Betty White’s Childhood Home

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While doing research on Afton Arms, the apartment building from the 1985 movie The Boys Next Door (which I blogged about here), I came across a page on the Hollywoodland website which stated that, at the age of eight, actress Betty White lived at a home located at 454 North Harper Avenue in Los Angeles.  Well, let me tell you, being that this stalker absolutely LOVES, LOVES, LOVES herself some Betty White, I just about fell off my chair with excitement!  How had I not previously known that Ms. White grew up in L.A.??

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I actually had the pleasure of meeting Betty at last year’s Emmy Awards, which I was a guest at thanks to my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog.  Prior to the show, I had told Pinky that the celeb I most wanted to meet and take a picture with that evening was Betty White, although at the time I was not even sure if she would be attending.  So when I spotted her shortly after the ceremony ended, I literally almost started crying I was so excited.  The expression on my face in the photograph below is absolutely priceless because it encapsulates EXACTLY how I was feeling at that moment – delirious joy, utter disbelief at who I was standing next to, and on the verge of tears over meeting someone I had idolized for so long.  (I think part of the reason that I adore Betty as much as I do – aside from the myriad of obvious reasons – is that her personality is pretty much a carbon copy of my grandma’s, whom I love pretty much more than life itself.  Smile)  When I told Betty how much I loved her and what an inspiration I thought she was, she thanked me and said – and I quote – “Oh, how lovely you are to say that.”  So darn cute!  Sigh.  I love, love, love that woman!  So when I saw the address for Betty’s childhood home, I immediately added it to my To-Stalk list and finally dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there this past weekend.

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Allan R. Ellenberger, who pens the Hollywoodland blog, came across Betty’s childhood home while compiling information for his 2008 book, Celebrities in the 1930 Census: Household Data of 2,265 U.S. Actors, Musicians, Scientists, Athletes, Writers, Politicians and Other Public Figures.  Allan spent over three years researching the 1930 census in order to track down the early residences of some of the U.S.’ most famous notables.  According to Allan, Betty lived in the home pictured below with her father, Horace L. White, who was an electrical salesman from Michigan, and her mom, Tess White, who was a homemaker from Illinois.  The White family’s census information was taken on April 17th, 1930 and, at the time, the dwelling, which they owned, was worth $10,000.  According to Zillow, the property is worth a whopping $1,077,200 today, although I am not sure how accurate that figure is.  For some reason, the 1930 census (and it was the only to do so) featured a line item asking if each family owned a radio and, according to Allan’s research, the Whites did.  You can read an interesting interview with Allan about his book on the Alt Film Guide website here.

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Betty’s former one-story home, which was originally constructed in 1928, boasts 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and 1,625 square feet.  Because Allan’s information was limited to the year 1930, I am not sure of when exactly the Whites purchased the property, but my hunch would be that it was in 1928, shortly after the place was built.  I am also unsure of when the family sold the residence, but I am guessing it was sometime during Betty’s teenage years being that she attended Beverly Hills High School, which would not have been in this home’s district.

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I cannot tell you how exciting it was to see Betty’s childhood house in person and to think that 82 years earlier she had called the place home.  So incredibly cool!

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On a side-note – I just discovered a new blog called Possessionista and I think I may be in love with it!  Dana Weiss, the site’s founder, is a stalker herself, but instead of hunting down locations, she finds clothing that has been seen on celebs and in movies and TV shows.  Um, yes please!  Of her blog, Dana says “I spend hours neglecting my home, my children, even my well being in order to replicate celebrity style, and find the things I lust after within my means.”  I, too, neglect my home and well being (it’s a good thing I don’t have any children!) while obsessively trying to track down locations.  You have to check out this post about her hunt for a wedding dress that was featured on Pinterest.  A woman after my own heart, I swear!  She’s the IAMNOTASTALKER of the celebrity fashion world!

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Dana put in some serious elbow grease yesterday trying to help me track down the “love” ring that Emily Maynard has been sporting the past couple of weeks on The Bachelorette.  After re-watching Monday’s night episode, though, I finally figured out that it is the Sydney Evan Gold & Pave Diamond Love Ring, although, for some reason, on TV it is very hard to tell that Emily’s ring has diamonds, as you can see below.  Too bad the thing retails for $860, because I am absolutely dying for it and my second wedding anniversary with the GC is coming up.  Hint, hint, honey!  Winking smile

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Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here.  You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here and you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.  And don’t forget to read my latest post – about low-carb tacos – on my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Betty White’s childhood home is located at 454 North Harper Avenue in Los Angeles, just east of West Hollywood.

Red Studios Hollywood – aka Kinograph Studios from “The Artist”

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In early March, my friend Tony, the fellow stalker who has the amazeballs On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream, wrote a comment on my post about the duplex where George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) lived in The Artist alerting me to a blog named Silent Locations.  The blog, which is authored by business lawyer/film historian John Bengtson, features a six-part column chronicling several locales that appeared in The Artist and their connection with various silent films made during Hollywood’s heyday.  I highly recommend checking out the feature and the site in general.  It is fabulous!  Anyway, one of the places mentioned in the column was Red Studios Hollywood, the exterior of which stood in for both the exterior of Kinograph Studios in The Artist and Maroon Cartoons in 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place on a very windy Sunday afternoon two weekends ago.

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The site where Red Studios Hollywood now stands was originally founded as Metro Pictures Back Lot #3 in 1915, long before the company joined forces with Goldwyn Pictures and became Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.  During its Metro heyday, such films as Scaramouche, Little Robinson Crusoe and The Champ were filmed on the premises.  Beginning in May 1946, the lot went through a series of different owners, the most prominent of whom were Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.  The showbiz powerhouse couple leased the property in 1953 and turned it into the very first Desilu Studios, where they shot seasons 3 through 6 of I Love Lucy.  In 1974, the lot became known as Ren-Mar Studios, an independently owned and operated facility where various production companies were able to rent out studio space.  Legendary television producer David E. Kelley made his home there in the 80s and shot Picket Fences (one of my faves!), Chicago Hope, The Practice and the first two seasons of Ally McBeal.  In January 2010, the lot was sold yet again, this time to Red Digital Camera Company, who renamed the place Red Studios Hollywood.

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A few of the countless other productions that have been filmed on the premises over the years include The Golden Girls, The Dick Van Dyke Show, the first four episodes of Seinfeld, The Andy Griffith Show, Make Room for Daddy, Lizzie McGuire, NewsRadio, Empty Nest, Monk, and, most recently, True Blood. The series Weeds was also filmed on the lot, back when it was Ren-Mar, and during Season 4, after Agrestic burned down, producers had Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) move to a fictional seaside town named “Ren Mar” in honor of the historic studio.  Love it!

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In The Artist, the back entrance of Red was used as the main entrance of Kinograph Studios, where George Valentin worked at the beginning of the flick.

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As you can see above, that area was changed drastically for the movie – so much so that it is virtually unrecognizable today.  A huge false front was built over the actual studio entrance for the filming and the Hollywood Rounder blog was lucky enough to get to watch it being constructed.  You can check out some very cool pics of the construction here and here, the fake security guard kiosk here, and the finished product here.

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Interestingly enough, when Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) is shown being dropped off at a location that is supposedly directly across the street from the Kinograph entrance, she is actually on New York Street at Paramount Studios, in front of the building that is used regularly as the Boston police station on Rizzoli & Isles.

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At one point in The Artist, George is also shown walking in between some of the Red Studios Hollywood soundstages.

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The area where he walked is denoted with a pink circle above.

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In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Red’s main entrance on Cahuenga Boulevard stood in for the entrance to Maroon Cartoons, where the famous animated hare worked.

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The courtyard just beyond that entrance was also used in the filming.

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That area is denoted with a pink circle above.

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On a Who Framed Roger Rabbit side-note – while doing research prior to writing this post, I came across a blurb in The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations book which, in reference to the flick’s title, stated, “No, there is no question mark, as it’s considered bad luck in a film title.”  I had never before heard that bit of trivia and found it interesting, especially since my good friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong grammatical errors blog, had recently written a post which mentioned WFRR’s punctuation error.  Superstition or not, I think the flick really needed the mark in its title and I found myself inadvertently adding one each time I typed “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” in this post.  I guess some habits are hard to break.

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The music video for Britney Spears’ hit 2000 song “Lucky” was also shot at Ren-Mar and the exterior of the studio is visible in the MTV Making the Video special about the production.

You can watch Part I of the Making the Video of “Lucky” by clicking above.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker John Bengtson, from the Silent Locations blog, for finding this location and to fellow stalker Tony, from the fantastic On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream, for pointing me to John’s site!  Smile

Stalk It: Red Studios Hollywood, aka Kinograph Studios from The Artist, is located at 846 North Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood.  You can visit the official Red Studios Hollywood website here.  The area of the studio used in The Artist can be found on Lillian Way, in between Willoughby and Waring Avenues.  The studio’s main entrance on Cahuenga Boulevard is the entrance that stood in for Maroon Cartoons in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  Red Studios Hollywood is not open to the public and does not currently offer a tour.

Grandma Bunny’s House from “You Again”

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As I mentioned in last Friday’s post, the hunt for Aunt Mitsy’s (aka Kathy Bates’) house from Rumor Has It actually began when fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, asked for some help in tracking down the abode where Grandma Bunny (aka Betty White) lived in the 2010 flick You Again.  I immediately got fellow stalkers Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, and Owen on the case, but even with their master stalking skills, for whatever reason, this particular location mystery took us quite a bit of time to solve.  The one major clue that we had to go on was that the house appeared to be situated on some sort of slanted lot and was not perfectly parallel to the street.  And while several crew members had informed Chas that the dwelling was located in Altadena, he had remembered seeing some slanted-type houses in the Monrovia area while he was searching for the Georgia Rule abode way back in March of this year, so he decided to begin his hunt there.  Thank god that guy has a good memory!  Winking smile

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As you can see in the above screen capture, an address number of “240” was also visible in the background of flick, so Chas got started searching all of the 200 blocks on every “slanted” street he could find in the Monrovia area and, amazingly enough, it was not long before he spotted the right house!  So I, of course, ran right out to stalk the place just a few days later.

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Grandma Bunny’s Victorian-style abode is actually only featured once in You Again and very briefly at that.  It pops up in the scene in which Marni (aka Kristen Bell), her brother Will (aka James Wolk) and his new fiance/Marni’s high school nemesis Joanna (aka Odette Annable) arrive to pick up Grandma Bunny for a wedding dance rehearsal.  It is there that, while helping Bunny put in her false teeth, Marni accidentally gets denture adhesive all over her hands and then winds up getting her hands stuck in her hair, causing Grandma Bunny to chop a large chunk of it off. (It pretty much goes without saying that You Again was not that great of a movie. Winking smile)

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I am very happy to report that Grandma Bunny’s house, which was originally built in 1887 (the same year that Monrovia was incorporated) and is one of the city’s oldest surviving Victorians, is just as adorable in person as it appeared to be onscreen.  At the time of its construction, there were only 164 homes in Monrovia and a scant 2,000 residents.  According to the city’s Historic Preservation Group’s website, the Colonial Revival-style front porch is not original, but was added to the property in the early 1900’s.  In real life, the charming little abode boasts 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and measures 1,482 square feet, although its façade makes it appear to be much larger.  Ironically enough, in a bit of foreshadowing the home’s actual owner described the dwelling as “everyone’s idealized version of grandma’s house” in a Los Angeles Times article that was published in January 1989.  I guess the You Again filmmakers felt the exact same way when they scouted the property.  Smile

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location.  And you can check out Geoff’s, from the 90210Locations website, extensive You Again filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Grandma Bunny’s house from You Again is located at 240 West Hillcrest Boulevard in Monrovia.

The Golden Girls House

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This past weekend, thanks to fellow stalker Owen, I was able to stalk the home used in one of my favorite ’80s TV shows – The Golden Girls.   Being that I was only eight years old at the time The Golden Girls premiered, I probably seem like a very unlikely fan of the show.  But, for some reason, a sit-com which centered around the trials and tribulations of four single senior citizens living together in a Miami area home appealed to me.  What can I say – I absolutely loved it!

But besides being a fabulous show, The Golden Girls also had, hands down, the BEST television theme song ever!  🙂  “Thank you for being a friend!  Travel down the road and back again.  Your heart is true, you’re a pal and a confidant.”  Sing it with me, now!  “And if you threw a party, invited everyone you knew, you would see the biggest gift would be from me and the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend!”  LOVE IT!  LOVE IT!  LOVE IT!

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I am happy to report that The Golden Girls house looks EXACTLY the same today – and I mean EXACTLY the same – as it did when the show first premiered in 1985.  It is absolutely unbelievable to me that the home has remained unchanged in a whopping twenty-four years time.  LOVE IT!  I’d like to go on record right now and thank the owners of this house for letting this piece of television history remain untouched for all of us stalkers to appreciate years later.  Why can’t more filming location owners be like you?????  LOL

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What’s even more amazing to me is how iconic The Golden Girls house truly is.  Even my fiance recognized it, and he recognizes virtually NOTHING.  In fact, I think I can safely say that in all the years we’ve dated (eight and half, but who’s counting?), he has never once recognized a location that I’ve dragged him to – ever!  Until this past weekend, that is.  🙂     Even though The Golden Girls house is extremely non-descript, for some reason a picture of it is imbedded in my brain, almost more so than any other TV home – except, of course, for the 90210 house!  🙂

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A big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location after hearing numerous rumors about its wherabouts – rumors like the house was actually located in Florida or Pacific Palisades or that it only ever existed on a studio backlot.  He ended up finding the house several years ago on a German website that had a map of Los Angeles with the general vicinity of the GG home earmarked.   Once he had the general area locked down – even if it was in German 🙂 – it didn’t take him long to find the home’s exact address and put to rest all of those pesky location rumors.  The real story of the Golden Girls home is this: During the first seasons of the show, a Brentwood area house was used for all of the establishing shots of the ladies’  Miami area residence.   Then in 1988, a replica of that home was built on the backlot of Disney MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida, and that replica was used for the exterior house shots for the remainder of the series – which seems odd to me being that the show was actually taped right here in Los Angeles.  Anyway, you can see a photograph of the replica home here.  Sadly, in 2003 the replica was torn down, along with the rest of Residential Street, in order to make room for a new stunt show called “Lights!  Motors!  Action!”   To quote Chelsea Lately,”I don’t like that!  I don’t like that at all!”   At least the real house is still standing, though!

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And if you are a big fan of the GG house, or just the show in general, I definitely recommend checking out this girl’s website.   And people say I have way too much time on my hands!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Golden Girls house is located at 245 North Saltair Avenue in Brentwood.