Dearly Departed Tours

Our tour guide Brian was amazing! He made the tour. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

I live in Rancho Cucamonga and go to L.A. often but have never taken any of the tours because...well those are for tourists, right? Well I am so glad we took this tour, it was great fun and very informative!

The tour had a good amount of death-related and sordid sites, as advertised, which was what we came for. Unexpected was the amount of general celebrity stuff: that's Drew Barrymore's house, that's Jack Benny's house, that's Sylvester Stallone's mom's house...oh, and that black car in the driveway is Sylvester's car, so he's there!, etc. I guess it's unavoidable that as we're driving to the sordid sites, we're in the midst of other celebrities' homes too, so it would have been silly *not* to point some of these out. I think it turned out very well for the less dark-oriented folks in our group. My one suggestion: if you take the tour and plan on taking a lot of pictures, bring a note pad. There were so many sites that were quickly mentioned that we couldn't remember all of the sites. Taking notes will help you label your pictures later. Oh, and this is definitely not for kids. Have fun!

Unlike most of the so called tours of LA, this one is REAL. It shows you the genuine places of things which have happened. Our guide was fun, knowledgeable and went out of the way to make sure everything shown was discussed in as much detail as possible. Take this tour BEFORE any others

Brian was a great and friendly tour guide and really knew his way around the history of hollywood. Details and goes to nearly every location remotely located to infamous events in the area. Would've been great if the OJ SImpson related murder was covered in this but wasn't. But everything else you could think of was in this tour. Excellent tour. Beats the typical city or star homes tour.

Brian was a very friendly and enthousiastic tour guide who really knew his way around LA. This is very entertaining to watch film clips at the exact spot where they're filmed. a lot of popular films, a lot of classics. It's head and shoulders above the other tours . Definitely check it out!

Whenever we're on vacation, my family and I always take tours to learn about the local area. We are huge movie fans. We had taken the Zerve tour in New York twice and really enjoyed it both time. The New York tour did a wonderful job of updating the tour to reflect sites from current movies. Because of our previous Zerve experience, we went into the tour with high expectations. The Los Angeles/Hollywood tour exceeded all of our expectations. The guide was very knowledgeable and receptive to all of our questions. We would highly recommend this tour to everyone. It was a WONDERFUL experience!!!

On the basis of having enjoyed the Dearly Departed Tour recently we decided to do this one also. The two tours are quite different. We had Brian to guide/drive us on both occasions and he brought his usual enthusiasm, knowledge and humour to the experience. Thoroughly enjoyed the tour and would recommend highly!

What a great tour...Brian was our tour guide and he was extremely knowledgable and funny..This is so much better then the standard "stars houses" tours...Brian even noticed I was wearing a "doors" shirt and was nice enough to point out spots like the "whiskey" and made sure I was able to take pictures...The tour had so much information and I learned a lot..We will definitly be taking the tour again when we are back in L.A. Thanks!!!

My wife and I took the Dearly Departed Tour with Brian. His knowledge and passion for the subject matter was evidenced in the enthusiam of his narration. However, and most importantly, he injected a lot of humour into this macabre subject. A good entertaining balance. There were facts, anecdotes, personalised observations, interesting diversions and lots of laughs as we criss crossed Hollywood and relevant parts of LA! It's a unique experience and stands heads above the ever increasing "same same" tours touted along Hollywood Boulevard. Highly Recommended! On the basis of this tour we also signed up for the Hollywood Movie Tour.

It's a great tour, filled with humor, interaction, and getting to see the sights of some of the filming locations in and around Hollywood. Not only do they show clips of the movies at each location, they make sure that if the house is on the right in the clip, it will be on the right side of the bus. This attention to detail, the knowledgeable tour guide and value alone make this a great way for you to spend 2.5 hours.

Highly recommend. Also bought the DVDs which were great. Would like to do the Manson tour sometime.

Ivy and Tom showed up for our morning tour and we were the only ones there but Brian showed up all smiles and espressing enthusiasim for having us on this little private tour. Brian was such fun and his passion for Hollywood history is easily apparent. Brian also made the experience interactive which was really fun. You occasionally see people in this life that are doing what they were meant to do and Brian is one of those people as his love for history and also people comes across. I know I have written a lot about Brian but I think it is noteworthy as Ivy and myself walked away feeling our $85 investment for this tour was well worth the price due to Brian's fun personality and passion for his city. I would most definately recommend any of my friends to take this tour especially if they have the same fascination that I have in some of the crazy wild history that surrounds us all. Strangely enough my favorite part was not want I expected. I was really taken by seeing the run down apartment that Bela Lugosa lived his final years in and died on the couch in. Weeks after the tour I looked his history up on line and learned so much about him and I was really struck with the image of Lugosa walking that neighbourhood old, alone and addicted to pain killers. He was a world icon and I thought I would love to spend a night in that apartment. So give Brian a raise or a big brass wrestlers type belt that has blazoned upon it "Best Crazy Dead People Tour Guide 2011" and he could wear it on the tours, well, no actually, his brilliant personality is enough, just give him a bonus or raise. Cheers, Tom Bowman & Ivy Williams March 24th 2011

the enclosed coach limited view of many of the sites - would have enjoyed it more with an open air van, or at least one with higher windows

We had a great time on the tour. Scott is very knowledgeable on Helter Skelter and does a great job on the presentation. I would recommend the tour for anyone.