First Step Up to Heaven

THE NECROPOLIS

His associates called him "The Builder," and well they might. In the space of 50 years, Millionaire Mortician Hubert Eaton transformed 55 acres of mud, brambles and neglected tombstones into the world's most famous necropolis--Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Glendale, Calif. Half of Hollywood is buried there, amid rolling lawns, splashing fountains, marble statuary, all of which proclaims that Death Can Be Beautiful. Eaton's handiwork evoked virulent attack (Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death) and savage satire (Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One). In fact, the reality of Forest Lawn defied parody.

Eaton was the original upbeat undertaker, and his fight to deny the ultimate reality of death has already entered folklore. "I wanted to erase all signs of mourning," he said. Thus death became "leave-taking," a corpse "the loved one," who awaited burial after elaborate cosmetic treatment in a private, well-furnished "slumber" room. Subdivisions of the cemetery have such reposeful names as Lullabyland, Graceland and Babyland (designed in the shape of a heart); soothing music and inspirational messages waft out from loudspeakers hidden in the shrubbery.

Art, too, soothes, and Forest Lawn is replete with over 700 statues, including a reproduction of Michelangelo's David, with fig leaf added. Eaton vainly offered 1,000,000 lire to the Italian artist who could paint him "a Christ filled with radiance and looking upward with an inner light of joy and hope--I want an American-faced Christ."

Under One Management. Born in Missouri, the son of a Baptist minister, Eaton tried Mammon's way first, took an unsuccessful flyer at gold mining in Nevada before settling down to his life's work in Southern California in 1917. He took over a failing cemetery, pioneered the concept of pay-now-die-later, which he delicately dubbed "The Before-Need Plan." Prices at Forest Lawn begin at $385 for the cheapest grave; after that, there is literally no limit. Eaton put up giant billboards all over Los Angeles, traded heavily on Adman Bruce Barton's slogan describing Forest Lawn as "a first step up toward Heaven." Eaton's basic pitch: "Everything at time of sorrow, in one sacred place, under one friendly management, with one convenient credit arrangement and a year to pay. ONE TELEPHONE CALL DOES EVERYTHING."

Over the years, Eaton expanded the original Forest Lawn to 317 acres, opened new ones in Hollywood Hills, Cypress and Covina. But not without opposition. When his plans for Covina became known, outraged residents rushed out to picket, carrying signs reading "Drop Dead Elsewhere" and "Land of the Free or Home of the Grave?" Overnight, Eaton's men buried six bodies in the property--the exact number necessary, under California law, to constitute a cemetery.

More than 1,000,000 visitors now pass through the gates of Forest Lawn each year, making it only slightly less of a tourist attraction than Disneyland.

For some, the gates themselves are worth the trip: modeled after those at Buckingham Palace, they are 80 ft. wide and 25 ft. high. Necrolatry has also produced a curious sideline: there have been 50,000 weddings in Forest Lawn's seven churches. Eaton foresaw the visitors' need for mementos, provided a convenient gift shop. One of the bestsellers: a large plastic walnut with a mailing label reading "Forest Lawn Memorial-Park--in a Nutshell! Open me like a real nut . . . squeeze my sides or pry me open with a knife." Inside is a miniature booklet illustrated with scenes of Forest Lawn.

Westminster in America. When the palace gates opened this week to receive the original Loved One, Hubert Eaton, who died at the age of 85, it was bound to be a funeral to remember. Eaton's own final instructions were modest: the Lord's Prayer and a rendition of his favorite song, Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life. But the event could not pass that simply. "We know what he would have liked," said Forest Lawn officials, and they gave it to him.

The lying-in-state took place in the Memorial Court of Honor; the service, backed up by the Roger Wagner Chorale, in the massive, Gothic-facaded Hall of the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Among the participants: Tenor Brian Sullivan, singing Softly and Tenderly, and former Republican Governor Goodwin Knight, delivering a "narration." As the organ thundered The Battle Hymn of the Republic, the elaborate casket was placed alongside Wife Anna's, in The Westminster Hall of America, "the only place money cannot buy"; its crypts are "reserved as gifts of honored interment for Americans whose lives shall have been crowned with greatness." The Forest Lawn regents, in solemn conclave, had declared Founder Eaton to assuredly be among "The Immortals."

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