Rose Hills Memorial Park & Mortuary

Rose Hills Memorial Park & Mortuary is a vast cemetery complex at 3888 Workman Mill Road in Whittier, California. It was founded in 1914 by Augustus Gregg and a group of local businessmen as Whittier Heights Memorial Park, initially occupying just 18 acres of land that had once formed part of the Rancho Paso de Bartolo. A major expansion beginning in 1928 eventually transformed the property into one of the largest burial grounds in the United States, and Rose Hills today covers approximately 1,400 acres with more than 30 miles of roads. The complex contains numerous burial gardens, mausoleums, cremation facilities and chapels representing different periods of its development. Whittier Heights Mausoleum opened in 1917 and was among the earliest public mausoleums in California, while the Spanish Mission-style El Portal de la Paz followed in 1930. The most architecturally distinctive building is SkyRose Chapel, completed in 1997 and designed by Fay Jones and Maurice Jennings. Positioned high above the cemetery, the timber, stone and glass chapel has a soaring interior, extensive views across the San Gabriel Valley and Los Angeles basin, a large pipe organ and an underground mausoleum. The enormous scale of Rose Hills and the varied architecture within its grounds have allowed different parts of the property to appear on screen as conventional cemeteries, fictional churches and even buildings on another planet.

Rose Hills Memorial Park & Mortuary has appeared in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Ordinary Miracles (2005), What Just Happened (2008), True Blood (2008–2014) and Star Trek (2009). Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) uses the cemetery and Whittier Heights Mausoleum for the elaborate sequence at Sarah Connor’s supposed grave, while Ordinary Miracles (2005) and What Just Happened (2008) use Rose Hills for more conventional cemetery scenes. SkyRose Chapel takes the location in a completely different direction: in True Blood (2008–2014) it becomes the Dallas headquarters of the anti-vampire Fellowship of the Sun, while Star Trek (2009) transforms the same distinctive interior into part of the Vulcan Science Academy.

In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Rose Hills Memorial Park provides the cemetery where John Connor is brought to the supposed grave of his mother, Sarah Connor. John has never known where Sarah was buried after her death from leukaemia, but the T-850 leads him and Kate Brewster to a mausoleum and removes a coffin bearing Sarah’s name. Instead of a body, they discover an enormous cache of weapons. The Terminator explains that Sarah was actually cremated in Mexico and that her friends scattered her ashes at sea, using the empty coffin to store weapons in accordance with her wishes in case Judgement Day had only been postponed. Kate, still believing that she has effectively been kidnapped, takes a handgun from the coffin and shoots the Terminator before police surround the mausoleum. The sequence then turns into one of the film’s major action scenes, with the Terminator emerging under heavy fire while carrying the coffin on his shoulder and using it for protection as he fires back at police vehicles without killing the officers. The T-X also reaches the cemetery before John, Kate and the Terminator escape in a hearse. Rose Hills was used for the exterior cemetery and mausoleum material, while the interior of the crypt was constructed on a sound stage. The real building seen outside is Whittier Heights Mausoleum, one of the oldest structures at Rose Hills.

In Ordinary Miracles (2005), Rose Hills Memorial Park provides the cemetery connected to the family history of troubled teenager Sally Powell. Judge Kay Woodbury takes Sally into her home after the girl has passed through a succession of foster placements and gradually begins investigating the circumstances surrounding her birth parents. Records lead Kay to a cemetery plot belonging to the Powell family and ultimately help her locate Sally’s biological father, Jim, whose wife Miranda has died. Sally initially rejects Kay’s attempts to reconnect her with him, but after a series of conflicts she eventually decides to give her father another chance. The film concludes with Sally, Jim and Kay visiting Miranda’s grave together, with Rose Hills providing the setting for the reconciliation and the final acknowledgement of the family history Sally has spent much of the story trying to avoid.

In What Just Happened (2008), Rose Hills Memorial Park is used for the funeral of Hollywood talent agent Jack L. McDonagh, whose suicide brings together a large collection of actors, agents, producers and other members of the film industry. Producer Ben discovers his teenage daughter Zoe among the mourners and realises that her unusually intense grief is connected to a sexual relationship she had been having with the considerably older McDonagh. The funeral also becomes another arena for the professional absurdities surrounding Ben’s life. Bruce Willis, playing himself, delivers the eulogy and later joins Ben at the open grave, where the two become competitive about shovelling earth onto the coffin. Ben’s ongoing frustration with Willis’s nervous agent Dick Bell then culminates in Ben accidentally striking Dick with the handle of a shovel and sending him tumbling into the grave. The sequence turns a genuine cemetery setting into one of the film’s blackest jokes about a Hollywood culture in which personal grief, professional networking and petty rivalries continue even during a burial.

In True Blood (2008–2014), SkyRose Chapel at Rose Hills Memorial Park becomes the headquarters of the Fellowship of the Sun, the militant anti-vampire church led by Reverend Steve Newlin and his wife Sarah. The chapel appears prominently during the second season, particularly in «Hard-Hearted Hannah» (2009), «Release Me» (2009) and «Timebomb» (2009). Jason Stackhouse is brought into the church after joining the Fellowship’s Light of Day Institute and becomes increasingly close to Sarah Newlin, with the two eventually having sex inside the church. Sookie Stackhouse later infiltrates the Fellowship while searching for the missing vampire Godric, but Steve Newlin has already discovered her intentions and holds her captive beneath the church. The confrontation escalates when Eric Northman is chained to an altar to be exposed to sunlight, only for Jason to return and attack the Fellowship members with paintball weapons. Vampires then enter the church seeking revenge, but Godric prevents them from massacring the congregation. Although the story places the Fellowship outside Dallas, Texas, its striking timber-and-glass sanctuary is the real SkyRose Chapel in Whittier.

In Star Trek (2009), SkyRose Chapel is transformed into part of the Vulcan Science Academy and provides several interiors from Spock’s childhood and early adulthood. One scene follows the young Spock after he has been provoked into fighting another Vulcan child who insults his human mother, Amanda Grayson. Sarek speaks with his son afterwards inside the futuristic Vulcan environment created from the chapel’s exposed wooden structure, geometric forms and natural light. Years later, the same location is used when the adult Spock appears before the Vulcan Science Academy council. The council announces that he has been accepted despite the perceived disadvantage of his human heritage, referring to Amanda as a factor that Spock has successfully overcome. Offended by the insult to his mother, Spock declines the prestigious place and tells the council that he intends to join Starfleet instead. SkyRose Chapel requires relatively little alteration to suggest Vulcan architecture, with its angular timber framework and soaring open interior providing much of the futuristic design visible on screen.

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