A couple of weeks ago, I read on fellow stalker Lisa’s Finding the Famous blog that the apartment building where Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) lived in the 1988 movie Rain Man was located somewhere in the Hollywood Hills.  I, of course, immediately started trying to track down the building’s exact location and fairly quickly found the information I was seeking thanks to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory.  E.J.’s website has actually been on a “hiatus” since January 8th of this year, while it is being updated from its previous database of 20,000 movie locales and celebrity addresses to one of over 90,000.  And while that all sounds well and good, this stalker has been simply lost without the website, as I use it almost daily as a resource.  When I emailed E.J. to tell him of my plight, he immediately sent over an extremely large Excel spreadsheet containing all 90,000 of his extensively-researched addresses for me to refer to at will.  Um, how do I even begin to say thank you for that???  Needless to say, the gesture was GREATLY appreciated.  And while I have to admit that I am, for whatever reason, supremely Excel-challenged, I have been using his database regularly and was able to find the location of the Rain Man apartment building with sufficient ease.  Thank you, “Ctrl-F” and thank you, E.J.!  So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place this past weekend.

Charlie Babbitt’s apartment building shows up only once, and very briefly, towards they end of Rain Man, in the scene in which Charlie brings his newly-found autistic brother, Raymond Babbitt (Dustin Hoffman), home to Los Angeles after a long road trip across America.  It is at the building that Raymond freaks out after setting off the fire alarm while attempting to cook Eggo Waffles in a convection oven.

The area of the apartment building shown in Rain Man is not the front exterior, but the west side, which, thankfully, still looks much the same today as it did when the movie was filmed in 1988, despite the fact that almost two and a half decades have since passed.  The only difference I could spot is that the chain link fence which once surrounded the pool has since been replaced with a wooden fence.  But otherwise, the place looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen.  So incredibly cool!

The front exterior of the building is pictured above.  According to fave website Zillow, the dwelling was originally constructed in 1926 and measures 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 2,201 square feet.  And while I could not find much information about the place online, I am guessing that it is comprised of 3 separate apartment units.  I also learned from E.J.’s extensive files that actor Brad Pitt once lived on the premises sometime during the ‘90s, so the property has quite an extensive claim to fame!

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the building was also used in the filming of Rain Man, although I, unfortunately, could not find any interior photographs of the place online with which to verify that hunch.  And, legend has it that a lithograph of Tom Cruise, that was given to him during the production, still hangs in the property’s laundry room to this day.  Oh, what I wouldn’t give to get in there to see that!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lisa, from the Finding the Famous blog, for informing me of this location and to my friend E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, for tracking it down. 

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: Charlie Babbitt’s apartment building from Rain Man is located at 8800 Evanview Drive/1599 Sunset Plaza Drive in the Hollywood Hills.  The area of the building that was shown in the movie can be seen from Evanview Drive, just west of where it intersects with Sunset Plaza Drive.

While doing research on Las-Vegas-Dunes-Hotel-owner Charlie “Kewpie” Rich’s former Palm Springs home, which I blogged about last Tuesday, I came across some information about another Coachella Valley location where my girl Jen Aniston and former-husband Brad Pitt had once vacationed.  The property is known as the historic Cree Estate in Cathedral City and it is apparently a big-time celebrity hot-spot and wedding venue.  According to this FASCINATING January 2004 Palm Springs Life article, which chronicles the adventures of area location scout Sylvia Schmitt who manages rentals of the Cree Estate, Brad and Jen spent a Thanksgiving weekend at the secluded Spanish-style hacienda a few years back.  Upon their arrival in the desert, Sylvia met up with the famous couple to hand over the property’s keys and walk the grounds with them.  As you can imagine, I was literally drooling upon reading those words!  Never in my life have I so badly wanted to be a location scout!  Sigh!  Anyway, at some point during their stay, Sylvia received a late-night phone call from Brad who informed her that the home’s dishwasher had broken and was leaking water all over the floor.  Sylvia promptly hired a plumber to go out to the property to fix the leak.  Well, as fate would have it, after the plumber finished working, he ended up hanging out with Jen until about 2 a.m.!!!!  Drool, drool, drool!  How incredibly cool is Jen to hang out chatting with a random stranger until the wee hours of the morning!  I love her even more now after reading that story!  According to Sylvia, the plumber said the experience was “the highlight of his life”.  Um, you’re telling me!!!!!!  So while vacationing in Palm Springs two weekends ago, I, of course, just had to drag the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the estate.

Real estate developer Raymond Cree built his private, 5000-square foot, all-adobe estate, along with two stand-alone guest houses, on a sprawling two-and-a-half-acre plot of land sometime during the 1930s.  The property boasts 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, a whopping 78 palm trees, a regulation-sized tennis court, three separate kitchens, wood-beamed ceilings, white-washed brick walls, a wood-burning fireplace, classical statuaries (including a replica of Michelangelo’s David), two jacuzzis, a swim-up bar, a permanent dance floor, and sweeping views of the San Jacinto Mountains.  The estate also features two black-bottomed swimming pools, one of which is the largest privately owned pool in the entire Coachella Valley and was featured by Huell Howser in an episode of his television series Palm Springs.  Sadly, as you can above, though, even though the front gate was open when we showed up to stalk the place, not much of the ultra-secluded property is visible from the street.

But, as I have said before, that is why God created aerial views!  As you can see above, the property is quite magnificent and absolutely enormous.   Other stars who have spent time at the Cree Estate include Christina Applegate and now ex-husband Johnathon Schaech, who got married on the premises on October 20th, 2001, with such celebs as David Faustino, Cameron Diaz, Jared Leto, and hairstylist Ken Paves in attendance.  Apparently, in 2003 the contestants and the crew from The Bachelorette stayed at the Cree Estate for over a month during the filming of the series’ first installment starring Trista Rehn, although for the life of me I do not remember that season taking place in the Palm Springs area.  CSI:Crime Scene Investigation’s William Petersen also once vacationed at the property.  Being that rates start at $1,500 per night with a three-night minimum, though, this is one Jen location that I seriously doubt I will ever have the opportunity to visit.  But . . . to any of my friends reading this who might be planning a wedding in the near future, I think you should seriously consider the estate as your venue.  I will even go scout it for you, if you want!  You can see some fabulous close-up and interior photographs of the historic Cree Estate here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: The Cree Estate is located at 67698 Carey Road in Cathedral City.  You can visit the home’s vacation rental website here and its wedding website here.

This past Friday night, the Grim Cheaper and I sat down to watch Just Go With It on DVD and I have to say that I loved the flick even more the second time around!  I honestly think it is my girl Jen’s best movie yet!  Although I did seriously love me some Office Space, but I digress.  So while the GC and I were in the area doing some stalking last Sunday afternoon, I just had to drag him out to stalk the Women’s Shoe Department at Barneys New York department store on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, where, in what turned out to be one of my favorite scenes in the film, Jen’s character, Katherine, tried on some expensive kicks at the behest of her boss/pretend soon-to-be ex-husband, Danny Maccabee (aka Adam Sandler).

Before arriving at Barneys I was a little apprehensive that the store would have a no photos policy, but amazingly enough I ended up chatting with a super nice saleswoman who not only showed me the exact spot in the shoe department where filming had taken place, but also told me that I was free to take all of the pictures that I wanted.  Yay!  The woman also informed me that she had once waited on Jen and that she had been incredibly nice and down to earth.  Sigh!

The Just Go With It scene was filmed in the very center of Barneys’ Women’s Shoe Department, in the area that features a square-shaped couch.  I was especially excited to see that the couch pillows that appeared in the scene were actually there in real life, as well!  Love it!

And OH MY GOD do I LOVE me the shoes that Jen tried on in the scene!!!  What I wouldn’t give to have a pair of those!!!!  (They are made by Tabitha Simmons and they are called the “Bailee Suede” for those who are interested and have an extra $882 lying around.  That’s the sale price, by the way, they originally cost $1,470.)

You can watch the absolutely hilarious scene that took place at Barneys by clicking above.

The saleswoman that I spoke with also told me that Jen’s ex, Brad Pitt, filmed a very brief scene for the 1999 movie Fight Club at Barneys, in which his character, Tyler Durden, and “The Narrator”, who was played by Edward Norton, sell soap to a high-end department store.

The store was also where Turtle (aka Jerry Ferrara), Vincent Chase (aka Adrian Grenier), Eric Murphy (aka Kevin Connolly), and Johnny ‘Drama’ Chase (aka Kevin Dillon) shopped for pajamas for the annual Playboy Mansion Lingerie Party in the Season 2 episode of Entourage titled “Aquamansion”.

Barneys New York in Beverly Hills is also a major celebrity hot spot.  Just a few of the stars who have been spotted shopping there in recent months include Courteney Cox, Lauren Conrad, Kate Bosworth, Audrina Patridge, Ashley Tisdale, Lindsay Lohan, Rihanna, Dakota Fanning, Nicole Richie, and Jessica Alba.  Barneys was also where Victoria Beckham and Katie Holmes famously shopped for shoes together back in 2006.  In fact, the above photograph was taken in the exact same spot where Just Go With It was filmed.  And the last time that the GC and I were at Barneys, we spotted Jessica Lowndes, aka Adrianna Tate-Duncan from 90210, doing some shopping with a friend.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: Barneys New York, from Just Go With It, is located at 9570 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills.  In the movie, Jennifer Aniston shopped in the very center of the Women’s Shoe Department.  You can visit the official Barney’s website here.

As I mentioned in Monday’s post, I spent my recent birthday weekend in Room 148 of the Ingleside Inn in Palm Springs – the very room where Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston stayed during their mini-honeymoon shortly following their July 29th, 2000 wedding.  I first found out about the Ingleside Inn back in April of 2009 thanks to this Jetsetters Magazine article and, as you can imagine, just about died upon hearing that my girl Jen had honeymooned there.   Then, shortly thereafter, the Grim Cheaper ended up proposing to me at the Ingleside, so the hotel has always had a very special place in my heart.  During that proposal weekend, I, of course, just had to ask Melvyn Haber, the Ingleside’s longtime owner, what room it was that Brad and Jen had stayed in.  Before I could even get the question fully out of my mouth, he replied, “Room 148, the Princess Room.”  And that right there is just one of the many reason that I fell in love with the hotel!  Almost a full decade later, Melvyn STILL knew the exact room where Brad and Jen had stayed right off the top of his head!

Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago.  My dad called me up to let me know that he had booked Brad and Jen’s honeymoon suite as a surprise for my upcoming birthday.  (He had to tell me about his plans a few weeks early as the GC and I had been thinking about spending my birthday at Disneyland and were thisclose to booking a hotel room there.)  I happened to be driving at the time and got so excited upon hearing his news that I literally almost crashed the car!  For those who have never visited the Palm Springs area, it gets EXTREMELY hot there during the summer months – we are talking like 115 to 120 degrees hot – so hotels drastically drop their rates from early June through the end of August.  Because of this, and the fact that the Ingleside inn is not overly-expensive to begin with, my dad was able to get Brad and Jen’s room for only $200 per night!  My birthday just so happened to fall on my mom’s very last day of work ever (she retired this year), so he also booked a suite at the hotel for them, and talked the GC into booking a second night in Brad and Jen’s room so that we could all spend the weekend together.  Now mind you, my dad was extremely sick during this time and was in and out of the hospital, so how he managed to come up with such an incredible idea AND do all of the planning without me or my mom’s help – not to mention that he also purchased some FABULOUS gifts for the two of us – is absolutely BEYOND me!!  It was one of the best, most exciting weekends of my entire life and I cannot believe he pulled it all off while feeling so incredibly sick!  Best.  Present.  Ever.

When we first arrived at the Ingleside Inn and were checking in at the front desk, I saw the above-pictured “Happy Birthday Lindsay” message displayed on the marquee in the front lobby and just about fell over.  So incredibly cool!!  The lobby sign is very typical of the personal touches that the Ingleside Inn employs in order to make guests feel at home.  Love it!

After checking in, we were handed the above-pictured room key.  As you can see, the Ingleside Inn still uses actual brass room keys, not the keycards that are typically found in hotels today.  So, as you can imagine, as soon as those keys were handed over, I turned to the GC and said, “OH MY GOD!  Jennifer Aniston once held this key in her hand!”  Granted, the key quite possibly could have been swapped out for a new one in the decade that has passed since Jen stayed at the Ingleside, but just let me have my fantasy! 

I covered the Ingleside Inn’s vast history in the post I wrote about the hotel back in May of 2009, so I won’t go over it again here. But needless to say, the tiny, 30-room inn, which sits on just over 2.5 acres of land, has had quite a celebrated history since it was first founded in 1939. Thanks to its extreme privacy and award-winning service, celebrities have long been drawn to the place like moths to a flame. Just a few of the luminaries who have stayed there over the years include Frank Sinatra, Kate Hudson, Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds, Lance Bass, Donald Trump, Marla Maples, Ava Gardner, Clark Gable, Marlon Brando, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Bob Hope, John Travolta, David Boreanaz, Joan Collins, Cher, Howard Hughes, and Rita Hayworth.  The Ingleside is by no means fancy or extravagant, though. It is a very simple, low-key retreat where people go to truly get away from it all. The Inn is not a party hotel, it is not a place for families, and it is not modern in any way, shape, or form. It is an extremely quiet, private, and relaxing sanctuary; the type of place where an A-List star can lay out by the pool and not worry about being approached by a fan or fellow guest.

Brad and Jen’s honeymoon suite features a wood-burning fireplace, a sitting area, a king-sized bed, two picture windows, and a plasma TV, and while it is extremely nice, it is not overly-luxurious or the type of place one would expect one of the most famous couples in the world to have spent their honeymoon.  And that right there is why I LOVE Jen so much!  Of course she would choose a simple, laid-back, low-key space to spend her first few days of married life.  And while Brad and Jen’s room is a suite, it is by no means the Ingleside’s largest.  There are two others that are far bigger than the Princess Room, which led me to wonder how the couple ending up choosing it for their honeymoon.

Besides the fact that Jen has always been a fan of small spaces (the bungalow she rented in Malibu post-divorce measured a scant 1,531 square feet, the home on Blue Jay Way where she lived during the height of her Friends’ success measured only 2,903 square feet, and she is currently selling her 9,105-square-foot Beverly Hills manse as it is reportedly too large for her), as it turns out, the Princess Room is by far the hotel’s most private and secluded suite.  It is located towards the very back of the property, far away from the pool and the award-winning Melvyn’s restaurant, but close to the back parking area, which means that Brad and Jen could have parked their car and been inside of their room less than ten steps later.  As you can see above, there is also a gate surrounding that particular wing of the hotel, which consists of three rooms, and the actual suite itself is bordered by a large stucco wall.

The Princess Room is one of the few at the hotel that also boasts a completely private patio area, which I absolutely fell in love with while there.

As you can imagine, pretty much all weekend I was saying things like “I just took a shower where Jennifer Aniston once showered!” or “Jennifer Aniston sat on this couch!” or, my personal favorite, “Jennifer Aniston slept here!”  My head was literally about to explode the entire time I was there!  And poor, poor fellow stalker Owen!  I must have sent him about 100 text messages, all saying things like, “I just washed my face where Jennifer Aniston once washed her face!”  

My parents stayed in Room 145, aka “Margaret’s Room”, which according to one of the super-nice front desk clerks that we spoke with while there, was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver’s favorite suites.  The former Governator and his soon-to-be ex-wife stayed at the hotel on an almost monthly basis at one point in time.

My parents’ room boasted a HUMONGOUS semi-private patio (semi-private as it has an opening on the backside that is accessible to the public) that was honestly bigger than most backyards!

All in all, it was an A-MA-ZING weekend and, as you can see above, I was BEYOND sad to check out of what the GC and I had dubbed “our perfect little room”.

You can watch a video about the Ingleside Inn, in which owner Melvyn Haber is interviewed, by clicking above.

And you can watch another video, which shows the Inn’s beautiful grounds, by clicking above.

On a stalking side-note – This Sunday (June 19th), stalking gods Harry Medved and Karie Bible will be signing copies of their new book Location Filming in Los Angeles at Vroman’s Bookstore, which is located at 695 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.  They will also be conducting a walking tour of some famous Pasadena movie sites, including locations from Knocked Up, The Prestige, Live Free and Die Hard, and Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator immediately following the signing at 4 p.m.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: The Ingleside Inn is located at 200 West Ramon Road in Palm Springs.  Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston spent their honeymoon in the hotel’s Princess Room, aka Room 148.  Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver frequently stayed in Margaret’s Room, aka Room 145.  You can visit the Ingleside Inn’s official website here.

One location that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk last weekend while vacationing in Palm Springs was the supposed-Las-Vegas, Nevada-area residence where Reuben Tishkoff (aka Elliot Gould) lived in the 2001 heist movie Ocean’s Eleven.  I had absolutely fallen in love with the mid-century-modern-style residence while first watching the film just about a decade ago and was shocked to discover, thanks to a free Map of the Stars’ Vacation Homes that I once picked up at the Palm Springs Visitors’ Center, that it was located in the Coachella Valley.  And while I had actually dragged the GC out to stalk the dwelling once before quite a few years back – long before I ever started my blog – because I had only taken one photograph of it, I decided the place was definitely worthy of a re-stalk.

Reuben Tishkoff’s house popped up twice in Ocean’s Eleven.  It first appeared in the scene in which Danny Ocean (aka George Clooney) and Rusty Ryan (aka cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater Brad Pitt) try to convince the millionaire hotelier to put up the money to fund their proposed casino heist.

It later showed up as the spot where Danny pitched his plan for robbing the Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand casinos to his band of cohorts including Frank Catton (aka Bernie Mac), Livingston Dell (aka Eddie Jemison), Yen (aka Shaobo Qin), Saul Bloom (aka Carl Reiner), Linus Caldwell (aka Matt Damon), Basher Tarr (aka Don Cheadle, who, interestingly enough, had an uncredited role in the film), and brothers Virgil and Turk Malloy (aka Casey Affleck and Scott Caan, respectively).  Quite a bit of the house was featured in the movie including the front gate and the front door areas (both are pictured above);

the backyard;

. . . and the living room.

And while not a lot of the property can actually be seen from the street, this is one location that I would still definitely recommend stalking as it is just so unique. According to IMBD’s Ocean’s Eleven trivia page, the abode was designed in 1959 by Archibald Quincy Jones, the same architect who gave us the Palm Springs Tennis Club, Campbell Hall Episcopal School in North Hollywood (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s alma mater) and the once popular, but now-defunct restaurant Romanoff’s On the Rocks.  According to the Ocean’s Eleven production notes, which I found online, director Steven Soderbergh and production designer Phil Messina wanted the residence of the “old school” Tishkoff character to be a “throwback to the 1950s and 60s”. Messina says, “We looked for sweeping, low line, mid-century homes in Las Vegas and discovered that that architecture doesn’t exist there anymore.  I had a book on modern houses in Palm Springs and that’s where we ended up filming Tishkoff’s house.”  IMDB also states that the homeowners were paid a whopping $200,000 for the property’s onscreen appearance!  Yowza, now that’s what I call a paycheck!  In real life, the one-story residence boasts 3 bedrooms, 6 baths, 6,307 square feet of living space and sits on a 1.2-acre corner plot of land located just about a mile away from the heart of Downtown Palm Springs.

As you can see in the above photographs, the house also boasts some amazing views of the San Jacinto Mountains.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: The Ocean’s Eleven house is located at 999 North Patencio Road in Palm Springs.  Here is a Bing map link to that location.

While stalking in Downtown Los Angeles a couple of weekends ago, the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves hungry so I suggested grabbing some lunch at the Quality Café on West 7th Street – a diner that has appeared in countless productions over the years.  When we showed up to stalk the place, though, we were shocked to discover that it was completely boarded up.  I was even further shocked to discover, once I returned home, that, aside from some brief blurbs about its filming history, I could not seem to find any information about the place online.  I was extremely curious if the cafe had ever been an actual working restaurant or if it had only ever existed as a film set.  So I contacted fellow stalker Harry Medved, author of one of my very favorite stalking tomes – Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors – who was nice enough to give me the scoop on the former greasy spoon.  As it turns out, the Quality Café was indeed a real life restaurant at one point time.  It closed its doors a few years back and is now used solely for filming, although word on the street is that the place might re-open as an eatery once again in the near future.

Being that it is completely boarded up and there is not a whole lot to see while there, the Quality Café does not make for a great stalking venue, but because it has such an incredibly vast filming history, I figured it was worthy of a blog post.

In Catch Me If You Can, it is while dining at the Quality Café that a waiter clues Carl Hanratty (aka Tom Hanks) into the fact that Barry Allen, the alias Frank Abagnale Jr. (aka Leonardo DiCaprio) has been using, is the actual name of the comic book character “The Flash”.

In 1995’s Se7en, Tracy Mills (aka Gwyneth Paltrow) confesses to Detective Lt. William Somerset (aka Morgan Freeman) that she is pregnant with Detective David Mills’ (aka Brad Pitt’s) baby over a cup of coffee at the Quality Café.

Morgan Freeman returned to the Quality Café in 2004 to film the scene from Million Dollar Baby in which his character, Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris, takes Maggie Fitzgerald (aka Hilary Swank) out to celebrate her birthday.

In Gone in Sixty Seconds, the Quality Café is the diner where Helen Raines (aka Grace Zabriskie), the mother of Memphis (aka Nicolas Cage) and Kip Raines (aka Giovanni Ribisi), works.

In Training Day, Detective Alonzo Harris (aka Denzel Washington) and Jake Hoyt (aka Ethan Hawke) meet up at the café on their first day of working together.

In Old School, Mitch Martin (aka Luke Wilson) takes Nicole (aka Ellen Pompeo) to the Quality Café and tries to convince her that he is actually a nice guy.

In Mr. and Mrs. Smith, John Smith (aka Brad Pitt) and Eddie (aka Vince Vaughn) meet up at the Quality Café to discuss the failed assassination attempt of Benjamin Danz (aka Adam Brody).

In 2001’s Ghost World, Enid (aka Thora Birch) and Rebecca (aka a very young Scarlett Johansson) spy on some supposed Satanists while dining at the Quality Café.

In 2009’s The Stepfather, the Quality Café is where David Harris (aka Dylan Walsh) asks Michael Harding (aka Penn Badgley) to be his best man.

In Sex and Death 101, the Quality Café is where Death Nell (aka Winona Ryder) tells Roderick Blank (aka Simon Baker) her life story.

In 2008’s The Midnight Meat Train, the Quality Café is where Leon’s (aka Bradley Cooper’s) wife, Maya (aka Leslie Bibb), works.

In 1993’s What’s Love Got To Do With It, the Quality Café is where Ike Turner (aka Laurence Fishburne) takes Anna Mae Bullock (aka Angela Bassett) out to dinner for the first time.

The Quality Café was the site of a triple murder in the Season One episode of CSI: New York titled “Outside Man”.

In the Season One episode of Mad Men titled “5G”, the Quality Café stood in for the Delight Café where Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm) met up with his half-brother, Adam Whitman (aka Jay Paulson), whom he had been estranged from for years.

Harry Medved also let me know that, according to Marty Cummins, the key assistant location manager for 500 Days of Summer, the Quality Café is where Summer (aka Zooey Deschanel) broke up with Tom (aka Joseph Gordon-Levitt) at the beginning of the flick.

And while the exterior of the restaurant appeared as a local hangout in 2004’s You Got Served . . .

. . . as you can see in the above screen captures, a different restaurant was used for the interior filming.

EMBED-The Quality Cafe in Movies Mash-Up – Watch more free videos

You can watch a fabulous compilation from the Screen Junkies website of several different movies that have been filmed at the café by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Harry Medved for filling me in on the restaurant’s history.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: The Quality Café is located at 1238 West 7th Street in Downtown Los Angeles.  The restaurant is currently closed to the public and is only available for film shoots, so I can’t say that I’d really recommend stalking it as there is just not a whole lot to see.

This past weekend, the Grim Cheaper and I re-watched the movie As Good As It Gets, which I had not seen since it first came out in theatres almost 15 years ago, and I am ashamed to admit that I had somehow completely forgotten what a great flick it was!  While watching, I, of course, became a bit obsessed with tracking down some of the Southern California locations featured in it and just about had a heart attack when I read on IMDB’s As Good As It Gets filming locations page that the interior of the Barclay Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles had stood in for the movie’s fictional Café 24 Heures, where Carol Connelly (aka Helen Hunt) worked and where Melvin Udall (aka Jack Nicholson) dined each morning.  So I dragged the GC right on out to stalk the place this past Sunday afternoon.  And, as it turns out, this location proved to be one VERY LUCKY find as it has been used in countless productions over the years.

First built in 1896 and commissioned by L.A. businessman Isaac Newton Van Nuys, the Barclay Hotel was originally known as the Van Nuys Hotel    The Beaux-Arts-style building was designed by the architecture firm Morgan + Walls and, with its sprawling lobby, detailed stained glass windows, and phone service in each room, was considered one of the finest hotels of its day.  In 1929, the property’s name was changed to the Barclay Hotel and there is supposedly a sign that is still visible on one of the building’s exterior walls which reads “Van Nuys Hotel, Rooms $1 and Up”, which would have been so incredibly cool to see, but, sadly, I could not find it anywhere.  The Barclay has the distinction of being known as Downtown L.A.’s oldest continuously operating hotel and is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.  It currently serves as a residential hotel which offers affordable housing to its residents, many of whom have lived there for years. 

The GC and I were lucky enough to speak with the Barclay’s manager as well as one of the hotel’s longtime residents while we were stalking the place, both of whom could NOT have been nicer!  They filled us in on all of the filming that has taken place on the premises over the years and also allowed me to take all of the photographs of the interior that I wanted.   Yay!  The resident that we spoke with was literally like a walking encyclopedia of the hotel’s vast filming history and in some instances was able to tell me not only when filming of certain productions had taken place, but how long the crew was onsite, AND he also knew the names of particular episodes of shows that had filmed on the premises and, in some cases, the exact dates on which those episodes had aired!  Speaking with him was like . . . well, it was like speaking with myself, actually. 

The Barclay Hotel’s actual, working lobby was transformed into the supposed Manhattan-area Café 24 Heures for the filming of As Good As It Gets. 

According to the hotel manager, producers not only brought in several booths for the filming;

but they also built a fake waitress station;

and swapped out the lobby’s front windows with French doors, which were then swapped back after filming had wrapped.

The hotel’s real life check-in desk, which is now caged, was used as the Café’s bar in the movie.

The entire opening scene of the 1998 disaster movie Armageddon takes place in front of the Barclay Hotel and the neighboring Farmers & Merchants National Bank, which were both made to look like they were located in New York City for the filming.

In 2002’s Catch Me If You Can, the Barclay was the apartment building/residential hotel from which a young Frank Abagnale Jr. (aka Leonardo DiCaprio) was evicted after having written a series of bad checks to the landlord.

Leo returned to the Barclay for the filming of last year’s Inception, in which the hotel was featured twice.  It first showed up towards the very beginning of the movie in the scene in which Cobb (aka Leonardo DiCaprio) is dunked into a bathtub.  According to the manager, that scene was filmed in one of the Barclay’s second floor hotel rooms.

The Barclay’s lobby was later used as the African casino where Cobb met up with Eames (aka Tom Hardy).  The hotel’s check-in desk is where Eames cashed in his casino chips in the scene.

The Barclay also stood in for the Columbian hotel where John Smith (aka Brad Pitt) met Jane Smith (aka Angelina Jolie) at the very beginning of 2005’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

A fake bar was set up in the Barclay’s lobby for the filming of that scene.

In 2009’s 500 Days of Summer, the Barclay’s lobby was transformed into the coffee shop where Tom (aka Joseph Gordon-Levitt) regularly hung out with his friends McKenzie (aka Geoffrey Arend) and Paul (aka Matthew Gray Gubler).

The Barclay’s former coffee shop area, which is located on the southeast corner of West 4th and South Main Streets, is not currently a working restaurant, but was kept intact in order to be used solely for filming, which I think is so incredibly cool!  Unfortunately, that area is closed to the public so I could only take photographs of it through its front windows.

The former coffee shop was featured in the Season 5 episode of The Closer titled “Tapped Out”, in the scene in which Lieutenants Flynn (aka Anthony John Denison) and Provenza (aka G.W. Bailey) are shown eating breakfast and discussing Provenza’s new girlfriend all the while ignoring a crime taking place directly outside.

There is another vacant room located on the eastern side of the hotel that is also often used for filming.

That room was recently dressed to look like a New York bakery in the Season 7 episode of CSI: New York titled “To What End”.

The exterior of the Barclay also appeared a few times throughout that episode. 

Most amazing of all, though – to me at least – is the fact that the Barclay appeared in the pilot episode of the television series Starsky & Hutch way back in 1975, looking almost exactly the same as it does today.  As I mentioned above, the check-in desk has since been caged in, but other than that minor detail, the Barclay has remained unchanged in the more than 36 years since filming took place.  Love it, love it, love it!

Ironically enough, the Starsky and Hutch movie, which premiered in 2004, was also filmed at the Barclay.  The flick’s opening scene took place on the hotel’s roof.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: The Barclay Hotel, aka Café 24 Heures from As Good As It Gets, is located at 103 West 4th Street in Downtown Los Angeles.

I just recently finished reading Jennifer: The Unauthorized Biography, a FABULOUS book about my girl Jen Aniston written by Sean Smith, a famed British biographer who has also penned bestselling bios about J.K Rowling, Britney Spears, and Justin Timberlake.  According to the brief blurb about Smith featured on the book’s first page, the U.K. newspaper The Independent once dubbed the author a “fearless chronicler” and I honestly couldn’t agree with that sentiment more.  The guy is a meticulous researcher and, while you wouldn’t think there would be much information about Jen that I didn’t already know, Smith managed to dig up a few factoids that had me spinning with excitement – one of which being that the actress once worked at the Canyon Country Store – a deli/market in Laurel Canyon – for a few months before becoming famous.  Smith happened upon the market by chance, actually.  At the time she worked there, Jen was living just up the road from the store in a home at the end of Ridgemont Drive and, while venturing up to her former abode while doing research for his book, Smith decided to stop in for a bite to eat at the small grocery store.  While there, he happened to ask the owner if Jen had ever frequented the place and was shocked to discover that she had actually once worked there!  According to Tommy, the market’s longtime owner, Jen did a little bit of everything at the store – from working the cash register to stocking shelves to making sandwiches at the deli counter.  When she started landing jobs in the entertainment industry, she quit working at the market, but would still pop in regularly to buy cigarettes and other essentials.  Well, as you can imagine, I just about died upon learning that information and immediately dragged my husband right on out to stalk the place.

The Canyon Country Store has actually been around since the early 1900s.  At the time it was known as the Bungalow Inn Lodge and area hunters would congregate there each night to host picnics.  The Inn burned down in 1929 and was subsequently rebuilt out of a more substantial brick material.  A kitchen was added to the premises a few years later, whereupon food was served to hungry patrons.  The property eventually evolved into a grocery store and then finally into the delicatessen/market/fine wine shop/coffee bar that it is today.  During the ‘60s, the store became a regular hangout for Jim Morrison and his musician friends, who all lived nearby and would often gather together on the market’s front patio for spontaneous jam sessions.  Everyone from Joni Mitchell to Three Dog Night to Frank Zappa has performed live at the market at one time or another.  In his famous song “Love Street”, Jim sings of “this store where the creatures meet”.  That store is none other than the Canyon Country Store and “Love Street” is actually Rothdale Trail, the street that runs behind the market which Jim and his longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson referred to as “Love Street” because of the many hippies and love children that would walk down it each day.

I had the pleasure of meeting Tommy while we were stalking the Canyon Country Store and, let me tell you, the guy could NOT have been nicer!!!  Not only did he take us on our own little private tour of the place, but when I asked if I could snap some photographs, he suggested that I get behind the main counter and pretend to use the cash register like Jen used to do when she worked there!  Well, as you can imagine, I just about had a heart attack upon hearing his offer and immediately jumped behind the counter to snap a quick pic.  So incredibly cool!  He also told us that Jen was an amazingly nice person and that she truly listened when speaking with people, which is a very rare quality indeed!

Tommy also informed us that when Jen was married to Brad Pitt, the two would often stop by to say hi and to grab a bite to eat at Pace Italian Restaurant, which is located directly below the market and is a place I am going to have to stalk in the very near future!

Because so many celebs live in Laurel Canyon, the Country Store is regularly frequented by stars.  Sophia Loren, Jessica Biel, and Pamela Anderson have all been spotted there in the past and actress Christina Applegate (pictured above) is apparently a regular.

And the store is also a filming location!  The market was featured at the very beginning of the 1980 horror movie The Fog, although it looked quite different at that time.  You can see a photograph of the market as it looked during the ’80s here.  The Canyon Country Store has also been featured in the movies Breezy, Rainbow Drive, and the aptly-titled Laurel Canyon – none of which I have ever seen. 

Tommy was also nice enough to walk us down to Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson’s former house, which is located directly behind the Country Store.  You can check out some great interior photographs of the home, which is currently for sale for a cool $1,199,000, here.

I, of course, had to grab a bite to eat while I was stalking the market, which the Grim Cheaper was not too happy about, especially when he discovered that the deli sandwich he ordered was going to cost him $8.99.  He later said it was one of the best sandwiches he had ever eaten, though, and had to concede that it was worth every penny.    I opted for the market’s chicken salad, which was simply AMAZING!  Honestly, some of the best chicken salad I’ve ever had in my entire life, and that means a lot coming from me as I am VERY picky about my chicken.  I honestly cannot recommend eating at the Canyon Country Store enough – it is FABULOUS!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: The Canyon Country Store is located at 2108 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Laurel Canyon.  Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson’s former home is located just behind the store at 8021 Rothdell Trail.  You can order Sean Smith’s biography of Jennifer Aniston here.

Two weeks ago, while out doing some Oscar Weekend stalking, I dragged my fiancé to Marix Tex Mex Cafe in West Hollywood, a restaurant which has long been one of my girl Jen Aniston’s favorite places to dine.  And while Jen has always been pretty vocal about her love of Mexican food and margaritas, I had never actually heard of the eatery until last year when a woman in one of my acting classes mentioned that she had spotted the actress there on numerous occasions.  Well, let me tell you, I just about died upon hearing that!  For whatever reason, though, I had yet to stalk the restaurant.  So, when I realized that my fiancé and I were in the West Hollywood vicinity this past Oscar Weekend, I begged him to make a little lunchtime pit stop at the Tex Mex hot spot.  It should come as no surprise that the Grim Cheaper was not AT ALL keen on the idea of grabbing a bite to eat at a place frequented by a famous actress, as he thought the prices would be outrageously expensive.  I am happy to report, though, that Marix was EXTREMELY reasonable and that even the Grim Cheaper enjoyed himself while there! 

Marix is an absolutely ADORABLE little restaurant tucked away off of Santa Monica Boulevard on a tree-lined side street in uber-hip West Hollywood.  The eatery is small, casual, and intimate and it’s not at all hard to see why Jen frequents the place.  Not to mention the fact that it serves up some fabulous food!  Like FABULOUS!  The chicken fajitas were A-MA-ZING, as were the tortilla chips and fresh salsa.  I literally gorged myself while there.  The Marix staff also could NOT have been more friendly and I am happy to report that the place lacks any of the pretentiousness that is usually prevalent in L.A. area restaurants.  I literally cannot say enough good things about the place and wish I lived closer so that I could frequent it more often.

Marix Tex Mex Cafe has actually been a long time favorite of Jen’s and was even mentioned way back in December of 2001 in this People Magazine article about the star.  According to my friend from acting class, Jen can usually be spotted on the restaurant’s SUPER CUTE front patio which is pictured above.  I hear Jen doesn’t frequent the place as much as she used to, though, thanks to the paparazzi who discovered the celebrity hot spot a few years ago and have been a constant presence ever since.  Other stars who have dined at the eatery include Jessica Simpson and her BFF/hair stylist Ken Paves, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, and their daughter Coco, Kate Hudson, Oliver Hudson, Ian Ziering, Brad Pitt, Angie Everhart, Dexter’s Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter, Ron Livingston, Gwen Stefani, Gavin Rossdale, Pamela Anderson, Michelle Rodriguez, Wanda Sykes, The Biggest Loser’s Bob Harper, and Wilson Cruz of My So-Called Life fame.

And while we didn’t run into Jen while dining there, we did spot former Bachelorette contestant Jerry Ferris at the table directly in front of us.  I noticed Jerry pretty much immediately upon sitting down, but, while I knew he was famous, neither my fiancé nor I could place who he was.  I asked our waitress if she recognized him and she in turn asked the other servers on duty, but no one seemed to have any idea whether or not he was even famous.  Am I the only person who watched Season Three of The Bachelorette????  LOL  Anyway, by that time I was going absolutely crazy because I KNEW I recognized Jerry, but could not for the life of me figure out from where.  Then all of a sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks – sitting in front of me was the man who had stolen America’s heart (or at least mine) on Jen Schefft’s season of The Bachelorette.  I had absolutely LOVED Jerry on the series and was actually lucky enough to have met him shortly after his reality TV stint ended just about five years ago.  Well, as soon as I figured out it was him, I told my fiancé I wanted to ask for a photograph, but that I felt bad since he was eating at the time, to which the Grim Cheaper said, “You ALREADY have a photograph with the guy (pictured above) – please do NOT bother him again.”  LOL  Sadly, I listened to the GC and did not go up to Jerry (HMPH!), but I really regret doing so as he had been a TOTAL sweetheart to me when I met him back in 2005.  Ah well!  Maybe I’ll run into Jerry during my next Marix stalk. 

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: Marix Tex Mex Cafe is located at 1108 North Flores Street in West Hollywood.  They also have a second location which can be found at 118 Entrada Drive in Santa Monica.  You can visit the Marix website here.

Even though I have always been one hundred percent on Team Aniston – I even have the sweatshirt to prove it  – while visiting Palm Springs during Halloween weekend a few months back I became a bit obsessed with stalking the home where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie posed for their famous “Domestic Bliss” photo spread which appeared in the July 2005 issue of W Magazine.  It all started a few days before Halloween when I came across the following People Magazine article while doing some cyberstalking of the Palm Springs area, trying to come up with a list of desert locations to stalk.  The article mentioned that Brangelina’s  controversial photoshoot – controversial because it occurred on March 25, 2005, the very same day that Jennifer Aniston filed for divorce from Brad – had taken place at a private residence located in Rancho Mirage.  And that was it for me!  The next few hours were spent trying to track down the exact location of the property where my least favorite celebrity couple had posed for their 60-page spread.  Being that I can’t stand either Brad or Angelina, I have no valid explanation as to why I became so darn determined to find the house.  All I can say is that when I get on a kick, I get on a kick and there’s absolutely no stopping me.  So, I was completely overjoyed when I was finally able to pinpoint the location of the house, which is known as the Kenaston Residence in real life, and I made my fiancé stop there during our drive over to Palm Springs, before we even had a chance to check into our hotel.  Not kidding. 

The Kenaston Residence was built in 1957 by mid-century modernist architect E. Stewart Williams for a Palm Springs resident named Roderick W. Kenaston.  Stewart Williams is perhaps best known for building Frank Sinatra’s desert hideaway with the piano shaped swimming pool, which I stalked a couple of years ago and the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway’s Mountaintop Station, which I have also stalked but have yet to blog about.  In 2003, after several different ownerships and re-models, a Los Angeles area art director and his wife purchased the Kenaston Residence and spent two years restoring it back to its original grandeur.  Sadly, out of the five Rancho Mirage area homes built by Stewart Williams, the Kenaston Residence is the only property that still looks the same today as it did when it was built.  The remaining homes have all either been altered or completely destroyed.   

The U-shaped Kenaston Residence, which was built around a large square shaped swimming pool, features four bedrooms, 3.5 baths, over 5,000 square feet of living space, a media room, 50 palm trees!, a six car garage, an interior/exterior rock wall, a “floating fireplace”, floor to ceiling glass walls, mountain views, concrete floors, and a 17 foot long living room planter.  The house was built on a half acre of land and Williams even had the remarkable foresight to situate the home facing North, so as to avoid the extreme desert temperatures.   Besides the Brangelina shoot, the Kenaston Residence has also been the site of photoshoots for Madonna, James Blunt, the band Coldplay and has been featured in Italian Elle, Luxury Living, The London Independent, and on Bravo Television.  In 2007, the home was sold to new owners for $2,350,000.  I swear, if I owned a house like that, I don’t think I would ever be able to let it go.  Especially since, according to the previous owner, it earned at least $50,000 in photoshoot rental fees each year!  Cha-ching!    You can see interior photographs of the home from its 2007 real estate website here. 

Brad and Angie’s “Domestic Bliss” photo spread, which featured the couple and several children acting out scenes of an unhappy family life in the 60s, made use of the entire Kenaston Residence, both inside and out.  According to this article, because Pitt, who actually co-created and co-directed the shoot with photographer Stephen Klein, was “tired of celebrity portraiture and always up for an artistic ‘jam sesh’”(UGH, gag me!), he came up with the unique idea of basing the spread on “unidentifiable malaise” in a marriage.  Speaking about what I can only assume was his union with my girl Jen, he said, “You don’t know what’s wrong because the marriage is everything you signed up for.”  You honestly don’t know what’s wrong, Brad?  Um, I think your wandering eye might have had something to do with it!!  The duo’s photo shoot took two full days to complete, during which time Angelina, who had brought along her then-only son Maddox, and Brad stayed in separate rooms at the Le Parker Meridien Hotel in Palm Springs.  So, I guess I am going to have to stalk the Le Parker in the near future, too.   Oh honey, I feel a trip to Palm Springs coming on! 

The property is actually quite unassuming and non-descript from the street.  One could easily drive right by, without realizing the rich architectural history that lies just beyond the home’s walnut wood walls. 

Amazingly enough, even though there is a large concrete wall surrounding the back of the property, much of the Kenaston Residence can still be seen from the street.  And because the surrounding wall is only about four feet tall, you can easily see into the backyard area, where the cover photo from Brangelina’s W Magazine issue was shot, as well.   Love it!

Interestingly enough, photographer Steven Klein’s inspiration for the “Domestic Bliss” photo spread came from the photographs of legendary architectural photographer Julius Shulman.  One of the poses from the issue was almost a direct copy of a very famous photograph Shulman took of Case Study House #21, aka the Bailey House (pictured above).  I found this little bit of trivia out while doing some research on the Kenaston Residence and became absolutely fascinated by it, as I am a huge fan of Julius Shulman, who sadly passed away in July of this past year.  Those of you who read my blog regularly will remember the post I wrote about the tour of Case Study House #22 (aka The Stahl House) that I took in March of last year and Julius Shulman’s iconic photograph which led me to stalk the house in the first place.

You can see the entire 60-page “Domestic Bliss” portfolio here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: The Kenaston Residence is located at 39-767 Desert Sun Drive in Rancho Mirage.  To get an overall view of the house, I would also recommend venturing  west on Mashie Drive and south onto Keenan Drive.  The Case Study House #21, upon which one of the Brangelina pictures was based, is located at 9036 Wonderland Park Avenue in Los Angeles.