The Palms Motel from “My Name Is Earl”

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Another day, another motel location.  Today’s is one that has been covered on many other blogs, so I realize I am a bit late to the game.  I only just recently stalked it, though, and was shocked to discover that its most recognizable element had been removed!  I am talking about the Palms Motel where Earl Hickey (Jason Lee) lived with his brother, Randy (Ethan Suplee), on the television series My Name Is Earl.  Up until writing this post, I had never seen a full episode of the show, but my dad is a huge fan, so I had caught many bits and pieces of it over the years.  I had also long been familiar with the real life location of the Palms Motel.  In actuality, it’s known as the Palm Tree Inn Motel in North Hills.  Mike, from MovieShotsLA, first pointed it out to me during one of our many Valley stalks ages ago and, when I was in the area recently, I decided to stop by to stalk it for my dad.  I was absolutely shocked upon arriving, though, to see that the hotel’s iconic, murky-watered pool was no longer!

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For those unfamiliar with My Name Is Earl, the series centers around ne’er-do-well Earl, who, after winning $100,000 in the lottery and then promptly losing the ticket, decides to change his ways by adhering to the tenets of karma.  He draws up a list of all of the people he has wronged throughout the course his life and proceeds to try to make amends with each of them.  I absolutely love Earl’s mantra of “You do good things and good things happen to you.  You do bad things and they’ll come back to haunt you.”  It’s not a bad way to operate.  After losing his winning lottery ticket and being dumped by his wife in the pilot episode (oh, and getting hit by a car – the guy was not having a good week), Earl and his brother move into a low-budget inn named the Palms Motel.

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The motel went on to be featured regularly throughout the series’ four-season run.  It also appeared each week in the My Name Is Earl opening credits.

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The Palms’ dingy, fin-shaped pool was easily its most notable aspect – well, for me, at least.

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Before venturing onto the property, I popped into the Palm Tree Inn’s front office to speak with the manager and he could not have been nicer, immediately welcoming me onto the premises to take all of the pictures that I wanted.  Before I did so, he informed me that the pool had been filled in a few years prior (I believe around 2010) due to the fact that it was expensive to maintain and rarely used.  He pointed me in the direction of the pool’s former location (it now serves as a parking lot addition) and, while distressed over the fact that it was no longer there, I was floored to see that its outline was still visible.

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Oh, how I wish I had gotten to see the pool in person, though.

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The outline of the circular space where the random blue sculpture once stood is also still visible.  I am guessing that area was the site of a hot tub at one point in time.

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On the series, the brothers were said to live in Room 231 and that is actually where filming took place.

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Room 231 can be found on the second floor of the southeast corner of the Palm Tree Inn Motel.

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That area is denoted with a pink arrow in the aerial view pictured below.

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While the exterior of Room 231 was featured regularly throughout the series’ run, I believe that the actual (heavily dressed) interior was only used in My Name Is Earl’s pilot episode . . .

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. . . and that a set re-creation of it was built for all subsequent filming once the series got picked up.  You can check out some photographs of what the Palm Tree Inn’s real rooms look like here.

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E & Z Liquor Market, where childhood Earl (Noah Crawford) taught his friend Ralph (Tanner Maguire) about “street piñatas” in the Season 1 episode “Teacher Earl,” is located adjacent to the Palm Tree Inn Motel at 8418 Sepulveda Boulevard.

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The Palm Tree Inn Motel was originally built in the 1960s and was known as the Travelyn Hiway Host.

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  I believe that it did not become the Palm Tree Inn Motel until after My Name Is Earl started filming in 2005, which would mean that the owners re-named it in honor of its TV moniker, the Palms Motel, which is pretty darn incredible!  Don’t quote me on that, though.

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I was pleasantly surprised to discover while researching this post how much filming has taken place at the 76-room motel over the years.

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The Palm Tree Inn appeared very briefly as the L.A. motel where Azamat (Ken Davitian) was living at the end of the 2006 comedy Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

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In the Season 1 episode of The Mentalist titled “The Thin Red Line,” which aired in 2008, the motel masked as the Davis Motor Inn in Davis, California, where the CBI team investigated the murder of a state witness.

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One of the hotel’s actual rooms, Room 222, appeared in the episode.

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A nice view of the pool was also shown.

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In the Season 3 episode of Heroes titled “Chapter Four ‘Cold Wars,’” which aired in 2009, the property stood in for the Costa Verde motel where Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia), Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) and Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) interrogated Noah Bennet (Jack Coleman).

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Ironically, Room 231, the very same room where Earl and Randy live on My Name Is Earl, was utilized in the filming.

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Or at least the doorway was.  I believe the interior of the room that appeared in the episode was just a set.

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The Palm Tree Inn Motel was featured extensively in Kesha’s 2010 music video for “Take It Off.”

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Though the property was made to appear as if it was located in a remote, mountainous area for the shoot.

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An extensive sequence from the video took place in the motel’s pool.

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You can watch the “Take It Off” video by clicking below.

Having viewed the many productions filmed at the motel, I’m rather shocked that the owners decided to have the pool filled in.  Though, as I mentioned earlier, I was told it was expensive to maintain, it seems that all of the movies and shows lensed on the premises featured it in some aspect.  The pool’s unique shape added a certain je ne sais quoi to the property, making it stand out from the countless roadside motels in the area, and no doubt proved attractive to location scouts.  Without it, the place looks like every other motel in L.A., which probably explains why it, sadly, hasn’t seen much filming in recent years.

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

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Palm Tree Motor Inn, aka the Palms Motel from My Name Is Earl, is located at 8424 Sepulveda Boulevard in North Hills.  E & Z Liquor Market, from the “Teacher Earl” episode, is located right next door at 8418 Sepulveda Boulevard. The areas of the motel that appeared on the series, as well as the liquor store, are denoted in the aerial view below.  The Budget Inn of North Hills, aka the Little Miss Sunshine motel, is located a mile north at 9151 Sepulveda BoulevardThe Hometown Inn from the 2002 Britney Spears’ movie Crossroads is located just a bit north of that at 9401 Sepulveda Boulevard.

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The Joshua Tree Inn & Motel

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I had never heard of Gram Parsons or the Joshua Tree Inn & Motel, where the musician met his untimely end in 1973, until being interviewed by the “Valley’s favorite talkers,” Bill Feingold and Kevin Holmes, for their radio show on 94.3 KNews this past August.  During the show, Kevin asked me if I had stalked the hotel at any point or if I would ever be interested in spending the night in the supposedly haunted Room 8, where Parsons took his last breaths.  I told them that heck yeah, I was interested (if there was a large group participating, that is!) and also made a mental note to add the place to the Haunted Hollywood section of my To-Stalk list.  While I never made it out there to spend the night in the Parsons room, the Grim Cheaper and I did briefly stalk the motel just a few weeks later.

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Gram Parsons was born Ingram Cecil Connor II on November 5th, 1946 to a wealthy family in Winter Haven, Florida.  He became interested in music at an early age, mainly as a way to cope with the 1958 suicide of his father and the subsequent death of his mother from cirrhosis of the liver in 1965.  It was not until he was exposed to the sounds of Merle Haggard while spending a semester at Harvard University, though, that Gram realized his true passion was country music.  In 1966, he founded the International Submarine Band, but the group broke up before their first album had even been released.  Parsons then joined The Byrds in February 1968 and helped to record the popular album Sweetheart of the Rodeo.  He didn’t last long with them, though, either.  By the summer of that same year, he had cut bait.  In 1969, he and former Byrds band-mate Chris Hillman formed the group The Flying Burrito Brothers.  Despite recording two albums, they were unable to find commercial success and by 1970, Gram had embarked upon a solo career.  His ever-increasing drug habit made producing any new music a rather impossible task, though.  At some point, Parsons travelled to England and met up with British rocker Ric Grech, an old friend who managed to help Gram kick his heroin habit.  Upon returning to the U.S., a rejuvenated Parsons partnered up with Emmylou Harris and, in 1973, released his first solo album, GP, which was a mild success.  He stayed relatively clean from drugs, at least while working on his music, and began recording a second album, Grievous Angel, that was shaping up to be better than his first.

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On September 17th, 1973, Parsons decided to head to Joshua Tree, one of his most beloved vacation spots, for a brief stay before embarking upon a tour that was scheduled for the following month.  Joining him on the trip were Parsons’ girlfriend, Margaret Fisher, his assistant, Michael Martin, and Martin’s girlfriend, Dale McElroy.  The group checked in to Parsons’ favorite area property, the Joshua Tree Inn & Motel.

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The quaint, hacienda-style inn, which was originally built in 1950 and sits on 3.37 acres, consists of ten rooms, two of them suites, that surround a large central courtyard with a pool.  The charming hotel has been popular with celebrities since its inception and John Barrymore Jr., Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Robert Plant, Keith Richards and John Wayne are all reported to have spent time there.

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Parsons booked two rooms for his stay – Rooms 1 and 8.  Room 8 is pictured below.

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The morning after their arrival, Parsons sent Martin back to Los Angeles to buy drugs.  He then headed to the airport for lunch with Fisher and McElroy, during which he drank copious amounts of Jack Daniels.  On the return drive to the motel, he stopped in town to purchase heroin and then snagged some morphine from a drug connection who also happened to be staying at the inn.

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A few hours later, a panicked Fisher summoned McElroy, claiming that Parsons had overdosed.  The two woman proceeded to give him an ice cube enema (yeah, I don’t get it either), which seemed to cure him.  At about 10 p.m., Fisher once again summoned McElroy, this time asking her to stay with Parsons, who was asleep, while she went to get food.  At some point thereafter, McElroy noticed that Gram’s breathing had become labored and she started administering CPR.  She continued trying to revive him for 30 minutes or so until Fisher returned and called 911.  Paramedics took Parsons to the Hi-Desert Memorial Hospital in nearby Yucca Valley, where doctors attempted to save the musician.  They were unsuccessful and Gram was pronounced dead at 12:30 a.m. on September 19th.  He was 26.

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Gram’s story doesn’t end there, though.  His step-dad, Bob Parsons, quickly made arrangements to fly the body to New Orleans, where he lived.  Gram’s road manager Phil Kaufman had other plans, though.  A few months earlier, Gram had made Kaufman promise that upon his death, he would cremate his body in Joshua Tree. Using a borrowed hearse, Phil and a friend kidnapped Parson’s body from LAX and took it back to Joshua Tree National Park, where they proceeded to pour 5 gallons of gasoline on it and light it on fire.  Kaufman and his friend split as soon as the coffin was set ablaze.  Its charred remains were discovered the following morning by hikers and what was left of Gram’s body was shipped to New Orleans.

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Though he did not achieve much commercial success during his lifetime, today Gram is looked upon as one of history’s most influential country-rock musicians.  In 2003, the Americana Music Association awarded him the “President’s Award” and Rolling Stone magazine placed him 87th on their list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time” in 2005.  Grievous Angel, which was released after Parsons’ death, is now considered a classic.

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The owners of the Joshua Tree Inn have since embraced their connection to Parsons, as tragic as it may be.  A large guitar-shaped memorial to the musician currently stands outside of Room 8 and a sign on the door of the front office states “Joshua Tree Inn, Home of Gram Parsons’ Spirit.”  Most significant of all though is the fact that the very same mirror that was hanging on the wall of Room 8 on the night he passed away is still displayed there to this day.  Supposedly, Parsons’ presence is often felt in the room and numerous guests have reported small belongings being moved around in the night.

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Despite the macabre circumstances of September 19th, 1973, the Joshua Tree Inn & Motel is an absolutely charming little place.  Now that I have wandered the grounds and experienced its tranquility, I would not hesitate to stay there overnight – even in Room 8.

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

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Joshua Tree Inn & Motel is located at 61259 Twentynine Palms Highway in Joshua Tree.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

The Town House Motel from “Vacation”

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As I mentioned in last Wednesday’s post, fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, recently got on a kick of tracking down missing locations from his all-time favorite comedy, the 1983 classic National Lampoon’s Vacation.  One of the locales he managed to find was the Town House Motel in Glendale, where Clark W. Griswold (Chevy Chase) and his family – wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo), son Rusty (Anthony Michael Hall) and daughter Audrey (Beverly Hills, 90210’s Dana Barron) – spent the first night of their road trip from Chicago to Los Angeles.  [I also did some digging and pinpointed the gas station where Clark tried to fill the new Wagon Queen Family Truckster (it’s the Little America Hotel at 2515 East Butler Avenue in Flagstaff, Arizona) and the rest stop where he danced with a sandwich (it’s the Shaw Creek Rest Area near 25090 Highway 160, just east of El Dorado Lane, in South Fork, Colorado).]  And while Owen informed me that the Town House Motel was, sadly, no longer standing, I figured since I was already in the area stalking the car dealership from the film, I might as well drop by.

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Towards the beginning of Vacation, Clark and the gang spend the night at a roadside lodging somewhere outside of St. Louis, Missouri.  They wind up at the motel unexpectedly, after Clark, who has fallen asleep at the wheel, pulls in there accidentally.  In the scene, the Griswold’s Wagon Queen Family Truckster (newly-adorned with graffiti that spells out “Honky Lips” LOL) goes careening down West Campus Street, heading south.  It then veers across East Colorado Street and straight into the parking lot of the Town House Motel, losing a few pieces of luggage in the process.

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While watching the scene, Owen had spotted an address number of “1510” above the property’s front entrance.  From there, he did a Google search for “1510,” “motel” and “Los Angeles,” and one of the first results to pop up was an eBay sale for a 1950s matchbook from the Town House Motel located at 1510 East Colorado Street in Glendale.  As he quickly discovered via a Street View search of that address, though, the structure had been bulldozed and a new, much larger hotel was now standing in its place.  Sadness!  You can check out what the Town House used to look like here and here.

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The new property is named the Glendale Lodge and, as you can see below, it looks nothing at all like the former Town House.

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I am fairly certain that one of the Town House’s real life rooms was also used in the filming, although the vibrating bed was most likely a prop.  Winking smile

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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 fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location!  Smile

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Glendale Lodge, aka the former site of the Town House Motel from Vacation, is located at 1510 East Colorado Street in Glendale.

The “Little Miss Sunshine” Motel

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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!

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For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and InstagramAnd 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

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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 hereThe Hometown Inn from the 2002 Britney Spears’ movie Crossroads is located just down the street at 9401 Sepulveda Boulevard.

The Brass Monkey Bar from “Bad Santa”

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Another Christmas-themed location that I stalked recently was the Brass Elephant bar – the Monrovia-area watering hole that stood in for the similarly-named “Brass Monkey” bar where Sue (aka Lauren Graham) worked in my least-favorite holiday movie of all time, 2003’s Bad Santa.  Fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, had tracked down the establishment a while back and once I learned that it was located inside of the Aztec Hotel, an extremely unique structure that had intrigued me ever since I first moved to the San Gabriel Valley over eleven years ago, I decided that I just had to stalk the place.  And this past Tuesday morning, I finally did just that.

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The Aztec Hotel was originally built in 1925, on what was then the historic Route 66, by Robert Stacy-Judd, the English-born architect who also designed the Masonic Temple in North Hollywood, the First Baptist Church in Ventura, and the incredible Atwater Bungalows in Echo Park.  The hotel was Stacy-Judd’s first commercial design job in the United States and he credited his inspiration for the project to John L. Stephen’s 1841 tome Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.  Although technically Mayan in design, the architect named the property the “Aztec Hotel” because, as he is quoted as saying in the 1993 book Robert Stacy-Judd: Maya Architecture and the Creation of a New Style, “When the hotel project was first announced, the word Maya was unknown to the layman.  The subject of Maya culture was only of archaeological importance, and, at that, concerned but a few exponents.  As the word Aztec was fairly well-known, I baptized the hotel with that name, although all the decorative motifs are Maya.”

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And while the Aztec Hotel enjoyed immense success and was one of the most exclusive lodgings in the area for a brief period, it fell upon hard times due to both the Great Depression and the realignment of Route 66 and was forced to shutter its doors in 1935, less than a decade after opening.  It was sold, by auction, shortly thereafter for $50,000.  The new owners renovated the place and it once again became a popular retreat thanks to the proximity of the newly-opened Santa Anita Park race track.  Such luminaries as Bing Crosby, Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable, and my girl Marilyn Monroe were all reportedly counted as guests at one time or another.  Sadly though, the property fell, once again, into disrepair in the years following and served as everything from a drug den to a brothel.  The 44-room, two-story hotel, which was named a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was just recently purchased by new owners who have set about restoring the historic site to its former glory.  Amazingly, numerous elements of Stacy-Judd’s original design remain in place to this day, including the tile floor in the lobby, ceiling light fixtures, stained glass windows, several murals, and a fireplace.

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Sadly, the Brass Elephant bar, which is located just off of the Aztec Hotel’s lobby, was closed when I showed up to stalk it, but I did manage to snap the above pictures through an open window.

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In Bad Santa, the Brass Elephant stood in for the Brass Monkey – the supposed-Phoenix, Arizona-area mall bar where disgruntled Santa Willie (aka Billy Bob Thornton) first met bartender Sue.  It popped up in two scenes in the movie – first in the scene in which Willie successfully hits on Sue before getting into a fist-fight with a fellow patron.

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And later in the scene in which Gin (aka Bernie Mac) tries to blackmail Willie and his partner-in-crime, Marcus (aka Tony Cox).  As you can see in the screen captures above, the Brass Elephant was dressed heavily for the filming, with special booths brought in, walls retouched, and bright lighting installed, and is virtually unrecognizable from its appearance onscreen.

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Because the Brass Monkey was supposed to be located adjacent to a mall in Bad Santa, the real life exterior of the Aztec Hotel did not appear in the flick.  A fake exterior for the bar was instead created at the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, where the vast majority of the movie was lensed.

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The Aztec Hotel was also featured extensively in the 2009 movie Spooner, as the place where Rose Conlin (aka the adorable Nora Zehetner), the object of Herman Spooner’s (aka the even more adorable Matthew Lillard’s) affection, stays for a few days after her car breaks down.

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Quite a bit of the hotel appeared in the movie, including the front entrance;

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the lobby;

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several hallways;

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the Aztec Barber Shop, which is an actual place;

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one of (what I believe is) the hotel’s real life rooms;

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and the Brass Elephant bar.  And while I only scanned through Spooner in order to make screen captures for this post, I have to say that it looks like an incredibly cute movie that I definitely need to watch in its entirety in the very near future.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location.  Smile You can check out Chas’ extensive Bad Santa filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Brass Elephant, aka the Brass Monkey from Bad Santa, is located at 311 West Foothill Boulevard, inside of the Aztec Hotel, in Monrovia.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here and you can visit the bar’s official Facebook page here.

Caliente Tropics Resort from “Alpha Dog”

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Another location that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk while visiting the Palm Springs area two weekends ago was the Caliente Tropics Resort which appeared in the ultra-disturbing 2006 movie Alpha Dog. I found this location thanks to fave stalking book Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, which was written by stalking god Harry Medved (who, as it just so happens, will be signing books at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena on Sunday, June 19th at 2 p.m., but I digress). For those who have yet to see Alpha Dog – and I can’t really say that I would recommend doing so as it is extremely depressing – the movie very closely follows the true life story of the kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz by drug dealer Jesse James Hollywood and his gang of friends. Pretty much the only differences between the actual story and its onscreen counterpart are the names of those involved and the setting. In real life, Nicholas was kidnapped from his hometown of West Hills and taken to Santa Barbara, where he was held hostage for three days, during which time he attended a pool party at the Lemon Tree Inn. In Alpha Dog, the Markowitz character, who was named Zack Mazursky, was kidnapped from Claremont and then taken to Palm Springs for the weekend, during which time he attended a pool party at the Caliente Tropics Resort. It was that resort that the GC and I set out to stalk two weekends ago.

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The Caliente Tropics Resort was originally constructed in 1964 as part of motel mogul Ken Kimes’ tiki-themed motor-hotel chain and was known simply as The Tropics. (While Kimes built and owned over 60 successful motels in his lifetime, he is perhaps best known for being married to murderer/con-woman/Elizabeth-Taylor-impersonator Sante Kimes). In its early years, the Tropics was THE place to vacation in the Coachella Valley and such luminaries as Elvis Presley and most of the members of the Rat Pack were frequent guests. Nancy Sinatra even lived there for a time during her childhood. Sadly, the motel fell into disrepair sometime during the 80’s and remained that way until the year 2000, whereupon it was purchased by new owners who immediately embarked upon a $2.2 million restoration project to bring the property back to its original, Polynesian-themed grandeur.

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The Caliente Tropic Resort boasts the third largest pool in the Coachella Valley. It holds a whopping 100,000 gallons of water and, amazingly enough, looks exactly the same today as it did when the place first opened in 1964. The pool also has the distinction of being the site of one of the very first Miss Hawaiian Tropic contests.

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In Alpha Dog, the Caliente Tropics Resort is stated to be in Palm Desert, but in actuality the hotel is located about eleven miles west of Palm Desert, right in the heart of Downtown Palm Springs. In the movie, Frankie Ballenbacher (aka Justin Timberlake) takes Zack Mazursky (aka Anton Yelchin) to a party at the Caliente at the behest of drug-dealer/kingpin Johnny Truelove (aka Emile Hirsch), who has kidnapped the teenager in order to hold him as a marker for a debt his brother owes. Several areas of the hotel appeared in the flick, including the exterior, which you can see above. And I really do have to apologize for the quality of my screen captures – as I mentioned earlier, Alpha Dog is a very dark movie and my screen captures definitely reflect that.

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The pool area also appeared in the movie as the spot where Zack – ahem – “swam” with his new friends Julie Beckley (aka Amanda Seyfried) and Alma (aka Amber Heard).

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I am fairly certain that one of the hotel’s real life rooms was also used in the filming, but I was, unfortunately, not able to verify that while I was stalking the place.

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The Caliente Tropics Resort was also featured in the 1997 movie City of Industry as the hotel where Roy (aka Harvey Keitel) and Lee Egan (aka Timothy Hutton) stayed while in Palm Springs planning the heist of a local jewelry store.

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While stalking the hotel, the GC spotted three cement blocks bearing sets of handprints, a la Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. One of the blocks was signed by someone named “Anna Nicole”, whom I logically assumed was reality star Anna Nicole Smith. I promptly went to the front desk to inquire about the blocks, but not only did the woman working in the office not know who the Anna Nicole in question was, but she had also been unaware up until that time that there were even signed cement blocks with handprints on the premises! Needless to say, she was not exactly a wealth of information. Winking smile Anyway, while she was speaking with me, she told me she did not believe the handprints belonged to the reality star, saying with a crinkled nose, “I seriously doubt Anna Nicole Smith would have ever stayed here.” LOL

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As it turns out, though, Miss Smith did in fact once stay at the Caliente Tropics Resort during the filming of the Season 2 episode of The Anna Nicole Show titled “Anna (Palm) Springs into Action”. In the episode, Anna ventures out to the Desert in order to judge the 2003 American Guy male beauty contest. And, ironically enough, the woman at the front desk was actually not too far off in her assessment of the situation, as Anna complained about her accommodations the entire time she was there, calling the hotel “cheapy” and “embarrassing”.

The Anna Nicole Show–Caliente Tropics Resort

You can watch a clip from the “Anna (Palm) Springs into Action” episode of The Anna Nicole Show, in which the Caliente Tropics Resort is shown, by clicking above.

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Unfortunately I never was able to figure out who the other sets of handprints belonged to. The block on the left looks as if it says, “Sav-A-Pet”, “Petsmart”, “Herb M.”, and “Marcel”, but after Googling countless combinations of those particular words, I came up empty-handed. And I am at a complete loss as to what is spelled out on the block on the right. I believe the first word is “Harold”, but neither the GC nor I could figure it out while we were stalking the hotel. Ideas, anyone?

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Anna Nicole Smith handprints - Caliente Tropics Motel

Stalk It: Caliente Tropics Resort, from Alpha Dog, is located at 411 East Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. The cement block featuring Anna Nicole Smith’s handprints can be found in the patch of grass located just south of the resort’s pool, in the area marked with a pink “X” in the above aerial view.

The “Crossroads” Motel

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One location that I have been trying to track down for what seems like ages now is the supposed Tucson, Arizona-area motel where Ben (aka Anson Mount) played the song “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” for Lucy (aka Britney Spears) in the 2002 movie Crossroads.  In the flick, Ben takes Lucy into a large, very unique-looking, surfboard-shaped glass room and proceeds to play the song for her on a piano that is stationed there.  Well, let me tell you, I became absolutely intrigued with that room ever since first seeing the movie almost a decade ago and immediately added the motel to my “To-Find” list, but for whatever reason could just not seem to locate it.  So imagine my surprise when fellow stalker Owen emailed me a little over two weeks ago to ask if I happened to know where that motel was.  He was trying to track it down because, as he said, “the big room with the large glass windows is pretty cool”.  What can I say – great minds think alike.  When I told Owen that I had no idea where it was located, he got right to work in finding it.  He had learned from watching the Crossroads’ DVD commentary with producer Ann Carli, director Tamra Davis, and writer Shonda Rimes that the motel was located somewhere in “the Valley” and that a production designer named Waldemar had discovered it while driving around scouting locations for the film.  So what did Owen do?  Yep, he went straight to the source and contacted Waldemar directly!  Well, the very next day there was an email from Waldemar waiting in Owen’s inbox – with an address.  Yay!  As it turns out filming had taken place at the Hometown Inn in North Hills.  So I dragged my dad right on out to stalk the place a few days later.  (Now I would be remiss if I didn’t mention here that I, too, listened to that very same DVD commentary while trying to locate the motel and never in a million years did it occur to me to go after Waldemar himself!  Owen is most definitely the master and my hat is completely off to him on this one!)

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Oddly enough, the room where Ben played “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” is now a restaurant of some sort and it looks quite a bit different today than it did when filming took place back in 2002.  The whole motel has an odd feel to it, truth be told, and the place seemed to be rather deserted while I was there taking pictures. 

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I cannot express how cool it was to finally be standing in that room, though, and thinking about the fact that Miss Britney Spears had once been standing – and singing – in that same exact spot.

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Quite a bit of the Hometown Inn was featured in Crossroads, including the front entrance;

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and the pool area . . .

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. . . which appeared in the scene in which Lucy speaks with her friends, Kit (aka Zoe Saldana) and Mimi (aka Taryn Manning), about the fact that her mother does not want a relationship with her.

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As you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, the blue lip which surrounds the perimeter of the pool still looks exactly the same today as it did when the movie was filmed!

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The Hometown Inn was not used for the filming of the interior of Lucy, Kit, Ben, and Mimi’s motel room, though.  As was the case with the majority of the motel room scenes in Crossroads, interior filming took place at the now-defunct Ambassador Hotel near Downtown Los Angeles.  You can see what an actual Hometown Inn room looks like here.

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While we were stalking the Hometown Inn, I desperately wanted to find the payphone where Lucy called her father, Pete (aka Dan Aykroyd), in the movie, but for the life of me I just could NOT seem to figure out where it was.  I knew the phone had to be situated somewhere near the motel’s main entrance because Ben’s car was visible in the background behind Lucy in the scene, but I just could not locate it anywhere.  

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It wasn’t until after I returned home and watched the above-pictured deleted scene that I realized the payphone was located inside of the motel’s lobby. 

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That payphone is, sadly, no longer there.  And while I did go inside the lobby while I was stalking the motel, because I did not realize it had been featured in the movie, I, unfortunately, did not get any photographs of it.

Crossroads Behind-the-Scenes Featurette–Hometown Inn

You can watch a behind-the-scenes video of the Hometown Inn scene being filmed by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen for finding this location!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It:  Hometown Inn, aka the Tucson, Arizona motel from Crossroads, is located at 9401 Sepulveda Boulevard in North Hills.  You can visit the motel’s official website here.

The Hollywood Towne House Motel – Lumen’s Motel from “Dexter”

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This past weekend, the Grim Cheaper and I were doing some stalking in Hollywood when we happened upon the Hollywood Towne House Motel – aka the supposed Miami-area hotel where Lumen Ann Pierce (aka Julia Stiles) lived during this past season of fave series Dexter – which in my never-to-be humble opinion was the very best season the show has yet produced.  Is it just me or does the series keep getting better and better with each passing year?  Julia Stiles was absolutely PHENOMENAL in her role this past season.  I honestly think it was the best acting she has done thus far in her career.  Loved her, loved her, loved her!  Anyway, while I usually rely on Seeing Stars’ extensively detailed Dexter filming locations page to find locales from the series, I recognized Lumen’s motel immediately upon driving by it, thanks to the place’s unique (and very bright) color scheme.  What was even more amazing, though, was the fact that the Grim Cheaper also recognized the place immediately upon driving by, as well!  He’s learning, folks!  Smile

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Even had we not recognized the place, this one most likely would have been an easy find as the real life name of the motel was used on the show.  So incredibly cool!

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The Hollywood Towne House Motel first showed up in the Season 5 episode of Dexter titled “Beauty and the Beast”, in the scene in which Dexter Morgan (aka Michael C. Hall) tracks down the motel Lumen was living in before she was kidnapped.  The motel looks exactly the same in person as it did on the series and it is not at all hard to see why producers chose to use it as the place definitely has a Miami vibe to it.

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The motel’s real life main office also appeared in the episode.

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And it, too, looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, except that in real life there is a pane of security glass which surrounds the front counter.  I so desperately wanted to get a picture of myself standing in the spot where Dexter was standing in the episode, but unfortunately the office was closed when we showed up to stalk the place.

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The motel was also used in the next episode of Dexter, which was titled “First Blood”, in the scene in which Dexter breaks into Lumen’s motel room and discovers that she is planning to seek revenge against her kidnappers.

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In that episode Lumen was living in room number 110.

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And while I originally had thought that the real interior of Room 110 was used in the filming of “First Blood”, after looking at the photographs of the motel’s actual rooms on TripAdvisor, I no longer believe that to be the case.  I am guessing that the interior of Lumen’s room was a set that was built on a soundstage.  (The TripAdvisor reviews of the motel are not too kind, by the way.  One is titled “Should be condemned!  It’s a Dump and Unsafe!!!!”  LOL LOL LOL  And one group of particularly enterprising guests even went so far as to make a YouTube video review/tour of the motel which is pretty incredible to watch!  If you are at all grossed out by dirty hotel rooms, however, I suggest you do NOT watch it.)

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Ironically enough, “Beauty and the Beast” was not the first time that Dexter was filmed on location at the Hollywood Towne House Motel.  The very same spot was used in the Season 3 episode of the series titled “Turning Biminese”, in the scene in which Sergeant Angel Batista (aka David Zayas) seeks out Detective Barbara Gianna (aka Kristin Dattilo), who is working undercover as a prostitute, to ask her out on a date.  Real romantic setting to ask someone out on a date, I know.  Smile

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While we were stalking the place, I was floored to discover that Sunset Gower Studios, the lot where Dexter is filmed, is located directly across the street from the Hollywood Towne House Motel, which explains how producers came to use it on the series.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Hollywood Town House Motel, aka Lumen’s motel from Dexter, is located at 6055 West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.  Lumen stayed in room number 110 on the show.

The Glen Capri Inn & Suites from “The Good Girl”

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A few weeks ago, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk the Glen Capri Inn & Suites – a historic and oft-filmed Glendale-area motel that has appeared in over twenty movie and television productions in the past six years alone.  I was most interested in stalking the property due to its appearance in the 2002 flick The Good Girl, which starred my girl Jen Aniston.  And even though I didn’t like The Good Girl AT ALL (it was just far too dark and depressing for my taste), because JA had filmed there, I was dying to see the motel which was featured in it in person.

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The Glen Capri is famous not only for its vast motion picture history, but for its distinct architectural style, as well.  The property was originally built in 1949 by Louis Armet and Eldon Davis, the architectural team who, according to an August 1999 Los Angeles Times article written by Ed Leibowitz, “defined ‘50s Googie architecture” – Googie being the unique mid-century modern-style of design which had its roots in the now-defunct, John Lautner-constructed Googies Coffee Shop.  At the time of its grand opening, the Glen Capri Inn & Suites was called simply the Glen Capri Motel.  In 2000, the interior of the property underwent an extensive remodel at which point it was given its more upscale-sounding moniker.  Fortunately, the exterior of the property was left intact during the recent remodel and looks almost exactly the same today as it did when it was first built over six decades ago.  It is thanks to the motel’s historic facade and authentic 60’s neon signage that location scouts have returned to film there time and time again.

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Before arriving at the Glen Capri Inn & Suites, I was a little nervous that the place would not be very stalker-friendly and that taking photographs of the premises would be a big no-no.  As it turns out, though, I needn’t have worried.  The man working at the front desk was very nice and said that we could take all of the pictures that we wanted.  AND there was even a “Wall of Fame” located in the main office, with signed headshots of all of the actors who had filmed at the motel on display.

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As you can imagine, I just about died when I saw my girl Jen’s autographed picture hanging on the wall.  SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

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In The Good Girl, the Glen Capri stood in for the Texas-area motel where Justine Last (aka Jennifer Aniston) and Holden Worther (aka Jake Gyllenhaal) conducted their on-going affair.

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Both the main office .  . .

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. . . and Room 8 were used in the flick.  I don’t want to give away the ending, but Room 8 also featured significantly in the movie’s climactic finale.  On a Good Girl side note – Mike, from MovieShotsLA, recently stalked Retail Rodeo, the discount store where Justine and Holden worked in the movie.  You can see pics of it on his site here.

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In 2004’s Raising Helen, the Glen Capri stood in for the New York-area motel where Helen Harris (aka Kate Hudson) and Jenny Portman (aka Joan Cusack) catch their underage niece Audrey Davis (aka Hayden Panettiere) on prom night.  Audrey’s room was number 205.

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In the 2004 teen comedy The Girl Next Door, Matthew Kidman (aka Emile Hirsch) took Danielle (aka Elisha Cuthbert) to the Glen Capri with the hopes of seducing her while there.

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Ironically enough, Emile Hirsch returned to the Glen Capri two years later to film a scene for the 2006 drama Alpha Dog. In the flick, the Glen Capri stood in for the Albuquerque motel where Johnny Truelove and his girlfriend Angela Holden (aka Olivia Wilde) hid out after police had discovered the body of Zack Mazursky (aka Anton Yelchin).

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In 2007’s Georgia Rule, the Glen Capri stood in for the Hull, Ohio-area motel where Arnold (aka Cary Elwes) stays while in town visiting his wife, Lily (aka Felicity Huffman), and his step-daughter, Rachel Wilcox (aka Lindsay Lohan).  In the movie, Arnold stays in Room 206.

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Other movies that have filmed at the Glen Capri include The Country Bears, Diamonds & Guns, and Janky Promoters. Episodes of Without a Trace, Parks and Recreation, Cold Case, Saving Grace, Night Stalker, Close to Home, Day Break, Windfall, Lovespring International, Mad Men, and Nip/Tuck have also been shot at the Glen Capri.  You can check out the hotel’s very thorough filming page, which chronicles all of the productions that have been filmed on the premises over the past ten years, on its website here.  Love it!  There are actually several different motels in the Glen Capri chain and the one located at 326 Colorado Street, also in Glendale, has been used for filming, as well.  It has appeared in episodes of Life and The Surreal Life and in a 2007 Smash Mouth music video.

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On a Jennifer Aniston side note – my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry recently gifted me with the new Jennifer Aniston Perfume and I have to say that it is absolutely DIVINE.  It is honestly the best scented perfume that I’ve ever smelled in my entire life!  All of the literature written about it says that it has a “beachy” scent, but to me it seems to have more of a floral feel to it and is a bit reminiscent of Michael Kors signature fragrance, which I also love.  Jennifer Aniston perfume smells so amazing that I literally cannot stop smelling my wrists when I wear it – I wouldn’t be surprised if I subconsciously gnaw my arm off in the coming weeks.  😉  Because the perfume is only available at Harrods in London (contrary to what Jen reported during her most recent Chelsea Lately appearance, it cannot be shipped outside of the UK), Kerry had to go through hell and high water to get it for me.  So, I’ve had to resort to rationing it out in very small portions each day as I simply do not know WHAT I am going to do when I run out.  🙁  I am hoping that by that time it will be available in the US.  (Are you listening, Jen?)  Anyway, if you live in London or have plans to travel there, I HIGHLY recommend stopping by Harrods to pick up some JA perfume.  Take my word for it, you will NOT be disappointed.  And a HUGE thank you to Kerry for getting it for me!  🙂

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Glen Capri Inn & Suites is located at 6700 San Fernando Road in Glendale.  You can visit the hotel’s official website hereThe Good Girl was filmed in the main office and in Room 8; Raising Helen also used the main office and Room 205; and Georgia Rule was filmed in Room 206.

Hollywood Center Motel

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A few weeks ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, called me up to ask me if I knew that my latest Hollywood crush, Simon Baker, had one of his earliest acting roles in the 1997 movie  L.A. Confidential.  And I almost fell out of my chair!  Even though I’ve seen that movie about a hundred times, I never realized that SB had acted in it.  The then-unknown Mentalist star had the small, but pivotal role of homosexual actor/prostitute Matt Reynolds in the film.  That’s him in the above screen capture. I can’t believe how young he looks!!!!  

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Mike also told me the address of the location where SB’s character meets his untimely demise towards the middle of the movie – Room 203 of the Hollywood Center Motel.  So, of course, since I was in the area yesterday, I just had to stalk it.  🙂

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In the scene filmed at the Hollywood Center Motel, Hush-Hush  magazine editor Sid Hudgeons (Danny DeVito) and Detective Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) set up a sting operation to catch the Los Angeles District Attorney in an illicit rendevous with homosexual prostitute SB. 

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But, at the last minute, Jack has a change of heart and shows up at the motel early to warn SB of the set-up. 

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Unfortunately, he is too late, and when he enters the seedy motel room he finds SB’s character dead on the floor.  🙁  Poor Simon!

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Hollywood Center Motel is an odd little place, with what appears to be a large central guesthouse surrounded by small motel rooms.  I am guessing that most of the motels’ guests live there full time.  Aside from a change in paint color, the Hollywood Center Motel looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did twelve years ago when it appeared onscreen in L.A. Confidential.  Unfortunately, other than the fact that it was built in the 20’s, I couldn’t find out much information about the small motel online.  And I can’t say that I’d really recommend stalking the place, as it is pretty seedy and run-down.  But being that it definitely has that Old Hollywood vibe to it, it’s easy to see why producers chose to use it in their film about a 50’s era Los Angeles. 

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While I was stalking the motel, the manager happened to be outside sweeping the parking lot, so, of course, I had to ask him what other productions had been filmed on the premises.  He looked at me like I was absolutely out of my mind, laughed, and then walked away without saying a word.  LOL LOL LOL  I am fairly certain, though, that, due to its historic and unique look, the motel has to have been used in other productions besides L.A. Confidential.   I am going to have to keep my eyes open for it from now on.  🙂 

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Hollywood Center Motel is located at 6720 West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.