Friends star Matthew Perry is laid to rest alongside Carrie Fisher, Michael Hutchence and Stan Laurel in Hollywood’s most celebrity-packed cemetery
Matthew Perry is buried in a star-studded cemetery that is the final resting place of some of Hollywood’s most famous celebrities.
The Friends star was laid to rest on Friday during a private funeral service at Forest Lawn Church of the Hillys in Los Angeles.
Located across from Warner Bros Studios, where Friends was filmed for ten seasons, Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery is the final resting place of a galaxy of Hollywood stars including Carrie Fisher, Bette Davis, Stan Laurel, Buster Keaton and INXS frontman Michael Hutchence and Anne Heche.
Other big celebrities include western star Lee Van Cleef, fitness guru Jack LaLane and Paul Walker from the Fast and Furious films.
Pictured is Matthew Perry, best known for his role as Chandler Bing in the TV sitcom Friends
Pictured is Carrie Fisher, known for her role as Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy
Bette Davis is another famous face buried in the cemetery
American silent-era comedian Buster Keaton (1895–1966), who started his career in Hollywood in 1917
In the photo Michael Hutchence, singer and frontman of the rock band INXS
Pictured is Stan Laurel, known as part of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy
According to the Smithsonian, the cemetery contains more stars per square foot than any ZIP code in Los Angeles.
More than 350,000 people are buried within the 300 acres of Forest Lawn.
The graves are anchored flat into the ground, making it difficult to distinguish a single person, and you cannot ask the staff for help with directions to a celebrity gravestone out of respect for the privacy of the dead.
Many celebrities choose to be buried in the cemetery because of the anonymity it provides after death.
Pictured is Lee Van Cleef, who is best known for his roles in westerns such as the Spaghetti Western trilogy
Pictured is original fitness guru and entrepreneur, Jack LaLane, at his Los Angeles home
In the photo Anne Heche, known for her roles in films such as Donnie Brasco and the remake of Psycho
Paul Walker, known for his roles in the Fast and the Furious starring Vin Diesel
It was founded by Hubert Eaton, who had the cemetery constructed in its current form in 1917.
The cemetery, with its flat, open layout, was copied numerous times by other cemeteries in the United States.
It also functioned as a spectacle of art, Christianity, architecture and patriotism, making it a groundbreaking success that changed the face of cemeteries in America and corporate mourning.
There are five other woodland lawns in the Los Angeles area that use the same model.
The one in Glendale is the first and oldest with classic stars like Jimmy Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor and Humphrey Bogart buried there.
The Forest Lawn is the hipper resting place for the modern celebrity crowd, while the others are populated by B- and C-list celebrities.
Some critics have even called Forest Lawn the Disneyland of cemeteries, even though Disneyland was built after the cemetery.
On Friday, at Matthew Perry’s funeral, his co-star Jennifer Aniston, 54; Lisa Kudrow, 60; Courteney Cox, 59; and David Schwimmer, 57, arrived as a quartet.
They were all dressed in black suits and somber as they prepared to say their final goodbyes to Perry at Forest Lawn Cemetery.
After the simple hour-long ceremony, they were joined outside the church by Matt LeBlanc, 56, and were pictured chatting with other well-wishers.
Throughout his life, Perry had been open about his struggles with drugs and alcohol
Forest Lawn Memorial Park was once called the Disneyland of cemeteries, despite being built well before the original theme park
There are five other woodland lawns in the Los Angeles area that use the same model
The service ended with a rendition of Peter Gabriel’s song ‘Don’t Give Up’ with the lyrics: ‘There’s no fight left, it seems, I’m a man whose dreams have all been abandoned, I’ve lost my face changed, I’ve changed my name, but no one wants you if you lose.’
An onlooker told DailyMail.com: ‘There was no dry eyes there. There were many tears and laughter. Only close friends and family spoke.”
After the service, Perry was buried in a dark wooden casket in a family-only ceremony.
After the ceremony, crowds of black-clad mourners stood outside the church.
Some were seen hugging and comforting each other. Many wore dark sunglasses to protect their eyes from the bright California sun.
The Los Angeles church has played host to a long line of celebrity funerals, from Stan Laurel’s to Carrie Fisher’s. It is unclear whether Perry made his final wishes known
A van is seen arriving at the cemetery prior to Perry’s funeral
Perry’s stepfather Keith Morrison, with the gray hair, served as pallbearer
Jennifer Aniston (left), Courteney Cox (second from left), David Schwimmer (center), Lisa Kudrow (second from right) and Matt LeBlanc (far right) are seen at Matthew Perry’s funeral on Friday
Perry’s cause of death remains unconfirmed, but initial toxicology reports indicated there was no meth or fentanyl in his system when he drowned.
Throughout his life, Perry had been open about his struggles with drugs and alcohol.
According to a TMZ report, the usual narcotics were not found in Perry’s system during initial testing. But more in-depth testing is underway and should reveal whether the beloved actor had prescription drugs in his system.
When investigators went to Perry’s home, they found no illegal drugs, but a prescription drug that was properly labeled and kept in storage bottles.
In his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry wrote that after his colon exploded in 2018, he was prescribed opiates that he deemed insufficient to deal with his pain, prompting him to turn to street dealers to possibly supply him with fentanyl-laced OxyContin.