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| Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery and Mortuary | |
|---|---|
 Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation, the former entrance to the cemetery | |
 Interactive map of Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery and Mortuary | |
| Details | |
| Established | 1923; 103 years ago (1923) |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| Owned by | Service Corporation International |
| Size | 63 acres (25 ha) |
| Find a Grave | Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery and Mortuary |
Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery and Mortuary is acemetery andfuneral home located at 10621Victory Boulevard, straddling the border between theLos Angeles neighborhood ofNorth Hollywood andBurbank, California.
The cemetery's East entrance features thePortal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation, the final resting place for aviation pioneers — "barnstormers, daredevils and sundry architects of aviation". The cemetery is south ofHollywood Burbank Airport. It has memorials toAmelia Earhart and others, honoring their accomplishments. The portal features colorful tiled dome and female figures stretching their arms to the heavens. The cemetery was named "Valhalla" for the hall of slain warriors presided over byOdin, the Norse god of war and death, amongst other associations.
Among those interred in Valhalla are celebrities from the entertainment industry.[1]
Valhalla was founded in 1923 by Los Angeles financiers John R. Osborne and C. C. Fitzpatrick. TheSpanish Mission Revival entrance structure was designed by architectKenneth A. McDonald Jr. For the decorative stone castings, McDonald hired Italian-born sculptor Federico A. Giorgi, who had created 30-foot-tall (9.1 m) statues of elephants and lions for the 1916 epic filmIntolerance, and helped to craft the exterior of downtown'sMillion Dollar Theater. The gateway to the new cemetery cost $140,000.
The rotunda was dedicated March 1, 1925, with a concert by English contralto Maude Elliott. Picnickers spread blankets on the surrounding grassy expanse between three reflecting pools and flat cemetery markers, which were a new concept at the time. It became a tourist attraction and was used for concerts that were broadcast over radio station KELW by station owner Earl L. White. Just five months after the dedication, Osborne and Fitzpatrick were convicted of fraud. They had repeatedly sold the same burial plots—as many as 16 times—and netted a profit of $3–4 million, according to theLos Angeles Times. They were fined $12,000 each and sentenced to 10 years in prison, but served less than three years.[2]
The cemetery was taken over by the state of California. It is unclear how long the state owned the 63-acre (250,000 m2) cemetery, but Pierce Brothers bought it in 1950 and, within two years, closed the rotunda to vehicle traffic and moved the entry to the cemetery from Valhalla Drive in Burbank to Victory and Cahuenga boulevards in North Hollywood. There, they opened a two-story office building and mortuary.
On December 17, 1953—the 50th anniversary of Orville and Wilbur Wright's 12-second powered hop at Kitty Hawk—the rotunda was rededicated as the Portal of the Folded Wings, through the efforts of aviation fan and cemetery employee James Gillette.[3] During the ceremony, the cremated remains ofWalter R. Brookins, the first aviator to take a plane to an altitude of a mile and the Wright brothers' first civilian student, were interred.
When sculptor Giorgi died in 1963, he was buried outside the structure, near his masterpiece. Gillette was also buried outside, near the shrine he helped found.
The memorial was featured inVisiting... withHuell Howser Episode 426.[4]
In 1958, Pierce Brothers sold its family-owned chain of Southern California mortuaries and cemeteries to Texas financierJoe Allbritton, who sold 20 acres (81,000 m2) of Valhalla for development.[2] In 1991, the cemeteries and mortuaries were acquired by Service Corp. International of Houston, but the Pierce Brothers sign remains at Valhalla.
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34°11′25″N118°21′13″W / 34.19028°N 118.35361°W /34.19028; -118.35361