Mountain View Mortuary & Cemetery

Mountain View Mortuary & Cemetery is a historic cemetery complex at 2400 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Altadena, California. The cemetery was established in 1882 by Pasadena pioneer Levi W. Giddings, who set aside part of his own property for burials after graves on neighbouring private land had to be relocated. Twenty-four earlier burials were transferred to the new cemetery the following year, making Mountain View one of the oldest surviving cemeteries in the Los Angeles area. The site later expanded to include a mortuary, established in 1959, and the adjoining Mountain View Mausoleum on North Marengo Avenue, which became part of the property in 1971. The mausoleum itself dates from 1923 and was designed by architect Cecil E. Bryan, a former employee of Frank Lloyd Wright, with long marble corridors, ornate chapels, murals and extensive stained glass. The cemetery is also notable for the graves of physicist Richard Feynman, writer Octavia E. Butler, actor George Reeves and former California governor Henry H. Markham. Its old upright headstones, mature landscaping, crypts and mausoleum interiors have made Mountain View an unusually prolific filming location, and the cemetery even contains an empty grave reinforced with steel walls specifically suited to film and television scenes in which actors need to enter or emerge from a grave.

Mountain View Mortuary & Cemetery has appeared in Seinfeld (1989–1998), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), End of Days (1999), Six Feet Under (2001–2005), A Lot Like Love (2005), Desperate Housewives (2004–2012), Halloween (2007), The Office (2005–2013), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–2015), No Strings Attached (2011), Pretty Little Liars (2010–2017), Sons of Anarchy (2008–2014), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013–2020), American Horror Story: Hotel (2015–2016), Lucifer (2016–2021), Promising Young Woman (2020) and Perry Mason (2020–2023), among other productions. The cemetery has represented everything from ordinary family burial grounds to the fictional Haddonfield Cemetery in Halloween (2007), while its purpose-built open grave has been especially useful for scenes requiring characters to climb out of the ground. The adjoining Mountain View Mausoleum has also been used as an architectural stand-in for locations that have nothing to do with a cemetery, most notably in Promising Young Woman (2020). In addition to film and television work, both the cemetery grounds and mausoleum were used for Ozzy Osbourne’s 2010 music video «Life Won’t Wait».

In Seinfeld (1989–1998), Mountain View Cemetery appears in the eighth-season premiere «The Foundation» (1996) as the burial place of Susan Ross, George Costanza’s fiancée, who died after licking toxic adhesive on the envelopes for their wedding invitations. The episode opens after Susan’s death, with George, Jerry, Elaine and Kramer gathered at her grave alongside Susan’s parents. Jerry delivers a solemn farewell that includes a reference to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, while George struggles to display the level of grief expected of him. The cemetery returns later when George visits Susan’s grave alone and talks to her about his life after her death, including the Yankees and the foundation her parents have established in her memory. The scenes were filmed among the real graves at Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena. A further Seinfeld connection came two years later, when Jerry Seinfeld used Mountain View Cemetery for the mock funeral of his old stand-up material in the HBO special I’m Telling You for the Last Time (1998), with fellow comedians including George Carlin, Garry Shandling and Paul Reiser appearing as mourners.

In Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), Mountain View Cemetery is used for the funeral of Inspector Douglas Todd, Axel Foley’s longtime superior in the Detroit Police Department. Todd is shot and killed during a raid on a chop shop at the beginning of the film, and the funeral follows shortly afterwards. Axel speaks with Todd’s widow beside the grave and initially tries to soften her husband’s final words, only for her to recognise immediately that the sentimental version does not sound like him. Axel then admits that Todd’s actual dying instruction was essentially for him to go after the man responsible. The funeral provides the emotional motivation for Axel’s subsequent journey to Beverly Hills, where his investigation leads him to the Wonder World amusement park.

In End of Days (1999), Mountain View Cemetery is used during Christine York’s visit to a cemetery. Christine, whose life has become central to a supernatural conspiracy surrounding the approaching millennium, comes to the graveyard as the forces surrounding her begin to close in. Although the film is set primarily in New York City, the cemetery sequence was filmed in Altadena, with Mountain View standing in for the East Coast location.

In Six Feet Under (2001–2005), Mountain View Cemetery appears prominently in the pilot episode (2001) as the burial place of Nathaniel Fisher Sr. Following his sudden death when his hearse is struck by a bus on Christmas Eve, the Fisher family gathers at the cemetery for his funeral. Nate becomes frustrated by what he sees as the overly sanitised rituals of the funeral industry and refuses to use a novelty earth dispenser provided for mourners, instead reaching down and throwing a handful of soil onto his father’s coffin himself. His mother Ruth follows his example and finally breaks down emotionally beside the grave. The sequence establishes one of the central themes of the series: the contrast between death as a professional business and the far messier reality of personal grief. Mountain View was also particularly well suited to Six Feet Under because of its open grave used for filming, which allows performers to be positioned below ground level without requiring an actual burial plot to be disturbed.

In A Lot Like Love (2005), Mountain View Cemetery provides the grave of Emily Friehl’s mother. Emily visits the cemetery during one of the film’s later time periods, and Oliver Martin also comes to the grave with flowers as their relationship continues to intersect over several years. The grave itself was created for the production in an otherwise empty area of the cemetery, while a distinctive open-air monument nearby can be seen in the background of the sequence.

In Desperate Housewives (2004–2012), Mountain View Cemetery is used in the first-season episode «There Won’t Be Trumpets» (2005) for the funeral of Juanita «Mama» Solis. Gabrielle Solis is already struggling with the family’s financial situation when she discovers that Carlos has spent money on an elaborate crypt for his mother. Gabrielle angrily confronts him at the cemetery, turning what should be a solemn funeral into another battle over their collapsing finances. The crypt seen in the episode was not constructed for the series but is the real Buckley family crypt on the Mountain View grounds.

In Halloween (2007), Mountain View Cemetery becomes Haddonfield Cemetery. Dr Samuel Loomis travels there after returning to Haddonfield in pursuit of the escaped Michael Myers and asks about the grave of Michael’s murdered sister Judith. He discovers that Judith’s headstone has been removed, providing another sign that Michael has returned home and is retracing the events of his childhood. Director Rob Zombie used the existing Mountain View landscape while supplementing it with fake gravestones created for the production.

In The Office (2005–2013), Mountain View Cemetery appears in the fourth-season episode «Chair Model» (2008). Michael Scott becomes infatuated with a woman pictured in an office-furniture catalogue and sends Dwight Schrute to find her, only to learn that she has died in a car accident. Michael and Dwight subsequently visit her grave at Mountain View to pay their respects. Their attempt at solemn mourning rapidly becomes characteristically awkward when they stand beside the grave and sing Don McLean’s «American Pie». The scene was filmed in the north-eastern section of the cemetery.

In CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–2015), Mountain View Cemetery is used in the eleventh-season premiere «Shock Waves» (2010). Members of the Las Vegas Police Department and the CSI team gather for the funeral of Officer Franklin Clark, who was killed during the previous episode. The ceremony turns into a crime scene of its own when a bomb hidden at the cemetery explodes during the funeral, injuring several people and launching the episode’s central investigation. The production installed extensive effects equipment at Mountain View to stage the explosion.

In Sons of Anarchy (2008–2014), Mountain View Cemetery serves repeatedly as the burial ground used by SAMCRO and their families. One of its most significant early appearances comes in the first-season finale «The Revelator» (2008), when the club gathers for Donna Winston’s funeral after she has been mistakenly killed by Tig Trager on Clay Morrow’s orders. Jax Teller spends the night at the cemetery before the service, increasingly alienated from Clay and the direction of the club. Mountain View returned numerous times throughout the series: Piney Winston meets Jax there while arranging Half-Sack’s funeral in the third-season premiere, Piney’s ashes are laid to rest there in the fifth-season premiere, and Gemma Teller later visits the cemetery with Nero Padilla to deal with Carla’s ashes. The repeated use of the same cemetery helped give the club’s deaths and funerals a consistent physical setting throughout the series.

In Pretty Little Liars (2010–2017), Mountain View Cemetery appears in the second-season episode «The Devil You Know» (2011) as the site of Ian Thomas’s funeral. Aria, Hanna, Spencer and Emily attend the service after Ian’s body has finally been discovered, although the circumstances surrounding his death and the anonymous messages from «A» leave the girls suspicious rather than relieved. The funeral becomes another setting in which they try to understand how Ian’s death fits into the larger mystery surrounding Alison DiLaurentis.

In No Strings Attached (2011), Mountain View Cemetery appears near the beginning of the film when Emma Kurtz takes Adam Franklin to what he assumes will be an ordinary family gathering. The event turns out to be a funeral, and Adam finds himself unexpectedly introduced to Emma’s family under decidedly sombre circumstances. The cemetery sequence was filmed among the graves and lawns at Mountain View before the story moves to the family home for the wake.

In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013–2020), Mountain View Cemetery appears in the first-season episode «Nothing Personal» (2014). Melinda May secretly returns to the grave supposedly belonging to Phil Coulson, whose death in The Avengers had been publicly accepted before his unexplained resurrection. May emerges from the open grave after retrieving a hidden USB drive from Coulson’s empty coffin. The drive contains information connected to Project T.A.H.I.T.I. and the circumstances surrounding Coulson’s return to life. The scene makes particularly effective use of Mountain View’s film grave, allowing May to climb directly out of the ground in a single location.

In American Horror Story: Hotel (2015–2016), Mountain View Mausoleum appears in the fifth-season episode «Flicker» (2015) during the extended flashback revealing the early life of the Countess. Believing silent-film star Rudolph Valentino to be dead, Elizabeth repeatedly visits his tomb and leaves a red rose. During one of these visits she discovers that Valentino is actually alive and is reunited with both him and his wife, Natacha Rambova. Valentino explains that his apparent death was staged after he became infected with the mysterious blood virus that grants immortality, and he and Natacha offer to share it with Elizabeth. James Patrick March secretly watches their reunion from the lower level of the mausoleum, setting in motion his revenge against the couple. Mountain View’s ornate galleries and crypts provide the mausoleum seen throughout the sequence.

In Lucifer (2016–2021), Mountain View Mausoleum is disguised as a church library in Rome in the fourth-season episode «Somebody’s Been Reading Dante’s Inferno» (2019). Following Chloe Decker’s discovery of Lucifer Morningstar’s true identity, flashbacks reveal that she travelled to Italy and began researching biblical and historical accounts of the Devil. The Great Gallery of the mausoleum was transformed with desks, lamps, curtains and large bookcases covering the crypts, allowing its vaulted ceilings, marble surfaces and stained glass to stand in for the ecclesiastical library where Chloe carries out her research. Her investigation eventually brings her into contact with Father Kinley, whose interpretation of an ancient prophecy helps fuel her fear that Lucifer’s presence on Earth could have catastrophic consequences.

In Promising Young Woman (2020), the production makes particularly deceptive use of Mountain View Mausoleum, transforming part of the cemetery complex into an environment associated with the medical school attended by Cassandra Thomas and her late friend Nina. Cassie approaches Amber, the teenage daughter of Dean Elizabeth Walker, outside what appears on screen to be the girl’s school and persuades her to get into the car by pretending she can introduce her to a popular band. The location is actually the Mountain View Mausoleum on North Marengo Avenue, with the building and surrounding grounds disguised so completely that there is little indication on screen that the scene was filmed at a cemetery. The encounter is part of Cassie’s attempt to force Dean Walker to understand the fear and helplessness experienced by Nina after the school failed to take her sexual assault allegation seriously.

In Perry Mason (2020–2023), Mountain View Mausoleum and Cemetery appear several times during the first season. In «Chapter Two» (2020), Emily Dodson and Della Street visit a funeral home to make arrangements for the burial of Emily’s murdered infant son Charlie, with Mountain View Mausoleum providing the funeral-home interiors. The cemetery grounds are subsequently used for burial scenes elsewhere in the season, including a major sequence in episode seven. The elegant marble interior of the mausoleum contrasts sharply with the grim circumstances surrounding Charlie’s death, which forms the central case investigated by Perry Mason throughout the season.

Ozzy Osbourne filmed substantial portions of the music video for «Life Won’t Wait» (2010) at Mountain View Cemetery and the adjoining Mountain View Mausoleum. Directed by his son Jack Osbourne, the video opens with funeral imagery and repeatedly places Ozzy among graves, coffins and the monumental interiors of the mausoleum. He is shown walking through its corridors and performing with his band on its steps, while other sequences centre on a coffin positioned above an open grave. The cemetery and mausoleum give the video much of its gothic visual identity, contrasting the song’s theme of mortality and the passage of time with one of Altadena’s oldest burial grounds. The video accompanied «Life Won’t Wait», the second single from Osbourne’s album Scream, and was filmed around Los Angeles in the summer of 2010.

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