A Niche for Helen Chandler at Hollywood Forever

My name is Arthur Dark, I'm a YouTuber, Hollywood historian, and cemetery enthusiast. A few years back I profiled Chapel of the Pines, a crematorium and columbarium in Los Angeles, which hosts the cremated remains of numerous Hollywood legends. Many of those legends are housed in a storage vault, inaccessible to the public. There are various reasons why so many ended up in the vault. For some it was a conscious desicion or was meant only to be temporary; for others, it was financial limitations. Many efforts have been made over the years to retrieve those lost in the vault, and have them given a proper final resting place, where they can be visited and remembered. Past successful efforts include Mae Busch, and Ann Sheridan (who was transferred to Hollywood Forever Cemetery).

One of the stars I am a fan of who is down in the vault is Helen Chandler, best known for her role as Mina in the 1931 horror classic, Dracula.

After her death in 1965 at just 56, because money was scarce, her funeral expenses were covered by the Motion Picture Relief Fund, and her ashes were placed in vaultage. After re-discovering her urn this year during our cataloging efforts of the Chapel of the Pines vault, we reached out to her family to discuss the possibility of having her ashes removed from the vault, and placed in a niche at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where she can be visited and remembered by fans who love her. With the family's blessing, we are proceeding with those efforts.

We are raising money to cover the costs of her transfer out of the vault to Hollywood Forever Cemetery, into a new urn, and a lovely new glass-front niche in the Cathedral Mausoleum. Previous fundraisers were only for the grave marker, but in this case, we are funding the actual grave plot, (the niche), the urn, and associated expenses, which all add up to quite a bit more (the majority of the cost is the niche itself).

Your contributions will help bring this beloved actress out of the darkness, and into the light, after more than a half century.

Any funds raised beyond the costs for Helen, will be rolled into the next campaign (which I'm sure there will be many).

Thank you for your support!