Celebrities – Page 2 – IAMNOTASTALKER

August 13, 2013August 16, 2013

The "Punky Brewster" Opening Credits Locations

After tracking down the apartment building where Punky Brewster (Soleil Moon Frye) and her adoptive father, Henry Warnimont (George Gaynes), lived in the 1984 television series Punky Brewster (which I blogged about here), I became completely obsessed with finding the locations that appeared in the opening credits of the show’s pilot episode, which was titled “Punky Finds a Home, Part I.” (Subsequent episodes featured a shortened version of the pilot’s opening, with only a few locations featured.) Thankfully, John, from the Silent Locations blog, was up to the task of helping me with this query and wound up tracking down almost all of the sites in one single day. Yay! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk them this past Saturday afternoon. (For those who have asked, the skirt I am wearing in the picture above is Humble Chic’s Carrie Skirt – LOVE the name!!! – which I paired with a shell from Zara.)

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Come to find out, the opening credits of Punky Brewster were shot almost in their entirety on the 600 block of Shatto Place, just west of MacArthur Park, near downtown Los Angeles, but it took a while before we realized that fact. John first figured out that the brick building that Henry walked by towards the beginning of the opening credits was the Pierre Crest Apartments at 673 Shatto Place, which he had recognized from their appearance in the 1926 silent film For Heaven’s Sake.

The Pierre Crest Apartments, which were once quite attractive, look a bit different – and a bit more run-down – today than they did in 1984 when the Punky Brewster opening credits were filmed.

After Henry walks by the Pierre Crest, he is shown crossing the street and then passing by an alleyway where a man is asleep on the sidewalk. On a hunch, I used Google Street View to see if that alleyway was actually located across the street from the Pierre Crest and, sure enough, it was – just north of the York Apartments at 688 Shatto Place.

Sadly, a fence has since been installed in front of the alley that partially blocks the view of it from the street and the building that was once located just north of it has also since been torn down. Otherwise though, the spot still looks pretty much exactly the same as it did in 1984. Even the cement curb that appeared in the Punky Brewster opening credits is still intact! Love it!

Had to do it! (For some odd reason, I thought that Henry had his hands behind his back in the scene.)

John next figured out that the red and white brick building that Punky was shown skipping in front of with her dog, Brandon, in the opening credits was actually the Modena Apartments at 661 Shatto Place.

That building, too, looks quite a bit different today. Such a shame that the gorgeous red brick was painted over!

Again, had to do it! Smile (Notice in the screen capture and photograph pictured below that the sidewalk grate next to the tree still looks exactly as it did in 1984! Love it!)

I am pretty sure that the doorway/stairwell that Punky stopped in front of in the opening credits was the entrance to the Modena Apartments. As you can see below, the stair railing seems to match up, as does the brick outline of the entryway.

In a heartbreaking twist, Warnimont Studio, Henry’s photography studio – the locale that I most wanted to find – is no longer standing. The site was once located at 651 Shatto Place, on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard, but was torn down sometime in the early 2000s. Boo!

The credit for this find goes to John. While watching the Punky Brewster opening credits, I had spotted an address number of “651” painted on the door behind Henry. I emailed that information over to John, along with a screen capture, and he wrote back almost immediately with an address.

Because all of the other sites from the Punky Brewster opening credits were located on Shatto Place, John was fairly certain that Henry’s photo lab had to be there, as well. When he looked at a Google map of 651 Shatto Place, though, all that was visible was a vacant lot. Then, on a hunch, he searched through a Los Angeles phone directory from 1987 and saw that an actual photography studio named Haines Studio & Lab was listed as being located at 651 Shatto Place at the time. That listing is highlighted in pink below.

He also noticed that the phone number for the studio was listed as 383-1473. As you can see below, that very same number is visible – behind a fake phone number of 555-3709 that was installed for the filming – in the window of Henry’s store.

Further proving that Warnimont Studio was once located at 651 Shatto Place is the fact that listed next door to Haines Studio & Lab in the 1987 phone directory is Glenda’s Beauty Salon at 653 Shatto Place.

In Punky Brewster, a salon named Consuelo’s was shown to be located right next to Henry’s Studio. And listed next door to Glenda’s at 655 Shatto Place is Mini Market Deli, which seems to match the name on the awning of the store that appears next to Consuelo’s in the screen capture below.

A full view of the building that once housed Henry’s studio is pictured below, via the USC Digital Library. As you can see, it was quite a beautiful structure and I cannot for the life of me figure out why it would have been torn down.

Today, the site is a construction zone where I believe a condominium complex is being built.

Thanks to Robby Cress of the Dear Old Hollywood blog, we learned that the Warnimont Studio building was also featured in the 1978 comedy The Big Fix as the campaign headquarters of California gubernatorial candidate Miles Hawthorne (John Cunningham). In one scene, Henry’s studio site is clearly visible in the background behind private detective Moses Wine (Richard Dreyfuss) and his girlfriend, Lila Shay (Susan Anspach).

As you can see below, the arched doorway between storefronts also matches what appeared in Punky Brewster.

A fuller view of the building from The Big Fix is pictured below.

As is a view looking in the opposite direction, towards Wilshire Boulevard.

You can watch the opening credits from Punky Brewster’s pilot episode by clicking below.

In an odd twist, I just discovered today that one brief scene from the opening credits was, in fact, filmed in Chicago, where Punky Brewster was said to have taken place. As you can see below, in the scene in which Punky and Henry are shown entering (what I thought was a fake) Wrigley Field, a brick building is visible behind them. That same building (which houses a Starbucks!) is actually located across the street from the real Wrigley Field on West Addison Street in the Windy City.

John and I have yet to track down the grocery store that appeared in the opening credits and I am now wondering if it, too, is located in Chicago.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to John, from the Silent Locations blog, for tracking down the majority of these locations. Smile You can read his blog post on the Punky Brewster locales here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The opening credits from the pilot episode of Punky Brewster were filmed almost entirely on the 600 block of Shatto Place in Los Angeles. The brick building that Henry first walked by was the Pierre Crest Apartments at 673 Shatto Place; the alleyway where Henry stepped over the sleeping homeless man is just north of 688 Shatto Place; the building that Punky skipped by was the Modena Apartments at 661 Shatto Place; and the site of Henry’s photography studio, which has since been torn down, can be found at 651 Shatto Place.

August 9, 2013August 13, 2013

Mr. Y’s Apartment from "Behind the Candelabra"

Back in June, while doing research on the house where Liberace (Michael Douglas) lived in Behind the Candelabra (which I blogged about here), I came across a fabulous production slideshow about the movie on HBO.com. The slideshow featured behind-the-scenes images of several of the locations used in the biopic and one – the mid-century modern-style apartment where drug dealer Mr. Y (Nicky Katt) lived – had me absolutely drooling.

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The caption included with the image of the apartment (which is pictured below) stated, “Shot on location in Burbank, this penthouse was owned by Elvis Presley’s hairdresser and had been abandoned for years. Biomorphic plaster wall treatment was original to the unit.” Well, believe you me, I could NOT take my eyes off of that unique “biomorphic plaster wall treatment” and became bound and determined to track the place down and stalk it.

So I did a Google search for “penthouse” and “Burbank” and the first result to come back was a January 2013 Los Angeles Times article about a 1970s-era building with a penthouse located at 600 East Olive Avenue that had just been sold for $15.6 million to the Champion Real Estate Company. Unfortunately though, no photographs of the actual penthouse unit were posted online, so I was unable to verify if it was right location. Then, on a hunch, I did a Google search for “Behind the Candelabra” and “600 East Olive Avenue” and, sure enough, found this July 2012 posting on fave website OnLocationVacations in which a commenter named Steve shared that the flick was filming at that address. Thank you, Steve! So I ran right out to stalk the building while I was in L.A. two weekends ago.

The 62-unit building, which was formerly named “Villa 600”, but is now known as “Villa Olivia Apartments”, was originally constructed in 1973 by Burbank-area architect August Bacchetta and was still owned by the Bacchetta family up until the recent sale.

According to the L.A. Times article, the penthouse (pictured below in a real estate listing photo) boasts a whopping 8,000 square feet of living space, as well as a rooftop patio and pool. It was originally constructed to be used as an owner’s unit and, as stated in this article, was lived in by members of the Bacchetta family up until two years prior to the sale – which leads me to believe that it was never actually occupied by Elvis’ hairdresser (a man named Larry Geller) unless the family leased it out to him at some point in time. (It was most definitely never owned by Geller, though, as was stated in the Behind the Candelabra production notes.) Of the complex, real estate agent Tyler Stevens says, “It reflects an era gone by when builders constructed apartment buildings with an owner unit, and this particular owner unit was highly unusual.” Um, you can say that again!

The penthouse’s rooftop patio, which is absolutely massive, is semi-visible in the photographs below.

Sadly, the Champion Real Estate Company began renovating the building immediately upon purchasing it and plans are currently in the works to subdivide the penthouse (which is denoted with a pink arrow below) into two apartment units, as well as a common-area screening room and gym. Boo! You can see a rendering of what the site is going to look like post-remodel here.

Mr. Y’s apartment only appeared twice in Behind the Candelabra, in two very brief scenes. It first showed up in the scene in which Scott Thorson (Matt Damon) dropped by Mr. Y’s to score drugs after realizing that his longtime lover, Liberace, was most likely going to break up with him in the very near future.

It next popped up in the scene in which Scott, who has just been unceremoniously dumped by Liberace, is shown watching the pianist’s performance at the 54th Annual Academy Awards on TV. Unbelievably, very little of that amazing biomorphic plaster wall was shown in either scene. (According to a 2013 The New York Times article, the Mr. Y character was based on Scott Thorson’s real life drug dealer Eddie Nash, a nightclub owner who is said to have ordered the so-called Wonderland Murders.)

According to a super-nice construction worker that we happened to speak with while we were stalking the place, the penthouse (pictured below in an aerial view) is actually in fabulous condition, despite being vacant for several years. So I am guessing that the stained rug that appeared in Behind the Candelabra was set decoration and not the unit’s actual carpeting. Don’t quote me on that, though.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Mr. Y’s apartment building from Behind the Candelabra is actually the Villa Olivia Apartments which are located at 600 East Olive Avenue in Burbank. You can visit the complex’s official website here.

August 8, 2013August 13, 2013

Copley’s on Palm Canyon – Cary Grant’s Former Guesthouse

One location that I had been chomping at the bit to stalk for what seemed like ages was Copley’s on Palm Canyon – a restaurant created out of what is said to be Cary Grant’s former Palm Springs guest house. Because the eatery does not open until 6 p.m. each night, though (I am nothing if not an early bird), and because it is closed during the scorchingly hot summer months of July and August, I had never had the chance. Until this past May, that is, when the Grim Cheaper and I happened to find ourselves just down the street from Copley’s on a Sunday afternoon at around 5:45 p.m. Thankfully, it only took a little arm twisting to convince him to venture inside for a quick happy hour cocktail. And I am so glad that we did, because the place is simply fabulous!

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Copley’s, which is named after its England-born executive chef, Andrew Manion Copley, first opened its doors in December 2004. Andrew, accompanied by his wife, Juliana, landed in Palm Springs earlier that same year after culinary stints at numerous five-star sites including the Turtle Bay Resort in Oahu (where Forgetting Sarah Marshall was filmed), The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco, The Park Lane Hotel and The Savoy in London, and The Lodge at Koele at the Four Seasons Resort Lana’i. Upon migrating to Palm Springs, the couple, along with business partner Greg Butterfield, purchased a recently-shuttered Persian restaurant named La Shank House located at what was once supposedly the guest house of Hollywood legend Cary Grant.

As the story goes (and I have, unfortunately, not been able to verify it), Cary purchased the property sometime during the 1940s and proceeded to use it as off-site guest quarters for visiting family and friends, many of whom were Hollywood royalty, through the 1950s. I am not quite sure where in Palm Springs Cary lived during that time period, but I do not believe it was at the so-called “Cary Grant Estate” that I blogged about in July 2011. (He owned that particular home from 1954 to 1972 and it had its own on-site guest quarters.) I did find an article on the CaryGrant.net website that stated that in 1949 Cary and his third wife, Betsy Drake, “spent some time at a tiny place in Palm Springs which Cary used to refer to as ‘The Dump.’” Because the abode was described as “tiny” and therefore most likely did not have room for guests, I am guessing that might be where he lived when he purchased the Copley’s site. Unfortunately though, the website makes no mention of “The Dump’s” exact location. So you know what that means! I’ve got another locale to track down! Is my work here never done?

After purchasing the site, Andrew and Juliana immediately began renovating and restoring the 3,500-square-foot property, which was originally built sometime during the 1920s. During the renovation, which took 64 days to complete, the couple refurbished the estate’s original hardwood flooring, replanted every bit of foliage on the 0.50-acre grounds and transformed the former garden into an outdoor dining area. The result is nothing short of spectacular!

Because we showed up 15 minutes before Copley’s actually opened and they were nice enough to allow us in, we had the place entirely to ourselves. And the super-nice bartender even went so far as to take me on a little tour to explain how the structure was set up when Grant owned it. As you can see below, the indoor dining area is divided by cut-out arched walls. During the Cary Grant days, those walls were filled in, sectioning off the building into several neighboring suites (I think there were a total of five separate suites), all of which opened out to the garden/patio. So the property was essentially like a private mini-hotel. How great would it be to have a place like that to stash visiting family and friends? Love it!

One of the former suite areas is pictured below.

Copley’s definitely does not have the typical restaurant feel to it. Being there is like hanging out at a good friend’s house – well, a rich good friend’s house. And whether or not Cary Grant ever actually owned the place, it was still insanely fun to sit on the patio and sip champagne while imaging that the iconic actor had once done the exact same thing in the exact same spot.

And, bonus! The Grim Cheaper was especially excited to learn that Copley’s offers $5 champagne on its happy hour menu – something that is not at all typical. You can check out the full happy hour menu here.

And while we did not partake of any food while we were there, the dinner menu does look pretty darn uh-ma-zing (the Sesame Seared Tofu has my name written all over it!) and we are looking forward to going back there for a special occasion meal.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Copley’s on Palm Canyon is located at 621 North Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. The eatery only serves dinner and is open each night starting at 6 p.m. The property is closed on Mondays during the month of June and is closed completely from July through August each year.

August 7, 2013August 7, 2013

Hotel Shangri-La from “The Bachelor”

This past Sunday morning (which was particularly cloudy, as you can see above), the Grim Cheaper and I headed out to Santa Monica to run a couple of errands and while there we happened to walk by the Hotel Shangri-La – a historic Art Deco masterpiece that I have wanted to stalk ever since early 2010 when it was featured in an episode of fave reality series The Bachelor. So the two of us decided to pop in to take some quick pictures – and we were not disappointed. Hotel Shangri-La is quite spectacular.

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The seven-story, reinforced concrete property, which was originally named the Shangri-La Apartment Hotel, was constructed beginning in 1939 at a cost of $400,000. The L-shaped site was designed by Beverly Hills-based architect William E. Foster and was owned by oilman Frank A. Gillespie. The structure, which at the time housed 61 individual apartment units, was the first Class A apartment building built in Los Angeles County following the stock market crash of 1929. Its doors were opened to the public on May 1, 1940. You can see a great photograph of the location from that time period here.

During World War II, the building, which is a Santa Monica Historic Landmark, was used as a rehabilitation center by the United States Army Air Forces.

In 1983, Hotel Shangri-La, which is of no relation to the Asian Shangri-La hotel chain, was purchased by an India-born real estate maven named Ahmad Adaya. The property is still owned by his family to this day.

According to the book Hollywood & the Best of Los Angeles Alive!, in 2002 the site was seriously lacking in amenities and, for whatever reason, did not feature a pool, a restaurant, a bar, room service, or valet parking. All of that has since changed, though, thanks to a $35 million renovation in 2008.

Today the Streamline Moderne-style property, which is currently owned and operated by Ahmad’s daughter, Tehmina Adaya, boasts 71 rooms and suites (almost all of which have views of the Pacific Ocean), an upscale restaurant named the Dining Room (where each entrée features ingredients from the famous Santa Monica Farmers Market), an open-air rooftop bar and lounge known as Suite 700 (which was voted one of L.A.’s top 5 rooftop bars in a 2013 The New Zealand Herald article), a pop-up spa known as the Sybaris Rejuvenation Lounge, custom-designed furniture, a solar-powered pool, valet parking, 24-hour in-room dining, and an indoor gym.

Hotel Shangri-La has been popular with the Hollywood set ever since its inception. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there over the years include Drew Barrymore, Cyndi Lauper, Diane Keaton, Bill Murray, Matthew Broderick, Bill Clinton, Madonna, Tom Cruise, John F. Kennedy, Jr., the Dalai Lama, Sean Penn, Rashida Jones, and Andy Samberg. Supposedly, even my girl Marilyn Monroe once spent some time there.

Thanks to its striking architecture, Hotel Shangri-La has been featured in numerous productions over the years. In the Season 14 episode of The Bachelor titled “Week 2”, Jake Pavelka hosted a group date at the Shangri-La where the female contestants took part in a rooftop photo shoot for InStyle magazine.

After the shoot, the group headed down to the pool area for the remainder of the date, during which Rozlyn Papa was given the coveted rose.

The Hotel Shangri-La rooftop was also featured in the music video for Randy Newman’s 1983 song “I Love L.A.”

You can watch that video by clicking below.

In 1992’s White Men Can’t Jump, Hotel Shangri-La was where Gloria Clemente (Rosie Perez) celebrated her Jeopardy! win with boyfriend Billy Hoyle (Woody Harrelson).

The interior of one of the suites was also featured in the movie.

In 1995’s The Net, the Shangri-La was where Dr. Alan Champion (Dennis Miller) got his former patient Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) a hotel room shortly after her identity was stolen.

I am fairly certain that one of the hotel’s actual rooms was used in the filming, although the Shangri-La rooms look significantly different since the remodel, as you can see here.

An exterior view of the hotel’s central stairwell was also shown.

Thanks to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, I learned that the hotel was where Valerie Malone (Tiffani Amber Thiessen) stayed in the Season 7 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Graduation Day: Part II”, which aired in 1997.

The interior of the Shangri-La was also shown in the episode. (Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for making the 90210 screen captures that appear here.)

Ella Simms (Katie Cassidy) and Jonah Miller (Michael Rady) walked by the Hotel Shangri-La after a business lunch with famed German film director Franz Keppler (Craig Robert Young) in the Season 1 episode of the new Melrose Place titled “Ocean.”

Channing Tatum did a photo shoot with Mario Testino at the hotel for the August 2009 issue of GQ Magazine, which you can see photographs of here. According to the book Hollywood & the Best of Los Angeles Alive!, the hotel was also featured in an episode of the 1992 television series Bodies of Evidence and the 1988 Bruce Weber documentary Let’s Get Lost, but I was unable to verify that information. And while Wikipedia states that the Shangri-La appeared in the 2004 rockumentary DiG!, I was unable to verify that information, either.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Hotel Shangri-La, from Jake Pavelka’s season of The Bachelor, is located at 1301 Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

August 5, 2013August 4, 2013

The “Little Miss Sunshine” Motel

Another Little Miss Sunshine locale that I desperately wanted to stalk was the supposed Arizona motel where the Hoover family – Olive (Abigail Breslin), Richard (Greg Kinnear), Sheryl (Toni Collette), Dwayne (Paul Dano), Grandpa Edwin (Alan Arkin), and Frank Ginsberg (Steve Carell) – stayed mid-way through their road trip from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach in the 2006 flick. Thankfully, smbstressfest had visited the site during the filming of his fabulous YouTube video, which chronicles most of the locations that appeared in LMS, so I posted a comment on his page asking for the address. I was not sure if he would get back to me, though, so I also sent screen captures of the motel to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, in case he recognized it. And, amazingly enough, he did! At the very same time that I received an email notification alerting me that smbstressfest had replied to my comment with an address, I was also sent an email from Mike letting me know that the Little Miss Sunshine motel was actually the Budget Inn of North Hills located at 9151 Sepulveda Boulevard. As it turns out, Mike drives by the place almost daily on his way to work. So I ran right out to stalk it while the Grim Cheaper and I were in L.A. two weekends ago.

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As you can see below, the Budget Inn of North Hills has, unfortunately, been remodeled slightly since filming took place in the summer of 2005. The motel was still in its Little Miss Sunshine state back in May 2007 when smbstressfest stalked it (as you can see in his video), but it seems that I, sadly, missed the boat on this one. Boo! At least the basic structure of the property remains unchanged.

Despite the alterations being fairly minor, I had an extremely hard time getting my bearings while I was stalking the motel and could not get a grasp on what part of the property appeared in Little Miss Sunshine. I am directionally-challenged anyway (my mom likes to say that I could not find my way out of a paper bag), and because of the way the Budget Inn of North Hills is set up with four practically identical corners, I just could not figure which area had been used in the filming. So, unfortunately, my photographs of this particular locale are not the greatest.

Add to that the fact that the motel is kind of an odd place and, even though I had talked to the management prior to taking photographs, I did not feel entirely comfortable being there and therefore did not do much exploring.

Had I stuck around, I would have loved to have ventured upstairs to take photographs of Room 208, where Olive and Grandpa Edwin spent the night in Little Miss Sunshine. (Dwayne and Frank and Sheryl and Richard stayed in the two rooms located just east of 208.)

And while I am 99.9% certain that the real life interior of three of the Budget Inn’s rooms were used during the filming, unfortunately, due to the remodel, the rooms (which you can see photographs of here) no longer look anything like they did onscreen. Again, boo!

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and smbstressfest for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Budget Inn of North Hills, aka the Little Miss Sunshine motel, is located at 9151 Sepulveda Boulevard in North Hills. You can visit the Booking.com page for the hotel here. The Hometown Inn from the 2002 Britney Spears’ movie Crossroads is located just down the street at 9401 Sepulveda Boulevard.

August 2, 2013August 1, 2013

The “Little Miss Sunshine” Restaurant

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, while doing research on the former Abiquiu eatery (now Wokcano) from Get Shorty (which I blogged about here), I came across a Chowhound message board on which a commenter named Kevin stated that Pann’s restaurant in Ladera Heights was the spot where the Hoover clan – Olive (Abigail Breslin), Richard (Greg Kinnear), Dwayne (Paul Dano), Grandpa Edwin (Alan Arkin), Sheryl (Toni Collette), and Frank Ginsberg (Steve Carell) – stopped for a mid-road-trip breakfast in fave movie Little Miss Sunshine. Because the breakfast scene was one of my favorites in the entire flick, I was extremely excited to learn this information. Unfortunately though, as is so often the case with locales that are posted online, this one turned out to be wrong.

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While Pann’s menus were visible in the scene, as you can see below, one look at online images of the interior of the restaurant and I knew that it was not the right place. Convincing me further was the fact that Pann’s is not located directly below a freeway overpass, as the Little Miss Sunshine café was shown to be (which you can also see below).

So I got to cyberstalking and fairly quickly came across an absolutely amazing YouTube video (that you can watch by clicking below) in which a fellow stalker named smbstressfest chronicled pretty much every single locale that appeared in the movie. And while he did not state the addresses of any of the places, in response to a commenter named starbucksmunkey (love it!), he did give the Google Earth coordinates of the restaurant. Woot woot! And even though smbstressfest had mentioned that the eatery was no longer in operation, I was still chomping at the bit to stalk it and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there this past weekend while the two of us were in L.A.

The Little Miss Sunshine production notes state that the flick was lensed over a thirty-day period during the “hot” summer of 2005, at which time, according to the mmm-yoso!!! website, the space housed an eatery named Rutt’s Hawaiian Café. Rutt’s was shuttered by the time smbstressfest stalked it in 2007 (the chain still boasts an outpost in Culver City, though) and at some point thereafter a Mexican steakhouse named Don Carlos was opened on the site, but it, too, has since been closed. According the property’s LoopNet listing, the 5,130-square-foot building also once housed a Denny’s.

Which makes sense because the property does look very much like a Denny’s location – to me, at least.

And while a sign in the window states that Maly’s Pizza Buffet is “coming soon”, I do not know how accurate that is.

In Little Miss Sunshine, the Hoover family stops at the café towards the beginning of their road trip from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach. It is there that Olive orders waffles “alamodie” and is lambasted by her father for choosing to eat something so high in fat.

The interior of Rutt’s was used quite extensively in the filming. Oh, what I wouldn’t have given to have been able to go inside that restaurant!

Thankfully, I was able to snap a few photographs of the interior through the front window, although they are not of the section of the restaurant that appeared in the movie. In Little Miss Sunshine, Olive and her family dined in the southeast portion of the building, but the only area in which the blinds were not drawn was the northern part, unfortunately. Boo!

The exterior of Rutt’s was also shown in the scene.

You can watch the Little Miss Sunshine restaurant scene by clicking below.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to smbstressfest for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The supposed Pann’s restaurant from Little Miss Sunshine is actually the former Rutt’s Hawaiian Café located at 17371 East Valley Boulevard in La Puente. Unfortunately, the eatery is currently closed.

May 1, 2013May 1, 2013

My Weekend with Michael Buble!

This past weekend was an absolute whirlwind – so much so that I am still trying to process the whole thing. It all started a couple of weeks back when I received a phone call from a good friend who informed me that the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, of which he is a member, was going to be hosting “An Evening with Michael Buble” – a special question and answer session and mini-concert with the cutie crooner – on April 28th. He had reserved two tickets for the event and, because he says he can’t hear the name Michael Buble without thinking of me, invited me to be his plus-one. As you can imagine, I was absolutely ESCTATIC over the news! Especially since I had been experiencing a particularly tough week with my dad. Flash forward to last Wednesday evening. I received another phone call from my friend informing me that he had heard (this friend knows absolutely EVERYONE in the business) that Michael would be arriving at LAX that Saturday at 1 a.m. and that if I wanted a photograph with him, going there would be my best bet. So even though I am SO not a night owl (I am typically in my PJs, glass of champagne in hand, by 6 p.m. every night), for MB I rallied! As did the Grim Cheaper – and I am so glad that we did because it turned out to be a magical experience. (And yes, I do realize that I can no longer call myself “not a stalker” now that I have gone to the airport to meet a celebrity! Winking smile )

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When the GC and I arrived at LAX, I was shocked to see that there were about twenty paparazzi and autograph dealers (aka “graphers”) already waiting for Michael. Those who read my site regularly know that I am not AT ALL a fan of the graphers – they are extremely aggressive and typically try to get between 20-30 items signed each, thereby taking up all of a celebrity’s time. (Not to mention, they are obnoxious! A TSA agent walked by at one point and asked who we were waiting for and one of the dealers responded, “Michael Buble – he’s a nobody.” Yeah, that guy’s lucky he didn’t get a fist to the face! Winking smile ) I am not an aggressive person by nature and do not do well in situations involving graphers and paparazzi, so I was fearful that the evening was not going to go well. Come to find out, I never should have worried. Not only is Michael Buble THE NICEST celebrity that I have ever met (Shannen Doherty runs a close second), but the GC was my absolute HERO that night and totally had my back! When MB walked out of the gate area, the graphers and paparazzi, of course, surrounded him and kept shoving photos and Sharpies into his face and hands. I called out to Michael from the sidelines and asked if he would pose for a picture, to which he said, “Sure! Just let me finish signing.” Well, anyone who has ever experienced the graphers knows that there is not ever a “finish” to their autograph seeking. These people carry hundreds upon hundreds of photographs with them at all times. (I’m not joking – some of them even cart around portable filing cabinets filled with celebrity pictures!) Well, MB pretty much signed his life away and it did not appear that the graphers were ever going to stop, so the GC yelled out, “Michael – this girl is a HUGE fan! She flew to Vancouver just to see the grocery store from your video!” (You can read my blog post on the Killarney Market from MB’s “Haven’t Met You Yet” video here.) Michael could not believe that and seemed really excited about it. Just then, his handler stopped him, saying, “OK we are done here. Come on, Michael, we’re leaving.” To which MB said, “Hold on, I need to take a picture with this sweet girl over here.” As you can imagine, I almost died right there on the spot!

My friend took the picture below in which I was telling Michael that he was my number one favorite celebrity. Smile

I was just slightly ecstatic.

The photo below perfectly encapsulates how Michael interacts with his fans. He was SO incredibly friendly, cordial and engaging to everyone who was there – almost unbelievably so. Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, likes to describe fan-friendly celebrities as “braid-your-hair nice”, in that they are so accommodating, they’d braid your hair if you asked them to. Well, braid-your-hair nice doesn’t even being to describe Buble. He is more like “take-the-shirt-off-his-back-and-give-it-to-you nice.” The poor guy had been on a flight for over five hours and it was 1 o’clock in the morning (4 a.m. his time) when he arrived at the airport, yet he still stood there for what seemed like forever signing autographs and posing for pictures!

My dad, who (if possible) loves MB even more than I do, had asked if I would try to get a CD and a photograph signed for him. Right after Michael took the picture with me, he signed the CD – both the actual CD and the CD cover, which was so incredibly cool. (I framed it as soon as I got home and the result is below. My dad LOVES it.)

After Michael signed my dad’s CD, he headed outside to wait for his car. In all of the excitement, I had completely forgotten about the photograph that my dad wanted signed. It was a picture that I had taken on December 13th, 2010 at Michael’s Crazy Love concert at the Staples Center (which I blogged about here). The GC and I had surprised my dad with tickets to the concert for his birthday that year and then for Christmas, which was a few weeks later, I framed one of the photos from the night and gave it to him. It’s been hanging in his office ever since. (Ironically enough, that same Christmas my dad gifted me with a framed photograph of MB that he had also taken at the concert! Smile ) Well, as soon as Michael stepped outside of the airport, the graphers and paparazzi went crazy all over again and surrounded him. At that point, Michael’s handler got wise to the fact that these people were not fans and told him not to sign anything else. Michael then said, “OK guys, I’m not signing anymore, but I’ll take all the photos you want.” Well, that started a whole other sh*tstorm, with even the paps jumping in trying to get pictures with the singer and everyone saying, “My picture didn’t come out, can I get another?” In the midst of the chaos, I went up to MB’s handler and asked if he could please sign one more photograph for my dad. The handler emphatically told me, “NO!” He was annoyed – and I don’t blame him in the slightest. The whole thing was absolutely ridiculous! You can kind of see the mayhem below – and me in the back trying to avoid the graphers.

Michael’s car arrived a few minutes later, but he still stayed outside taking photographs with people. When I told the GC how disappointed I was that I couldn’t get my dad’s picture signed (especially because that concert is such a special memory for the two of us), he grabbed it and went right up to Michael and said, “Look, we are actual fans. Her dad loves you and is very sick and would love to have this picture signed.” To which Michael replied, “Oh man, of course!” As I said, the GC was my hero that night! I NEVER would have gotten my dad’s photo signed – and personalized!!! – without him. I told the GC that while I had fallen in love with MB a little bit more than I already was that night, I had fallen in love with my husband A LOT more. Smile On the drive home, while in total disbelief, I said, “Do you realize that I now have photographs with my top four favorite celebs (Michael Buble, Matt Lanter, Kristin Cavallari, and Shannen Doherty)? The GC’s reply? “Great! Can we retire from this now?” LOL Not surprisingly, I did not sleep at all that night and could not believe that I still had Sunday’s “An Evening with Michael Buble” to look forward to!

Flash forward to Sunday. My friend and I showed up about three hours early to “An Evening with Michael Buble” and wound up with fabulous sixth-row seats!

The Q&A portion of the event, which was hosted by Extra’s Terri Seymour, featured Michael Buble, NBC President of Late Night, Specials and Alternative Programming Paul Telegdy, producer Brad Lachman, Michael Buble’s manager Bruce Allen, and producer Bill Bracken.

The panel discussed the taping of Michael’s 2012 NBC Christmas special, Michael Buble: Home for the Holidays. The group shared some great behind-the-scenes stories and a video was shown explaining how the segment in which MB sang with Bing Crosby was made, which was fascinating to watch. And while the entire evening was taped, I am unsure of when or where it will air. If I had to guess, I would say that NBC is planning to sell DVDs of Michael Buble: Home for the Holidays come December and that the Q&A will be included as a special feature, but that is just a hunch.

After the Q&A session, Michael performed three songs from his new album, To Be Loved. He opened with the classic Michael Jackson ballad “Who’s Lovin’ You” and after belting out the long opening “When I” sequence, suddenly cut into “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”. The whole band immediately went silent and MB said, “You should see my musical director’s face right now!” LOL Michael is completely at home on the stage, so incredibly fun to watch and, as usual, absolutely brought down the house. The guy is a perennial performer and I could sit there and watch him sing all night, although I am pretty sure that goes without saying. MB’s set list also included “Young at Heart” and “To Love Somebody” and everyone in the audience was sent home with a To Be Loved CD!

After the show, Michael’s people rushed him outside and through the massive crowd leaving the theatre (which I do not think had been their intention) and even though it was complete chaos, Michael did stop to sign autographs and pose for pictures – including one with me! – as he was being dragged towards his car. The guy is SO flipping nice! <3 <3 <3 The entire weekend was an amazing experience and I am so thankful that I got to be a part of it all. This is one high that I don’t think I’ll ever come down from!

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: There is no stalking location for this post.

April 18, 2013April 17, 2013

The Hideaway Saloon from “90210”

While watching the Season 5 episode of 90210 titled “Misery Loves Company” a few months back, I became just a wee bit mesmerized by the Hideaway, the biker bar where Naomi Clark (AnnaLynne McCord) and Adrianna Tate-Duncan (Jessica Lowndes) tried to track down Naomi’s lost wedding ring. The series’ fabulous costume designer, Kime Buzzelli, had posted pictures of the site on her Instagram page (@kbuzzy), so I commented asking for its real name (for whatever reason, I had incorrectly assumed that the name shown in the episode was a fake). She wrote back right away (she’s great about interacting with fans) saying, “It was this place called the Hideaway and it was LEGIT! Loved it.” When I told her I was going to have to stalk it in the near future, she replied, “I’d love to go back, it seems like it’s actually like we shot it. Smile Perfect amount of tough and scary.” So I immediately added the place to my To-Stalk list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there a few weeks later. And I just have to say here that I am seriously depressed over the fact that 90210 was cancelled. Yes, the show had gone downhill in recent months (The Hangover-themed “Dude, Where’s My Husband” episode starring a few of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was a definite low point), but I still loved watching it and am beyond sad that, come next season, I will no longer be able to. And I swear, if Annie Wilson (Shenae Grimes) and Liam Court (my man Matt Lanter) do not get together in the final episode, CBS will be receiving a very strongly worded letter from me! Winking smile

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The Hideaway, which was constructed in 1917, originated as a stagecoach stop. It went through a few different incarnations after that, but started serving alcohol in (I believe) 1947 and has been going strong ever since.

I am fairly certain that the decidedly rustic décor has not changed much since the property’s beginnings almost a century ago.

The Hideaway is actually the perfect name for the site because it is completely hidden away from view. So much so that the GC and I almost drive right past it! As you can see below, it is tucked below the road and virtually impossible to see.

The place is so seemingly remote and peaceful – it even butts up to a little stream! – that it is hard to believe it is located just one mile from the busy 210 Freeway.

And while I originally thought that the hitching posts out front were a décor choice, I was way off!

While we were exploring the place, the GC spotted more hitching posts in the back of the bar, as well as, ahem, evidence of horses having been on the premises, and a sign stating, “Do not tie horses to fence.” According to a 2001 L.A. Weekly article, the Hideaway is one of only three bars in the county that allows patrons to hitch their steeds to the posts out front. How incredibly cool is that?

The Hideaway’s payphone booth, which is painted to look like wood, is pretty cool, too.

Unfortunately, the Hideaway was not yet open when we showed up to stalk it (it opens at 11 a.m. on weekends), so we were not able to venture inside. We did happen to meet a few nearby homeowners who were nice enough to fill us in on the site’s filming history, though. And being that the bar offers karaoke (my favorite!), as well as live music, dancing, darts, and pool, I am going to have to drag the GC back there one evening when it is open.

In the “Misery Loves Company” episode of 90210, Naomi convinces Adrianna to go for a Thelma & Louise-style road trip up the coast, “minus the Grand Canyon suicide dive, of course.” During the drive, the two stop to skinny-dip in a natural spring (why not?) leaving their designer duds behind in Naomi’s convertible (of course). As you can guess, the clothes – and Naomi’s wedding ring, which was in her pants pocket – get stolen and, acting on a tip from some local hippies who happen to be walking by, the girls head to a biker bar just up the road in order to confront the culprits. (In that episode’s side story, Liam gets kidnapped by his psycho bodyguard who plans to take him to Mexico in a three foot by five foot box. Oh, and Annie gets shot. There’s a reason the GC has turned to me while watching 90210 over the past couple of weeks and said of the series’ cancellation, “Really, you didn’t see this coming?” Winking smile )

The real life interior of the bar was also used in the episode.

As you can see below, the Hideaway even has a little anteroom for dancing and is much larger than its exterior would have you believe.

Due to its rugged look and isolated feel, the Hideaway has been a favorite of location scouts since way back when. Thanks to the Falcon Crest website, I learned that in the Season 1 episode titled “The Tangled Vines”, which first aired in 1981, the watering hole masqueraded as the supposed Tuscany Valley-area bar where Lance Cumson (Lorenzo Lamas) took his cousins Cole Gioberti (William R. Moses) and Vickie Gioberti (Jamie Rose) for a drink. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the bar were used in the scene.

In the 2000 black comedy Drowning Mona, the Hideaway stood in for the Verplanck, New York-area bar where Murph Calzone (Mark Pellegrino) worked.

The interior of the bar also appeared in the movie.

How much does Casey Affleck, who plays Murph’s brother, Bobby in the flick, look like Zac Efron, by the way?

In The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning, the Hideaway was where Daisy Duke (April Scott) worked. At least I think it’s where she worked. Unfortunately, the movie was not available to stream anywhere online, so I was only able to watch a preview of it and while I did spot the Hideaway, I am not exactly sure of what function it served in the 2007 flick.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to 90210 costume designer Kime Buzzelli for telling me about this location! Smile You can check out Kime’s official website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Hideaway, from the “Misery Loves Company” episode of 90210, is located at 12122 Kagel Canyon Road in Kagel Canyon. You can visit the bar’s official website here.

April 17, 2013April 16, 2013

Malibu Hindu Temple from “Beverly Hills Ninja”

A couple of weeks back, while doing research on the Calabasas-area mansion where the contestants live on the fabulous Bachelor parody series Burning Love (which I blogged about here), I came across a blurb in fave book Los Angeles Attractions detailing the Malibu Hindu Temple. I had never before heard of the place, but my interest was immediately piqued when I read the words, “It was the setting for scenes in Beverly Hills Ninja.” Um, sign me up! So I immediately added the site to my To-Stalk list and headed right on over there with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, while I was in L.A. for a couple of days last week.

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As we pulled up to the temple, which sits on 4.5 acres nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains, my first thought was, ‘How in the heck had I not known about this place until just recently?’ As you can see below, not only is it absolutely HUGE, but it is also quite spectacular.

The sanctuary, which is also known as the Sri Venkateswara Temple, was originally constructed in the Chola style by Indian craftsman in 1981 and is owned and operated by the Hindu Temple Society of Southern California. According to Los Angeles Attractions, it is the largest Hindu temple on the West Coast, with 120,000 worshipers visiting annually.

The temple complex consists of two sections – the upper (and main) portion (pictured below), which is presided over by Lord Venkateswara . . .

. . and the lower portion (pictured below), which is presided over by Lord Shiva.

Amazingly enough, for being such an impressive structure, I could find virtually no information about the place online, other than the fact that Britney Spears attended services there in 2006 with son Sean Preston.

While there, I did, of course, venture into the temple, even though I had to remove my shoes to do so – and immediately started having visions of the Season 6 episode of Sex and the City titled “A Woman’s Right to Shoes” (one of my all-time favorites!), in which Carrie Bradshaw’s (my girl Sarah Jessica Parker’s) Manolo Blahniks were stolen after she was forced to doff them while attending a party. Before heading inside, I did vow to “register” for a new pair of wedges, like Carrie did in the episode, if mine were stolen. Winking smile They weren’t, thankfully. (Speaking of Sarah Jessica Parker and shoes, the actress will be auctioning off three pairs of hers to benefit the LaGuardia High School of Music, Art and the Performing Arts on April 24. You can bid here.)

The temple is quite beautiful on the inside, as well.

In Beverly Hills Ninja, which premiered in 1997, Malibu Hindu Temple was where Martin Tanley (Nathaniel Parker) met with a rival gang in order to pick up counterfeiting plates, shortly after capturing Haru (Chris Farley). While at the temple, Allison Page (Nicollette Sheridan) rescues Haru, but winds up being captured by Martin herself just a few minutes later.

The interior portion of the temple also appeared in the movie.

In 1998, the temple was featured during a musical sequence in the Indian Tamil move Jeans.

Malibu Hindu Temple also popped up in Fog & Smog’s 2001 parody music video “Yoga Girl”.

You can watch that video by clicking below.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Malibu Hindu Temple, from Beverly Hills Ninja, is located at 1600 Las Virgenes Canyon Road in Calabasas. You can visit the temple’s official website here.

April 16, 2013May 30, 2013

The Parker Palm Springs Hotel

This past Sunday afternoon, in the hopes of spotting some of the countless celebrities in town for the Coachella music festival, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to a few of the desert’s more upscale hotels. And while we did not end up seeing any stars during our venture, we did discover one of the coolest places I have visited in all my years of stalking – the Parker Palm Springs hotel. Although I wouldn’t really consider the place a filming location – it was the subject of Bravo’s short-lived reality series Welcome to the Parker, which I never saw or had even heard of until doing research for this post – because it has a vast celebrity history and is one of the most aesthetically fascinating locations that I have ever seen, I thought it was most-definitely blog-worthy.

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The Parker Palm Springs was originally established in 1959 as a Holiday Inn of all things. In fact, it was California’s very first Holiday Inn. In 1961, the non-descript concrete and cinderblock property was purchased by singing cowboy Gene Autry for the main purpose of lodging his newly acquired baseball team, the California Angels, during Spring Training. He changed the name of the site to Melody Ranch (it was also often called The Autry Hotel) and added a few luxury touches, like a second pool, tennis courts, a bar, and a couple of restaurants. He also placed his famous silver-trimmed saddle on display in the lobby. Love it!

In 1994, Autry sold the resort to his hotel director, Rose Narva, who immediately set about remaking the site into an ornate, French-themed wonderland in affiliation with famed Breakfast at Tiffany’s-fashion-designer Hubert de Givenchy. Narva also renamed the site the Givenchy Hotel and Spa. Interestingly enough, for several years afterward Gene and his wife, Jackie, continued to live at a large private home located at the rear of the property. The two-bedroom, two bath house still stands to this day and is leased out as a part of the resort. You can see photographs of it here.

In 1998, the hotel was purchased by Merv Griffin, who promptly renamed it Merv Griffin’s Resort Hotel and Givenchy Spa. It became quite a celebrity magnet at that time, attracting such legends as Lauren Bacall, Gregory Peck, John Travolta, and Barbra Streisand. It was during Merv Griffin’s tenure as owner that, over Thanksgiving Weekend 2000, Robert Downey Jr. was arrested in Room 311 after police received an anonymous 911 tip that the actor had drugs and guns in his possession.

In 2002, Griffin sold the space to Epix Hotels and Resorts. It then sat vacant until 2003 when it was purchased by hotelier Jack Parker, who hired designer Jonathan Adler to give the space a $27-million facelift. The property re-opened in 2004 as Le Parker Meridien, or Parker Palm Springs as it is better known. According to the 2005 book Palm Springs Legends, at the time it was the city’s only five-star resort.

Today, the 13-acre, 144-room property boasts fire pits, a tropical palm garden, petanque and croquet courts, four pools (two indoor, two outdoor, one saltwater), red clay tennis courts, two restaurants (Norma’s and Mister Parker’s), an outdoor café (The Lemonade Stand), an 18-hole executive golf course, and a 16,500-square-foot award-winning spa named the Palm Spring Yacht Club which boasts 21 treatment rooms, two of them outdoor.

In the book Explorer’s Guide Palm Springs & Desert Resorts, of the unique décor author Christopher P. Baker says, “Frankly, many of the pieces look like they were picked up at a garage sale. But the overall effect is magnificent.” I’d say the hotel is more “flea market” than “garage sale”, but the effect is magnificent indeed! I literally could not stop taking pictures of the place.

My favorite portion of the resort had to be the Mini Bar, a lush, mirrored spot with seating for six tucked into a tiny alcove off the hotel’s lobby.

The Lemonade Stand is pretty amazeballs, though, too.

Love the lemon-stuffed shell.

And the tree-shaded dining area, where you can order a Pimm’s and learn how to play croquet.

The Parker Palm Springs has played host to countless celebrities over its nine-year history, including Jonah Hill, Adrien Brody, Drew Barrymore, Will Kopelman, Lindsay Lohan, Wilmer Valderrama, Eva Mendes, Charlize Theron, Kevin Spacey, Liam Neeson, Teri Hatcher, and Ozzy Osbourne. Lake Bell’s Bachelorette Party was held at the Parker just a few weeks ago and pal Cameron Diaz was in attendance. And Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie famously stayed there – at opposite ends of the property, according to their publicists – on March 25th and 26th, 2005 while shooting the “Domestic Bliss” cover story for W Magazine. (I blogged about the Kenaston Residence where the shoot took place here). According to the Hotel Chatter website, the duo, who were at the time ferociously fighting rumors of a relationship, checked in under the aliases Jasmine Pilaf and Bryce Pilaf. Nyuck nyuck nyuck! Winking smile It is not very hard to see why stars flock to the Parker – the hotel is full of tucked-away spaces and is incredibly intimate, serene and cozy despite its large size.

Being there feels more like hanging out at a good – and ultra-hip – friend’s house (Cupcake and Cashmere’s Emily Schuman’s house, perhaps – oh, if only we were friends! Winking smile ) than staying at a hotel. I would SO love to book a room there for a little stay-cation, but being that rates start at around $300 a night, I am sure the GC will be having none of that!

UPDATE – a fellow stalker named TJ recently posted a comment alerting me to the fact that the Parker actually IS a filming location. The hotel was featured extensively in the Season 1 episode of the short-lived HBO series The Comeback titled “Valerie Relaxes in Palm Springs”, in which fledgling actress Valerie Cherish (Lisa Kudrow) vacations in the desert with her husband, Mark Berman (Damian Young). Areas of the hotel that appeared in the episode include the front entrance;