Lucky Strike Lanes in Hollywood

P1070162

Two weekends ago, while doing some stalking in the Hollywood area, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the Hollywood & Highland Shopping Center to grab a quick drink at Lucky Strike Lanes, an oft-used filming location and celebrity hot-spot.  While I had first heard about the bowling alley/lounge when it originally opened eight years ago and knew of its appearance on numerous reality series, for whatever reason I did not have much interest in stalking the place.  Then, a couple of months ago, fellow stalker Lavonna happened to tell me a little bit of trivia about the alley that had me absolutely chomping at the bit to go see it.

P1070163 P1070161

Lavonna informed me that when the iconic Hollywood Star Lanes, which first opened in 1960 and was where the majority of the movie The Big Lebowski was filmed, was torn down back in 2003 to make way for a new elementary school, the owners of the soon-to-be opened Lucky Strike decided to purchase all of the wood that comprised Hollywood Star’s Lane #7.  They then proceeded to use that wood to construct the bar at their new establishment.  How incredibly cool is that?

ScreenShot456 P1070160

They also purchased the exterior neon signage from Hollywood Star Lanes to use as a wall hanging.  Love, love, love it!

P1070158 P1070159

P1070165 P1070166

As you can see above, Lucky Strike Lanes is a VERY cool little spot.  Unfortunately, I have to say that I was not all that crazy about the food.  And sadly, the GC and I did not have time to do any bowling while we were there, but fellow stalker Lavonna has plans to hit the place up when she comes to visit L.A. in November, so you know what that means – I will definitely be doing a re-stalk!  Smile

[ad]

ScreenShot449 ScreenShot454

ScreenShot453 ScreenShot452

As I mentioned above, Lucky Strike Lanes in Hollywood is an oft-used filming location.  In the Season 6 episode of The Hills titled “The Elephant in the Room”, Kristin Cavallari, Brodie Jenner, Frankie Delgado, Stacie Hall (aka Stacie the Bartender), and Audrina Patridge and her new boyfriend, singer Ryan Cabrera, spent the evening bowling and flirting at Lucky Strike.

ScreenShot480 ScreenShot482

ScreenShot484 ScreenShot481

Ryan Cabrera returned to the bowling alley to film the Season 1 episode of the ULTRA-stupid reality show Pretty Wild titled ”The Hearing”, in which he angers series star Tess Taylor by inviting a friend to accompany them on their date.

ScreenShot457 ScreenShot458

ScreenShot459 ScreenShot460

Vinnie Chase (aka Adrian Grenier), Eric Murphy (aka Kevin Connolly), Johnny ‘Drama’ Chase (aka Kevin Dillon), and Turtle (aka Jerry Ferrara) took their girlfriends, one of whom was Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester, to Lucky Strike for an evening of bowling in the Season 1 episode of Entourage titled “Date Night”.

ScreenShot462 ScreenShot467

ScreenShot464 ScreenShot466

In the Season 11 episode of America’s Next Top Model titled “Fierce Eyes”, J Alexander hosted a runway challenge at Lucky Strike in which the models had to practice walking down the super-slippery bowling lanes while wearing high heels.

ScreenShot485 ScreenShot487

ScreenShot488 ScreenShot486

In the Season 1 episode of No Ordinary Family titled “No Ordinary Sidekick”, Jim Powell (aka Michael Chiklis), along with his family, Stephanie (aka Dexter’s Julie Benz), Daphne (aka Kay Panabaker), and J.J. (aka Jimmy Bennett), and their friends Katie Andrews (aka The O.C.’s Autumn Reeser) and George St. Cloud (aka Romany Malco), spend the evening using their super-powers to bowl at Lucky Strike.

ScreenShot473 ScreenShot474

ScreenShot478 ScreenShot479

And while I had originally believed that the Season 1 episode of fave show 90210 titled “Lucky Strike” was filmed at the Lucky Strike Lanes in Hollywood, as it turns out filming actually took place at the chain’s Torrance location, inside of the Del Amo Shopping Center.

ScreenShot468 ScreenShot470

ScreenShot471 ScreenShot472

And the Season 2 episode of Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County titled “Since You Been Gone” was filmed at the chain’s Block at Orange location.

IMG_1402

As I mentioned above, Lucky Strike Lanes is also a veritable celebrity magnet. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there include Drew Barrymore, Liv Tyler, John Mayer, Glee’s Cory Monteith, The Bachelorette’s Ali Fedotowsky and Roberto Martinez, Demi Moore, Bruce Willis, Rumor Willis, Geena Davis, Robin Williams, Paris Hilton, Nick Carter, Matthew Lillard, Fergie and Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas, Mandy Moore, Judy Greer, Vanessa Hudgens, Courteney Cox, Nicole Richie, Trevor Donovan, Jessica Simpson, and even my girl Jen Aniston.  I once spotted David Arquette walking into the bowling alley for some sort of celebrity event back in December of 2008 and while I tried to take the above photograph of him, as you can see, it did not turn out very well due to the bright lights on the red carpet. You can definitely tell it is him, though.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lavonna for telling me about this location!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Lucky Strike Lanes is located at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard, inside of the Hollywood & Highland Shopping Center, in Hollywood.  You can visit the bowling alley’s official website here.

Dexter and Rita’s House from “Dexter”

Dexter-and-Rita-House-5

This past weekend, I dragged my fiancé out to Long Beach – or as Snoop Dogg calls it “The LBC” – to do some stalking.  My original plan was to book a room at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort and Spa – the spot currently standing in for the Beverly Hills Beach Club on 90210 – and spend the whole weekend down in the South Bay, but being that I could not find a room for under $270, the Grim Cheaper was having none of that.  🙁  So, I had to settle for spending only a single day in Long Beach, which actually worked out just fine as I managed to cram quite a bit of stalking into that 12 hour period.  🙂  And the first location I stalked?  Dexter and Rita Morgan’s new home from the fourth season of fave television series, Dexter

ScreenShot2974

Dexter-and-Rita-House-12

In the premiere episode of Season 4, which was entitled “Living The Dream”, Dexter (aka Michael C. Hall) and Rita (aka Julie Benz) move into a new home together after tying the knot in the previous season’s finale. Ironically enough, though, until making screen captures for this post earlier today, I had never actually seen their new house onscreen.  Because my fiancé and I only just recently became Dexter fans, we have yet to see any of the series’ fourth season episodes.  In fact, we are just now beginning to dive into Season 3.  But even though we have yet to see the episodes in which the new home appears, I was still absolutely dying to stalk the place as I have a (very) small personal connection to it.  As it turns out, some good friends of mine who live in the Long Beach area happen to know the people who live directly across the street from the new Morgan residence, in the home pictured above which was actually featured very briefly in Dexter’s  Season 4 opener.  So cool!!!   Because my friends know my penchant for filming locations, as soon as they learned this information they passed it on to me, but sadly this was long after the filming of Season 4 had already wrapped.  I so wish I had found out about this location earlier in the year, as I would have LOVED to have stalked the place and seen Michael C. Hall in person.  I do love me some MCH!  🙂   Anyway, since we were in the area on Saturday, I just had to drag my fiancé out to stalk the home.

ScreenShot2977

Dexter-and-Rita-House-8

ScreenShot2979

Dexter-and-Rita-House-4

ScreenShot2975

Dexter-and-Rita-House-6

And I am very happy to report that the Dexter house looks EXACTLY the same in person as it did onscreen in Season 4.  Even the address plaque and the mailbox are the same!  In fact, the only difference I noticed, besides the fact that the house appears a bit more pinkish onscreen, is the front gate.  On Dexter, the house’s front gate is made of polished wood, while in real life it is constructed of wrought iron.  The Dexter house is extremely cute in person and it’s not very hard to see why producers chose it to stand in for the Miami area residence of the series’ main star – the place definitely gives off a Florida vibe. 

Dexter-and-Rita-House-1

I did notice something quite interesting while stalking the place, though.  At first glance it would appear that Dexter’s home is a typical single-family residence, but while there I noticed that the curb out front had two address numbers – 3319 and 3321 – painted on it, as you can see in the above photograph.

Dexterhouse1-1

DexterHouse2 

  So, when I got home I did some cyber-stalking and, thanks to Zillow, discovered that the property is actually a multi-family dwelling with one house located in the front and a second house situated out back.  You can see both houses in the above aerial images.  The front house, which is the one shown on Dexter, was built in 1922 and is a 3 bedroom, 1 bath dwelling measuring 2,219 square feet.

[ad]

Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that this same house is used on Dexter next season, as well, and that I’ll be able to make it out there to watch the show being taped live!!!  How incredibly cool would that be?  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Dexter and Rita’s new house from Season 4 of Dexter is located at 3319 East 1st Street in the Bluff Park neighborhood of Long Beach.