The "Punky Brewster" Opening Credits Locations

Punky Brewster Opening Credits Locations (31 of 36)

After tracking down the apartment building where Punky Brewster (Soleil Moon Frye) and her adoptive father, Henry Warnimont (George Gaynes), lived in the 1984 television series Punky Brewster (which I blogged about here), I became completely obsessed with finding the locations that appeared in the opening credits of the show’s pilot episode, which was titled “Punky Finds a Home, Part I.” (Subsequent episodes featured a shortened version of the pilot’s opening, with only a few locations featured.) Thankfully, John, from the Silent Locations blog, was up to the task of helping me with this query and wound up tracking down almost all of the sites in one single day. Yay! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk them this past Saturday afternoon.  (For those who have asked, the skirt I am wearing in the picture above is Humble Chic’s Carrie Skirt – LOVE the name!!! – which I paired with a shell from Zara.)

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Come to find out, the opening credits of Punky Brewster were shot almost in their entirety on the 600 block of Shatto Place, just west of MacArthur Park, near downtown Los Angeles, but it took a while before we realized that fact. John first figured out that the brick building that Henry walked by towards the beginning of the opening credits was the Pierre Crest Apartments at 673 Shatto Place, which he had recognized from their appearance in the 1926 silent film For Heaven’s Sake.

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Punky Brewster Opening Credits Locations (27 of 36)

The Pierre Crest Apartments, which were once quite attractive, look a bit different – and a bit more run-down – today than they did in 1984 when the Punky Brewster opening credits were filmed.

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Punky Brewster Opening Credits Locations (28 of 36)

After Henry walks by the Pierre Crest, he is shown crossing the street and then passing by an alleyway where a man is asleep on the sidewalk. On a hunch, I used Google Street View to see if that alleyway was actually located across the street from the Pierre Crest and, sure enough, it was – just north of the York Apartments at 688 Shatto Place.

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Punky Brewster Opening Credits Locations (4 of 36)

Sadly, a fence has since been installed in front of the alley that partially blocks the view of it from the street and the building that was once located just north of it has also since been torn down. Otherwise though, the spot still looks pretty much exactly the same as it did in 1984. Even the cement curb that appeared in the Punky Brewster opening credits is still intact! Love it!

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Punky Brewster Opening Credits Locations (2 of 36)

Had to do it! (For some odd reason, I thought that Henry had his hands behind his back in the scene.)

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Punky Brewster Opening Credits Locations (6 of 36)

John next figured out that the red and white brick building that Punky was shown skipping in front of with her dog, Brandon, in the opening credits was actually the Modena Apartments at 661 Shatto Place.

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Punky Brewster Opening Credits Locations (20 of 36)

That building, too, looks quite a bit different today. Such a shame that the gorgeous red brick was painted over!

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Punky Brewster Opening Credits Locations (18 of 36)

Again, had to do it! Smile (Notice in the screen capture and photograph pictured below that the sidewalk grate next to the tree still looks exactly as it did in 1984! Love it!)

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Punky Brewster Opening Credits Locations (22 of 36)

I am pretty sure that the doorway/stairwell that Punky stopped in front of in the opening credits was the entrance to the Modena Apartments. As you can see below, the stair railing seems to match up, as does the brick outline of the entryway.

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Punky Brewster Opening Credits Locations (19 of 36)

In a heartbreaking twist, Warnimont Studio, Henry’s photography studio – the locale that I most wanted to find – is no longer standing. The site was once located at 651 Shatto Place, on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard, but was torn down sometime in the early 2000s. Boo!

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The credit for this find goes to John. While watching the Punky Brewster opening credits, I had spotted an address number of “651” painted on the door behind Henry. I emailed that information over to John, along with a screen capture, and he wrote back almost immediately with an address.

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Because all of the other sites from the Punky Brewster opening credits were located on Shatto Place, John was fairly certain that Henry’s photo lab had to be there, as well. When he looked at a Google map of 651 Shatto Place, though, all that was visible was a vacant lot. Then, on a hunch, he searched through a Los Angeles phone directory from 1987 and saw that an actual photography studio named Haines Studio & Lab was listed as being located at 651 Shatto Place at the time. That listing is highlighted in pink below.

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He also noticed that the phone number for the studio was listed as 383-1473. As you can see below, that very same number is visible – behind a fake phone number of 555-3709 that was installed for the filming – in the window of Henry’s store.

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Further proving that Warnimont Studio was once located at 651 Shatto Place is the fact that listed next door to Haines Studio & Lab in the 1987 phone directory is Glenda’s Beauty Salon at 653 Shatto Place.

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In Punky Brewster, a salon named Consuelo’s was shown to be located right next to Henry’s Studio. And listed next door to Glenda’s at 655 Shatto Place is Mini Market Deli, which seems to match the name on the awning of the store that appears next to Consuelo’s in the screen capture below.

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A full view of the building that once housed Henry’s studio is pictured below, via the USC Digital Library. As you can see, it was quite a beautiful structure and I cannot for the life of me figure out why it would have been torn down.

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Punky Brewster Opening Credits Locations (35 of 36)

Today, the site is a construction zone where I believe a condominium complex is being built.

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Punky Brewster Opening Credits Locations (36 of 36)

Thanks to Robby Cress of the Dear Old Hollywood blog, we learned that the Warnimont Studio building was also featured in the 1978 comedy The Big Fix as the campaign headquarters of California gubernatorial candidate Miles Hawthorne (John Cunningham). In one scene, Henry’s studio site is clearly visible in the background behind private detective Moses Wine (Richard Dreyfuss) and his girlfriend, Lila Shay (Susan Anspach).

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As you can see below, the arched doorway between storefronts also matches what appeared in Punky Brewster.

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A fuller view of the building from The Big Fix is pictured below.

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As is a view looking in the opposite direction, towards Wilshire Boulevard.

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You can watch the opening credits from Punky Brewster’s pilot episode by clicking below.

In an odd twist, I just discovered today that one brief scene from the opening credits was, in fact, filmed in Chicago, where Punky Brewster was said to have taken place. As you can see below, in the scene in which Punky and Henry are shown entering (what I thought was a fake) Wrigley Field, a brick building is visible behind them. That same building (which houses a Starbucks!) is actually located across the street from the real Wrigley Field on West Addison Street in the Windy City.

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John and I have yet to track down the grocery store that appeared in the opening credits and I am now wondering if it, too, is located in Chicago.

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

Big THANK YOU to John, from the Silent Locations blog, for tracking down the majority of these locations. Smile You can read his blog post on the Punky Brewster locales here.

Punky Brewster Opening Credits Locations (34 of 36)

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The opening credits from the pilot episode of Punky Brewster were filmed almost entirely on the 600 block of Shatto Place in Los Angeles. The brick building that Henry first walked by was the Pierre Crest Apartments at 673 Shatto Place; the alleyway where Henry stepped over the sleeping homeless man is just north of 688 Shatto Place; the building that Punky skipped by was the Modena Apartments at 661 Shatto Place; and the site of Henry’s photography studio, which has since been torn down, can be found at 651 Shatto Place.

The “Little Miss Sunshine” Motel

Little Miss Sunshine Motel (1 of 10)

Another Little Miss Sunshine locale that I desperately wanted to stalk was the supposed Arizona motel where the Hoover family – Olive (Abigail Breslin), Richard (Greg Kinnear), Sheryl (Toni Collette), Dwayne (Paul Dano), Grandpa Edwin (Alan Arkin), and Frank Ginsberg (Steve Carell) – stayed mid-way through their road trip from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach in the 2006 flick.  Thankfully, smbstressfest had visited the site during the filming of his fabulous YouTube video, which chronicles most of the locations that appeared in LMS, so I posted a comment on his page asking for the address.  I was not sure if he would get back to me, though, so I also sent screen captures of the motel to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, in case he recognized it.  And, amazingly enough, he did!  At the very same time that I received an email notification alerting me that smbstressfest had replied to my comment with an address, I was also sent an email from Mike letting me know that the Little Miss Sunshine motel was actually the Budget Inn of North Hills located at 9151 Sepulveda Boulevard.  As it turns out, Mike drives by the place almost daily on his way to work.  So I ran right out to stalk it while the Grim Cheaper and I were in L.A. two weekends ago.

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As you can see below, the Budget Inn of North Hills has, unfortunately, been remodeled slightly since filming took place in the summer of 2005.  The motel was still in its Little Miss Sunshine state back in May 2007 when smbstressfest stalked it (as you can see in his video), but it seems that I, sadly, missed the boat on this one.  Boo!  At least the basic structure of the property remains unchanged.

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Little Miss Sunshine Motel (3 of 10)

Despite the alterations being fairly minor, I had an extremely hard time getting my bearings while I was stalking the motel and could not get a grasp on what part of the property appeared in Little Miss Sunshine.  I am directionally-challenged anyway (my mom likes to say that I could not find my way out of a paper bag), and because of the way the Budget Inn of North Hills is set up with four practically identical corners, I just could not figure which area had been used in the filming.  So, unfortunately, my photographs of this particular locale are not the greatest.

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Little Miss Sunshine Motel (4 of 10)

Add to that the fact that the motel is kind of an odd place and, even though I had talked to the management prior to taking photographs, I did not feel entirely comfortable being there and therefore did not do much exploring.

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Little Miss Sunshine Motel (7 of 10)

Had I stuck around, I would have loved to have ventured upstairs to take photographs of Room 208, where Olive and Grandpa Edwin spent the night in Little Miss Sunshine.  (Dwayne and Frank and Sheryl and Richard stayed in the two rooms located just east of 208.)

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And while I am 99.9% certain that the real life interior of three of the Budget Inn’s rooms were used during the filming, unfortunately, due to the remodel, the rooms (which you can see photographs of here) no longer look anything like they did onscreen.  Again, boo!

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and smbstressfest for finding this location!  Smile

Little Miss Sunshine Motel (6 of 10)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Budget Inn of North Hills, aka the Little Miss Sunshine motel, is located at 9151 Sepulveda Boulevard in North Hills.  You can visit the Booking.com page for the hotel hereThe Hometown Inn from the 2002 Britney Spears’ movie Crossroads is located just down the street at 9401 Sepulveda Boulevard.

The “Little Miss Sunshine” Restaurant

Little Miss Sunshine Restaurant (8 of 27)

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, while doing research on the former Abiquiu eatery (now Wokcano) from Get Shorty (which I blogged about here), I came across a Chowhound message board on which a commenter named Kevin stated that Pann’s restaurant in Ladera Heights was the spot where the Hoover clan –  Olive (Abigail Breslin), Richard (Greg Kinnear), Dwayne (Paul Dano), Grandpa Edwin (Alan Arkin), Sheryl (Toni Collette), and Frank Ginsberg (Steve Carell) – stopped for a mid-road-trip breakfast in fave movie Little Miss Sunshine.   Because the breakfast scene was one of my favorites in the entire flick, I was extremely excited to learn this information.  Unfortunately though, as is so often the case with locales that are posted online, this one turned out to be wrong.

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While Pann’s menus were visible in the scene, as you can see below, one look at online images of the interior of the restaurant and I knew that it was not the right place.  Convincing me further was the fact that Pann’s is not located directly below a freeway overpass, as the Little Miss Sunshine café was shown to be (which you can also see below).

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So I got to cyberstalking and fairly quickly came across an absolutely amazing YouTube video (that you can watch by clicking below) in which a fellow stalker named smbstressfest chronicled pretty much every single locale that appeared in the movie.  And while he did not state the addresses of any of the places, in response to a commenter named starbucksmunkey (love it!), he did give the Google Earth coordinates of the restaurant.  Woot woot!  And even though smbstressfest had mentioned that the eatery was no longer in operation, I was still chomping at the bit to stalk it and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there this past weekend while the two of us were in L.A.

The Little Miss Sunshine production notes state that the flick was lensed over a thirty-day period during the “hot” summer of 2005, at which time, according to the mmm-yoso!!! website, the space housed an eatery named Rutt’s Hawaiian Café.  Rutt’s was shuttered by the time smbstressfest stalked it in 2007 (the chain still boasts an outpost in Culver City, though) and at some point thereafter a Mexican steakhouse named Don Carlos was opened on the site, but it, too, has since been closed.  According the property’s LoopNet listing, the 5,130-square-foot building also once housed a Denny’s.

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Little Miss Sunshine Restaurant (2 of 27)

Which makes sense because the property does look very much like a Denny’s location – to me, at least.

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Little Miss Sunshine Restaurant (11 of 27)

And while a sign in the window states that Maly’s Pizza Buffet is “coming soon”, I do not know how accurate that is.

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In Little Miss Sunshine, the Hoover family stops at the café towards the beginning of their road trip from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach.  It is there that Olive orders waffles “alamodie” and is lambasted by her father for choosing to eat something so high in fat.

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The interior of Rutt’s was used quite extensively in the filming.  Oh, what I wouldn’t have given to have been able to go inside that restaurant!

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Thankfully, I was able to snap a few photographs of the interior through the front window, although they are not of the section of the restaurant that appeared in the movie.  In Little Miss Sunshine, Olive and her family dined in the southeast portion of the building, but the only area in which the blinds were not drawn was the northern part, unfortunately.  Boo!

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Little Miss Sunshine Restaurant (14 of 27)

The exterior of Rutt’s was also shown in the scene.

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You can watch the Little Miss Sunshine restaurant scene 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 smbstressfest for finding this location!  Smile

Little Miss Sunshine Restaurant (3 of 27)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The supposed Pann’s restaurant from Little Miss Sunshine is actually the former Rutt’s Hawaiian Café located at 17371 East Valley Boulevard in La Puente.  Unfortunately, the eatery is currently closed.

The “Pretty Woman” Opera House

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Today’s locale is one that I have been trying to track down for over a year and a half now – ever since discovering that pretty much every other location website out there had gotten it wrong.  I am talking about the exterior of the supposed San Francisco opera house featured in the 1990 classic romantic comedy Pretty Woman.  Last January, while on a Pretty Woman kick, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, where filming of the opera scene is said by several websites to have taken place.  And while the interior of the museum did, in fact, appear in the movie, I took one look at the exterior and knew without a doubt that it was not the exterior shown in Pretty Woman.

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As you can see below, the Pretty Woman opera house and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, while somewhat similar, are most definitely NOT one and the same.  Which begs the question – how does erroneous information like this get published?  Yet again, the answer is shoddy research and lazy reporting.   Once upon a time, someone made the claim that the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles was used as the exterior of the Pretty Woman opera house and everyone else just jumped on the bandwagon without doing any of their own investigating.  I call that “spaghetti-style stalking” – let’s just throw some locations out there and see what sticks – and it is maddening!  Anyway, while I knew that the Natural History Museum did not stand in for the exterior of the Pretty Woman opera house, I had no idea what location actually was used and spent the next year and a half trying to figure it out.  Then on Monday afternoon, I got a text from my good friend Nat letting me know that she had found the site – in Pittsburgh of all places!  (I should mention here that Nat is not AT ALL into stalking, so this truly was a feat!)

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Pretty Woman Opera House (15 of 15)

I originally got Nat, who is a native San Franciscan, involved in the hunt because I had assumed that the building used in Pretty Woman was located somewhere in the City by the Bay.  In a bad twist of fate, while the scene was originally set to be lensed at S.F.’s iconic War Memorial Opera House, a few days before the shoot date, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck, rendering the city, and War Memorial, unfilmable.  So director Garry Marshall and his team had to scramble to find a different last-minute location at which to film.  They wound up using three different locales to stand in for the opera house.  The Natural History of Museum of Los Angeles was used as the interior of the concert hall’s lobby area.

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Pretty Woman Opera House (9 of 15)

In the scene, Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) and Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) walk through the main entrance of the Natural History Museum and head to the right.

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I am fairly certain that the curved wall panel pictured below was a set piece that was added for the filming, as the actual walls of the museum are not rounded.

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Pretty Woman Opera House (10 of 15)

As you can see in the screen capture below, the tiled floor pattern also seems to be cut off by that rounded panel, further leading me to believe that it was a set piece.

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Pretty Woman Opera House (1 of 1)

Edward and Vivian then walk past an usher handing out programs . . .

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Pretty Woman Opera House (11 of 15)

. . . and up a flight of stairs.

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Had the camera panned just slightly farther to the right in the scene, the museum’s famous dinosaurs would have been visible.  Winking smile

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For the interior of the actual theatre, production designer Albert Brenner constructed a set at The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, where Pretty Woman was lensed.  In Garry Marshall’s DVD commentary featured on the Pretty Woman (15th Anniversary Special Edition) DVD, he states that the set was built against a soundstage wall and that the cast and crew had to climb a ladder to gain access to the balcony area.

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While the lobby and theatre areas were easy finds, it was the exterior of the opera house that had me in the dark.  Because the building shown in Pretty Woman did bear a striking resemblance to the War Memorial Opera House (which you can see a picture of here), I figured that it was also most likely located somewhere in San Francisco.  So after asking fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, and John, from the Silent Locations blog, for their help in tracking the place down, I emailed a screen capture of the building to Nat to see if she recognized it at all.  She did not, but kept the picture on hand in case she ever came across it in her daily travels.  Then yesterday, Nat’s boyfriend headed out to the San Francisco Natural History Museum, which reminded her of my quest, so she started doing some cyber-stalking and, lo and behold, found the place!  As it turns out, the Pretty Woman opera house is actually Carnegie Music Hall (which is a part of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, oddly enough!) at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh.  My hat is DEFINITELY off to her being that she did what we “professional” stalkers could not.  And had she not found the locale, it would have remained a mystery because never in a million years would I have EVER thought to search for it in Pennsylvania!  (Please pardon the rather poor-quality Google Street View image pictured below.)

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Nat also informed me that Carnegie Music Hall was used in the 1983 classic Flashdance, where it masqueraded as the prestigious Pittsburgh Dance and Repertory Company that welder Alex Owens (Jennifer Beals) dreamed of attending.  The building shows up several times throughout the movie, most notably in the scene in which Alex chickened out of auditioning for the school’s ballet program.

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The interior of Carnegie Music Hall and Carnegie Museum of Natural History were also utilized in the filming.

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In a very ironic twist, I was SHOCKED to discover that the establishing shot shown in Pretty Woman was actually a still from Flashdance!  Towards the middle of Flashdance, Alex attended a black-tie dance recital with her mentor, Hanna Long (Lilia Skala), at the Pittsburgh Dance and Repertory Company.  The exterior of Carnegie Music Hall was shown several times throughout that scene, with tuxedo-clad men and cocktail gown-clad women milling about on the stairs outside.  Garry Marshall simply used a shot from that scene for Pretty Woman.

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The first screen capture pictured below is from Flashdance, while the second is from Pretty Woman.  As you can see, the gala sign pictured on the bottom left-hand side of both of the images is a perfect match, as are the man and woman standing just to the right of it.  Several of the other people in the screen captures match up, as well, including the man standing with his back against the wall of the middle archway and the white-haired woman in the bottom right-hand corner.  Too bad I have never seen Flashdance, otherwise this would have been a much easier find!

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The interior of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History was also used in The Silence of the Lambs, as the spot where Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) met up with an entomologist.

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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, HUGE THANK YOU to my good friend Nat for finding this location!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Carnegie Music Hall, aka the exterior of the opera house from Pretty Woman, can be found at the Carnegie Institute, which is located at 4400 Forbes Avenue in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  The area used in the scene is denoted with a pink arrow below.  You can visit the Carnegie Institute’s official website here.  The interior of the Pretty Woman opera house is the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, which is located at 900 Exposition Boulevard in the Exposition Park area of Los Angeles.  You can visit the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles’ official website here.

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Cabo Cantina from “Annie Hall”

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The May 2013 issue of Los Angeles magazine featured a short column about a new documentary called The Source Family which detailed the life of a World War II vet turned spiritual guru named Jim Baker (not to be confused with televangelist Jim Bakker), who became most famous for founding both The Source Family cult and a Sunset Strip vegetarian restaurant named simply The Source.  The half-page article piqued my interest because, while I had long been aware of The Source (now Cabo Cantina) thanks to its appearance in the 1977 movie Annie Hall, I had never before heard about the inauspicious background of its founder.  Upon reading the column, I, of course, immediately added the site to my To-Stalk list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there while in L.A. a few weeks back.  The two of us also watched The Source Family this past weekend, or I should say we tried to.  While interesting, the documentary was just a tad too odd for my taste and we turned it off halfway through.

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The Cincinnati-born Baker migrated to Southern California shortly after World War II, during which he earned a Silver Star, to try his hand at acting.  While in La La Land, he became inspired by a health-obsessed group named the Nature Boys and a kundalini yoga guru named Yogi Bhajan.  In 1957, Jim opened his first organic health food eatery, the Aware Inn.  A second Aware Inn and additional establishments named the Old World Restaurant and The Discovery Inn quickly followed.  And while all of the endeavors were extremely successful, Jim started to develop a heavy drug problem and his investors wound up absolving him of his duties.  Hoping to turn his life around, Baker founded The Source on April 1st, 1969.  For his new venture, he chose a 1946-era building at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and North Sweetzer Avenue that had previously housed a hamburger stand.

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The Source, which was way ahead of its time, became an immediate hit, attracting such celebrities as Goldie Hawn, John Lennon, Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda, Steve McQueen, Marlon Brando, Joni Mitchell, and Julie Christie.

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About three years after The Source opened its doors, Jim adopted the name of “Father Yod” and began leading a small spiritual commune that he named The Source Family.  The group would eventually boast about 140 members, 13 of whom became Yod’s spiritual wives.  Most of the Family lived together in Hillhurst, a Los Feliz-area mansion that had once belonged to Los Angeles Times publisher Otis Chandler.  The Source, which some articles state brought in about $10,000 per day, provided the group’s income.  Money was also generated thanks to the Family’s art gallery, Source Arts, and their popular psychedelic band, YaHoWa13.

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In 1974, Father Yod began to fear that the apocalypse was upon him, so he sold The Source and, along with the Family, fled to Hawaii.  The guru passed away shortly thereafter, on August 25th, 1975, in a hang gliding accident.  The restaurant continued to operate as The Source for a couple of years, whereupon it was purchased by new owners who transformed it into an eatery called The Cajun Bistro.  It was during that time that the front patio was enclosed.

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Otherwise though, the restaurant still looks very much the same as it did during The Source days.

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  Today, the site houses Cabo Cantina.  The photographs below show what was once The Source’s patio area, but is now the interior of the Mexican eatery.  The brick walls seen in the background of the pictures are the former exterior walls of The Source.  I absolutely LOVE that they are still visible!

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Cabo Cantina (18 of 18)

  Cabo Cantina is also fairly popular with the Hollywood set.  Such stars as Brittany Snow, Ryan Rottman, Jessica Simpson, Cacee Cobb, and Donald Faison have all been spotted there in recent years.

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In Annie Hall, The Source was where Alvy (Woody Allen) proposed to his longtime on-again/off-again girlfriend Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) over a plate of alfalfa sprouts and mashed yeast.  Yum!

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In the scene, the former Golden Crest Retirement Home is visible behind Alvy.  That site is now the iconic Standard Hotel.

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When Annie turns down Alvy’s proposal, he gets so upset that he winds up hitting three cars while trying to exit The Source’s parking lot and is later arrested.

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The restaurant was also featured in the 1970 flick Alex in Wonderland.

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The Source also appeared at the beginning of the 1975 flick Just the Two of Us.

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The eatery also popped up in the Season 1 episode of the reality series Saddle Ranch (yeah, I’d never heard of it, either) titled “Rachel’s Hair Trigger”.  In the episode, the gang goes to Cabo Cantina to grab some after-work cocktails and Rachel winds up drinking too much and causing a huge bar brawl.  And while the restaurant was also apparently featured in an episode of Bad Girls Club, I am unsure of which episode.

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For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.Cabo Cantina (11 of 18)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Cabo Cantina, from “Annie Hall”, is located at 8301 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

Wokcano from “Get Shorty”

Get Shorty restaurant (4 of 19)

A couple of months ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, called to let me know that he had just discovered that the iconic scene from Get Shorty in which loan-shark-turned-movie-producer Chili Palmer (John Travolta) threw a henchman named Bear (James Gandolfini) down a flight of stairs had been lensed at a restaurant named Abiquiu (now Wokcano) in Santa Monica.  And even though I had not seen the 1995 gangster comedy in years, I was beyond thrilled to learn this information and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there for happy hour just a few days later.

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Abiquiu was opened at 1413 5th Street in Santa Monica on July 28th, 1994 by John Sedlar.  The restaurateur had originally founded a more upscale, special occasion-type eatery named Bikini at the site in 1991.  After Bikini folded in early 1994, due to a combination of the recession and the aftereffects of the the Northridge earthquake, the two-story space sat vacant for the about six months.

Get Shorty restaurant (19 of 19)

Get Shorty restaurant (17 of 19)

Sedlar then opened the more casual Abiquiu, named for the Santa Fe town where his grandparents once lived, in its place.  He kept the interior, which in an August 1994 Los Angeles Times article journalist S. Irene Virbila described as “one of the most beautiful in L.A.”, largely the same.  At some point in 2002, Abiquiu closed.  Following in its place were several eateries, including Union, then Akwa, and then, most-recently, in July 2008, the Wokcano chain opened its fifth Los Angeles-area outpost at the site.  Amazingly enough, despite the many changes in ownership over the 18 years since Get Shorty was filmed, the restaurant is still very recognizable from its onscreen appearance.  But more on that later.

 Get Shorty restaurant (8 of 19)

Get Shorty restaurant (15 of 19)

The GC was floored to discover Wokcano’s stellar happy hour, which he quickly dubbed “the best in L.A.”  And I have to say that I agree with him.  The food was excellent, the servings huge and the prices extremely inexpensive.  I highly recommend the Garlic Brussels Sprouts ($5) and the Crispy Pepper Calamari ($7), both of which are to die for!

Get Shorty restaurant (16 of 19)

Get Shorty restaurant (11 of 19)

Happy hour is offered in Wokcano’s upstairs bar area, off of which is located a huge outdoor patio, complete with couches and cabanas.  Love it!

Get Shorty restaurant (12 of 19)

Get Shorty restaurant (13 of 19)

In Get Shorty, Abiquiu was the restaurant where Bo Catlett (Delroy Lindo) tried to sabotage Karen Flores (Rene Russo) and Chili’s lunch meeting with movie producer Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman).

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Get Shorty restaurant (10 of 19)

When Bo’s “muscle”, Bear, tried to intimidate Chili, Chili responded by throwing him down a flight of stairs.

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 Get Shorty restaurant (5 of 19)

Amazingly, that now-famous staircase still looks exactly the same as it did when Get Shorty was filmed!  (Unfortunately, Wokcano is housed in an extremely bright space, which wreaked havoc on my photographs.)

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 Get Shorty restaurant (2 of 19)

The downstairs decor has changed quite a bit since filming took place, however.  Gone are the brightly-colored walls and booths, and a sushi bar has since been installed.  Otherwise, though, the restaurant still looks very much the same as it did onscreen.

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 Get Shorty restaurant (6 of 19)

At one point while I was taking pictures, the hostess came up to ask why I had such an interest in the staircase.  When I told her of its famous onscreen appearance, she was shocked.  Apparently, she had not known that bit of trivia prior to speaking with me, which was shocking!  I mean, doesn’t information of that importance deserve a mention in the employee handbook?  😉

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Get Shorty restaurant (3 of 19)

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

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

Get Shorty restaurant (18 of 19)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Get Shorty staircase can be found at Wokcano, aka the site of the former Abiquiu restaurant, which is located at 1413 5th Street in Santa Monica.  You can visit the eatery’s website here.

Laney Boggs’ House from “She’s All That”

She's All That house (1 of 9)

Back in March, when I told fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write is Wrong blog, that fellow stalker Geoff, of the 90210Locations website, had just tracked down the Fundraiser house from L.A. Story (which I blogged about here) in Palos Verdes, he suggested that when I made my way out to the South Bay to stalk the place, I should also stop by the residence where Laney Boggs (Rachael Leigh Cook) lived in the 1999 flick She’s All That. Owen had found the She’s All That home, which is located in Redondo Beach, just outside of Palos Verdes, a few years prior. So I followed his advice and stalked it shortly after stalking the L.A. Story pad. It was not until I started doing research for this post that I learned that two houses were actually used as the Boggs’ residence – one for the exterior and another for the interior. But more on that later.

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In real life, the Boggs’ house, which was originally built in 1962, boasts 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 3,058 square feet of living space, and a 0.60-acre plot of land overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

She's All That house (4 of 9)

She's All That house (2 of 9)

Apparently, the residence is currently – or was just recently – available as a rental (at a rate of $5,750 per month), but, unfortunately, the real estate listing does not provide any interior photographs of the place. And why the agent is not marketing it as the “She’s All That house” is absolutely beyond me!

She's All That house (8 of 9)

She's All That house (9 of 9)

A full exterior shot of the Boggs’ home, which was said to be located in the Pacific Palisades area in the flick, was shown only once in She’s All That, in the scene in which Zack Siler (Freddie Prinze Jr.) shows up to escort Laney to a party. As you can see below, not much of the house has been changed since 1998 when the movie was lensed.

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She's All That house (5 of 9)

A close-up shot of the residence’s front door . . .

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She's All That house (6 of 9)

. . . and a close-up shot of the driveway (in which an address number of 507 was visible) were shown in the scene in which Zack invited Laney to go to the beach with him.

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She's All That house (7 of 9)

While doing research for this post, I noticed that the IMDB She’s All That filming locations page stated that two different houses were utilized as Laney’s – a home at 507 Paseo De La Playa for exteriors and a home directly across the street at 504 Paseo De La Playa for interiors. Because incorrect information is often posted on IMDB, though, I decided to do some of my own research on the subject and was pleasantly surprised to find that the addresses had indeed been correct. I later came across a thread on an IMDB She’s All That message board explaining where the IMDB data had originated. In November 2012, an inquiring mind named Luciana asked if anyone knew where the Boggs’ home was located. A poster named “hkchris” managed to track it down for her and another poster named “Smartiejl” – a man definitely after my own heart – did some subsequent Google Earth sleuthing and figured out that the interior filming had been done at the property across the street. I seriously think I need to start spending more time on IMDB message boards. 😉 Because I did not know of the 504 Paseo De La Playa home’s appearance in the film at the time that I was stalking the Boggs’ residence, I, unfortunately, did not get a photograph of it. But I did spot the exterior of the pad briefly pop up in the scene in which Zack talked to Laney’s dad, Wayne Boggs (Kevin Pollak), before inviting Laney to the beach.

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The 504 Paseo De La Playa house, which was originally built in 1972, boasts 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, 3,076 square feet of living space, and a 0.19-acre plot of land. Back in April, the property was put on the market as a rental (at a rate of $7,000 per month) and, thankfully, its real estate listing, complete with interior photographs, is still online. And while the listing will not allow me to link to individual photographs, if you scroll through the page of pictures you can see that many areas of the house match perfectly to what appeared onscreen. These areas include the kitchen (although the Formica countertop has since been swapped out for one made of granite);

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the brick fireplace;

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the square wall cut-out between the living room and the kitchen;

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the backyard and pool area (I believe the grass that was situated around the pool in the movie was a decoration piece that was added solely for the filming);

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and the famous staircase that Laney walked – and fell – down. If I lived in that house, I would so be recreating that moment on a daily basis. 😉 “So kiss me . . . “

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

Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! 🙂

She's All That house (3 of 9)

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The exterior of Laney’s house from She’s All That can be found at 507 Paseo De La Playa in Redondo Beach. The home used for the interior scenes is located across the street at 504 Paseo De La Playa.

Contra Dam from “GoldenEye”

James Bond Dam (3 of 26)

Sorry to have been M.I.A. the past couple of days.  My dad had surgery last Wednesday and I spent the better portion of the remainder of the week in the hospital with him.  He is having a follow-up surgery this upcoming Wednesday, as well, so this week will also probably be light on posts.  I apologize in advance.  Anyway, today, my stalking friends, IAMNOTASTALKER is going global!  And a word of warning – if you are at all afraid of heights, you are NOT going to like this locale.  When the Grim Cheaper and I were on vacation in Switzerland last month, my best friend, Robin (who planned our entire trip), took us on a little detour to the Ticino region to stalk the Contra Dam, which was featured in the iconic opening bungee jump sequence of the 1995 007 movie GoldenEye.

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The Contra Dam, which is also known as the Locarno Dam and the Verzasca Dam, was originally constructed beginning in 1960 to support the Verzasca Hydroelectric Power Station, which is pictured in the images below.

GoldenEye Dam (18 of 32)

James Bond Dam (13 of 26)

The structure was designed by Lombardi & Gellaro Ltd. and took five years to complete.  The pouring of the concrete alone (the arch-style dam is comprised of 23,000,000 cubic feet of concrete!) took a whopping 18 months to execute!

GoldenEye Dam (15 of 32)

GoldenEye Dam (12 of 32)

The dam’s stunning reservoir, which is known as Lago di Vogorno, began to load with water in August 1964 and the dam was finally completed a little over a year later, in September 1965, when the lake was filled to its maximum capacity.  Oddly enough, the initial filling of Lago di Vogorno, which boasts a surface area of 400 acres, caused several earthquakes, which was apparently a side effect of the rapid speed with which the water rose.  As a result, the reservoir had to be drained and refilled once again shortly thereafter.

James Bond Dam (2 of 26)

GoldenEye Dam (16 of 32)

Contra Dam, which is the fourth tallest dam in Switzerland, stands at 721 feet (220 meters), with its crest running a length of 1,250 feet (381 meters).

GoldenEye Dam (1 of 32)

GoldenEye Dam (3 of 32)

This shot gives me vertigo just looking at it!

GoldenEye Dam (13 of 32)

Don’t look down!

GoldenEye Dam (17 of 32)

With my Swiss family on the dam.  🙂

James Bond Dam (11 of 26)

A permanent bungee jump station is now located in the middle of the dam, where those who are so inclined can do their own 7.5-second, 721-foot jump.

James Bond Dam (7 of 26)

James Bond Dam (1 of 26)

Robin bungeed from there a few years back, loved it, and tried to convince the GC and I to do the same.  And while I was not at all keen on the idea to begin with, once I found out that jumps cost about $270 per person, I informed Robin that, for that price, I would much rather buy a pair of new shoes.  Winking smile

James Bond Dam (9 of 26)

The Contra Dam appeared only once in GoldenEye, in the opening scene in which James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is shown bungee jumping off of the dam and eventually latching onto the top of Russia’s Arkangel Chemical Weapons Facility, which is supposedly located below.

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Some amazing shots of the dam were shown in the sequence and its appearance, although brief, was pretty darn striking.

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In reality, Pierce Brosnan never set foot on the Contra Dam during filming.  The scene was instead performed by a British stuntman named Wayne Michaels, who, incredibly enough, completed the stunt in a single take in front of six well-positioned cameras.

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The jump was choreographed and coordinated by The Oxford Stunt Factory.  So that Michaels would not hit the dam wall during the stunt, a special platform was constructed above and in front of the dam.  You can see that platform in the screen captures below.

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In 2002, a Sky Movies website poll deemed the jump the best movie stunt of all time.  The feat also set the then world record for the highest bungee jump from a fixed structure.  According to a BBC news website, of the jump, Michaels said, “It’s pushing the limits of what can physically be done.  The body is travelling at such a high rate of speed that it puts a great deal of strain on you.”  Um, yeah, that’s why I’d rather have a new pair of shoes!

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Oddly enough, when Bond escapes from the facility at the end of the scene, he is in a different location entirely and the Contra Dam is no longer anywhere in sight.

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You can watch the opening scene of GoldenEye by clicking below.

The entire time we were at the dam (and for quite a few days thereafter) I was constantly singing what I thought was the James Bond theme song.  It was not until a few days after we returned home that the GC turned to me, while I was in mid-song, and said, “You do realize that you’re singing the Mission: Impossible theme, right?”  Not my proudest moment.  Winking smile

James Bond Dam (22 of 26)

James Bond Dam (26 of 26)

The Contra Dam also appeared in the first episode of Season 14 of The Amazing Race, in which one member of each team had to perform a bungee jump as a Roadblock challenge.

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After stalking the dam, we headed a few miles north to Switzerland’s Lavertezzo municipality where we visited the region’s famous Ponte dei Salti (which translates to “Bridge of Jumps”).  And while nothing has been filmed onsite (that I know of), the place is just too beautiful not to share.

GoldenEye Dam (29 of 32)

GoldenEye Dam (19 of 32)

The double-arch Romanesque-style bridge was originally constructed out of stone during the 16th or 17th century, but was destroyed by a flood in 1906.  It was eventually rebuilt in 1958.

GoldenEye Dam (27 of 32)

Ponte dei Salti spans the Verzasca River, whose waters, as you can see below, are a spectacularly vivid shade of green.

GoldenEye Dam (20 of 32)

GoldenEye Dam (24 of 32)

It almost looks fake – like the water at Disneyland.

James Bond Dam (17 of 26)

James Bond Dam (16 of 26)

The area surrounding the bridge looks like it was ripped right from a postcard.  Absolutely beautiful!

GoldenEye Dam (30 of 32)

GoldenEye Dam (22 of 32)

Be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for even more stalking fun!  And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

GoldenEye Dam (2 of 32)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Contra Dam from GoldenEye (which does not have an actual address) is located at the northern end of Via Valle Verzasca in Gordola, Switzerland.  You can learn more about bungee jumping off the dam here.  Ponte dei Salti is located just a few miles north in 6633 Lavertezzo.

Beau Burroughs’ Mansion from “Rumor Has It”

Beau Burroughs' mansion Rumor Has It (1 of 18)

Back in April, when fellow stalker Geoff, of the 90210Locations website, let me know that he had found the Fundraiser House from L.A. Story (which I blogged about here) at 3456 Via Campesina in Rancho Palos Verdes, I remembered that a few years prior I had tracked down a different Palos Verdes locale – the supposed Half Moon Bay-area mansion where Beau Burroughs (Kevin Costner) lived in the 2005 romantic comedy Rumor Has It. Because I very rarely find myself in that part of town, though, I had never actually stalked it. So I moved the dwelling to the top of my To-Stalk list and headed right on over there while in the neighborhood visiting the L.A. Story pad just a few days later. And wouldn’t you know it – there was a truck parked right in front of the place when I showed up! Boo!

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The mansion appeared once in Rumor Has It – in the scene in which Sarah Huttinger (Jennifer Aniston) woke up at Beau’s residence after spending the night with him – and, unfortunately, very little of the actual home was ever shown. The only areas of the property that appeared in the flick were the backyard –

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with its gorgeous ocean views;

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part of a back door;

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and a tiny portion of a bedroom.

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Despite the fact that I had so little to go on, though, this location was a fairly easy find. Thanks to the Rumor Has It production notes, I knew that at least one scene had been lensed in the seaside city of Palos Verdes and, because Beau’s manse was shown to be situated on a cliff overlooking the ocean, I decided to begin my search there. While watching the flick, I had noticed that the dwelling was located on some sort of a promontory that was directly across from another promontory. On that second promontory sat an immense Mediterranean-style mansion.

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So I used Google Maps to search for that house, which I found fairly quickly thanks to its size, and from there tracked down Beau’s place. As you can see below, the residence sits perched above a site named “Honeymoon Cove.” Um, love it!

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In real life, the mansion, which was originally built in 1973, boasts five bedrooms, seven baths, 6,126 square feet of living space, and a 0.59-acre plot of oceanfront land. The property last sold in October 1995 for $2.5 million.

Beau Burroughs' mansion Rumor Has It (3 of 18)

Beau Burroughs' mansion Rumor Has It (4 of 18)

Upon arriving, I was happily surprised to discover how much of the residence is actually visible from the street. I had not expected to be able to see any of it.

Beau Burroughs' mansion Rumor Has It (8 of 18)

Beau Burroughs' mansion Rumor Has It (10 of 18)

As the words on the two pillars that flank the front gate seem to indicate, the residence is named “Punta Vento”, which, according to Google Translate, means “peak wind” in Italian.

Beau Burroughs' mansion Rumor Has It (6 of 18)

Beau Burroughs' mansion Rumor Has It (7 of 18)

I was shocked to discover, thanks to the fabulous Seeing Stars website, that the same home was also used in the 1987 classic Lethal Weapon, in which it portrayed the mansion belonging to Michael Hunsaker (Tom Atkins). In the movie, a great exterior view of the property was shown.

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The backyard and pool area also appeared;

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as did a small portion of the interior of the house.

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Be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for even more stalking fun! And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Beau Burroughs' mansion Rumor Has It (5 of 18)

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Beau Burroughs’ mansion from Rumor Has It is located at 2817 Via Segovia in Palos Verdes.

Harris’ House from “L.A. Story”

Harris' House L.A. Story (14 of 14)

Another L.A. Story location that production designer Lawrence Miller talked about in “The L.A. of L.A. Story” featurette included on the 1991 comedy’s 15th Anniversary Edition DVD was the Spanish-style dwelling where wacky weatherman Harris K. Telemacher (Steve Martin) lived.  And even though the address of the home had been listed on the L.A. Story filming locations page for years, I figured the place was still worthy of a blog post.  So I ran right out to stalk it – Starbucks latte in hand, of course – while visiting Los Angeles a couple of weekends ago.

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In real life, according to Property Shark, the West Hollywood abode, which was originally constructed in 1923, is not a private residence after all, but a multi-family dwelling consisting of four separate units that contain a total of four bedrooms, four baths and 3,366 square feet of living space.

Harris' House L.A. Story (4 of 14)

Harris' House L.A. Story (8 of 14)

Unfortunately, the site currently bears little resemble to its onscreen counterpart.  In fact, when we first pulled up, I thought I had the wrong address!  Boo!

Harris' House L.A. Story (2 of 14)

Harris' House L.A. Story (9 of 14)

The two-story house was one of the main locations used in L.A. Story and popped up repeatedly throughout the movie.

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In “The L.A. of L.A. Story”, which was taped in 2006, Miller said, “The director had a concept of L.A. being a desert where people brought water to it and created paradise.  This little compound here was selected primarily because of the beautiful trees and greens and foliage that sort of embraced the driveway.  This location caused us a little bit of a problem in that the week before we were to shoot here, the neighbor next door decided he wanted to prune all of his greens, all of the trees, all of the things that we loved so much and it forced us to bring in Greensmen to try to duplicate what it was that was there.  And it’s interesting looking at it fifteen years later and seeing that it still hasn’t all grown back.”  (The screen captures below were taken from “The L.A. of L.A. Story.”)

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Sadly, since the filming of the featurette, the foliage that once covered the front of Harris’ house has also been removed, completely changing the look of the place, despite the fact that the structure of the home itself has not been altered.  Goes to show the aesthetic power of trees!

Harris' House L.A. Story (5 of 14)

Harris' House L.A. Story (7 of 14)

Miller also said that the home’s real life front door was swapped out during the filming for a custom-made leaded glass door.

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And that the alarm keypad that controlled Harris’ fake barking dog was just a prop.

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Unfortunately, that area of the house is not very visible from the street.

Harris' House L.A. Story (10 of 14)

Harris' House L.A. Story (11 of 14)

I was shocked to learn, thanks to Miller’s interview, that the real life interior of the home was also used in the filming.  I would have bet money on it being a set!  Areas of the property that appeared in the movie include the kitchen;

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the bathroom, with the “slo mo” faucet;

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the living room;

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and the bedroom, which is, oddly enough, situated right next to the front door, as you can see below.

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It was in that bedroom that Harris famously wrote “Bored Beyond Belief.” on a window.

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The exact pane that Harris wrote on is the top middle panel of the window located just north of the front door, as denoted by the pink arrows below.

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Harris' House L.A. Story (12 of 14)

According to “The L.A. of L.A. Story”, the then owner of the property was paid a whopping $35,000 for its use in the movie (and we’re talking 1991 dollars!) and filming on the premises took five weeks to complete, including prep time.  $35,000 for five weeks?  Yeah, I’d take that!  Winking smile

Harris' House L.A. Story (3 of 14)

Harris' House L.A. Story (1 of 14)

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.  And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Harris' House L.A. Story (6 of 14)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Harris’ house from L.A. Story is located at 1206 North Orange Grove Avenue in West Hollywood.