Grave discoveries
This blog entry gives background on Ep 410, so beware of any spoilers!
As a writer in film and television, you’re often trying to conjure places that you’ve never been. Have I visited Alaska, the setting of my script for 30 DAYS OF NIGHT? Nope. Have I ever traveled in a submarine, like the characters in my miniseries adaptation of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA? No chance. Have I ever visited Dealey Plaza, the location of the climactic sequences of 11.22.63 which I co-scripted and co-executive produced for Hulu? Not till the day before we were shooting!
And the same is true of AGENT STOKER. While I’ve been to a lot of locales that our hero has visited, from Berlin to Adams-Morgan to Saint Louis, there’s probably more places I’ve never reached, such as Rome, Perth, Johannesburg and even Mobile, Alabama. Yet of course I like to set stories in places of which I have firsthand knowledge. The premiere episode of this podcast is set in a small town in Iowa not unlike where I was born, not unlike where I still have an aunt and cousins living. And there’s a reason why Agent Stoker’s past so often references Baltimore, the big city where I’d hear broadcasts of the Orioles games as a little kid growing up in Maryland.
So it somewhat surprised me to realize that in three-and-a-half years of adventures, Agent Stoker had yet to visit my beloved Los Angeles, where I’ve lived now for over 40 years. Obviously I had to remedy that oversight before Season Four ended. But which to choose from all the amazing addresses this city offers?
As it happened, I spent much of last year driving through Westwood for some family reasons. I was passing by the gigantic VA cemetery on the west side that honors our war dead. Somehow I thought I had heard, isn’t Marilyn Monroe buried there too? I resolved to visit her grave —
Only to find out, don’t be ridiculous, of course Norma Jean wasn’t buried in the veterans’ graveyard. She was maybe only a mile away, though — in the Pierce Brothers cemetery just south of Wilshire Boulevard in West LA.
Even as a UCLA grad student, I never had any idea that the Pierce Brothers cemetery existed, let alone that it was so close. It’s sheltered, even camouflaged, from much of the town — even though the graves are visible from residential housing to the south.
It was fascinating to visit this place which is so packed with Los Angeles history. Many graves of famous TV and film stars, of course, but also graves of ordinary folks, even a writer or a baseball player. There were graves for Kirk Douglas, Merv Griffin, Robert Loggia, all kinds of performers.
And of course, there was Marilyn’s grave which apparently always has a single rose. I took the photo that you see with this blog entry.
Letting Agent Stoker and Rosa de Galilei literally walk among the dead was a no-brainer. And the story then let me bring them to another Los Angeles landmark nearby — Children’s Book World, a gem of Pico Boulevard for decades and decades. Another case where, while I’ve never been to most of the indie bookstores we celebrate in each episode of this show, I got a particular delight out of writing for a great establishment I’ve known since moving to LA in 1985.
That shock of recognition will be gone next week, though — I freely admit that I’ve never been to NORAD, where Agent Stoker and Rose are headed next! Join us there!