Scott Michaels of LA’s iconic Dearly Departed Tours is a positive person: “Famous people die every day,” he grins. It’s with that deadly enthusiasm that he now brings to “Dearly Departed Tours” online.
Founder of LA’s iconic Dearly Departed Tours and Artifact Museum, Michaels said his new You Tube channel allows him to share his lurid knowledge in short video “tours,” now sometimes venturing outside the confines of Los Angeles proper. “I do the same thing we did in a van, but I do it virtually and across the U.S.,” he explained.
Michaels began his tourism undertaking after a stint as manager of the original (now deceased) Grave Line Tours. He went on to open Dearly Departed Tours and Museum in Hollywood, a fixture for two decades, But in 2021, it closed, along with many tourism attractions hit by the pandemic. But “Dearly Departed Tours online has risen in its place,” he said.
On his You Tube channel, the well-respected Hollywood historian leads viewers on a kaleidoscope of macabre, Hollywood history, “tragical artifacts” and actual visits where crimes and deaths occurred.
Academy Award-winning director Quentin Tarantino called upon Michaels to lead he and his crew to sites and provide information – both well-known and obscure – associated with the Manson murders as part of pre-production of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” In the film’s credits, Tarantino accorded special thanks to Michaels for his consulting work.
Paranormal investigator Zak Bagans of “Ghost Adventures” invited Michaels to join him on an hourlong broadcast investigation delving deep into the notorious Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. He has also starred and created the documentary “The Six Degrees of Helter Skelter,” “Dearly Departed” volumes 1 and 2, and “Hollywood Death Trip.”
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