Sam Cooke Grave — Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale

Sam Cooke is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California — one of the most famous cemeteries in the world and the final resting place of an extraordinary concentration of twentieth-century American cultural figures. Cooke was brought there after his death in December 1964 at the age of 33. His grave in the Forest of Valor section of the cemetery is a destination for fans of soul music and for those who understand his place in both musical and American cultural history.

Forest Lawn Glendale was established in 1906 and is known for its sweeping lawns, reproductions of European masterworks, and the scale of its ambitions as a park as much as a cemetery. Among those buried there alongside Cooke are Clark Gable, Walt Disney, and numerous Hollywood figures. The park's association with the Los Angeles entertainment world makes it an appropriate resting place for one of the dominant figures in American popular music.

Forest Lawn Glendale is open daily and the public sections of the grounds are freely accessible. Maps of notable graves are available at the gate. Michael Jackson is interred at the adjacent Forest Lawn Hills facility in a private mausoleum. Cooke's grave is a pilgrimage site for fans who continue to regard him as among the greatest American singers of any era — a voice of staggering beauty and a life cut short at 33 by circumstances that have never been fully resolved.