Great Cemeteries Of The World

We have no control over death. However most of us have some say about our last resting place. From Potter’s Fields to the Pyramids, we have been as creative in housing the dead as we have in housing the living. It is this fascination with the tombstone, vault or burial plot, and our never-ending curiosity about its inhabitants, that intrigues every visitor to a cemetery. This 26-part, half-hour series explores the residents, history, art and mystique of the most renowned cemeteries of the world.

From the glamour of Hollywood Forever to the gloomy, tangled romanticism of London’s Highgate, each cemetery has its own story of how it came into being. The intriguing history of the cemetery itself will be the backdrop to the exploration of its most fascinating residents. It is the residents themselves that, long after their death, will bring this series to life. From London to Paris, St. Petersburg to Vienna, Dublin to Florence, New York to Los Angeles, and points in between, the world’s greatest cemeteries are showcased.

On the journey viewers will meet movie stars and mavens, musicians, poets and painters, royalty, scholars, mobsters and moguls – all legends, all larger than life. Among the residents of these famous cemeteries: Sarah Bernhardt, Moliere, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Karl Marx, Jayne Mansfield, Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino, Louis Prima, James Joyce, Al Capone, Dion Charles “Deany” O’Banion, Michelangelo, Niccolo Machiavelli, Gioacchino Rossini, Galileo, Czar from Peter I to Alexander III, Dostoesvsky, Tchaikovsky, Frederick Banting, Charles Best, Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri.