Valentino from “Pretty Woman”

Valentino from Pretty Woman (4 of 12)

Pretty Woman is one of the most well-documented movies out there when it comes to locations.  Oddly though, despite the legions of websites and books with sections dedicated to its locales, I have yet to see identified the Rodeo Drive shop where Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) and Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) spent an “obscene amount of money” mid-film.  So I recently set out to find it.

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The exterior of the boutique, where Vivian famously spits her gum onto the sidewalk, is only shown briefly in the shopping scene, unfortunately.  And my copy of the movie on DVD (the 15th Anniversary Special Edition which I’ve owned for years) is surprisingly grainy, giving away little in terms of the shop’s location.  So I decided to stream a high-definition version in the hopes that some clues might be discernable.  And there were!  In the high-res format available on Amazon, the words “Valentino” and “a Torie Steele boutique” were visible at the bottom of one of the store’s windows, as was the familiar Valentino logo featuring a large “V” above the front door.  The start of an address number reading “40” could be seen, as well!

I was thrilled to make out the last digit – an “8” – on the back of the door shortly after Vivian and Edward entered the store.  From there, it was not hard to put the pieces together – the Pretty Woman shopping/gum spitting scene was lensed at the Valentino boutique formerly at 408 North Rodeo Drive.

A quick Newspapers.com search confirmed that a Valentino outpost owned by Torie Steele was located at that address from the mid-80s through the mid-90s.

Torie Steele, a revelation in the fashion industry, pioneered the merchandising of foreign designers’ wares to American consumers via a stretch of Rodeo Drive boutiques she established in the 1980s that, along with Valentino, specialized in Ferré, Versace, and Krizia.

Valentino from Pretty Woman (11 of 12)

When Torie retired in the ’90s, her popular boutiques were shuttered.  The Valentino space was purchased by Lladró in 1994, five years after Pretty Woman was shot and four years before my first visit to Beverly Hills, sadly.  Even had I known about the locale, it would have been far too late for me to stalk it.

Valentino from Pretty Woman (12 of 12)

Per everything I’ve come across, the 408 North Rodeo building as it exists today was constructed in 1997, so it was either torn down after the Lladró sale or extensively gutted and remodeled.  The exclusive ceramics company then opened a boutique/museum in the space in March 1997.

Valentino from Pretty Woman (9 of 12)

Because of the remodel/razing, there are no elements leftover from the time that Pretty Woman was shot, leaving the storefront completely unrecognizable from its 1990 cameo.

Lladró’s interior, designed by Juan Vicente Lladró (son of one of the company’s original founders) and architect Ki Suh Park, also bears no resemblance to the inside of Valentino as it appeared in Pretty Woman.  The spectacular space, which you can see a photo of here, featured a grand double staircase rising three levels and a domed ceiling.

It is a bit surprising that producers chose to use a Valentino outpost in the scene rather than an unnamed boutique (as was the case with the movie’s other famous shopping segment) being that none of Vivian’s clothes were actually made by the fashion house.  Her enviable wardrobe was instead created by costume designer Marilyn Vance in its entirety, right down to the iconic red opera gown, as detailed in this fabulous interview.  Somehow, despite the fact that I’ve seen Pretty Woman about a gazillion times, I only just noticed while making screen captures for this post that the famous crimson frock can briefly be seen displayed on a mannequin on the Valentino sales floor during the shopping sequence, as denoted below!

During 408 North Rodeo’s almost twenty-year tenure as Lladró, Michael Jackson frequented the place regularly.  One of his many visits is pictured below via a video posted by Marianna Sarte on YouTube.

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In summer 2014, Lladró moved to a new storefront a block away at the Two Rodeo complex.  It’s former home, the 16,129-square-foot 408 North Rodeo building, had been sold to Chanel the year prior for a whopping $117 million.  Per The Hollywood Reporter, it was “the highest per-square-foot retail sale in L.A. County!”

Valentino from Pretty Woman (2 of 12)

Valentino from Pretty Woman (8 of 12)

Chanel was set to raze the building, as well as its flagship store next door, in order to construct a massive new boutique, but those plans have yet to come to fruition.

Valentino from Pretty Woman (5 of 12)

The space did house a St. Supéry Estate Vineyards and Winery pop-up for a time in 2017, but sits vacant today, a distant memory of its famed 1990 role.

Valentino from Pretty Woman (3 of 12)

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: Valentino, where Vivian and Edward shopped in Pretty Woman, was formerly located at 408 North Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.  The building is currently vacant.

Jewel’s Catch One from “Pretty Woman”

Jewel's Catch One from Pretty Woman-1200214

They say that Lady Luck makes for a fickle mistress, but she was certainly smiling on me earlier this month.  Not only did I track down the Campbell residence from Soap and the original Mama’s Family house during the first week of August, but fellow stalker Chas, from It’s Filmed There, sent me a text saying that he had finally, finally located the interior of The Blue Banana from the 1990 romcom Pretty Woman, a place I had been looking for for ages.  I was shocked to learn that Vivian Ward’s (Julia Roberts) favorite hangout was actually Jewel’s Catch One, an oft-filmed site that also appeared in another of my favorite movies, Girls Just Want to Have Fun.  The Arlington Heights hot spot shut its doors in July 2015, unfortunately, after 44 years in business.  It crushed me to realize that up until two summers ago, the venue was still in operation and I could have stalked it!  Knowing the transient nature of nightclubs, in all my years of searching for the locale, never in my wildest dreams did I think it would still be in business, intact, or even remotely recognizable 27 years after filming took place.  But a Google search of images of Jewel’s Catch One showed me that, up until the closure, the lounge still looked exactly as it did in Pretty Woman.  Another Google search told me that the site now housed a different nightclub named Union.  I happened to be in L.A. when I received Chas’ text, so I headed right on over to stalk the venue.  And there was Lady Luck once again at my side.  Union was closed when we stopped by, but while I was taking photos, one of the booking managers happened to walk out.  I asked if there was any way he might show me the interior and he could not have been more happy to do so!  I literally just about hyperventilated from excitement.  That excitement only heightened when I saw that, despite the change in ownership, the interior of the club is still very recognizable as The Blue Banana!

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Before I delve into that, though, a little history on the site.  Jewel’s Catch One was founded in 1973 by Jewel Thais-Williams, an African-American lesbian who had long been growing weary over the difficulty she was having getting in to the popular West Hollywood gay clubs of the era due to her skin color and gender.  Recognizing the need for a safe haven for minority members of the LGBT community to dance, party and let loose, Jewel took matters into her own hands and purchased a neighborhood bar located on the ground floor of a three-level 1923 building that once housed the Diana Ballroom.  She transformed the small space into Jewel’s Catch One, a welcoming nightclub that offered the ultimate in privacy and discretion for its patrons.  It quickly caught on, becoming so popular that Jewel was able to expand into other areas of the building, eventually purchasing and taking over the entire 7-room property.

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Jewel's Catch One from Pretty Woman-1200210

Jewel’s Catch One attracted people of all races, genders, and sexual orientation.  Thanks to the privacy the club afforded, it wasn’t long before celebrities started popping in, as well.  Just a few of the stars the lounge played host to include Sammy Davis Jr., Gregory Hines, Warren Beatty, Ali MacGraw, Madonna, Sharon Stone, Janet Jackson, Christina Aguilera, Sade, and Pink.

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In 1985, the club suffered a massive fire in its top-floor disco room.  Despite having to shut down for two years to rebuild, Jewel’s prevailed, coming back stronger than ever.

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Thais-Williams could be found on the premises nightly, mixing drinks and mingling with her customers.  She was so much more than just a nightclub owner, though.  Jewel quickly found herself in the position of trailblazer, community leader, and humanitarian.  When the AIDS epidemic first hit, she held fundraisers and offered her support to those afflicted.  She helped local addicts get clean.  She operated a soup kitchen out of Catch One’s parking lot to provide food to those who couldn’t afford to feed themselves.  She co-founded countless community organizations, including the Minority AIDS Project, the Unity Fellowship of Christ Church, the Imani Unidos Food Pantry, and Rue’s House, a living facility for women and children with HIV.  She didn’t stop there, though.  After sitting through an appointment with an inefficient doctor in the ‘90s, Jewel decided to go back to school to study Eastern Medicine.  She graduated in 1999 with a Masters of Science in Oriental Medicine – at the age of 60 no less.  Two years later, she opened the Village Heath Foundation next door to Catch One.  The free clinic, which is still in operation, provides medical services to the community’s less fortunate.  Today, Jewel can even add “producer” to the long list of her accomplishments, having served as one on a 2016 documentary about her club titled Jewel’s Catch One.

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Sadly, Catch One saw a decline in patronage in recent years.  As Jewel explained in a 2014 The Neighborhood News Online interview, “The need [for the club] isn’t there anymore.  The population was gay and lesbian for most of the years — though everybody came, including straight people and stars — but now the community can go anywhere they want to.  And now, even when I come out on a Saturday night, no one’s dancing, no one’s talking.  They’re all standing on the edge of the room and all you see is white lights, screens.”  In July 2015, she decided to shutter the site, put it up for sale, and instead focus her energies on running the Village Health Foundation.  The space was purchased by Mitch Edelson in November of that year and re-opened as Union in February 2016.  I love that the club’s original signage was left intact, despite the changeover.

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Today, the venue boasts six dance areas known as the Disco, The Loft, Jewel’s Room, Circle Bar, Noise Room, and Tavern.  Jewel’s Room (pictured below) is the space that appeared as The Blue Banana in Pretty Woman and is the area of the club most often featured onscreen.  It is not very hard to see why producers choose to use it regularly.  It definitely has a retro aura, even with the modernizations made by Edelson when the site became Union.

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As I walked into Jewel’s Room, I just about passed out from excitement.

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I was in awe at how recognizable it still is from Pretty Woman, as you can see above and below.

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I was most excited to see the stairwell leading to the mezzanine, which Vivian walked down in the movie.  The white metal railing has since been swapped out for a modern glass and metal railing (which bummed me to no end), but I was thrilled to finally be laying eyes on the stairs nonetheless.

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Never thought I’d be posing for this photo!  Finally!  (Due to the room’s low lighting, my pictures came out a bit hazy, unfortunately – some worse than others.  My apologies.)

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Jewel’s Room’s mezzanine was referred to as the “Poor Room” in Pretty Woman.  When I mentioned that factoid to our tour guide, he asked if I wanted to head upstairs to see the space in person.  It was about that time that I completely lost my cool.  (Again, I’m sorry about the poor quality of my photos here.)

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Jewel's Catch One from Pretty Woman-2786

When I saw that the mezzanine area boasts an air hockey table in real life, I was ecstatic.  Not quite the pool table seen in Pretty Woman, but close enough!

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Another shot of the “Poor Room” is pictured below.

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As I mentioned in this February 2012 post, the front exterior of The Blue Banana was a mocked-up section of the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

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The rear exterior of Jewel’s Catch One did appear in a deleted scene, though, that was featured on Pretty Woman’s 15th Anniversary Special Edition DVD.  In the scene, Vivian stops by The Blue Banana with Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) to look for her roommate, Kit De Luca (Laura San Giacomo).  While there Edward proceeds to get into an altercation with drug dealer/pimp Carlos (Billy Gallo).  It was because of that segment that Chas was finally able to identify the club.  While watching the scene a couple of weeks ago, he happened to recognize Catch One’s back entrance (namely the doorway and stairwell) from its appearance in both Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Pretty in Pink, two movies he has chronicled on his site.  (You can check out his posts on those flicks here and here.)

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The interior of Jewel’s Room was also utilized in the deleted scene.

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In fave movie Girls Just Want to Have Fun, which premiered in 1985, Jewel’s Catch One portrayed The Court nightclub, where Janie Glenn (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Jeff Malene (Lee Montgomery) rehearsed for the big Dance TV contest.  In the scene, Catch One’s rear entrance masked as the front of The Court.

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I am not sure if the scenes that took place inside The Court were shot at Jewel’s, but I am guessing they were.  I believe the Disco was utilized for those segments.  Due to the fire that occurred in the Disco in 1985 and the subsequent remodel of the space, it is hard to say for certain either way, though.

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Catch One masqueraded as Cats nightclub, where Andie (Molly Ringwald) regularly hung out in 1986’s Pretty in Pink.

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As you can see from comparing my photographs below to the screen captures above, Catch One’s rear entrance is now fenced in and, though still recognizable, looks quite a bit different than it did onscreen in Pretty Woman, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and Pretty in Pink.

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Thanks to our friendly tour guide, I was able to snap a pic of the stairwell seen in the three films from behind the fence.

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Because so little of the inside of Cats was shown in Pretty in Pink and what was shown was dimly lit, I cannot say with any certainty if Jewel’s Catch One or a different location was utilized for the interior segments.

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In the 1988 drama Beaches, Catch One popped up as two different spots.  Jewel’s Room first appeared as The Blue Cave, the New York City lounge where CC Bloom (Bette Midler) tried her hand at being a jazz singer.

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Later in the movie, the Disco portrayed San Francisco’s Pink Palm nightclub, where CC and Hillary Whitney Essex (Barbara Hershey) made up after not speaking for years.

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Jewel’s Catch One also masked as two different places in the 1988 comedy I’m Gonna Get You Sucka. The Disco first popped up in the movie’s Soul Train flashback scene.

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Later in the film, Catch One’s front exterior . . .

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. . . and Jewel’s Room portrayed the Big Brim Bar, the hangout of “every criminal and major player in town.”

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Catch’s One rear exterior and Jewel’s Room appeared as The Gold Tooth, the supposed Decatur, Georgia nightclub where Nisi (Halle Berry) and Mickey (Natalie Desselle Reid) hung out in the 1997 comedy B*A*P*S.

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Jewel’s Catch One played The Bell, the Philadelphia-area nightclub where 23 people were killed in a 1978 fire, in the Season 1 episode of Cold Case titled “Disco Inferno,” which aired in 2004.

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Though the Disco was utilized for the majority of the shoot, Jewel’s Room was featured at the end of the episode as the spot where Lilly Rush (Kathryn Morris) took ADA Jason Kite (Josh Hopkins) to celebrate after solving the case.

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In 2015’s Straight Outta Compton, the Disco portrayed Doo-To’s Club, the Compton spot where Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins) and Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) first performed.

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Jewel’s Catch One was also supposedly featured in the 1993 Tina Turner biopic What’s Love Got to Do with It, but I scanned through the movie and did not see it anywhere.

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

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’s Filmed There website, for finding this location!  Smile

Jewel's Catch One from Pretty Woman-1200213

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Union, aka Jewel’s Catch One, aka The Blue Banana from Pretty Woman, is located at 4067 West Pico Boulevard in Arlington Heights.  You can visit the nightclub’s official website here.

The Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort & Spa from “America’s Sweethearts”

Westin Lake Las Vegas from America's Sweethearts-4

Between our trip to New York and dealing with some matters out of state, the Grim Cheaper and I have been away from home for the better part of five weeks.  While most of our traveling has not been for pleasure, I did just recently get to check an item off of my Stalking Bucket List.  While in Nevada last week, we took a bit of a detour and headed out to Henderson to see The Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort & Spa, aka the former Hyatt Regency Lake Las Vegas Resort, Spa and Casino which had a prominent role in America’s Sweethearts, one of my favorite movies.  I had been dying to stalk the gorgeous hotel ever since first seeing the romcom back when it originally premiered in 2001 – and it did not disappoint.

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The area known as Lake Las Vegas was the brainchild of actor J. Carlton Adair, who acquired 2,245 acres of land in Henderson in the 1960s with the intention of turning it into a lakeside community named “Lake Adair.”  While water rights were secured, development of the site never came to fruition and J. Carlton wound up filing for bankruptcy in 1972, dashing his dreams of a man-made desert oasis in the process.  The project suffered another failed attempt before being rescued in 1990 by Ron Boeddeker of the Transcontinental Corporation, who finally got the ball rolling on creating a 320-acre man-made lake fed from nearby Lake Mead.  Construction of the surrounding village of large-scale homes, lush golf courses, fancy boutiques, world class restaurants, and premiere hotels was started shortly thereafter.

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One of those hotels was the Hyatt Regency Lake Las Vegas Resort, Spa and Casino, which opened its doors in December 1999.

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The grand 493-room, 21.6-acre property has changed hands and names several times over the ensuing years, first in December 2006, when it became Loews Lake Las Vegas Resort.  Sadly, the entire LLV area was hit hard during the recession and in 2009, the owners of the hotel defaulted on their $117-million mortgage, causing it to be taken over by a court-appointed receiver.  Five weeks prior to going into foreclosure in 2012, it became The Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort & Spa.  The site was finally sold in late 2015 to the investment firm Pacifica Companies, but has remained operating as a Westin.  Miraculously, despite all the changes, very little of the property’s Moroccan-themed design has been altered since it originally opened almost 17 years ago.

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Today, the resort boasts a spa, two pools (one with a waterslide), four restaurants including the AAA Four-Diamond award-winning Marssa, a cocktail lounge, a coffee bar/bakery, a private beach that offers water activities such as kayaking and paddleboarding, access to two golf clubs, a fitness studio, and 25 meeting rooms comprising 90,000 square feet of event space.

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Oh, and it also boasts some pretty amazing views.

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Travel + Leisure named The Westin Lake Las Vegas one of the “World’s Best Hotels” and it is not very hard to see why.  The place is absolutely magical – and feels much more like a tropical resort than a Sin City lodging.

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Walking the grounds, I felt like I had been transported to a Hawaiian island (which might explain why President Obama likes the place so much).

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The Westin is relaxed, low key and tranquil – in short, though located only a scant 17 miles from The Strip, it is very far removed from any Sin City melee.  A stay there would most likely entail sipping tropical drinks, working on a tan, and leisurely walks by the lake.  The hotel is the perfect spot for a family vacation or a romantic getaway.  I already told the GC that I want to go back for a week and do nothing but lounge by the pool and stroll down to The Village at night for dinner.

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Ah, yes, The Village.  Just down the road from The Westin is a quaint waterside shopping center known as The Village at Lake Las Vegas.

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The site boasts several shops, boutiques and restaurants . . .

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. . . flanked by a beautiful Hilton . . .

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. . . and surrounding the gorgeous lake.

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The Village truly feels like being on another continent and while there I could think of nothing better than booking a nearby room for an extended stay and strolling down to the quaint center every night to grab dinner.  You can check out all Lake Las Vegas hotels here.

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America’s Sweethearts made extensive use of The Westin.  For those who have not seen it, the flick is a true romp – a hilarious take on celebrities and filmdom that pokes endless fun at Hollywood.  I’ve watched it countless times over the years and yet it still manages to make me laugh out loud throughout.  The film centers around divorcing movie stars Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Eddie Thomas (John Cusack).  The former couple starred in dozens of hits together and were considered “America’s Sweethearts,” until Gwen cheated on and then subsequently left Eddie for a Castilian heartthrob named Hector Gorgonzolas (played to perfection by Hank Azaria) whom she met during the filming of Time Over Time.  (The storyline was inspired in part by Elizabeth Taylor’s infamous love affair with Tim Burton during the filming of Cleopatra.)  The break-up lands Eddie in a live-in healing institution, while Gwen and her career take a massive beating in the press.  Audiences don’t like America’s Sweethearts apart.  As Time Over Time is about to released, studio publicist Lee Phillips (Billy Crystal) decides to host the press junket far out of town in order to distract the media from Eddie and Gwen’s battling – and to divert attention away from the fact that the movie’s eccentric director Hal Weidmann (Christopher Walken) has yet to release a cut of the film for the press to screen.  As Lee says, “We need to get these people out in the middle of nowhere.  Once they find out there’s no movie, they can’t escape.  We need to find a hotel like the one in The Shining – you know, isolated.”  He settles on the newly-built Hyatt Regency Lake Las Vegas.  Virtually all of the film takes place at the hotel.

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In fact, The Westin is featured so prominently, it almost serves as a character.  Areas of the property that appeared onscreen include the front entrance (though the scene shot there contained a lot of movement, so I was not able to make a great screen capture);

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the beach;

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the lobby stairs/The Arabesque Lounge;

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the back terrace;

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the neighboring Reflection Bay Golf Club;

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and Rick’s Café (love the name!), where one of my favorite scenes took place.

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When the movie was filmed, Rick’s Café was known as Café Tajine.  You can see pictures of it from that time period here.  Though certain elements, like the tile work, flooring, and curtains, have since been changed, the space still currently looks very much the same as it did when America’s Sweethearts was shot.

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You can watch the scene shot at Rick’s below.  I first saw America’s Sweethearts in the theatre with my best friend, Robin, who was visiting from his native Switzerland.  When Lee uttered the line, “Word of advice, when you hit Formica – stop!” I started cracking up.  Robin turned to me and whispered, “What is Formica?”  When I explained, he began cracking up.  To this day, I can’t watch the scene – or hear the word Formica, for that matter – without thinking of him.

One of the hotel’s private Casbah Villas also made an appearance as the spot where Gwen stayed with her sister, Kiki (Julia Roberts), during the press junket – and where Eddie was caught “giving himself a big favor.”  Unfortunately, we did not venture out to the villas while there, but you can see a guest photograph of the exterior of one here.

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The Westin boasts several Casbah Villas.  The exact one used in America’s Sweethearts is the northeastern-most villa.  It is denoted with a yellow arrow below.

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Only the exterior of the Casbah suite appeared onscreen.  Interiors were filmed on a set at Sony Studios, where portions of the movie were shot.  You can see what the actual interior of a villa looks like here.

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The interior of Lee’s and Eddie’s rooms were also set re-creations.

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One spot I was unable to pinpoint while stalking The Westin was the restaurant where Kiki and Eddie – and then Gwen and Eddie – attempted to have dinner . . .

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. . . and where Lee orchestrated a fight between Eddie and Hector.

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What was shown in the scene does not match the décor or layout of the hotel’s main restaurant, Marssa (pictured below).

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At the time that America’s Sweethearts was shot, Marssa was known as Japengo.  You can check out some images of what Japengo looked like here.  As you can see, despite the name change, little of the space has been altered and what is shown in the photos does not match the restaurant featured in the movie at all.

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What is odd is that some portions of it, including the wall shelving (pictured below) and tile work, do resemble that of Café Tajine/Rick’s Café, which leads me to believe that the space was a set built at Sony that echoed the décor of the hotel.  That scenario seems a bit unlikely, though, being that the restaurant was large and elaborately decorated.  If it was a set, it was an extensive one, which seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a relatively short scene.  But who knows?

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I am also unsure of where the screening of Time Over Time took place.

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While the space that was shown in the movie does bear a strong resemblance to The Westin’s Casablanca Ballroom, some things do not gibe.  For instance, though the look of the real life doors seems to be a dead-on match to what appeared onscreen, the number of doors does not.  I am guessing that the screening scene was shot on a set built to resemble the Casablanca Ballroom.  But again, that is a lot of trouble to go to for what amounted to a relatively short segment.  You can check out a wider view of the ballroom here.

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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 Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort & Spa, from America’s Sweethearts, is located at 101 Montelago Boulevard in Henderson, Nevada.  You can visit the property’s official website here.

Barb’s Quickie Grill from “Pretty Woman”

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Another Pretty Woman location that I spent countless hours trying to track down recently was the tiny café where Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) and Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) had dinner towards the end of the classic 1990 flick.  And while the name of the establishment – “Barb’s Quickie Grill” – and a street number – “7006” – were clearly visible in the scene, and a quick Google search had provided me with an address – 7006 Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood – this particular locale actually turned out to be quite the difficult find.  Thanks to a January 2008 Los Angeles Times article, I knew that the restaurant had closed its doors in 1999, but was shocked to discover, when searching on Google Street View, that the structure that had once housed it was nowhere to be found.  The place had seemingly just disappeared right off the sidewalk.  So I immediately dragged the GC right on out to Hollywood to do some in-person investigating, but when we got there, the mystery only deepened.

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In Pretty Woman, Barb’s Quickie Grill did not appear to be flush with the gray façade seemingly located behind it, so I made the assumption that the eatery was a small structure situated in the space in front of it.

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As you can see above, the vertical grooves running down the orange building currently located at 7006 Santa Monica Boulevard clearly match up to those of the gray building visible behind Barb’s Quickie Grill in Pretty Woman.  But, as you can also see above, the sidewalk in front of the orange building is nowhere near big enough to have once housed a restaurant, even one as tiny as Barb’s.

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Perplexed, I returned home, whereupon I enlisted the help of fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and Scott, from the FindaDeath website, and for the next few days the three of us put in quite a bit of elbow grease doing research on the former eatery.  I even purchased a copy of the book Fantastic Dives, in which the diner had been featured, hoping it would provide some clarity.  Sadly, it did not.  It was not until Mike found this image on the Scotty Moore website that we realized that the lighting and camera angles of Pretty Woman had created an optical illusion and that Barb’s was not a structure that had been located in front of the orange building, but that it actually was the orange building!  Doh!  You can check out some fabulous historic pictures of the eatery that were just added to The Bruce Torrence Hollywood Photograph Collection website here, here, and here.

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The history behind the eatery is almost as heart-warming as the movie in which it once appeared and was actually the main reason I was so darn intent on finding the place.  The establishment was originally founded as “Lou’s Quickie Grill” by Lou Shulkin and his wife, Anita, at a storefront on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Highland Avenue in 1954.  A young L.A.-transplant from Oklahoma City named Barbara Knox started working, first as a dishwasher, then as a waitress, at the short-order café just a short time later.  In 1960, the Grill moved a few blocks west to 7006 Santa Monica Boulevard, directly next door to Radio Recorders (pictured above), the then-largest recording studio in the country.  It did not take long for the legendary vocalists working at RR, as well as countless celebrities filming at other nearby studios, to discover Lou’s.  Just a few of the luminaries who frequented the 12-stool diner throughout its 54-year history include Drew Barrymore, Denzel Washington, James Garner, Ronald Reagan, The Lennon Sisters, Orson Welles, Martin Sheen, Richard Crenna, Bill Cosby, Herb Albert, Buddy Ebsen, Mel Blanc, Jack Benny, and Lawrence Welk.  And while Elvis never actually set foot inside of the establishment, he is said to have ordered deliveries from Lou’s each time he recorded music at RR.

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Amazingly enough, when Lou and Anita decided to retire in August of 1987, they handed the Grill over to Barbara AT NO COST, despite the fact that they had been offered “tremendous” money for the place over the years.  The Shulkins had come to view Barbara as a daughter and, because their own children had established careers in areas outside of the restaurant business, they could think of no better person to endow their beloved café to.  So, in late August, Lou, Anita, and Barbara headed down to the Los Angeles County Hall of Records and Lou signed the restaurant over to his long-time waitress.  The following morning he had the metal “Lou’s Quickie Grill” sign taken off of the roof of the building and replaced with a new neon window sign which read “Barb’s Quickie Grill”.   According to a January 17th, 1988 Lakeland Ledger article, of the incredible gift, Barbara said, “Lou couldn’t give me a gold watch and a handshake and just walk way, like anybody else would.  He’s not that kind of man.”  Barbara continued to run the restaurant successfully, with frequent visits from her benefactors, until 1999, when she regrettably had to close the doors due to an ongoing battle with Alzheimer’s.  She sadly passed away in 2008, at the age of 74.  Sometime after the Grill was closed, the space was taken over by Studio 56, which had replaced Radio Recorders, and was completely remodeled.  You can read an August 18th, 1987 Los Angeles Times article about the Grill here and a January 12, 2008 Los Angeles Time article about Barbara’s passing here.

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In Pretty Woman, Barb’s Quickie Grill appeared very briefly during the montage scene in which Edward takes the day off of work to spend time with Vivian.

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Barbara Knox was even featured in the background of the scene.  So incredibly cool!

Finding this location was definitely a group effort, so a big THANK YOU goes out to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and Scott, from the FindADeath website, for their help.  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Barb’s Quickie Grill, from Pretty Woman, was formerly located at 7006 Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood.  The location now houses the offices of a CPA and is virtually unrecognizable from its onscreen appearance.

The Alleyway and The Blue Banana Club from “Pretty Woman”

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As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in my post about the Pretty Woman party house, fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I have recently been on the hunt for a few of the flick’s more elusive locations – the two most important of which being the alleyway where the body of “Skinny Marie” was found and, across the street from it, The Blue Banana Club where Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) and Kit De Luca (Laura San Giacomo) hung out in the film.  And, amazingly enough, Mike was able to track down both locales in a relatively short period of time – as were fellow stalkers E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, and Scott Michaels, from the Findadeath website, whom I also enlisted in the hunt.  So, while out doing some stalking in the Hollywood area three weekends ago, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over to stalk both spots.

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In one of Pretty Woman’s opening scenes, Vivian is shown walking through an alleyway where the dead body of a fellow prostitute named Skinny Marie has just been pulled out of a garbage dumpster.

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While watching the scene, Mike happened to recognize the unique roofline of the historic Miceli’s Restaurant in the background behind a very young Hank Azaria, who played the role of a nameless homicide detective who laments about tourists taking photographs of Skinny Marie’s body in the flick.  From there, Mike simply used Google Street View to look for an alley in the area half a block west and on the opposite side of the street from Miceli’s.  And voila, it was not long before he found the right spot!  Yay!

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As it turns out, though, the Pretty Woman alleyway is not actually an alleyway at all, as we had originally thought, but the main lobby of The Outpost Building – a Spanish-Colonial-style structure that was commissioned by a Mr. and Mrs. B.C. Donnelly and designed by architect B.B. Horner in 1927.  The historic property, which was fashioned after stores in Madrid, Spain, was originally comprised of apartment units that became home to countless aspiring starlets during the Hollywood heyday, but today is made up solely of offices and retail space.

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Sadly, the building was closed when we showed up to stalk it, but I did manage to snap the above photographs through the glass front doors.  As you can see, the “alley” still looks exactly the same today as it did in Pretty Woman, despite the fact that over twenty-two years have since passed!  Even the shoe shine stand that Vivian walked by is still there!  LOVE IT!

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Amazingly enough, when I showed Mike the photographs I had taken of the lobby of The Outpost Building, he immediately recognized the place as the “Celebrity Apartments” where Tom Turner (Greg Kinnear) lived in the 1996 comedy Dear God. Both the exterior of the property . . .

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. . . and the lobby area were used in the flick.  In an interesting twist, Dear God was directed by none other than Garry Marshall, the very same man who also directed Pretty Woman.  I guess the guy just has a thing for The Outpost Building!

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Thanks to the Lenrek website, I also discovered that in the 1984 cult classic Angel, high school student/prostitute Molly “Angel” Stewart (Donna Wilkes) walked from the rear entrance of The Outpost Building, through the lobby and out the front door while on the search for a serial killer.

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Interestingly enough, according to the GPSMyCity website, The Outpost Building also has a connection to novelist Raymond Chandler.  In his 1939 mystery The Big Sleep, Chandler describes Geiger’s Rare Books and Deluxe Editions as follows: “A. G. Geiger’s place was a store frontage on the north side of the boulevard near Las Palmas.  The entrance door was set far back in the middle and there was a copper trim on the windows, which were backed with Chinese screens, so I couldn’t see into the store.  There was a lot of oriental junk in the windows.  I don’t know whether it was any good, not being a collector of antiques, except unpaid bills.  The entrance door was plate glass, but I couldn’t see much through that either, because the store was very dim.  A building entrance adjoined it on one side and on the other was a glittering credit jewelry establishment.”  Apparently, numerous Chandler aficionados believe that that description was inspired by none other than The Outpost Building.  So incredibly cool!

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Once Mike had located The Outpost Building, tracking down The Blue Banana Club was a snap, since in the movie it was shown to be situated directly across the street from the alleyway where Skinny Marie’s body was found.

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Shockingly enough, The Blue Banana Club was actually a part of the historic Egyptian Theatre!  At the time that the movie was filmed, the property belonged to the United Artists Corporation and it looked considerably different than it does today, but you can see pictures of the place in its Pretty Woman state on The Bruce Torrence Hollywood Photograph Collection website here and here, and on the Gorillas Don’t Blog website here.  Ironically enough, a few minutes after Mike had texted me to let me know that The Blue Banana was actually the Egyptian Theatre, I received an email from both E.J. and Scott telling me the exact same thing.  Great minds . . .

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Today, the storefront that stood in for The Blue Banana houses the newly-opened Maui and Sons Bar & Grill.  I am, unfortunately, unsure of what was in that location at the time of the filming, but back in the 1930s through the 1950s it housed the Larry Dine men’s clothing store and, in more recent years, it was the site of a Lickity Split ice cream shop.

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In his commentary on the Pretty Woman 15th Anniversary Special Edition DVD, Garry Marshall states that, while set dressers had created a fake exterior for the outside of The Blue Banana Club, the interior scenes were filmed at an actual club located somewhere in Hollywood.  Sadly though, as of yet, we have been unable to track down that location.

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The interior looks like it might have been some sort of historic building, though, as it features some fairly ornate detailing, as you can see in the above screen capture.

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On a side-note – My good friend Katie, from the Matthew Lillard Online website, is hosting a contest today to win two tickets to the Hollywood Rush show, in which the cutie actor will be directing a ten-minute play, taking place this Sunday night at 7 p.m. at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in L.A.  You can enter the contest on Matthew Lillard Online or on twitter at @mattlillardfans.

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Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, E.J., from The Movieland Directory, and Scott, from Findadeath, for finding these locations!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Pretty Woman alleyway is actually the lobby of The Outpost Building, which is located at 6715 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.  You can visit the property’s official website here.  Maui and Sons Bar & Grill, aka the exterior of The Blue Banana Club from Pretty Woman, is located across the street at 6708 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

The “Sylvester Stallone” House from “Pretty Woman”

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A couple of weeks ago, while trying to figure out in what movie I had spotted L’Orangerie, aka Chez Quis restaurant from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (which, maddeningly, I still have yet to determine, by the way!), I started scanning through the 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman and found myself wondering why I had never stalked the house jokingly referred to as being Sylvester Stallone’s in the flick.  Fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, had tracked down the Hollywood-area residence quite some time ago and, while the address had been on my “To Stalk” list ever since, for whatever reason, I had never made it out there.  So I quickly decided to remedy the situation and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there just a few days later.

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At the very beginning of Pretty Woman, Edward Lewis (Richard Gere), while lost in Hollywood, spots a hobo on the sidewalk digging through some trash and pulls over to ask him the way to Beverly Hills.  The hobo replies, “You’re here!  That’s Sylvester Stallone’s house right there!”  LOL LOL LOL  I swear, I have seen Pretty Woman about one hundred times and that scene never fails to make me laugh!

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To find “Sylvester Stallone’s house”, Chas tracked down a helpful crew member who told him the general vicinity in which it was located.  From there, he simply scanned aerial views and it was not long until he found the right place.  And, amazingly enough, despite the fact that over two decades have since passed, the property still looks almost exactly the same today as it did when Pretty Woman was filmed!  The small front door/front porch area was at some point enclosed, but otherwise the place appears to have been untouched by time.  So incredibly cool!  In real life, the tiny home, which was originally built in 1902, measures 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and 1,201 square feet.

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On a Pretty Woman side-note – While scanning through the flick a couple of weeks back, I was knock-me-over-with-a-feather-shocked to discover that the lobby scenes were not filmed inside of the Regent Beverly Wilshire hotel in Beverly Hills (pictured above) or on a soundstage at Disney Studios, as countless websites and books have suggested over the years.

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Amazingly enough, the lobby scenes from Pretty Woman were actually shot at the since-demolished Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

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What tipped me off to this fact was the famous Ambassador lobby fountain, the base of which is visible in the background of almost all of the hotel scenes.  You can see a photograph of that fountain here.

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Upon closer inspection, I spotted several other elements of the interior of the Ambassador lobby that matched perfectly with what appeared in Pretty Woman, including the curved, check-in desk, which you can see a photograph of here (credit).

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and the gold-detailed ceilings and wood-paneled columns, which you can see a photograph of here (credit).

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I also realized that the lobby lounge where Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) waited for Edward was actually the Ambassador’s famed The Palm Bar, which you can see photographs of here, here, and here.

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And it has long been known that the ballroom where Vivian (aka Julia Roberts) learned the proper use of flatware and where Edward played the piano was the Ambassador’s Embassy ballroom, which you can see a photograph of here.  So it now seems as if the vast majority of Pretty Woman was actually filmed inside of the Ambassador Hotel, which makes the fact that the structure no longer stands even more heartbreaking than it already was.  Oh, how I wish I had seen that place in person!  Sigh.

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Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location.  You can check out Chas’ extensive Pretty Woman filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The “Sylvester Stallone” house from Pretty Woman is located at 1735 North Hudson Avenue in Hollywood.

Mercedes’ Apartment Building from “Larry Crowne”

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The only Larry Crowne filming location that fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, did not track down was the mid-century-style apartment building where East Valley Community College professor Mercedes Tainot (aka Julia Roberts) – that’s “T-A-I-N-O-T, not Tae Bow, not Tai Chi, not Tie Knot” – lived with her philandering husband, Dean Tainot (aka Bryan Cranston).  And I just have to say here that I absolutely LOVED the scene in which “professional blog writer” Dean, trying to defend the fact that he does not have an actual job, says to Mercedes, “I had four postings today alone!  Blog-caster . . . Sky-scan . . . Parse-it-twelve.com . . . ”, to which she responds, “They are not postings, they’re comments!”  Cracks me up every time!  Anyway, although Mercedes’ apartment building looks very much like a San-Fernando-Valley-area structure, I had an inkling that it might actually be located in Pasadena and, sure enough, it was!  A quick input of the terms “Larry Crowne”, “filming” and “Pasadena” led me to this link on the Before the Trailer website, which stated that the flick had done some shooting at 325 South Orange Grove Boulevard on May 25th of last year.  So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place this past weekend.

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Mercedes and Dean’s apartment building showed up numerous times throughout Larry Crowne and, because I just really liked the look of the place, I had been absolutely desperate to stalk it.

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And I am very happy to report that it did not disappoint – the complex looks EXACTLY the same in person as it did onscreen!  The portion of the building that appeared in Larry Crowne is not actually the structure’s main entrance on Orange Grove Boulevard, but a side entrance located just around the corner on Arbor Street.

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Which is the same area where Dean was dropped off by a taxi cab after spending the night in jail.

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While we were stalking the place, we happened to speak with some residents of the building who honestly could NOT have been nicer.  They not only answered all of my silly little questions about the filming and told me that Tom Hanks had been extremely nice and that the shoot, which took one day to complete, was an incredibly fun experience, but they also pointed me in the exact direction of Mercedes’ apartment.  Whoo-hoo!

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So I, of course, just had to take a photograph in front of her door.  Smile

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As you can see above, Mercedes’ apartment looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen.

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As does the neighbor’s apartment, which appeared in the background of the scene in which Larry Crowne (aka Tom Hanks) brought Mercedes home on his scooter.

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Only the exterior of the apartment building was used in the filming.  According to the Larry Crowne production notes, the interior of Mercedes and Dean’s (what they call) townhouse was just a set that was built inside of a soundstage at what I believe was Universal Studios.  I am seriously in love with the Tainot’s kitchen, by the way.  Sigh!

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And I also so LOVE how the art department matched the interior detailing of the apartment to the real-life iron detailing of the building, as you can see above.  Talk about attention to detail!

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The actual unit where filming took place, Unit 325, which measures 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, and 1,396 square feet, was for sale recently.  As you can see above, the interior looks nothing like the set that was created for the filming.  You can check out the place’s real estate listing here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Mercedes’ apartment building from Larry Crowne is located at 325 South Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena.  The side of the building that is shown in the movie can be found on Arbor Street, just around the corner from the main entrance.

The “Larry Crowne” Apartment Building

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Two additional Larry Crowne filming locations that I stalked this past weekend were Talia’s, the vintage clothing store owned by Talia Francesco (aka the adorable Gugu Mbatha-Raw), and the apartment building where Larry Crowne (aka Tom Hanks) lived at the very end of the flick, both of which are housed inside of the same corner edifice in Altadena.  I found this locale thanks to fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who, while doing some online research on the movie, came across an old listing on the Cazoodle Apartment website which not only announced that Tom Hanks’ Larry Crowne apartment was then available for rent, but also provided its exact location.  Yay!  So last Saturday afternoon, while doing some New Year’s Eve stalking, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place.

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The non-descript two-story building shows up several times in Larry Crowne – first in the scene in which Talia, while driving around on her scooter, notices a “For Rent” sign in a vacant storefront window and stops to take a closer look.

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It next appears in the scene in which Larry stops by Talia’s new store to reprimand her for dropping out of East Valley Community College.  It is while there that he informs her that her new tattoo does not in fact spell out “courageous spirit” in Japanese as she had intended, but “soy sauce”.  LOL

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And finally, the building is featured in the ending scene in which Larry invites his former teacher Mercedes Tainot (aka Julia Roberts) to his new apartment for some homemade French toast.  (If you’ll notice in the first screenshot pictured above, the apostrophe in the signage for Talia’s store is ostensibly missing.  Larry was right – Talia definitely should have stayed in school. Then perhaps she would not have made such an egregious error.  Winking smile It looks like I need to submit this one to When Write is Wrong, my good friend Owen’s typos and grammatical errors blog.)

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As you can see above, Talia’s store (or should I say Talias store? Winking smile) was dressed heavily for the filming of Larry Crowne and does not look at all in person as it did onscreen.  The building was vacant during the time of the filming (and still is today), so producers were able to do with it what they wanted without having to disturb any operating businesses.

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And although we are only given a brief view of the interior of the store through the front windows in the movie, I just had to snap some pics of it, nonetheless.

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When I first watched Larry Crowne, I had assumed that the little courtyard area outside of Larry’s apartment had been a set due to the fact that it was so incredibly idyllic and picturesque.  But I am very happy to report that the courtyard is, in fact, real!

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Sadly though, as you can see above, the stairwell that leads to the second floor, where Larry’s courtyard is located, is gated and not accessible to the public.  Boo!  If only I had known about this place back when it was available for rent, I totally would have scheduled a viewing! Winking smile

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You can catch a minor glimpse of the courtyard if you venture across the street, though.  According to the Cazoodle Apartment listing that Mike found, the 530-square-foot, 1-bedroom, 1-bath unit where Larry supposedly lived at the end of Larry Crowne was being offered for lease back in August of last year at a rate of $895 per month.  And no, that was not a typo – the asking price was $895 per month for 530 square feet!  Welcome to California.  LOL

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Pictured above are the photographs from that real estate listing and, as you can see, Larry’s apartment is pretty darn adorable.

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In the movie, Larry’s address is noted as being 4225 Harbor #7.

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And, as you can see above, producers even went so far as to change the address number plaque for the filming, so had the real estate listing not touted the apartment’s Larry Crowne connection, this would have been a very  tough find!  Nice work, Mike!

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On a Larry Crowne side-note – Back in June of last year, fave website AltadenaBlog posted a fabulous story about the filming, which you can read here.  Apparently, during a break from the shoot, Tom Hanks wandered a few blocks up Lake Avenue to do some shopping at Webster’s Fine Stationers and not only posed for a picture with the owners, but also told them that he loved family-owned stationary stores.  So incredibly cool!  Especially since the GC and I had our own little run-in with Tom Hanks a few years back and let’s just say that he was less than friendly.  Ah, let’s call a spade a spade here – the guy was a complete and total jerk and for a long while after that the GC refused to see any of his movies!  But after reading the Webster’s Fine Stationers story on AltadenaBlog and after hearing how nice Tom was to Jose, the owner of Frank’s Restaurant where Larry Crowne filming also took place, it would seem that the actor has since changed his ways.  One can hope, at least!

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Larry Crowne apartment building is located at 906 Boston Street in Altadena.  Thalia’s store from the movie is located at 2104 North Lake Avenue in Altadena.

Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant from “Larry Crowne”

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A few days before Christmas, while I was wallowing in a horrible head cold, the Grim Cheaper and I sat down to watch the 2011 flick Larry Crowne. Neither of us had very high hopes for the movie as it had received such horrible reviews, but I am very happy to report that we both ended up loving it. So much so that we watched it again a few days later when my parents came to town to celebrate Christmas with us. The whimsical storyline centers around Larry Crowne (aka Tom Hanks), a middle-aged former Navy chef who is forced to rethink his life after being fired from his job at the local U-Mart Store. He decides to enroll in a nearby community college where he not only makes friends with a group of wildly eccentric and endearing characters, but also finds his life finally start to take shape. If you have yet to see Larry Crowne, I highly recommend ignoring the critics and renting it! Anyway, one of the main locations featured in the flick was Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant – a Burbank-area eatery that I had passed by countless times during my ten-plus years of living in Los Angeles, but had, for whatever reason, never dined at. So I immediately added the place to my “To-Stalk” list and dragged the GC right on out there as soon as we returned home from visiting my grandmother in Reno this past weekend.

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As we pulled up to Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant, I spotted an article about Larry Crowne posted on the café’s front door and knew right away that I was going to LOVE the place.

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And I am very happy to report that I did! Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant, which is also sometimes called Frank’s Steak House, first opened its doors in 1957 and not much has changed since. Walking into the diner is like stepping back in time about fifty years – and I mean that in the best way possible.

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The interior of Frank’s, with its dark vinyl booths, popcorn ceiling, and Formica countertops, is straight out of the 1950s and it is not at all hard to see why countless location managers have flocked there over the years. The place also serves up some FABULOUS food at very reasonable prices, which pleased the GC to no end. I opted for a mushroom cheeseburger with French fries and a side of ranch dressing and it was all simply amazing – especially the steak fries, which were extremely thick and seasoned in a way that was reminiscent of the fries served at fave restaurant chain Red Robin. The GC ordered the homemade split pea soup and it was also out of this world.

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I was absolutely floored when I spotted a photograph of Tom Hanks posing with Jose, Frank’s owner, on display on the wall next to the kitchen. As fate would have it, Jose happened to come over to chat with us while we were dining and, let me tell you, the guy could NOT have been nicer! He sat with us for a good twenty minutes and filled us in on the Larry Crowne shoot, which took six days to complete. Jose informed us that the cast and crew were some of the nicest that he has ever encountered – and he has encountered quite a few. He also told us about the restaurant’s vast filming history and showed us countless photographs that he had stored on his cell phone of the various filmings that have taken place on the premises and the numerous celebrities that have posed with him. As you can imagine, I was pretty much drooling the entire time.

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In Larry Crowne, Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant is featured repeatedly as the eatery where Larry and his scooter-riding friends hang out.

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Later on in the movie, Larry gets a job working as a line cook in the restaurant’s kitchen.

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That kitchen is pictured above.

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Jose, who has been a chef for over forty years, actually acted as Tom Hanks’ cooking consultant during the filming of Larry Crowne and at one point had to step in to do some chopping for the actor. The hands you see above, which are supposedly Larry’s in the movie, are actually Jose’s. So incredibly cool!

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In the Season 5 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Squash It”, the exterior of Frank’s stood in for the Reno, Nevada-area diner where Valerie Malone (aka Tiffani Thiessen) convinced Ray Pruit (aka Jamie Walters) to return to Beverly Hills.

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As you can see above, though, a different restaurant was used for the interior filming.

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Jose informed us that Frank’s Coffee Shop had been featured in no less than 5 episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, one of which is the upcoming “Willows in the Wind”, which just so happens to be Marg Helgenber’s final episode.  Unfortunately, Jose was unsure of the titles of the other four episodes filmed on the premises, but I was able to do some digging and tracked down two of them.  Then, after publishing this post, a CSI message board led me to the other two.  Win!  Frank’s first appeared in the Season 6 episode titled “Rashomama” as the supposed Las Vegas, Nevada-area coffee shop where the car belonging to Nick Stokes (aka George Eads), as well as all of the crime scene evidence inside of it, was stolen.

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And in the Season 7 episode titled “Law of Gravity”, Frank’s stood in for the restaurant where Michael Keppler (aka Liev Schreiber) ran into Frank McCarty (aka Len Cariou).

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In the Season 9 episode titled “Mascara” (CSI’s 200th episode), Frank’s is where Dr. Raymond Langston (aka Laurence Fishburne) met up a few times with his former thesis student Sylvia Mallick (aka Aimee Deshayes).

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And in the Season 11 episode titled “The List”, Catherine Willows (aka Marg Helgenberger) met up with Detective Vartann (aka Alex Carter) to discuss the case she was working on.

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In the Season 2 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Ron and Tammy”, Frank’s stood in for the supposed Pawnee, Indiana-area restaurant where Ron Swanson (aka Nick Offerman) took his ex-wife, Tammy Swanson (aka Megan Mullally), out for lunch.

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Jose also let us know that Frank’s was featured in the 2003 flop Gigli, but I scanned through the movie yesterday while doing research for this post and did not see it anywhere. I did, however, spot it briefly in the flick’s trailer, so the scene that was filmed at Frank’s appears to have been left on the cutting room floor.

That scene can be viewed at the 2:18 mark when Larry Gigli (aka Ben Affleck) tells Ricki (aka Jennifer Lopez), “I got a confession. I think we’re good together.”

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Fellow stalker Jason also let me know that Frank’s Restaurant was featured in Chris Daughty’s “No Surprise” music video.

Chris Daughty–“No Surprise” Video Filmed at Frank’s Coffee Shop & Restaurant in Burbank

You can watch that video by clicking above.

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Jose also told us that Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant was featured in the A&E Network mini-series Stephen King’s Bag of Bones, but I scanned through it yesterday and did not spot the restaurant anywhere. He also told us that Criminal Minds had filmed on the premises recently, but I scanned through all of the Season 7 episodes that have aired so far and did not see it, so I am guessing that it will pop up in an upcoming episode in the very near future.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant, from Larry Crowne, is located at 916 West Olive Avenue in Burbank.

Brenda’s Horseback Riding Center from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

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One location that I have wanted to stalk for what seems like forever now is the supposed Minnesota-area equestrian center where a childhood Brenda Walsh (a young actress stood in for my girl Shannen Doherty in this episode, but I, unfortunately, cannot seem to find her name anywhere online) went horseback riding in the Season 2 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Meeting Mr. Pony”.  For whatever reason, though, I just could not seem to track the place down.  I told the Grim Cheaper of my plight a little over a year ago and he informed me that filming had most likely taken place at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank, where the classic 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman had also been lensed.  So the two of us promptly ran right out to stalk the place.  Oddly enough, though, when we got there, the center did not look at all familiar from 90210.  It wasn’t until after I got home and re-watched the “Meeting Mr. Pony” episode that I realized the GC had, in fact, been correct!  So I immediately added the place to my “To Re-Stalk” list and finally made it back out there this past weekend.

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In the “Meeting Mr. Pony” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, Brenda goes to speak with a psychologist to deal with the fallout she endured after being robbed at gunpoint at the Peach Pit.  While there, the therapist asks Brenda to think back to a time in her life when she felt the most happy and the most secure.  Brenda immediately envisions her childhood riding sessions with her father, Jim Walsh (aka James Eckhouse), and her “beloved” horse, whom she actually calls both Sylvester and Sebastian in the episode!  LOL

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The area which appeared in the episode is the Los Angeles Equestrian Center’s main jumper ring which is located just east of the center’s main entrance.

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In the scene, Jim Walsh stood along the wooden fence that borders the southern edge of the ring, just north of the center’s main parking lot.  That portion of the ring looks slightly different today as the white fence which was located behind Jim has since been removed and the wooden beams located at the bottom of the fence have since been swapped out and replaced with round pieces of wood, as you can see in the above screen capture and photograph. 

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The approximate spot where Jim stood is denoted with a pink “X” in the above aerial view. 

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The very same jumper ring was also the site of the polo match that Edward Lewis (aka Richard Gere) and Vivian Ward (aka Julia Roberts) attended in Pretty Woman.

Until next time , Happy Stalking!  Smile

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Stalk It: The Los Angeles Equestrian Center, aka Brenda’s horseback riding center from the “Meeting Mr. Pony” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 480 West Riverside Drive in Burbank.  You can visit the center’s official website here.  Both 90210 and Pretty Woman were filmed in the jumper ring located just east of the center’s main entrance, in the area denoted with a pink circle in the above aerial view.