Special Café from Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” Video

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[UPDATE – The Special Café site still stands!  You can read all about it here.  Even though this post contains erroneous information, I am leaving it up as it chronicles an important part of the long, arduous journey my fellow stalkers and I embarked upon to track the locale down.]

Since we’re on the subject of Michael Jackson . . . in May of this past year, a fellow stalker/MJ aficionado named Justin published a comment on my post about the Monte Carlo café, which I had blogged about back in March 2010 as being the possible café that appeared in the King of Pop’s “Beat It” video.  (You can read my second post on that same location here.  I suggest reading both of my Monte Carlo write-ups, as well as all of the comments posted therein, as it will make this post easier to understand.)  I was never entirely convinced about the location (even though it bears a remarkable resemblance to the diner in the video) due to many elements not matching what appeared onscreen, and opened it up to my readers to share their opinions.  While Justin originally commented that he thought the Monte Carlo was the right spot, a full two years later he was able to figure out where filming actually had taken place – the Special Café located at 416 East 5th Street in downtown Los Angeles – which I was OVER THE MOON about!  Thank you, Justin!  Sadly, as he mentioned in his comment, the locale had been demolished shortly after “Beat It” was shot and remained a parking lot for almost three decades.  (Today, a building is being constructed on the site, as you can see above.)  I still ran right out to stalk it, though, just a few weeks later.

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One of the main doubts I had as to the Monte Carlo being the “Beat It” café was the fact that in the video an address number of 416 was visible, which did not mesh with the Monte Carlo’s 109 address number.

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Further leading to doubt was the fact that the words “Special Café” were visible in the diner’s window (denoted with pink arrows below) in a behind-the-scenes photograph that was included in Todd Gray’s book Michael Jackson: Before He Was King, which fellow stalker David in Spain had taken a picture of and posted in the comments section of my first post on the Monte Carlo.  (Please disregard the markings on the picture, which were in reference to a since-solved mystery that my fellow stalkers were discussing at the time.)

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The issue that raised the most doubt, though, was the fact that the buildings visible across the street from the “Beat It” diner did not match the buildings located across the street from the Monte Carlo.

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Because the interior of the “Beat It” diner so closely resembled that of the Monte Carlo, though, I was completely flummoxed.

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Then, while searching for images of “East Fifth Street” (countless news articles stated that the café where filming took place was located on Fifth Street in L.A.’s Skid Row area), Justin happened to dig up the 1955 Los Angeles Examiner photograph below, in which a restaurant with the words “Special Café” written in the window was visible.  Judging by the 414 address number posted on the storefront next door, the café most likely had an address of 416, which matched the address that was visible in “Beat It.”

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A few weeks after Justin posted his comment, fellow stalker John, of the Silent Locations blog, taught me how to search through archived digital phone records of the Los Angeles area.  I, of course, immediately did a search for “Special Café”, and, sure enough, in the 1973 listing, found it.  (Only certain years of the phone directory are available digitally and, unfortunately, there is no directory for 1983, the year that “Beat It” was filmed.)  The next directory that was available online was for the year 1987, by which time the Special Café had been demolished and its phone listing, therefore, removed.

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Oddly enough, I also found a listing for the Monte Carlo Café in the 1973 phone book, which means that there were two almost identical diners located on the same street only four blocks apart from each other at that time!  How incredibly weird is that?

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As Justin pointed out in his comment on my original “Beat It” diner post, the buildings located across the street from the Special Café site are an exact match to the buildings that were visible in the background of the video, further proving that he had found the right spot.

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Why the across-the-street image was different when Michael walked through the café doors remains a mystery.  All I can figure is that some sort of screen – or maybe even a bus or large vehicle – was put up to block the view of the set from the many fans who were on location trying to get a peek at their hero.  Who knows, though.

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Unfortunately, while I thought that Justin’s find solved the mystery of the “Beat It” diner, it only appears to have deepened it.  While researching the Special Café, I looked up its former address on the Historic Aerials website and, oddly enough, there is NO building located in that spot in the years 1972 and 1980 (pictured below, respectively).  As you can see below, the site is a parking lot in both images.  Since we know that the eatery was around from at least 1955 (the year that the photograph that Justin found was taken) to 1983 (the year that “Beat It” was filmed), the building’s absence on Historic Aerials is absolutely mind-boggling!

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Further confusing things is the fact that a building is visible in that spot in the 1952 aerial view.

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And what’s odder still is that the building next door, the Southern Hotel, which was originally built in 1912 and is currently registered as being historically significant (meaning that it most likely has not been altered very much from its original state), looks COMPLETELY different today than it did in 1980, as you can see below.  Like I said – the mystery deepens.  Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this conundrum, my fellow stalkers.

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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 stalker Justin for finding this location!  Smile

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Special Café, from Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” video, was located at 416 East Fifth Street in downtown Los Angeles.  An apartment building now stands at that site.  This location is smack dab in the middle of Skid Row, so please exercise caution.

The Smokestacks from Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” Music Video

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Back in July, while doing research on the seaside mansion where Beau Burroughs lived in Rumor Has It (which I blogged about here), I came across a website called 80s Film Locations (that I later learned is run by fellow stalker Marc, of the Washington State Film Locations website) and noticed that it had a tab for Michael Jackson’s 1991 “Black or White” music video.  Immediately intrigued, I clicked on the link and was floored to discover that the address for the spot where the King of Pop danced in front of smokestacks – a site that I had always wondered about – was listed.  And even though I was a bit uncertain about the locale, due to the fact that certain elements visible in the background of the video did not match up to what appeared on Google Street View, I was BEYOND excited to stalk it and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to do so that very weekend.  Fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, later helped me verify that the location was indeed the right place.

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As so often happens whilst stalking, Marc found this location while searching for a different one and did not even realize that he had stumbled upon it until later.  During a hunt for sites from the 1984 teen comedy The Wild Life, Marc tracked down Surplus City Jeep Parts – where Jim Conrad (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) attempted to purchase weapons – at 11796 Sheldon Street in Sun Valley.

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While looking at the building on Google Street View, he happened to take note of a large set of distinct-looking smokestacks located directly across the street.

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Later, while tracking down “Black or White” filming locations, he remembered those smokestacks and, sure enough, they were a match to the ones that Michael Jackson had danced in front of.

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  The scene that takes place in front of the smokestacks, in which MJ performs a 23-second traditional Indian Odissi dance, just so happens to be my favorite in the entire video.

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What I could not figure out while stalking the smokestacks or from Google Street View was the exact spot where the King of Pop stood during the sequence.  It was not until sitting down to write this post that I was finally able to pinpoint it.  On his “Black or White” page, Marc had included a screen capture from “Black or White: Behind the Scenes” – a featurette about the making of the iconic video that was included on the Dangerous: The Short Films DVD.  That screen cap, which shows the smokestack scene from the opposite angle from which it was shot, is pictured below.  It was the structure visible in the top right of the capture that I was having trouble identifying.  (In the screen capture, you can see that fake pyrotechnical smokestacks were installed directly behind MJ for the filming.)

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Thankfully, Owen was able to identify the structure as the building located at 11800 Sheldon Street, just west of the Surplus City Jeep Parts site.

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Still not entirely convinced, I sat down to watch “Black or White: Behind the Scenes” once again to see if I could spot any other background clues.  And thankfully, I did!  (You can watch “Black or White: Behind the Scenes” by clicking below.  The sequence that takes place at the smokestacks begins at 0:44.)

After what seemed like hours of trying, I was finally able to pause the featurette at a point at which some sort of business sign was visible.  Once I managed to do that and look more closely at the image, I immediately recognized the sign as the Surplus City sign that appeared in The Wild Life.  As you can see below, the size and the shape of the sign match what appeared in the 1985 flick and the word “surplus” is also somewhat visible.

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From there, I was able to pinpoint that Michael was standing in the spot denoted with a pink X below in the video.

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As fate would have it, I had posed for a picture, in which I re-created MJ’s Odissi dance, in almost that exact spot while I was stalking the smokestacks.  Talk about luck!  Had I moved just slightly to the right, I would have been dead on.

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While doing research on the smokestack location, I had come across a very poor-quality Channel 4 news special hosted by David Sheehan about the filming of “Black or White,” in which MJ was shown walking from his trailer to the set.  I sent the video along to Owen and he used his magic to pinpoint where Michael walked in the segment, which turned out to be near the western side of the Surplus City building.  Amazingly enough, despite the fact that the site is no longer home to Surplus City, it still looks very much the same today as it did in 1991 when “Black or White” was filmed!  (For whatever reason, though, the address of the building has since been changed from 11796 to 11782, as is visible below.)  As you can see, the door that MJ walked by, while no longer painted green, is still intact.

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The building’s four-panel window, which has since been painted over, is also still intact.

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Most amazing of all, though, is that, minus the addition of a mailbox, the telephone pole (denoted with a pink arrow), metal bar in front of it (denoted with a blue arrow), and two signs posted on it (denoted with purple and green arrows) all still look EXACTLY the same!

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As does the red bar that sticks up out of the sidewalk.  SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

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Ironically enough, when Jim leaves Surplus City in The Wild Life, he walks by the exact same area that Michael Jackson walked by in the Channel 4 news special.

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You can watch the Channel 4 news “Black or White” special by clicking below.

Marc also let me know that Surplus City was used in the 1985 classic Commando, as the spot John Matrix (Arnold Schwarzenegger) broke into to go “shopping” for weapons and supplies.

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The structure was dressed quite significantly for the filming, though.  Besides adding quite a bit of neon, it appears that producers also constructed a small annex on the side of the building for the shoot.

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You can watch Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” video by clicking below.

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 Marc, from the 80s Film Locations website, for finding this location and to fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for helping me to verify it!  Smile

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The smokestack scene from Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” music video was shot on Sheldon Street in Sun Valley.  I believe that the exact spot where the King of Pop stood in the video is just slightly east of the building at 11800 Sheldon Street, in the area denoted with a pink X below.

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Michael Jackson’s Childhood Home in Gary, Indiana

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Today’s blog is a major, major fail on my part as I had originally intended to write about this location on Monday, August 29th – the day that would have been legendary singer Michael Jackson’s 53rd birthday.  The suggestion to write about the King of Pop’s childhood home on the anniversary of his birth came from fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, who had stalked the Gary, Indiana-area property for me last August, after I had mentioned how badly I wanted to see it in person, and had then sent me photos of it as a surprise wedding gift.  As is the case with most wedding presents, this one was most definitely geared towards the bride.  Winking smile But I digress.  Anyway, for whatever reason, I completely forgot about the house when Monday rolled around and instead wrote about Vitello’s Italian restaurant from The Deep End of the Ocean.  Ugh!  I am such a blonde sometimes!  So, with the thought that all things are better late than never, I decided to blog  about the location today, in belated honor of my beloved MJ.

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As you can see in the photograph above, Michael Jackson’s childhood home, which was originally built in 1949, is miniscule.  The tiny abode, which Joseph and Katherine purchased in 1950 for $8,500, consists of only 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 672 square feet of living space and measures about 100 feet deep by 50 feet wide.  When you consider that at one point in time all eleven members of the Jackson family – Joe, Katherine, Michael, Maureen (aka Rebbie), Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, LaToya, Marlon, Janet, and Randy – lived there, it is almost unbelievable.  According to J. Randy Taraborellli in his book Michael Jackson: The Magic, the Madness, the Whole Story, 1958-2009, of the house Michael once said, “You could take five steps from the front door and you’d be out the back.  It was really no bigger than a garage.”  Which, ironically enough, the property lacked.  Taraborrelli explains the living arrangements as such: “Katherine and Joseph shared one bedroom with a double bed.  The boys slept in the only other bedroom in a triple bunk bed; Tito and Jermaine sharing a bed on top, Marlon and Michael in the middle, and Jackie alone on the bottom.  The three girls slept on a convertible sofa in the living room; when Randy was born, he slept on a second couch.”  The whole thing is suffocating to even think about!  In August of 1969 Motown Records moved Joe, Michael, and the rest of the Jackson 5 out to Los Angeles where they were put up in various hotels.  In December of that year the rest of the family relocated to California whereupon they all settled into a Mediterranean-style house located at 1601 Queens Road in West Hollywood.  According to Taraborrelli, the living room of their new abode was twice the size of their entire former home in Gary.

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Amazingly enough, very little of Michael Jackson’s childhood home has changed in the 42-plus years since the family last lived there.  The only major difference is that, shortly after his death, a large marble plaque honoring the fallen icon was placed in the northeast corner of the front yard (pictured above).  Oddly enough, it seems that the Jackson family may still own or be involved with the dwelling somehow.  Property records list the owner of the house as the Anthony Otis Whitehead Trust located at 14126 East Rosecrans Avenue in Santa Fe Springs, California.  So I did some digging on Google and, as it turns out, 14126 East Rosecrans also just so happens to be the business address of Brian Oxman, one-time lawyer for MJ and current lawyer for Joe Jackson.

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On a side-note: About Me is currently hosting a contest to find the new “face” of their company, a person who will ultimately star in an advertisement that will be featured on a large billboard in Times Square.  I would love to be that new face!  Especially because the grand prize winner will also get a free trip to New York City and we all know how much I absolutely love me some NYC.  Smile To vote, simply click on the “Vote for this profile!” tab in the upper right hand corner of my About Me page.  For those who have not yet heard of About Me, it is an INCREDIBLY cool company that enables one to build a page with links to all of their various social networking sites, websites, blogs, email addresses, etc., compiling all of their information in one easy-to-find place.  It is basically like a digital business card and I LOVE it.  So please vote!  Who knows, maybe this stalker will get lucky and wind up on a Times Square billboard!  Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?  Winking smile

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for stalking this location for me.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Michael Jackson’s childhood home is located at 2300 Jackson Street, on the corner of Jackson Street and West 23rd Avenue, in Gary, Indiana.  The property is apparently not located in a very safe area, so please exercise caution when stalking it.

Villa Sorriso – The Restaurant Where Michael Jackson’s “Celebration of Life” Reception Was Held

 

One location that I stalked quite a while back, but, for whatever reason, have yet to blog about is Villa Sorriso Ristorante – the Italian eatery where the Jackson family hosted the September 3, 2009 “Celebration of Life” reception for pop star Michael Jackson following his burial at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.  I dragged my good friend Nat, who was in town visiting from the San Francisco-area, and the Grim Cheaper out to the Old Town Pasadena restaurant this past June to celebrate my 33rd birthday after the place had been high up on my “To Stalk” list for close to a year.  And I have to say that the restaurant was definitely worth the wait!  I absolutely fell in love with the place immediately upon entering. 

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Villa Sorriso is absolutely HUGE and is composed of two formerly separate spaces that originally housed the restaurants Clearwater Seafood and Old Town Bakery.  The 12,000-square foot property currently consists of a central outdoor courtyard that encircles a large silver fountain, a side patio with private cabanas that are available for rent, a martini bar and lounge complete with a separate VIP section, a private upstairs lounge named Zebra, and several indoor dining areas.  Sorriso, as it was originally known, first opened back in 1991 and at the time was located at 46 East Colorado Boulevard, across the street from its current location, and was, ironically enough, the very first Pasadena restaurant my family and I ate at upon moving to the City of Roses a little over a decade ago.  The eatery moved to its current location in early 2004, whereupon “Villa” was added to its name.  Ironically enough, the Italian restaurant is actually owned by a Taiwanese-born aerospace engineer/investment baker named Jack Huang.  After working in the aerospace industry for over a decade, Huang had a short stint heading up the worker’s compensation department of the popular Panda Express Chinese food chain, during which he became interested in opening a restaurant of his own.  In 1994, Jack, along with his wife, Karen, founded his first eatery, Wok ‘N’ Roll Sushi, which was also coincidentally Old Town Pasadena’s very first sushi bar.  In 2000, he purchased the already established Sorriso Ristorante from its original owner, Varo Angeletti, and set about revamping and updating the property which, at the time, was floundering.  The restaurant became a hit and a few years later he moved it to its current, larger home.  Instead of subletting the lease on the former Sorriso space, Jack decided to open up a tapas bar named Bar Celona in its place.  And in November of 2009, he bought out the owners of the now-defunct Fred’s Mexican Cafe and opened up ix-Tapa Cantina, a spot which just so happens to be my very favorite Mexican restaurant in Pasadena.

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Villa Sorriso is an absolutely beautiful place that serves up some fabulous food and I honestly can’t recommend stalking the place enough.  I ordered the crusted rosemary chicken entree while I was there and it was simply delicious!!  My favorite part about the restaurant, though, had to be the fact that old black-and-white movies are projected onto the walls of the courtyard each night, as you can see in the above photograph.  So incredibly cool!

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For Michael Jackson’s “Celebration of Life”, the Jackson family rented out the entire restaurant to host 250 of the King of Pop’s closest family and friends.  Guests included Macaulay Culkin, Mila Kunis, Corey Feldman, Al Sharpton, and Gladys Knight.  The entire Jackson family – most notably Jermaine – has apparently been frequenting the restaurant since it first opened back in 1991, which is how they decided upon holding the gathering there.  Quite a few industry parties have been held there over the years as well, including the January 2010 FOX Broadcasting Company’s UpFront after-party, at which Lisa Edelstein, Jesse Spencer, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Dianna Agron, Jane Lynch, Cory Monteith, Kevin McHale, Lea Michele, Jenna Ushkowitz, Emily Deschanel, Olivia Wilde, and Seth Green were all in attendance.  You can see photographs of that party here.  My girl Shannen Doherty has also been spotted at the restaurant in the past.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Villa Sorriso is located at 168 West Colorado Boulevard in Old Town Pasadena.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

The “Thriller” House

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Today, in honor of Halloween, I thought I’d blog about what is arguably the most famous haunted house of all time – the Victorian-style residence that was featured in the 1983 music video “Michael Jackson’s Thriller”.  Even though I’ve actually already blogged about this location once before (way back in December of 2007 when I first started my site!), because I mixed it in with a post about Halliwell Manor from Charmed which is located on the same street, I thought it was about time that the “Thriller” house was given proper recognition with its very own post.  Especially since my dad recently transferred our VHS recording of “The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller” onto a DVD so that we could finally watch it again, being that neither of us has owned a working VCR in about five years time.  I used to watch the “Making Of” special almost weekly as a child and was absolutely ENTRALLED with it.  And I am very happy to report that over twenty-seven years later, the behind-the-scenes special is JUST as enthralling.  🙂  I wish the Jackson family would release it on DVD as I’d love to have a copy that wasn’t taped off of television.

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In real life, the property is known as the Sanders House and it was originally built in 1887!  Yes, you read that right – the residence is over 123 years old!  It was commissioned by a man named Michael Sanders who ran a storage warehouse in Los Angeles at the time.  The Queen Anne/Eastlake-style home boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and 3,532 square feet of living space – which I was shocked to discover as the residence looks to be much smaller from the street.  The property was originally a single family residence, but has since been converted into a duplex-type dwelling, and has been undergoing an extensive restoration project for the past decade.  In 1971, the home was declared a cultural historic monument and the entire 1300 block of Carroll Avenue, where the “Thriller” house is located, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  You can see some fabulous historic photographs of the “Thriller” house and its neighboring homes here.  And you can read a more in-depth write-up on the history of the Sanders House on fave website Big Orange Landmarks here.

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I was only at the “Thriller” house for about ten minutes yesterday and no less than three different groups of fellow stalkers showed up to take pictures of the place while I was there – and it was in the middle of the day no less!  Simply amazing!  I was really hoping that the “Thriller” homeowners would have decorated their abode for Halloween, but as it turns out they are not currently very thrilled about the publicity that their property’s famous history generates.  According to a SUPER nice neighbor whom I spoke with while I was stalking the place yesterday, shortly after Michael Jackson passed away in June of last year, a deplorable fan stole the mailbox from the “Thriller” house and the homeowner is still pretty upset about it – especially being that the mailbox was the original one which was installed when the residence was first built over 123 years ago!  I can’t even believe that a person would have the audacity to not only trespass on someone else’s property, but to then steal something from that property while doing so.  It is people like that who give us harmless stalkers a bad name and it makes me madder and madder the more I think about it.  Not only did that thief sour the residents on the magic of owning and living in the “Thriller” house, but they also destroyed part of a historic landmark in the process.  UGH!  Don’t even get me started! 
 
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The super nice neighbor also informed me that the 1300 block of Carroll Avenue is THE place to be on Halloween.  One year he counted over 2,000 trick-or-treaters knocking on his front door alone!  Halliwell Manor from Charmed (pictured above) is already decked out for the occasion, but the neighbor said that all of the houses on the block – not just the famous ones – typically have lines of about twenty to thirty people standing out in front of them all night long.  Amazing!  I would SO love to stalk the neighborhood on Halloween, but I already have plans to spend the holiday in Santa Barbara this year.  Ah well, there’s always next year.
 
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Only the exterior of the “Thriller” house was used in the filming of the music video.
 
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All of the interior scenes were shot on a soundstage somewhere in Los Angeles.
 

You can watch the video “Michael Jackson’s Thriller” by clicking above.

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The “Thriller” house was also used as the residence of Finn (aka Reynaldo Rosales) in the Season 4 episode of Charmed titled “Size Matters’”.

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And fellow stalker Angela from Florida alerted me to the fact that the dwelling was also used as the residence of Madam Serena (aka Zelda Rubinstein) in the 1989 movie Teen Witch. It is quite ironic that the house belonged to a woman named Serena in the flick, as the star of Teen Witch was none other than Robin Lively – real life sister of Blake Lively, who plays the famous Serena van der Woodsen on TV’s Gossip Girl.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The house from “Michael Jackson’s Thriller” is located at 1345 Carroll Avenue in the Angelino Heights section of Los Angeles, just a few miles north of Downtown.  The Halliwell sisters’ house from Charmed is located two doors east of the “Thriller” house at 1329 Carroll Avenue.  And Holly’s Nashua house from the “Employee Transfer” episode of The Office is located just around the corner at 1347 Kellam Avenue.  If you stalk any of these locations, please, please do not trespass and, for God’s sake, do NOT steal, touch, or destroy ANYTHING while there!

The Michael Jackson Auditorium at Gardner Street Elementary School

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A few weeks ago, fellow stalker and mega-MJ-aficionado David from Spain told me about a King of Pop location that I wasn’t previously aware of – the Michael Jackson Auditorium at Gardner Street Elementary School.  So, of course, I just had to run right out and stalk it!  MJ attended the Hollywood area school for a few brief months in late 1969/early 1970, after the 11-year old singer and his four brothers first moved to Southern California from their hometown of Gary, Indiana to begin their new lives as performers.  At the time, the Jackson 5, who had recently been signed to the Motown record label, were on the cusp of superstardom.  Young Michael attended sixth grade classes at Gardner Street Elementary School during the day – you can view his class picture here – while the group recorded songs for their new label at night.  But, in January of 1970, after only a few short months at the school, the Jackson 5 skyrocketed to fame, their single “I Want You Back” hit number one, and Michael’s popularity made it so that he could no longer be a part of a normal school environment.  He withdrew from Gardner Street and from that point forward was homeschooled by a private tutor named Rose Fine.  But the story doesn’t end there.

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In 1989, almost two full decades after he attended classes there, Gardner Street Elementary School decided to honor its most famous alumnae by renaming its assembly room the “Michael Jackson Auditorium”.  On October 11th, to the delight of the student body, the King of Pop himself showed up for the dedication ceremony, where he was presented with a plaque by his sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Laura Gerson.  The pop star made a brief speech thanking the students, the faculty, and the PTA, donated a large sum of money to the school, planted rose bushes on the campus, and even signed the wall of Room 8 – his former sixth grade classroom.   In the years following the dedication, Michael also personally paid the salary of the school’s music teacher out of his own pocket, an act which I find absolutely amazing!

You can watch a video of the Michael Jackson Auditorium dedication ceremony by clicking above.

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But, once again, the story doesn’t end there.  Sadly, in November of 2003, following the singer’s arrest on molestation charges in the Gavin Arvizo case, Gardner Street School covered over the Michael Jackson portion of the auditorium’s sign with paint and a plywood box.  According to a November 25, 2003 Los Angeles Times article written by Erika Hayasaki, school district spokeswoman Stephanie Brady stated that administrators chose to cover the sign due to complaints from angry parents.  She said the sign “may” be uncovered following the trial, if the singer was found innocent.  But, even though, Michael Jackson was indeed acquitted of all charges on June 13, 2005, the sign remained covered, and still does to this day, seven years after the fact.  And while in America one is supposed to remain innocent until proven guilty, that certainly wasn’t the case here.  It’s pretty unbelievable to me that after BOTH his acquittal and subsequent death this past June, the plywood box has yet to come down.  You can see what the Michael Jackson Auditorium looked like before its sign was covered up here.

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All that currently remains alerting anyone to the auditorium’s former name is a small plaque which reads “Michael Jackson Auditorium, Dedicated October 11, 1989”.  The plaque is barely visible, though, and we had to use my fiancé’s telephoto lens to snap a picture of it.  After telling me about this location, fellow stalker David said “I must admit, I am dying to stalk this place . . . but, at the same time, I am also dying to to go there and throw a bunch of eggs at their doors.”  And that pretty much sums up how I felt while I was there, too.  English may be his second language, but David sure has a way with words!  🙂

Big THANK YOU to David for telling me about this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Michael Jackson Auditorium

Stalk It: The Michael Jackson Auditorium can be found at Gardner Street Elementary School which is located at 7450 Hawthorn Avenue in Hollywood.  The Auditorium can best be viewed from the corner of Hawthorne Avenue and North Gardner Street.  Please remember that this location is a school and that schools do NOT take kindly to trespassing.  I must caution you that there are, by no stretch of the imagination, at least ten signs out front warning that all uninvited visitors who trespass will be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  Schools don’t really mess around when it comes to trespassing, so please be aware that if you set foot on the Gardner Street Elementary School campus you are breaking the law and will be subject to arrest.  To sign a petition to restore Michael Jackson’s name to the Gardner Street Elementary School auditorium, please click here and to learn more about the cause, click here.