even stranger than his Thriller video, sitting atop 13 stories of secret catacombs housing Satanists and gypsies. Diane Dimond tours the tomb.

There are fewer places more beautiful than Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.

But this otherwise majestic place sits atop some dark secrets, ones that, as of this Thursday, Michael Joseph Jackson will rest upon as well. I was able to glimpse an advance peek at the King of Pop’s eternal throne, and the reality is stranger than his Thriller video, sitting atop more than a dozen floors of secret subterranean burial sections housing the remains of ancient devil worshippers and Gypsies, sacrificial fonts and crypts decorated with pentagrams and a secreted area with shelves housing at least a thousand abandoned urns containing the ashes of souls no one claimed.

“There’s Spencer Tracy’s plot -- and over here Errol Flynn’s,” says my guide, pointing to the appropriate places. After rounding a corner of one elaborate building, he motioned toward an out-of-the-way flower bed, pulled back a low hanging palm frond and said, “Hardly anyone has ever seen this.” He pointed to a plaque which read: Walter Elias Disney. Engraved underneath: “Ashes scattered in paradise.” Resting below, at the foot of a Little Mermaid statue, was a small stuffed Mickey Mouse.

Inside the mammoth Freedom Mausoleum, my guide points to a low marble bench and then up to the wall where a side-by-side crypt held the remains of Gracie Allen (1902-1964) and George Burns (1896-1996). He explains that every Tuesday for decades, Burns would sit on that bench and visit with his departed soulmate. The simple legend on their crypt reads: “Together Again.” Nat King Cole’s crypt is above and to the right.

A really interesting read. From another section:

Many doors remain padlocked deep within this labyrinth but when two workers opened one they discovered a room lined with shelves holding crematory urns for military men, police officers, nurses and city workers who were cremated gratis and held all these years because there were no families to claim them.

Both men told me when their duties required them to be in these underground spaces they often felt the eerie presence of some of the forgotten occupants.

“I’m not a supernatural, ghost-y kind of guy,” the guide told me as we continued our tour, “but more than once when I was down in those places I felt cold and clammy fingers brush against the back of my neck. I knew I was alone down there – but I wasn’t really alone, you know?”

Forest Lawn
Words and Music by Tom Paxton

Oh lay me down in Forest Lawn in a silver casket.
Put golden flowers over my head in a silver basket.
Let the drum and bugle corp blow taps while the cannons roar.
And sixteen liveried employees pass out souvenirs from the funeral store

I want to go simply when I go
They’ll give me a simple funeral there I know
With a casket lined in fleece
And fireworks spelling out “rest in peace.”
Oh take me when I’m gone to Forest Lawn

Oh lay me down in Forest Lawn they understand there.
And they have a heavenly choir and a military band there.
Just put me in their care, I’ll find my comfort there,
With sixteen planes and a last salute, dropping a cross in a parachute.

I want to go simply when I go.
They’ll give me a simple funeral there I know,
With a hundred strolling strings
And topless dancers with golden wings.
Oh take me when I’m gone to Forest Lawn

Oh, come, come, come, come,
Come to the church in the wild wood.
Kindly leave a contribution in the pail.
Be as simple and as trusting as a child would,
And we’ll sell you the church in the dale.

To find a simple resting place is my desire.
To lay me down with a smiling face comes a little bit higher.
My likeness done in brass, will stand in plastic grass,
And weights and hidden springs tip it’s hat to the mourners filing past.

I want to go simply when I go.
They’ll give me a simple funeral there I know.
I’ll lie beneath the sand
With piped in tapes of Billy Graham.
Oh take me when I’m gone to Forest Lawn.

Rock of ages cleft for me
For a slightly higher fee.
Oh take me when I’m gone to Forest Lawn

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