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Funeral Home

Hollywood Forever offers a beautiful, historic, full-service funeral home, mortuary and chapel on our cemetery grounds in Los Angeles . At Hollywood Funeral Home, we strive to give the best funeral assistance and help families and friends celebrate the time shared with loved ones – to focus on the life lived, while facing the loss. It is our mission to help create a service that pays tribute with dignity and respect while providing comfort, solace and communion to surviving friends and family.

Table of Contents [click to hide/show]


BEGIN MAKING ARRANGEMENTS ONLINE

or talk to a Family Service Counselor — available 24/7:

(323) 469-1181

or Click Here to view our Plans and Pricing

Los Angeles Funeral Home

Locally owned and operated, our team consists of highly experienced, local professionals with decades spent caring for the families of our community.

Whether burial or cremation, our funeral directors and counselors can help create a customized and personalized service that will be meaningful to you, as well as to friends and family. Our highly experienced and dedicated team will do everything possible to make this difficult time easier for those we serve from the moment you contact us. Ceremony and grief take many forms and can include arrangements for direct cremation, visitation, and funeral services over multiple days. Hollywood Funeral Home staff value your family’s unique needs and personal wishes — and will do everything we can to cater to your requirements with understanding, compassion and professionalism.

All faiths and creeds are welcome – we have sought the knowledge and understanding to serve your traditions with truth and authenticity.

It is our privilege to serve all cultures, traditions, and faiths respectfully, and we offer many types of funeral services. In addition to English, our funeral directors also make arrangements and perform services in Spanish, Thai, Russian, Hindi, and Armenian – to name a few. We offer specialized traditional funeral services for Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu faiths – our commitment is to serve all people and religions with dignity and respect. As such, for Buddhist and Hindu funeral services that integrate cremation, our ceremonial crematory is located adjacent to our main funeral chapel. We are also able to conduct traditional funeral services in churches, temples, and most other venues. We welcome the LGBTQ community and have many LGBTQ staff should that provide increased comfort and better suit your funeral requirements.

Funeral Home Services

Sharing memories can be one of the purest and most potent antidotes to grief.

Hollywood Funeral Home offers cremation, funeral, mortuary and burial services all in one location in the heart of Los Angeles. Unlike standalone funeral homes, all burial, funeral, mortuary and cremation services occur within our beautiful and expansive sixty-two-acre grounds. The simplicity of one location for funeral arrangements, ceremony, burial, and cremation provides families with a sense of comfort and ease during the memorial process. For direct cremation, our crematory is onsite, so you can rest assured that your loved one will always be under our care. Whether planning a funeral, cremation, burial or scattering, Hollywood Forever is a complete facility for honoring, celebrating, and remembering.


BEGIN MAKING ARRANGEMENTS ONLINE

or talk to a Family Service Counselor — available 24/7:

(323) 469-1181

or Click Here to view our Plans and Pricing

Honor age-old traditions or create your own path, discover your own rituals of honor and remembrance.

Hollywood Forever offers beautiful venues for memorial and funeral services inside our historic buildings and outside on the cemetery’s idyllic grounds. The main chapel can comfortably seat up to 200 guests indoors, while locations such as the Fairbanks Memorial Reflecting Pool and Clark Island provide an elegant space for funeral and cremation services to be held outdoors. Our in-house monument masons can help you design a lasting tribute that bears testament to your loved one that will be a touchstone for memories to future generations.

We also offer the convenience of an onsite flower shop where you can choose beautiful funeral flowers and floral arrangements and tributes with our designer.

Whatever your preference, we can help you design and realize an experience that honors your loved one with respect and dignity.

Hollywood Funeral Home’s services include:

  • Around the clock availability of Hollywood Funeral Home staff, 24 / 7.
  • Transportation of the decedent from the place of death to Hollywood Funeral Home.
  • Professional care and preparation with our staff experienced in mortuary science.
  • Personalized and meaningful funeral service arrangements to celebrate the life lived with dignity and honor, including the engagement of officiants, clergy, or musicians.
  • Selection of memorial items, such as flowers, a register book for condolences, printed programs, memory cards, video tributes, lawn markers, upright monuments, and bronze crypt plates.
  • Assistance to produce a video tribute of photos and music, providing fond memories and a celebration of life for future generations.
  • Procurement of all necessary documents, including the certificate of death and permit for disposition.
  • Daytime and evening visitation, if desired.
  • Provision of grief resources for surviving family and friends.
  • A full selection of funeral and cremation casket choices.
  • A curated selection of Urns for cremated remains.
  • Assistance with online and newspaper obituary placement.
  • Support in making arrangements and planning travel and hotels for visiting guests.

Funeral Pre Planning

Making funeral arrangements is never easy, but arranging a funeral in advance of need takes care of your loved ones. By creating a record of your wishes, you free those left behind from detailed planning and guesswork during a time of grief. Pre-planning your funeral arrangements is one of the most meaningful and responsible gifts you can give to your family and friends. In their time of need, they will feel loved and cared for by you, even in your absence.

Our funeral directors are always available to help with your advanced funeral planning needs, whether burial or cremation. Hollywood Funeral Home also offers insurance to help fund your funeral costs. Our provider, Great Western Insurance Company, has many protections, including safeguards against inflation and policy transfers for funerals to other providers if you should move out of the area.

Funeral Home Pricing

Click here to view our plans and pricing.

We invite you to visit us for a personal tour of our beautiful grounds and historic buildings. To learn more about Hollywood Forever’s offerings, please contact us.

We are committed to working within your budget to provide a meaningful celebration of life for your loved one. Please know that Hollywood Forever offers financing options through a third party finance company.


BEGIN MAKING ARRANGEMENTS ONLINE

or talk to a Family Service Counselor — available 24/7:

(323) 469-1181

or Click Here to view our Plans and Pricing


Frequently Asked Questions

How long can the funeral home hold my loved one before the funeral or cremation?

This varies depending upon the family’s wishes, their circumstances and religious customs. We will need to coordinate the necessary paperwork and permits with your physician and the County before any funeral, burial, or cremation may occur. If you need an expedited service for religious or other reasons, please let us know when you first contact us.

How can I send flowers to the funeral home?

We have an onsite flower shop conveniently located in the Bell Tower near our main entrance on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Flower Shop

(323) 308-4784.

If you are using an outside florist, please provide them with our name and address, the name of the deceased, and the time of the service. Their delivery service should handle the rest.

What will Hollywood Forever care for my loved one? at the funeral home?

They are placed in a climate controlled room until we receive instruction from the family as to how to proceed. Every step along the way they are treated with the utmost care and respect.

What happens at a funeral home?

A funeral home provides a wide range of services, beginning with bringing the decedent into our care; meeting with the survivors to make funeral, cremation, and burial arrangements; preparing the decedent for any services selected; hosting the funeral service in one of our chapels; transporting the decedent to the place of final rest; and supervising the burial service.

How much does a funeral cost in Los Angeles?

In Los Angeles, funeral costs range from $4,210 to $9,705, with an average cost of $5,650. Cremation Memorial costs range from $1,550 to $6,560 with an average cost of $2,825.

What is the difference between a mortuary and a funeral home?

Mortuaries and funeral homes provide the same basic services: caring for and preparing the deceased, arranging for the necessary paperwork and permits, and hosting and directing memorial and funeral services. The word choice is primarily one of emphasis and specialty. Funeral Homes employ Funeral Directors to manage and conduct services. Mortuaries emphasis their specialty in the mortuary sciences of restoration and presentation of the deceased. Also, technically, only mortuaries have onsite crematories. However, in present day California, “mortuary” and “funeral home” are used interchangeably or in combination. For instance, our funeral home can also be considered a mortuary because we have onsite preparation and onsite cremation.

What does a funeral home do?

The funeral home provides services for the dead and their families.

Here is a list of some of the services we provide:

  • On call to serve families when a death occurs 24 hours a day.
  • Transfer the decedent to the funeral home.
  • Perform professional care of the deceased as requested by the family.
  • Consultation with the family to gather information for completing documents and to arrange funeral service details.
  • File necessary paperwork, including the death certificate, permits and authorization.
  • Arrange for clergy, officiants, musicians and singers, make arrangements with special groups such as the military.
  • Help the family with selecting the appropriate memorial at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
  • Arrange necessary details with the crematory and other places of disposition. We also work with other cemeteries.
  • Provide memorial products such as memorial folders, prayer cards, guest books, an online obituary, Video Tribute, Zoom broadcast, favorite flowers and plants through our onsite florist and more as requested by the family.
  • Display flowers, framed photos, photo collages and other memorial pieces at the location of the viewing and services.
  • Direct the funeral services in a professional manner from visitation to funeral service to the selected disposition.
  • Assist the family with details that are needed after the service, including adding death certificates, purchasing a cemetery marker or finalizing dates on an existing monument or family estate, making funeral and cemetery pre-arrangements for the family.
What makes a good funeral home?

A good funeral home should employ a caring and compassionate staff. First and foremost, you should be treated with kindness and extra sensitivity and consideration. Whether you are planning for yourself or making arrangements for a loved one, you should be guided respectfully by an educated and fully informed member of the team. The facilities should be in excellent condition and the technology, such as Zoom broadcast and Video Tribute compilation, should be state of the art and up to date. A good funeral home will also be well versed in your specific religious traditions or spiritual background. They will also offer a range of products and services that will match a variety of budgets.

Chapel capacity? Do you provide Clergy?

Our main chapel comfortably seats 140 attendees with adjacent overflow seating areas. We can also accommodate larger outdoor services with tents.

My grandmother told us that she already paid for everything. Why are there new charges?

There are many types of funeral and cemetery pre arrangements. Funerals may be pre arranged through trusts or insurance products and have a variety of options to address inflation and cost increases. For cemetery purchases, often the land has been purchased but additional fees are required for the interment service and the monument. We will offer you as much transparency as possible through out this process and give you an itemized detail of what is covered and what charges are additional and why. Please do not hesitate to ask questions or request more detail.

Where do I get the death certificate?

The funeral home can order the certified death certificates on behalf of the legal next of kin for up to one year of the date of passing. You may also order them through the health department in the county of your loved ones passing.

How long before I receive the death certificate?

The certified copies of the death certificate usually take 7 – 10 days to arrive at the funeral home after the order has been placed with the health department. The authorized representative will be notified when they arrive. The process of creating the death record by working with the doctor, health department and family must be done successfully before the order can be placed. From start to finish, you can generally expect to receive certified copies within 2 – 4 weeks.

Can I view the body?

Yes you can view the body.  We ask that you arrange an ID View with us so that we can prepare the body properly for viewing.

What is the soonest I can have the service?

Usually between 3 – 5 days after your loved one has arrived into our care.  The time frame varies depending upon the availability of our facilities and staff or if we are in a pandemic.   The time frame can take longer if the service incorporates the cremation or burial service.  A permit must be issued by the health department before a burial, cremation or shipping out of state occurs. 

Do you provide the clothes or do we bring it?

You bring it.

Do you have financing?

For funeral pre arrangement, we offer funeral insurance through Great Western Insurance Company (A rated). They offer a variety of payment terms and options.

For cemetery pre-arrangement, we offer short and longer term financing plans to work within your monthly budget.

For services at the time of need, we offer financing though Lending USA (https://go.lendingusa.com/) and American Funeral Financial (https://www.americanfuneralfinancial.com)

How come my mom needs to sign, I’m the oldest.. (legal next of Kin info)

California law lists those who have the right, duty and responsibility to make decisions after a loved ones passing. They are in order as listed in the law:

  1. A person prior to their death
  2. The person authorized to direct disposition on a U.S. Department of Defense Record of Emergency Data (DD form 93)
  3. An agent under a Power of Attorney for healthcare
  4. The surviving competent spouse or registered domestic partner
  5. The surviving adult children
  6. The majority of the surviving adult siblings…

The full list can be found at https://cfb.ca.gov/consumer/funeral.shtml

How many death certificates do I need?

The number varies greatly by family. It depends on your loved ones assets, including insurance policies, financial institutions, vehicle titles, real estate, stocks & bonds, income tax returns, pensions, 401k plans….

My mom loved mariachi. Can we have them come and play at the funeral?

We love Mariachi too. They can come play the funeral. If you need a referral, we have some favorites.

Terms and Definitions [click to hide/show]

  • A Burial is the placement of the deceased into a grave or other final resting place
  • A Burial plot, Interment Space, or Grave is the space at the cemetery where the deceased is buried.
  • A Casket is usually a metal or wooden box, in which the deceased is buried or sometimes cremated.
  • A Columbarium is a building or structure that contains cremated remains.
  • A Community Mausoleum is a building or structure for the interment of the deceased in crypts and niches
  • Cremation is a method of final disposition of a dead body through burning or combustion.
  • A Crematorium or Crematory is a closed furnace or retort where the cremation takes place. Most Crematories, including Hollywood Forever’s, operate on natural gas. By law, only one cremation may occur at a time. The cremation process takes from ninety minutes to three hours.
  • Cremated Remains, Ashes, or Cremains: Cremation leaves behind an average of 5.3lbs of remains. Not actual ash, these remains consist of unburnt fragments of bone material, which are (in the US) commonly processed by a cremulator into a fine powder.
  • Cremation Urns are containers for cremated remains and come in a variety of styles, sizes, and materials. Some commonly chosen options include urns made of bronze, wood, marble, glass, or biodegradable materials. Keepsake Urns are smaller containers, jewelry pieces, or other items that may contain a smaller portion of cremated remains– allowing for multiple people to have a touchstone.
  • A Crypt is a burial space in a mausoleum.
  • Double-depth burial is a burial plot or grave that is two times the depth of a single grave, accommodating two burials.
  • Family Mausoleum or Private Mausoleum is an above-ground building or structure for the entombment of a single individual or family.
  • Final disposition refers to the final destination of the deceased.
  • Funeral Service is a ceremony honoring a deceased person – usually present in a casket.
  • Interment is the burial of the deceased in a grave or crypt – or the inurnment of the deceased in a grave or niche.
  • Inurnment is the placement of cremated remains (ashes) in an urn in a niche, crypt, or grave
  • Memorial marker is a monument, headstone (tombstone), or grave marker identifying a burial; also a name plate or inscription identifying a crypt or niche in a mausoleum
  • A Memorial Service is a ceremony honoring a deceased person usually without their body present. A service with cremated remains (ashes) present is also considered a Memorial Service.
  • Morgue is a place, usually at a hospital, where the dead are kept prior to their release to a mortuary or funeral home for burial or cremation.
  • A Mortuary is a place, especially in a funeral home, where the deceased are kept until burial or cremation. Our Los Angeles mortuary in Hollywood is onsite, and where the deceased are stored and prepared for burial or cremation.
  • A Monument is a memorial, consisting of stone and/or bronze, which extends above the ground in upright form and height.
  • A Niche is a space in a mausoleum or columbarium for the inurnment of cremated remains.
  • Opening and Closing: the ceremony and service performed by the cemetery after the funeral to place and then bury the deceased in the grave space or to place and seal the deceased in a mausoleum crypt.
  • A Scattering Garden is a garden, often of roses, where the cremated remains of the deceased may be mixed and combined with the garden plants and soils.
  • A Vault or Outer Burial Container is a concrete or other rigid enclosure that surrounds the casket below ground, separating it from the elements and preventing the earth from shifting.
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