The pop star Michael Jackson was mourned by his family and celebrities including Elizabeth Taylor, Barry Bonds and Macaulay Culkin on Thursday night outside the elaborate mausoleum where the King of Pop will be no more.
The funeral began about an hour and a half late because of the tardy arrival of his parents, Joe and Katherine, and other family members. They included the singer's three children, Prince Michael, 12, Paris Michael, 10, and Prince Michael II, 7, known as Blanket.
The invitation notice indicated the service would begin promptly at 7 p.m.; it began closer to 8:30.
A large, blimp-like inflated light, the type used in film and television production, and a boom camera hovered over the seating area placed in front of the elaborate marble mausoleum. The equipment raised the possibility that the footage would be used for the Jackson concert documentary "This Is It."
About 250 seats were arranged for mourners over artificial turf laid roadside at the mausoleum. Nearly double the number of media credentials, 435, were issued to reporters and film crews who remained at a distance from the service and behind barricades.
Maria Martinez, 25, a fan from Riverside, Calif., who was joined by a dozen other Micheal Jackson admirers at a gas station near the security perimeter, gave a handful of pink flowers to a man with an invitation driving into the funeral.
"Can you please put these flowers on his grave?" she told him. Martinez said she picked them from a nearby park. "They were small and ugly, but I did that with my heart. I'm not going to be able to get close, so this is as close as I could get to him."
The man consented, adding, "God bless."
Glendale police said all was going smoothly early in the evening and there were no arrests.
By late afternoon Thursday, media tents had cropped up all along the boulevard across from the wrought-iron gates that serve as the main entrance to Forest Lawn. That vantage point offered no view of any mausoleum — just a fountain and a building containing the gift shop.
The Jackson family had booked an Italian restaurant in Pasadena for a gathering Thursday night, said Alex Carr, assistant operations manager at Villa Sorriso, in the city's Old Town district. She wouldn't specify the menu or number of people, but said the entire restaurant, which can accommodate 200 guests, had been reserved for the event and that security would be present.
The ceremony ends months of speculation that the singer's body would be buried at Neverland Ranch, in part to make the property a Graceland-style attraction. An amended copy of Jackson's death certificate was filed Thursday in Los Angeles County to reflect Forest Lawn as his final resting place.
In court on Wednesday, it was disclosed that 12 burial spaces were being purchased by Jackson's estate at Forest Lawn Glendale, about eight miles north of downtown Los Angeles, but no details were offered on how they would be used.
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