A Visit To The AL JOLSON Memorial & Gravesite - 2009
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ก.ย. 2009
- Take a virtual tour of final resting place of AL JOLSON: THE WORLD'S GREATEST ENTERTAINER! He is located at HILLSIDE MEMORIAL in California.
Don't be sad for Jolie, he's happy! - บันเทิง
I never tire of watching listening to Al Jolson. An exceptional entertainer. Who will live forever. RIP Al.
Wonderful shots. Memories will never fade. Still he exist's in many pubs as he always did. He was my youth and my parents before me. Thank you my friend . I hope to see on the other side one day.
It is a significant part of Southern California's entertainment history. I recall, as a young child, our mother having to explain that it was not Larry Parks buried there, but Al Jolson. We had watched The Jolson Story and The Jazz Singer numerous times, so it was a bit confusing to us. It is a lovely reminder of a hardworking, passionate entertainer that rode out the ever-changing and fickle tides of success through several generations and eras.
Beautiful mural of Moses in the Baldichino above his sarcophagus !
Al Jolson was amazing having intertained 4 generations. I have The AL Jolson Story and JOLSON SINGS AGAIN and watch it once a year and at the end of part two( Jolson Sings Again) I always cry just like I did the first time I saw it when a little girl! If peole would only watch the movies about him they'd see how he was THE VERY FIRST to introduce much to the set up of stages etc. that are used to this day.He was extremely creative.He did the very first talkie movie too called THE JAZZ SINGER.
Wonderful. I have never visited the Jolson memorial - this film is the next best thing
I visited this two months ago on a trip to LA; a dream come true
Thank you for a great video for a GREAT man. I love his music. Elvis called him his idol as well as many other stars. Well done!
I went to visit this grave last year.I grew up listening to my Dad singing all his songs.
peter hayden You and I have something in common. We both grew up listening to our Dear Dads singing 🎤All Jolson 😘
Al Jolson, what a man that I've now acknowledged. For sure, this memorial is truly more looking like why he was called "The World's Greatest Entertainer". It's so magnificent how he thrilled the world with so much happiness from the wrong deeds of society that we've all suffered. However, I loved the way his distinguishing character and his musical, comedic, and popular talent became an influence to famous celebrities that we all knew before and now. His legacy will always live on.
im 50 years old and am only just becoming to adore the legacy of this magnificent man.
Well said,and I am 53 years old.
I was in love with Larry Parks. What a magnificent job he did portraying Jolson.
What happened to him was disgraceful.
I`m 54 yrs. old and when I was a kid, I grew up listening to Al Jolson and learning to appreciate music of the 20`s, 30`s, 40`s, etc. and my older brother played the heck out of those Jolson LP`S. and 78`s. Even though later in life I heard he was kind of a self absorbed egotist, I`ve learned to look past that side of him and just enjoy his records. After all, millions of people heard his performances and applauded him and loved him, so the hell with the negative comments,
amberola1b i
I was ten years old & had all his 78rpm.1953.
Thanks to African American architect, Paul Revere Williams' design talents, this beautiful memorial lives on.🙌🏾♥️
His legacy still lives on today
When I was there last month I played "Avalon" and "Robinson Caruso" for him...RIP
I recently visited Hillside Memorial Park and Al Jolson's resting place. It really is something to be seen...very dramatic, especially at night when you can see it lit up from all directions along I-405.
Someone better add a record player at his grave that goes day and night so everyone that goes there can hear him singing.
@@tmnl8037 I would love that.
He will be with us forever, because we will be listening always his marvelous performance thanks all the records and video copies we can get by you tube.
I am sure never will be another entertainer like to AL
What can I say. Great guy!
He really is. The one and only tremendous musician
That's some memorial as the world passes by behind him.
This memorial to this wonderful entertainer is indeed grand, but this man deserved it. His audience was the most important thing to him, and someone whose life was so dedicated to his audience deserves the grandeur
Some years ago I went to California with my Aunt Lillian.
While I was there I knew that I just had to see the Grave site of my Dad's all time Idol, Al Jolson!
At first my Aunt was upset why'd we have to spend part of our vacation at a Cemetery; but when we laid eyes on that Fabulous Memorial, we were both taken back by its Splendor ❤️🙏🏼😞
A man who when still alive had two biopics done and shot back to the top singing on only one lung. He thrilled people and myself, hardly a day goes by without listening to his wonderful performances.
Mark Doherty v really good u
The Jolson Memorial and Gravesite is a beautifully done and appropriate tribute to a great entertainer. I became an aficionado of Jolson as a result of watching The Jolson Story and Jolson Sings Again with Larry Parks and while his style is arguably dated, he was a significant influence on legendary singers including Sinatra, Garland and Tony Bennett. He sacrificed his health and ultimately died prematurely as a result of travelling and performing for the troops during World War II and Korea.
MrImiller07 So did I. My late parents were fan of Al Jolson...I grew up listening to his music...
From a well over 100 years aspect, well over, the beginnings of the Jolson career, or even from his first great impact period,1912 -32. the recordings, movies, everything, except for some oddities, that present the charisma, electricity, no doubt impact he had, a general conclusion of his style from that aspect, and even to a certain degree the years from 1932 till 1945. The technology of those times having much to do with it. Al Jolson was born in 1886, it is only natural one will adjust, develop, hone there selves to the needs of the time period, and for Jolson from the late 19th Century to the early 1930'S that was the time for Jolie to do that. Now, only for those with an historical interest, and/or who can put the realties, the situations, the circumstances of then, into the context and perspective of then, can an appreciation, or understanding of Al Jolson,, be forthcoming. To most, hell bent on protecting their contemporary image, and acceptance now, they reject him outright, based on that mostly earlier times perspective of him. A time locked into a time capsule, and one more so exposed. All vision of him, for example the movies is between 1926 and 1939.and 1 cameo. In 1945. In 1926 he was not beginning and was already in his 40'S. The last 5 years of his life, after WW2, however, has not dated, particularly vocally. or what exists audibly. The work sound wise he did then, for movie soundtracks, recordings and radio was spot on for the time, and several standard of his own, or others, like people like Como, Crosby, Sinatra,Nat Cole, etc were doing then, today still remains acceptable to those who just appreciate the all time standards. The great American song book in general.
His material going back to say the early 1920S and prior has dated from a just being in a now perspective, but his later material/ after WW2 particularly in the American popular song perspective, is just up to date as the same stuff. Sinatra/ Tony Bennett/ Perry Como, or any of them did. 2 recent box set CDS from Sepia confirm that!
@WIZZINGSHIRE - Jolson was the father of showbusiness as we know it today. Even Tom Jones and Elton John have personally cited Jolson as their sole inspiration for entering showbusiness. However, denouncing a person's grave purely because he may not be as well known today by today's youth really is quite sick!
I do not care his personal errors. Nobody is perfect, but it seems to me that he was perfect as an artist all the way. He was the very highest singer and enterteinment ever existed before or after till now a days. AL JOLSON LIVES IN OUR HEARTS FOREVER.
what a talented man in the day
@WIZZINGSHIRE Jolson was Elvis BEFORE Elvis was Elvis. Check out Jolie's rendition of "Are You Lonesome Tonight" which was covered by Elvis in almost the exact same rendition. Jolson did most everything first in his lifetime. A dynamic entertainer who pioneered in album sales, radio and made the silent films SPEAK.
Tastefully understated.
You can see it from the freeway. Al's songs have been playing continually since 1950.
he could hold an audience under his spell, and when he was in a broadway show back in the early 1900`s and he would ask the audience if they wanted to see the show or hear him sing, the audience would shout in unison SING!!!!!!!!
He will be greatly missed :"( That is a great video.
Magnificent Memorial' to a really great singer" R.I.P Mr Jolson..
I am ASA reincarnated,i believe this my grandmother said i talk like him&and i sing like him,even really love that style of music! I will visit there next year and sing to him! I now pretty much everything about him. My idol,love Al
OCTUBRE 23-2011------61' años de su muerte,pero siempre escuchando su voz maravillosa.
UN RECUERDO Y UNA ORACION A TU MEMORIA.
GRACIAS AL
RIP
This memorial was designed by Paul R. Williams, an African American architect, who designed many famous houses for a lot of Hollywood stars including Frank Sinatra, Tyrone Powell, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. His history is very interesting especially for a man of color in that period of time. Many of his buildings are on the National Registry of Historic Places. Wikipedia has a lot of information if you want a brief overview.
Well look, I know that you think there would not have been a guy like Jolson who changed the world during the first half of the 20th century. But, you jut have to except the way music was from time after time. In my view, 1, he's not a racist. 2, he's not a clown. And 3, he was just standing up for civil rights of eqaulity just like what Michael Jackson did. If we had never heard of Al Jolson, then we would never heard the names of those modern day entertainers and it would be very depressing.
Al Jolson wasn't a racist. In fact the memorial in this video was designed by a black architect specifically hired by his wife.
madamerotten , I don’t even believe in that word anymore.
LA PALABRA GRANDE QUEDA MUY CHICA PARA DESCRIBIR A SEMEJANTE ARTISTA!! GIGANTE AL JOLSON, Y MUY MERECEDOR DE UN MAUSOLEO TAN HERMOSO Y MONUMENTAL COMO SU CARRERA!!
the greatest performer
I thought Jackie Gleason had an impressive tomb. Wow, it doesn't compare to Al Jolson's!
@WIZZINGSHIRE Jolson was one the great singers and entertainers; when he died they dimmed the Broadway lights in his honour; the grave site is perfect to his memory.
If America has a voice it will be Al Jalson's voice
Larry Parks did the best lip sync job of any performer in a movie or TV show ever, as Jolson in The Jolson Story and Jolson Sings Again. They murdered him by calling him a communist with all those hearings! He literally started crying on the stand, and said , " please, stop this, no more, I can't take it anymore "! His real like wife played Betty Garrett played Irene Lorenzo on All in The Family. And Carrol O'CONNOR was almost considered for the Jolson story, as was the actor that tore up the picture they snapped of him in The Godfather, at the wedding scene, he played Bartzini. He got cast as Jolson, but Larry Parks blew the Producers away at the audition.
im so glad that I lived at a time when we had GREAT ENTERTAINERS. They made life wonderful. may they rest in peace forever
@WIZZINGSHIRE ...and as a 24 year old, I can tell you that, unfortunetly, most young people today do not know about the entertainers you listed. They may have heard of Elvis and MAYBE Sinatra, today, but they don't listen to them. Judy Garland is known because of OZ, but thats it...many people think it's the only movie she ever made. It's a sad fact, but it's true.
I'm 16 lol
I love anything by the great Jolson. Do you know anything about a song of his called something like Bride and group?
You have every right to not like Jolson, but you cannot so easily diminish his legacy. The people who actually pay attention still care...do the rest really matter?
thank you for sharing - I don't believe for a moment that Al Jolson was racist - He was a great entertainer and loved bringing happiness to people through his music - I love you Al - always have always will :)
He was not a racist. He despised racism, as did Eddie Cantor, who like many entertainers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, performed in blackface. Blackface back then was the style, and even Black performers used burnt cork makeup. I get tired of having to explain conventions of 100, 150 years ago to young people who despise those who didn't have the ability to see 100 or 150 years in advance how society would change.
MI HOMENAJE MAS SINCERO AL CONMEMORARSE HOY 23 DE OCTUBRE DE 2014 64 AÑOS DEL FALLECIMIENTO DEL GRAN CANTANTE AL JOLSON. RIP AL .-
It was Paul R. Williams, ironically a black architect, considering the criticism of Jolie for blackface, mostly by those so very much ill-informed about that practice. I'd give you a link, but youtube does not allow that. For more detail just do a search on "Who designed the Jolson memorial" To read a moving eulogy to Al search for Jessel Jolson Eulogy, then click on the link that says The Sweet Singer of Israel and then on George Jessel delivered his eulogy to Al Jolson. Quite something.
www.paulrwilliamsproject.org/gallery/al-jolson-memorial-shrine/
Jolson was the greatest entertainer above everyone else
unlike the tv quick fix takeaway singers today who show little talent if any they have for the five minutes of fame and drift back into the fog of time never to resurface.
Al Jolson , a great entertainer of his day, he had a story, he worked hard, and i still get a kick from his music, I have been past his house in LA , never to his grave site. As for the new generation of our day? well I cant name a lot of their singers? and many dont know any classical music where most modern music came from.
Al Jolson was and still is King.
I'm 70, and I do not remember anyone playing or listening to AJ. I'm sure he has fans as all entertainers do, but I do not think his music holds up today.
I don't doubt for a second that he had great talent...but oh he was so obsessed with himself, he couldn't enjoy other (equally) talented performers...many people who knew Jolson well, did not like him at all as a person.
Except for many black artists like Cab Calloway who said he was a great man!
The mural on the baldacchino is beautiful ! They should gotten an Italian to paint it 😉
A great talent matched only by the size of his towering ego!
With his achievments, i'd say he deserves to have a big ego!
He knew he was the greatest, and he made sure everybody else knew it, too. He had a monstrous ego and other personal frailties (not racist in the least), but could he ever play to an audience
It looks like Al Jolson is the main attraction of this cemetery. Too bad his audience there is a bunch of dead people buried in other graves. As he housed to say “You Ain’t Heard Nothing Yet!”
This must had cost a fortune...!
i really liked his song sadly he died he was a such funny guy ..
@WIZZINGSHIRE You're entitled to your opinion, but I feel as if the only thing that still touts his legacy as "The World's Greatest Entertainer" IS his gravesite. Jolson's legacy over the years has been swept under the rug due to over-the-top politcally correct individuals. Without Jolson there would have been NO Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Judy Garland or Sinatra.
What's the name of this song? It's beautiful!!!
No sad songs for me.
It do seem over the top--but then Jolson was over the top. He was massively egotistical, massively a big pain in the butt--he seemed to think his talent justified him riding roughshod over others. There's a reason why Ruby Keeler wanted nothing to do with his biopics. But listen to the verve he brought to his performances--no one did it better. There's a TH-cam of Dean Martin and Bing Crosby singing a medley of Jolson songs--and these two both sound like they are zombies from the walking dead by comparison to Jolson. He recorded "Beautiful Dreamer" just before he died in 1950 and it is a gorgeous rendering--one of the best. Is he the better than Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis? That's a judgment call--but he sure could put over a song with all he had...
Nah... keep it and leave it standing... The odd pinhead opinion matters little and will not change or belittle the legacy Jolie left for the world to cherish... :-)
Where is this place located? So beautiful he's resting like a Caesar ♥️
Culver City
Does it still play his singing?
What a memorial for a entertainer. But it's idolatry gone wild l think.
@Chaplin1914
Couldn't agree more
It's a beautiful monument to a great man. I always wonder when I see these monuments and mosoleums who pays to maintain that? Is it in the estate? City taxes?
Even in death, Jolson was always thinking about the other guy. Plenty of water so you can wash your blackface off after a graveside performance.
Crail, you have no clue to what this man did do...do more research!
You now what i find raciest is, if a kid liked Al Jolson now a days,and wanted to do a black face song of his for a talent show,he couldn't,that to me is raciest,Do u think any white person would be offended if a black person did it to impersonate a white singer,no they weren't. So why not,if any thing we were trying to feel them,be like them which is a compliment? But someone call AL one boy their surely mistaken
Umm clearly you don't understand why they put the black on their face..
It was called "Blackface" and they would make fun of black people
WHAT??????????????? there WOULD have been a sinatra.al jolson.the guy was a clown.
He made money off of black face. No love for him. RIPiss.
I understand your offense, and I must say I also thought he was just a racist prick. But if you actually researched on him, he was a crusader of black artitsts at the time. Once, when he found out about two black musicians who were kicked out of a restaurant solely because of their colour, he offered to take them out to that restaurant and said he would punch anyone who would try to stop him. Although we might see his blackface as insensitive (and I suppose it still kinda is), he was doing it because he wanted to inform his white audience of black culture and music, because at the time, black people were banned from Broadway. He also did it to satirize the growing number of KKK members in the country (at the time almost 15% youch!). More info here th-cam.com/video/f5Tm7bMUhUw/w-d-xo.html
This Michael Alexander just reinforces the evidence supported widely held belief that Blacks just don't have much in the way of critical thinking ability.
What a ludicrous comment.
@@abunchofiguanaswithinterne2186 It was a somewhat ill-considered comment from someone who just doesn't get that times change.
Good God! How vain and arrogant could this guy have been to have a grave like this!? Sure he was in the first talking movie, but it was a bit on the racist side. Blackface and all. Knock all that shit down and put up another wind turbine!
Crail Clinton fuck you. You are an ignorant piece of shit. He never asked for a grave like this. When he passed away that's what was decided would be best fit to commemorate such a legendary singer. He was anything but racist and if you even knew a thing about Al Jolson you would know that. His attributes weren't just limited to being in the first talkie. He himself brought fame to African American style music and helped to rid prejudice that black people are no good on stage. Countless of famous singers, no matter the ethnicity, owe their career to Al Jolson as he was their role model. He was a man to be admired. Was he perfect? Hell no. He was imperfect just like every other human being. His mother died when he was a boy and his father was hard on him. He ran away from home with his brother and soon the stage grasped ahold of him. It makes sense for him to have such a high ego because singing was all he ever truly loved. He worked hard to get where he got. He would sing his lungs off all night to entertain an audience. He was the first entertainer to fly over and help boost the moral of the soldiers in WWII. He preformed with a missing lung because he couldn't betray his beloved audience. This is why he is called The World's Greatest Entertainer. This is a title he earned.
i wouldnt call this guy the worlds greatest entertainer.maybe in 1930.his legacy does not live on.young people know who frank sinatra,judy garland,sammy davis jr,dean martin,elvis presley were.they never heard of al jolson.what an overhyped person with a gravesite thats too grand for what he was.
It should be destroyed, there was nothing funny about what he did, he got fame and fortune by mocking an entire people.
Uh, what? Never did he ever mock anyone with his performances. He fought against discrimination and racism... Do some research.
@@Rilumai Preach brother
What a stupid and utterly ignorant comment.
@@Rilumai Yep, sadly some people just want to be offended.