Hollywood Memorial

Legendary singer, actor, entertainer, Al Jolson was referred to as ‘The World’s Greatest Entertainer’ during the 1920’s. A singer and dancer of boundless energy and an expressive face, Jolson’s greatest claim to fame was starring in the first talking motion picture, ‘The Jazz Singer,’ in 1927, where he uttered the immortal lines, ‘You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.’ Jolson married four times, including to Ziegfeld girl Ruby Keeler. In the 1930s, despite film and radio fame, his career began to slide. It revived in 1946 when Columbia Pictures made the standard-setting biopic, ‘The Jolson Story,’ which featured Jolson-sung tunes. Jolson died in San Francisco playing cards not long after returning from touring with the USO in Korea. He is buried at Hillside Memorial Park under a huge marble sarcophagus, under a mural painted dome supported by six gigantic columns with a terraced waterfall emanating from the side and tumbling down a hill (the hill in ‘Hillside Cemetery’). Look from the Los Angeles Freeway, you can’t miss this huge memorial.