Elizabeth Perkins – IAMNOTASTALKER

February 3, 2020January 31, 2020

Melanie’s House from “Truth Be Told”

Apple TV+ sure has hit the ground running! Everything released on the new platform thus far seems to be television gold! I’ve made no secret of the fact that I consider The Morning Show one of the best series to ever grace the small screen and was thrilled to find For All Mankind and Truth Be Told just as gripping. The latter, based on Kathleen Barber’s 2017 novel Are You Sleeping, centers around a journalist-turned-podcaster named Poppy Scoville-Parnell (Octavia Spencer) who begins re-investigating a decades-old murder to make sure the right man is behind bars, à la Serial. Obviously, as soon as I read the synopsis, I had to tune in! And my crime-loving heart wasn’t disappointed. Minutes after the end credits for episode one started rolling, I, of course, began hunting for locales and was ecstatic to learn that, while set in Northern California, filming largely took place in L.A. During my perusing, I came across a 2018 Backstage article which noted that some footage was shot at a house at 509 North June Street in Hancock Park. From there it wasn’t hard to piece together that the site portrayed the supposed Menlo Park abode belonging to Melanie Cave (Elizabeth Perkins), mother of convicted killer Warren Cave (Aaron Paul), on the series. So I ran right out to stalk it shortly thereafter.

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Melanie’s house is featured throughout Truth Be Told’s eight-episode run. Though we only get a limited view of it, the place first shows up in the pilot, titled “Monster,” in the scene in which Poppy bombards Melanie in her driveway in the hopes of securing an interview with Warren.

I obviously couldn’t get images matching what was shown in the scene, but the driveway is pictured below.

We don’t actually see the full exterior of the pad until episode 3, “Even Salt Looks Like Sugar.”

I have to say that producers did a great job in choosing the residence because while watching the scene below from episode 2, “Black People in the Neighborhood,” the Grim Cheaper, a native San Franciscan, turned to me and said, “I can pretty much guarantee that home actually is in the Bay Area.” I had already read the Backstage article by that time and when I informed him that it was actually in Hancock Park, he refused to believe me. Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

The adorable little property is just as charming in person as it appeared on the series. With its peaked roof and rounded front door overhang, it reminds me quite a bit of Denise’s house from I Love You, Man as well as the Lawrence residence from the 1976 series Family, so it is not at all hard to see how it made its way to the screen.

I believe that the inside of the dwelling was also utilized on the series, but could not find any interior images with which to verify that.

It appears that the actual backyard was used briefly, as well.

In real life, the 1925 pad boasts 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, 3,236 square feet, 2 stories, and a 0.18-acre lot.

With it’s charmingly idyllic Anywhere, U.S.A. appeal, I am shocked it hasn’t appeared in more productions, but I was unable to dig any up.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Melanie’s house from Truth Be Told is located at 509 North June Street in Hancock Park.

June 27, 2014June 26, 2014

The “Must Love Dogs” House

One location that I had always wondered about, but never put much time into tracking down was the charming bungalow where lovelorn preschool teacher Sarah Nolan (Diane Lane) lived in the 2005 romantic comedy Must Love Dogs. Then, this past May, a fellow stalker named Linda challenged me to find the place and just a few days later I got an email from Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, with an address. He had seen Linda’s challenge and decided to do a little digging and, lo and behold, found the locale. Thank you, Geoff!

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Geoff was able to find the residence thanks to an address number of “1181” that was visible above the front porch in several scenes. Figuring that the pad was most likely located in Pasadena due to its Craftsman-style architecture, he began searching 1100 blocks in the area and it was not long before he found the right spot.

I was not at all disappointed when I finally saw the house in person. The place is just as adorable and picturesque as it appeared to be onscreen.

In real life, the 1921 dwelling features four bedrooms, one bath, 1,874 square feet of living space and a 0.32-acre plot of land. It was last sold for $280,000 in October 1997, which means that the people who own it today owned it at the time that Must Love Dogs was filmed. Love that! Wish I could have spoken to them while I was there.

The exterior of Sarah’s residence popped up repeatedly throughout Must Love Dogs.

Sadly, the gorgeous interior shown in the movie was just a set.

I am absolutely in love with Sarah’s décor (hello, claw-foot tub!). The entire place just looks so cozy and inviting. You can read a great Hooked on Houses article about Sarah’s interior design style here.

I managed to find some photographs of the real life interior of the residence online and, as you can see, it looks quite a bit different than what was shown onscreen. Some of the set does appear to have been modeled after the actual home, though. The built-in buffet in Sarah’s dining room is very similar to the property’s actual buffet.

And her green tiled fireplace is also very reminiscent of the the real home’s fireplace.

Sarah’s bedroom looks nothing like the real life master bedroom, though.

The two kitchens do not resemble each other, either. You can check out the real one here.

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

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Sarah’s house from Must Love Dogs is located at 1181 East Elizabeth Street in Pasadena.

October 9, 2009October 7, 2009

Rye Playland

Another location that fellow stalker Owen visited a few weeks back while spending the day in Rye, New York was the amusement park featured at the very end of the 1988 Tom Hanks movie Big. Rye Playland, which is also called Playland Amusement Park or just simply Playland and is run by Westchester County, New York, is the only government-owned and operated amusement park in the entire United States. In the early 1900s, Westchester County Park Association purchased two beachside theme parks after local citizens became upset over the unruly patrons fraternizing there. The Association tore down the existing parks and built Rye Playland in their place. The Art Deco style park opened on May 26, 1928 after a scant six months of construction. The new park featured an ice skating rink, a boardwalk, a fine dining restaurant, a swimming pool, two beaches, and numerous rides, including the Grand Carousel, which was built by Mangels-Carmel in 1915. In 1987, Playland was declared a National Historic Landmark and it is still in operation to this day, looking much the same as it did when it first opened over 81 years ago.

Due to its quaint, beachside charm, movie producers have made much use of Playland over the years. It is at the Rye amusement park that Tom Hanks finally locates the elusive Zoltar machine and makes his wish to be a kid again in fave movie Big. As you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, the entrance to the park looks a bit different today than it did in 1988 when Big was filmed. The two white pillars flanking the front gates have long since been removed, as has the pine tree that used to stand in the center island.

Also, at the time the movie was filmed, the large fountain at the front of the park was not in operation. That fountain was in full swing, though, when Owen visited Playland a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, due to all of the spouting water, he couldn’t match up his photograph perfectly to the screen shot, but the two pictures you see above were taken from the exact same vantage point.

Most of the scene from Big took place on Playland’s curved boardwalk, which is located just around the corner from the park’s main entrance and, which, amazingly enough, still looks almost exactly the same today as it did twenty-one years ago when the movie was filmed.

The only thing missing, of course, is the Zoltar machine. 🙁 But notice how the payphone in the above photograph is still in the EXACT same place that it was when the movie was filmed!!

Owen, of course, wasn’t expecting to find a magic fortune telling machine on the pier during his stalk, so imagine his surprise when he discovered that a Pepsi machine was standing just a few feet to the left of where Zoltar was situated in the movie.

So, of course, he just HAD to pretend to kick the machine, like Tom Hanks did in the movie. LOVE IT! 🙂

Rye Playland also showed up in Fatal Attraction, as the spot where Glenn Close took Michael Douglas’ daughter for the day after kidnapping her from school. In the movie, the two are shown riding Playland’s iconic Dragon Coaster, which was built in 1929 and was designed by Frederick A. Church. The Dragon Coaster is 3,400 feet long, rises to 85 feet at its highest point, and is one of only about a hundred wooden roller coasters still in operation in the United States.

Mariah Carey also rode the Dragon Coaster in the 1995 video for her song “Fantasy”, which was filmed in its entirety on location at Playland. The video also made use of the park’s boardwalk and parking lot area.

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Other productions filmed at Playland include Pieta, Sweet and Lowdown, Tenderness, The Muppets Take Manhattan and several episodes of BET Now.

A big THANK YOU to Owen for stalking this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Rye Playland is located at the end of Playland Parkway in Rye, New York. You can visit their website here. Park admission fees range between $20 to $30, but you can access the boardwalk area, where Big was filmed, for free. Parking costs an average of $5, depending on the day. The boardwalk area is located just around the corner from the park’s main entrance. The Who’s the Boss? house is located just a mile North of Playland at 13 Onondaga Street, also in Rye.