Plans for the burial have been the subject of much debate for weeks. Some family members said they wanted Jackson buried at Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara County. Joe Jackson said he favored having the pop star laid to rest in Las Vegas as part of a new venue honoring him.
There was a private memorial service for Jackson at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills last month, followed by a public service at Staples Center. TMZ reorts Jackson's body is above ground at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills and is being kept in a freezer. His mother, Katherine has frequently visited the temporary resting place.
Originally, the event was to take place Aug. 29 at what would have been his 51th birthday. Michael Jackson's family moved the date of his burial at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Glendale to Sept. 3 at 7 p.m. No reason has given for the change.
Glendale will bill Michael Jackson's family for public costs of burial. The Jackson family will be footing the bill for his burial -- including the city costs for police and other public services, officials said.
There was fierce debate after Jackson's public memorial about why the city of Los Angeles picked up the tab for more than $1 million for police and other services for the event. But that isn't expected in Glendale, which has a longstanding history working the Forest Lawn-Glendale cemetery.
Sgt. Tom Lorenz of the Glendale Police Department said the cost of traffic control and other police services will be passed on to Forest Lawn and ultimately to the family. Despite the deployment of 3,200 officers by the Los Angeles Police Department for the public service at a cost of more than $1 million, Lorenz said he expected far fewer resources to be used for Jacksons funeral.
Jackson to be interred Aug. 29, in an intimate evening service for family and friends in the expansive cemetery's Great Mausoleum, according to a statement from the family publicist. The pop singer's remains will be placed in a crypt in the Holly Terrace section of the mausoleum, a massive building that is the final resting place for stars from film's golden age, such as Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard and Clark Gable.
The funeral capping two months of rumors that began even before Jackson's gold-plated casket was rolled into Staples Center on July 7 for a televised memorial. That day began with a service at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills but ended without a burial or interment. One report had his body stored in a crypt owned by Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr., and there was widespread speculation that an elaborate grave -- and, ultimately, a Graceland-style museum -- would be constructed at the entertainer's Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara County.
With his love of old-time Hollywood glamour, showy art and showmanship, Michael Jackson would probably have welcomed his family's announcement that his remains will be interred in the star-laden, sculpture-speckled confines of Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Glendale.
Jackson, who spent lavishly on antiques and fancy reproductions, was placed in an area decorated by sculptures and bronzes of American icons, including George Washington, Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt on a property that has replicas of Michelangelo statues and a stained glass window depicting the “Last Supper."
The Jackson's family, led by his 79-year-old mother, Katherine, selected Forest Lawn, a 20-minute trip across the San Fernando Valley from their Encino home. Neither a cemetery spokesman nor the Jacksons' publicist would comment on the reasons for their choice.
In choosing Forest Lawn, Jackson's family opted for a place with the over-the-top qualities that the pop star loved in life and the privacy guarantees that eluded him. The 103-year-old property's 290 acres straddle the border of Glendale and Los Angeles. It changed the design of cemeteries by re-imagining them as park-like outdoor museums with rolling hills dotted by inspiring statues and uninterrupted by upright gravestones.
Outlining this new approach in 1917, Forest Lawn's general manager, Hubert Eaton, wrote of a “great park . . . devoid of misshapen monuments and other customary signs of earthly death, but filled with towering trees, sweeping lawns, splashing fountains, singing birds, beautiful statuary, cheerful flowers, noble memorial architecture with interiors full of light and color, and redolent of the world's best history and romances."
Sorrow and mourning were to be replaced by frolicking schoolchildren and strolling lovers. The cemetery's nondenominational chapels -- modeled on churches in Scotland and England -- have hosted 70,000 weddings, and its eclectic artwork, a collection that manages to accommodate “the world's largest black opal," “the world's largest religious painting" and a giant stone head from Easter Island -- once made it Southern California's largest tourist attraction.
But Forest Lawn also zealously guards the privacy of those buried there. Staffers do not reveal the grave locations of celebrities, and those taking photos, making too much noise or leading tours of famous graves are quickly ushered off the property.
“It's not an amusement park," said William Martin, the cemetery's communications director.
“They protect celebrities like the Dead Sea Scrolls," said Scott Michaels, the owner of Dearly Departed Tours, which escorts tourists to famous L.A. death sites. Michaels does not bring tours to Forest Lawn but visits often on his own to see the final resting places of W.C. Fields, Lon Chaney and Chico Marx among others. He said he had been thrown out half a dozen times.
“The Great Mausoleum where he is going is like the Holy Grail of grave hunters. It's the most difficult to navigate. The rooms are like mazes, almost like an Escher drawing. There are cameras all throughout it, and if you are just wandering about, they will find you and kick you out," he said.
Glendale authorities met with cemetery officials and said street closings were likely, but they did not anticipate crowd control issues or other major problems despite Jackson's global fame and legions of fans.
“I expect a minimal intrusion on the city and on our police services," said Mayor Pro-Tem Frank Quintero. “All we need to do is provide police services for traffic control. That's it."
Sgt. Tom Lorenz of the Glendale Police Department said the funeral was on private property and not open to the public. Glendale officials plan to strongly discourage anyone not invited to the funeral from trying to attend, he said.
“We believe we will be able to manage this event and provide the family with a peaceful service," Lorenz said. The family will bear the cost of additional police patrols, he said.
