Bewitched – IAMNOTASTALKER

February 21, 2018February 20, 2018

Book Soup from “Bewitched”

I am a total bookstore junkie – as I’ve mentioned numerous times on this site. The rest of the world seems to be leaning in the opposite direction, though. Still I was shocked – and saddened – to learn of the recent shuttering of the Barnes & Noble on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, a place I patronized often during its 20-plus years in business. Reading about the closure got me to thinking about another L.A. bookseller I regularly frequent, one that is thankfully still in business and is also a popular filming location – Book Soup. I first visited the West Hollywood store for stalking purposes way back in October 2011 after seeing it in both Bewitched and Californication and intended on blogging about it shortly thereafter, but never got around to it. Though I’ve been back countless times since, I still somehow have yet to dedicate a post to the site. So I figured it was finally time to do so.

[ad]

Originally established in 1975, Book Soup was the brainchild of UCLA graduate student Glenn Goldman. Though the 24-year-old was studying arts management at the time, a lifelong appreciation of bookstores and a dream of one day owning his own led Glenn to change course. Armed with $50,000 in seed money, he took action shortly after earning his degree and settled on West Hollywood as the home of his future shop. As he explained to the Los Angeles Times in a 2000 article, “I really couldn’t contemplate a lot of places. There had been a period of upheaval here in the ‘60s – of thought and ideas – and I felt that the people who lived in the neighborhood would and could really support a bookstore.” Goldman enlisted his friend, architecture student David Mackler, to design the space.

Success did not come quickly, though. In 1992 Glenn told The New York Times, “The store was an immense failure. All this energy met with total indifference.” He wound up so broke, he had to move into the shop, sleeping on a mattress upstairs. It took years, but people did eventually find their way to Book Soup and its clientele grew exponentially, turning it into an area landmark. By the late 1980s, the site had become so popular that Goldman decided to move up the street to a much larger space that still serves as the store’s home today.

Sadly, Glenn passed away rather unexpectedly in 2009. The shop was subsequently purchased by Vroman’s Bookstore, another of L.A.’s most famous independent booksellers. (Vroman’s should be familiar to those who read my site regularly. You can check out a few of the myriad posts I’ve written about the place here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) Thankfully, little of Book Soup was changed following the acquisition and the shop is still going strong today.

One of Book Soup’s largest draws is its legendary book signings. Just a few of the luminaries who the store has hosted over the years include Martin Scorsese, Howard Stern, Muhammad Ali, Shaquille O’Neal, The Doors, Mia Farrow, Mark Wahlberg, Ann-Margret, Ed McMahon, Jack Palance, and Annie Leibovitz. Stars have also been known to shop onsite. Drew Barrymore, Marlee Matlin, Nicolas Cage, Elton John, Madonna, David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, Paris Hilton, Faye Dunaway, Thora Birch, Leonard Nimoy, Ellen Pompeo, Alec Baldwin, Joan Collins, and Robert Downey Jr. have all been spotted perusing the stacks.

With such a vast celebrity clientele, it is not hard to see how Book Soup wound up on both the big and small screens.

In the oddly-shot 2000 drama Timecode, in which four frames of action are shown simultaneously throughout the entire film, Cherine (Leslie Mann) and Emma (Saffron Burrows) shop at Book Soup. The scenes featuring the store are pictured in the top right corner of the screen captures below.

It is at Book Soup that Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell) first lays eyes on Isabel Bigelow (Nicole Kidman) in the 2005 romcom Bewitched.

Jack subsequently follows Isabel to Book Soup Bistro, a café that was formerly located next door to the bookstore in the Carolco building, in a sunken space situated adjacent to the newsstand.

By the time I stalked Book Soup in 2011, while the newsstand was still intact, the restaurant had closed and the space that once housed it was vacant.

The “Book Soup Bistro” signage was still in place, though.

The former restaurant area has since been completely taken over by the Carolco building (which underwent a massive renovation in 2014 and currently serves as the West Hollywood headquarters of IAC) and Book Soup’s newsstand has been moved to the front exterior of the store, as you can see in the recent Street View images below.

Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) meets an amorous fan named Nicole (Lindsay Sloane) at Book Soup in the Season 3 episode of Entourage titled “I Wanna Be Sedated,” which aired in 2006.

In the Season 1 episode of Californication titled “The Whore of Babylon,” which aired in 2007, Hank Moody (David Duchovny) gets into a fist fight with director Todd Carr (Chris Williams) during a signing at Book Soup.

Though countless websites claim that Book Soup is also the spot where Hank first meets Mia Cross (Madeline Zima) in Californication’s pilot episode, that information is incorrect. Hank and Mia’s initial encounter actually took place at the now shuttered Equator Books, formerly located at 1103 Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice.

In the Season 1 episode of The Layover titled “Los Angeles,” which aired in 2012, Anthony Bourdain chronicles exciting places to visit during a stopover in L.A., one of which is Book Soup.

The store pops up a couple of times in Netflix’s 2017 film Sandy Wexler as the newsstand that Sandy Wexler (Adam Sandler) – and Arsenio Hall (playing himself) – regularly frequents.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Book Soup, from Bewitched, is located at 8818 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit the shop’s official website here.

December 14, 2011December 6, 2013

Farralone – Frank Sinatra’s Former House

While doing research on the Chaplin Court apartment complex, which I blogged about last Thursday, I came across some information about an oft-filmed-at Chatsworth-area estate formerly owned by Old Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, that, for some inexplicable reason, I had somehow not previously known about. The mansion, which in most circles is known simply as Farralone, is a marvel of modern design that just came on the public market for the very first time in history a couple of weeks ago. And, let me tell you, I took one look at the photographs featured on the real estate listing and became just a wee-bit obsessed with stalking the place. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there last weekend to do just that.

Farralone, or the “Great Glass Mansion” or the “Sinatra Compound” as it is also sometimes called, was commissioned by Chase-Manhattan-Bank-heiress Dora Hutchison in 1951 and was designed by Pereira & Luckman, the architecture firm who also gave us the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, the Theme Building (aka The Encounter Restaurant & Bar) at the Los Angeles International Airport, and, my personal favorite, the Disneyland Hotel. Dora built the house to be used as a party pad and regularly hosted rousing soirees where she counted Ava Gardner, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, and Vincent Minnelli as guests. When Dora moved back to her native New York, she leased the property to none other than Frank Sinatra, who remained there for almost ten years. Sadly though, as you can see above, not much of the property is visible from the street.

But that’s why God created real estate listings! The estate, which was just put on the market earlier this month for a cool $12 million, boasts sweeping views, parking for over 200 cars, 10,000 square feet of living space, 4 bedrooms, 6 baths, 3 private offices, a conference room, a detached gym, a 50-foot swimming pool, 14 acres of land, a vineyard, a production studio, 16-foot ceilings, glass walls, and a 1,000-square-foot, 1-bedroom, 2-bath guest house (with its own separate pool) where my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe supposedly lived in for a time.

Farralone has seen so much filming over the years that, according to a December 2nd, 2011 Forbes article, it not only nets up to $2 million a year in location fees, but also “comes with a property manager who acts as a liaison with the studios, paid for by the studios.” The article further states that the “main house also boasts a lower level production studio equipped with conference room, edit bays, private office and a separate entrance, all paid for and maintained by the studios.” Ironically enough, when we showed up to stalk the property some filming was actually taking place. The super-nice security guard on duty informed us the the shoot was for a reality dating show of some sort, but she was unsure of the name.

[ad]

In the Season 4 episode of Californication titled “Lawyers, Guns, and Money”, Farralone showed up as the residence belonging to Stu Beggs (aka Stephen Tobolowsky), where Marcy Ellen Runkle (aka Pamela Adlon) made a house call to give Stu a “full Kardashian” body wax.

In the 2001 thriller Swordfish, Farralone was the house where Gabriel Shear (aka John Travolta) lived and where Halle Berry famously shed her top for the very first time onscreen – an act for which she was supposedly paid a whopping $500,000. Thanks to some crafty CGI, the Sinatra compound was made to appear as if it was located in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles for the film, instead of Chatsworth.

Farralone was also the home where Jack Wyatt (aka Will Ferrell) lived and threw his post-divorce party in the 2005 romantic comedy Bewitched.

In 2006’s Dreamgirls, Farralone stood in for the residence belonging to pop star Deena Jones (aka Beyonce Knowles) and her music-producer husband, Curtis Taylor Jr. (aka Jamie Foxx).

In the Season 2 episode of Mad Men titled “The Jet Set”, Farralone was used as the supposed-Palm-Springs-area home where Joy (aka Laura Ramsey) took Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm) while he was visiting California.

In the 2002 flick The Salton Sea, Farralone was the home where Nancy Plummer (aka Shirley Knight) and Verne Plummer (aka R. Lee Ermey) lived.

In 2001’s Tomcats, the Sinatra Compound was where Kyle Brenner (aka Jake Busey) lived.

The real estate listing mentioned that Farralone had been featured in an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and I really have to pat myself on the back for this one because as soon as I read those words I knew immediately that the episode in question was Season 9’s “Kill Me If You Can”. I was not even watching CSI regularly back in 2008 when the “Kill Me If You Can” episode aired, but I had caught it on TV at some point and when I saw CSI mentioned in the listing, my mind immediately flashed to an image of Lawrence Fishburne standing by the Farralone pool while investigating the death of an art dealer. Why these random, useless bits of location information remain stored in my head is beyond me, but they do. Smile

Thanks to commenter Becky on the Design Public blog, I learned that in the Season 1 episode of Six Feet Under titled “An Open Book”, Farralone stood in for the home belonging to the parents of Brenda Chenowith (aka Rachel Griffiths).

And thanks to the HGTV website, I learned that Farralone was where the Design Star contestants lived during Season 4 of the reality series.

Location manager Scott Trimble also let me know that Farralone was where Optimus Prime came out of the swimming pool in the first Transformers movie.

Fellow stalker Jason informed me that the estate also showed up as the party location at the very beginning of 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Farralone also popped up in the 2004 music video for Usher’s hit song “Burn”.

Usher–Burn–filmed at Farralone in Chatsworth

You can watch the “Burn” video by clicking above.

Several articles have also claimed that the home appeared in the 2001 biopic Ali, but I scanned through that movie yesterday and did not seen anything resembling it pop up onscreen, so I am fairly certain that information is incorrect. I am thinking that the house might have instead been featured in the similarly-named television movie Ali: An American Hero, but because I have never seen it and was unable to find it anywhere online, I cannot verify that hunch. One rumor that I can put to rest is that the Farralone pool was not actually the site of Marilyn Monroe’s second-to-last photo shoot, as the real estate listing and several articles about the property have claimed. Truth be told, that photo shoot was not really a photo shoot at all, but simply consisted of photographer Lawrence Schiller snapping some stills of the starlet while she filmed scenes for her very last movie, Something’s Gotta Give. The shoot, which took place a few days before Marilyn’s death and featured her skinny-dipping while talking to co-star Dean Martin, was not actually shot on location, but on a set that was built inside of Stage 14 on the Fox Studios lot in Century City.

As you can see above, the pool from Something’s Gotta Give does not match the real estate listing photographs of the Farralone pool.

You can watch a YouTube video of the Something’s Gotta Give pool scene being shot, during which it is stated that filming took place on Stage 14 of the Fox lot, by clicking above.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Farralone, the former Frank Sinatra estate, is located at 9361 Farralone Avenue in Chatsworth. You can visit the home’s official real estate listing here and you can check out some fabulous interior pics of the property here.

April 8, 2010April 7, 2010

Isabel’s House from the “Bewitched” Movie

Last week, fellow stalker Tony, from the On Location in Los Angeles flickr page, asked for my help in tracking down the residence belonging to Isabel Bigelow (aka Nicole Kidman) and her loyal cat, Lucinda, in the 2005 movie adaptation of the television series Bewitched. So, I, of course, immediately called upon “The Team” – aka fellow stalkers Owen, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and Chas, from ItsFilmedThere – to see if they could help me find it. Which they, of course, did! Owen fairly quickly came upon fave website Hooked on Houses’ awesome write up about the cottage which stated that it was located somewhere in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley. And because the house’s address number – 4427 – was also visible in the movie, we had two very strong leads to follow. Owen immediately began searching the Valley – once he figured out exactly what part of Los Angeles constituted “The Valley”, something I have still not yet been able to do 😉 – for houses with a “4427” address number and voila, it wasn’t very long before he found the correct one. YAY! Thank you, Owen! So, bright and early yesterday morning, I headed out to stalk the place.

[ad]

In Bewitched, Isabel discovers the house pictured above during a walk and immediately decides it would be the perfect place to start her new, “normal”, non-witch life in which she has vowed to stop using magic. She does, of course, continue to use magic – fairly soon after making the decision not to, in fact – and, with a simple twitch of her nose, has a “for rent” sign put on the residence’s front lawn and immediately leases the place and moves right in. It’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use the charming colonial style cottage featured in the movie, as it is extremely picturesque and idyllic. It’s exactly the type of place I’d imagine a witch seeking normalcy to want to live. Heck, I would LOVE to live there, myself!

As you can see in the above screen captures and photographs, Isabel’s house looks almost EXACTLY the same in person as it appeared onscreen, right down to the address plaque, white front porch bench, and red front door. Love it!

In fact, the only differences I noticed in real life were the absence of Isabel’s single-car garage and the shutters on the window just to the left of it.

As you can see in the above photographs, that single-car garage is not there in real life. There is a detached two-car garage located directly behind and to the right of the house, though, which leads me to believe that Isabel’s garage was simply a facade that producers had built solely for the filming. And, according to Hooked on Houses, only the exterior of the real life residence was used in Bewitched. The absolutely adorable interiors, sadly, only ever existed on a studio soundstage.

On an ironic side note – According to IMDB’s Bewitched Trivia Page, in real life Isabel’s home was once owned by Bewitched director Nora Ephron’s parents’ friends. Ephron had visited the residence numerous times during her childhood and when it came time to scout locations for the movie, she remembered the house and thought it would be perfect to use as her lead character’s abode. What Nora didn’t realize, however, was that her parents’ friends who once owned the house were none other than Larry Berns and his wife, Sandra Gould – an actress who is best known for playing nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz on the Bewitched television series. Cue the Disney music, ‘cause it truly is a small world after all!

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Isabel’s house from the Bewitched movie is located at 4427 Radford Avenue in Studio City.