The Loved One has a historical foundation in the author’s real-life experiences, which shaped his opinions of the American funeral industry and the Hollywood film business. In January 1947, Waugh and his wife took a trip to Los Angeles to confer with MGM studio people about the filming of his novel Brideshead Revisited. While in Southern California, Waugh toured Forest Lawn Memorial Park. He used the famous cemetery and mortuary as a model for the Whispering Glades mortuary in his novel.

In an article posted on the Evelyn Waugh Society’s website, Jeffrey Manley writes:

On the 1947 trip Waugh was keeping a diary, probably with the thought of using the experience for future writings. While Waugh never wrote a travel book describing the trip, he did use his experiences to write The Loved One, several articles on the film industry and its practitioners, as well as an article about American burial customs (Manley, Jeffrey. “75th Anniversary of Waugh’s Trip to Hollywood.” Evelyn Waugh Society, 31 Jan. 2022).

Journalist Ben Ehrenreich notes Waugh’s own opinions of American funeral rituals, which closely mirror the sentiments of his novel’s protagonist. Ehrenreich writes:

Southern California, home to the theme-park necropolis Forest Lawn, came to represent the apotheosis of America’s disturbingly ‘euphoric’ approach to mortality, to borrow Ariès’s term.