The Daisy – Where O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Met

The Former Site of The Daisy (4 of 22)

I love a good true-crime podcast.  One that recently got me hooked is Confronting: O.J. Simpson with Kim Goldman, which just finished its first season.  In it, the sister of murder victim Ronald Goldman interviews numerous key players in the so-called Trial of the Century, including jurors, prosecutors, witnesses and one of the defense team’s private investigators.  It is raw, real, heartbreaking and informative – I even learned a few new things about the case, which I didn’t think possible.  Listening also reminded me of a Simpson-related location that I stalked way back when but have yet to blog about – the former site of The Daisy in Beverly Hills.  It was at the tony members-only discotheque that O.J. first laid eyes on a young Nicole Brown, thereby setting off their turbulent 17-year relationship.  It is sobering to think that without The Daisy there would be no O.J. and Nicole, the events of June 12th, 1994 would not have occurred, and the cultural landscape of Los Angeles, nay the world, would be very different today.

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The small brick building that housed The Daisy, which has long since been razed, was initially constructed as a private residence in 1941.  Just two years later, famed restauranteur and self-proclaimed Russian prince Michael Romanoff enlisted architect Douglas Honnold to transform the dwelling into his eponymous nightclub, Romanoff’s.  The lounge (you can see what it looked like here) would go on to become one of the best-known hot spots in Hollywood history.  An entire post could be dedicated to Romanoff’s, in fact, but since this piece is about The Daisy, I’ll keep my reporting on it scant.  The eatery’s patronage read like a Who’s Who of Tinseltown, with Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Charlie Chaplin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Jack Warner all counted as regulars.  In 1951, when Romanoff’s moved a few blocks away to 140 South Rodeo Drive (that’s where Sofia Loren was famously snapped gazing disdainfully at Jayne Mansfield’s décolletage – one of history’s most iconic images), its former home became the Friars Club.  That, too, relocated in 1961 and the following year The Daisy opened in its place.  It was the first members-only disco to exist in Beverly Hills.

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The Former Site of The Daisy (7 of 22)

Established by Jack Hanson, who was best known as the founder of Jax, a wildly popular Beverly Hills clothier that outfitted the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Kennedy, and Twiggy, The Daisy was a hit from the outset.  The Hollywood elite who patronized it had to shell out an initiation fee of $250 and membership was limited to 400.  The steep price tag did not curb the club’s popularity, which was packed to the gills most nights with such luminaries as Steve McQueen, Robert Redford, Sonny and Cher, Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Mia Farrow, Natalie Wood, Paul Newman, Grace Kelly, Bobby Darin, and Peter Sellers all dining, dancing, and playing pool on the premises.  The extensive menu even had dishes named after many of its famous regulars, from Ray Bradbury to Katherine Ross.   As Hanson told the press in 1977, “Seven nights a week for nearly 10 years, this place was filled with the biggest celebrities in the world.  I was king of the town.”

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The Former Site of The Daisy (12 of 22)

The Daisy was the site of countless historic events in pop culture, not a surprise considering its elite clientele.  Aaron Spelling met future wife Candy there in 1965, while they were both on dates with other people (she was doubling with Tina Sinatra and Sammy Hess).  In the winter of that same year, Frank Sinatra had a terse exchange with writer Harlan Ellison over a pair of boots, which journalist Gay Talese famously chronicled for Esquire magazine.  And it was at The Daisy that, on August 11th, 1969, Diana Ross introduced the Jackson 5 as Motown’s newest group.  The place truly is hallowed ground when it comes to Hollywood history.

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The Former Site of The Daisy (13 of 22)

The late ‘60s brought a decline in The Daisy’s patronage, largely thanks to newer clubs like The Factory which were popping up all over L.A., and it eventually closed in 1970.  At that point, Hanson rebranded the place into a health food restaurant/cabaret (where’s Luann de Lesseps when you need her?) that went by the same floral moniker.  The eatery didn’t last long, though, and in 1976, Bryan MacLean, a founding member of the rock group Love, leased it, opening a Christian nightclub on the premises.  Though initially popular, dancing was not allowed and alcohol was not served, and it, unsurprisingly, closed within a year.  So Hanson quickly took over the reins again, reopening The Daisy at the site.  This time initiation fees were $500, but, as before, the high fee did not deter customers.  It was not long before the club was hoppin’ once more.

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The Former Site of The Daisy (17 of 22)

In 1977, Nicole Brown, then 18 and fresh out of high school, landed a job as a waitress at The Daisy.  During her very first shift, she caught the eye of O.J., then 30, married, and one of the club’s regulars.  (He, too, had a dish named after him – the “O.J. Simpson” consisted of scrambled eggs and a sliced orange.  Let that sit for a minute.)  Though Nicole had no idea who the sports star was at the time and despite the fact that he was not exactly single, the two began an affair and within months were living together.  The rest is much publicized – and very tragic – history.

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The Former Site of The Daisy (22 of 22)

Along with being a pop culture phenomenon, The Daisy is also a screen star.  It was there that Leon (Bill Duke) told Julian (Richard Gere) he had to go back to Palm Springs for a job in the 1980 drama American Giglio.

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It was also at The Daisy that Ross Conti (Steve Forrest) and Elliot (Beverly Hills, 90210’s Joe E. Tata!) discussed some illicit images in the second episode of the 1985 miniseries Hollywood Wives.

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While much has been reported about The Daisy’s early, popular years, I could not find any info whatsoever on its demise and have seen it reported that the club was closed and demolished in both the early 1980s and in 2005.  Aerial views don’t provide much clarity, either.  Whatever the year, at some point the building was razed to make way for new retail space.  Today, the former Daisy site is home to the boutiques Saint Laurent and Moncler.

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

The Former Site of The Daisy (20 of 22)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The former site of The Daisy, where Nicole Brown first met O.J. Simpson, can be found at 326 North Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.  The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Anderton Court Shops complex is located right next door at 333 North Rodeo.

Disney’s Grand Central Air Terminal

Grand Central Air Terminal (14 of 21)

I am one of the few people lamenting the upcoming opening of Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.  Though renderings certainly look cool (it is Disney, after all!), I fear the massive crowds the new 14-acre land is expected to draw are going to ruin the park.  The Happiest Place on Earth is crowded enough!  The powers that be majorly blundered on this one, IMHO.  Galaxy’s Edge should have been its own park, a la California Adventure, leaving DL a separate entity for purists like myself.  One thing The Walt Disney Company did get right recently?  The restoration of Glendale’s historic Grand Central Air Terminal.  The former airport/prolific film star, now part of Imagineering’s Grand Central Creative Campus, had been sitting boarded-up and vacant for years, as I chronicled in both a 2012 blog post and a 2015 Los Angeles magazine article.  When my friend/fellow stalker John informed me that it was finally ready for its close-up once again following a painstaking renovation, I knew I had to get back out there to document its new look.

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Though I covered the history of Grand Central Air Terminal in both my previous articles, I figured a recap was in order here.  The land where GCAT is now situated was originally part of what was to be Glendale Municipal Airport, a plan that never really, ahem, got off the ground.  In 1928, investors bought the site (which at the time basically consisted of a hangar and a 1,200-foot runway that private pilots had been using since 1923) and began a major overhaul to transform it into a modern commercial airport.

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Grand Central Air Terminal (3 of 21)

Architect Henry L. Gogerty was brought in to design the main terminal building.  His creation combined Spanish Colonial Revival, Art Deco and Zigzag Moderne styles.

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Grand Central Air Terminal (21 of 21)

The interior boasted such modern amenities as a coffee shop, a checkroom, a spacious waiting area, and, after Prohibition ended, a bar.  You can check out what the inside looked like in these historic images, though I am unsure of when exactly they were taken.

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Grand Central Air Terminal opened to the public on February 22nd, 1929 and quickly cemented itself as Los Angeles’ main airport.  Its tenure didn’t last long, though.

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Grand Central Air Terminal (4 of 21)

During WWII, the site was transformed into a military base and its runway extended to accommodate large P-38 fighters.  The move would have been crucial to GCAT’s survival, but when the war ended, the city demanded the runway be returned to its previous length, which was too short for modern jets, essentially rendering the facility obsolete.  Commercial air travel migrated to the larger Hollywood Burbank Airport and Los Angeles International Airport and GCAT was finally shuttered in 1959.  Its runway was subsequently removed, as were several ancillary buildings, but the terminal was left intact and transformed into offices.  Walt Disney Imagineering leased much of the space in 1961 before purchasing it in its entirety in 1997.  Following the acquisition, plans were announced to redevelop the former airport into a 125-acre creative campus featuring 3.6-million-square-feet of offices, production space, and soundstages.  Local citizens balked at the idea, though, and plans were stalled, leaving the once grand terminal building boarded-up and vacant.  I visited the locale in May 2012 and found it looking like this.

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In 2013, the city finally approved a new renovation plan and Disney got to work.  The revamped Grand Central Air Terminal, which consists of a visitor center, event space and offices, was completed in late 2015.  As you can see, the finished product is phenomenal!  What a difference!

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Unfortunately, the property is not open to the public, but tours are offered monthly.  You can find out more information on visiting GCAT here and you can check out some post-renovation interior photos on the Disney Tourist Blog here.

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Grand Central Air Terminal (8 of 21)

Considering its proximity to Tinseltown and its gorgeous architecture, it is no surprise that location scouts came a-knocking on Grand Central’s doors from the beginning.  The place was such an onscreen stalwart in the ‘30s and ‘40s, in fact, that for those partial to Old Hollywood, it should be deemed a must-see.

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Grand Central Air Terminal (9 of 21)

Grand Central Air Terminal pops up at the beginning of the 1933 drama Air Hostess.

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Thomas (Walter Johnson) and Shirley Blake (Shirley Temple) pick Adele Martin (Judith Allen) up there in 1934’s Bright Eyes.  (Off subject, but could Shirley Temple have been more of a doll?!?  Talk about adorable!)

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Rosero (Luis Alberni) lands at GCAT, said to be in Texas, in the 1936 comedy Hats Off.

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Ronny Bowers (Dick Powell) also lands there in 1937’s Hollywood Hotel.

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That same year, GCAT portrayed the Le Bourget Airport in Stolen Holiday.

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Thanks to fellow stalker Constant who commented on my 2012 post, I learned that the terminal also appeared in the 1939 thriller Five Came Back.

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I am unsure if the interior shown in the movie was Grand Central’s actual interior or a set, but portions of it do seem to match these images.

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GCAT very briefly masked as Transatlantic Airway’s London Terminal in 1943’s Sherlock Holmes in Washington.

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Grand Central has appeared in more recent productions, as well.  In the 1985 comedy My Science Project, it portrayed the Carson Police Department.

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That same year, in arguably its most famous role, the terminal popped up as the Texas bus station where Pee-wee Herman (Paul Reubens) ran into Simone (Diane Salinger), who was finally on her way to Paris, in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.

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GCAT also played a bus station in the Season 6 episode of Simon & Simon titled “Ancient Echoes,” which aired in 1987.

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And in 2004’s The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, the terminal served as the inspiration for Genovia International Airport, which was actually just a backdrop.  For whatever reason, the orientation of the building was flipped for the scene.  You can check out a photo that shows a matching (but non-flipped) angle of Grand Central for comparison here.

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker John for letting me know the renovation of this location was complete!  Smile

Grand Central Air Terminal (19 of 21)-2

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Disney’s Grand Central Air Terminal is located at 1310 Air Way in Glendale.  You can find out more information about tours of the property here.

Voletta Wallace’s House from “Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac & the Notorious B.I.G.”

Voletta Wallace's House from Unsolved-1010206

I have never been a fan of rap.  My musical tastes tend to run far more tepid (read: Michael Bublé, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, and ‘80s pop).  The Grim Cheaper likes to joke that my iPod song list hasn’t been updated since I first got the device back in 2001.  Regardless, when I heard about Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac & the Notorious B.I.G., the recent USA series that chronicles the respective 1996 and 1997 killings of rappers Tupac Shakur (Marcc Rose) and Christopher ‘Biggie’ Wallace (Wavyy Jonez), I was completely enticed.  Granted, anything having to do with true crime is pretty much guaranteed to pique my interest, but when I learned that the show was shot in Los Angeles and starred Josh Duhamel, I was all in!  Thankfully, it did not disappoint.  The GC and I were hooked from episode 1.  Presented via a sequence of ever-switching timelines, Unsolved is both thoroughly dynamic and a marvel of historical accuracy.  I knew little of either murder case prior to watching, but fell down a rabbit hole of research after each episode aired and was thrilled at the level of precision and veracity displayed.  I was also thrilled to recognize the supposed Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania home where Biggie’s mom, Voletta Wallace (Aisha Hinds), lived as the very same dwelling featured in the infamous opening sequence of the 1955 classic Rebel Without a Cause, which I had stalked back in 2012, but never blogged about.

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The residence only appears once on Unsolved in a particularly heart-wrenching scene at the end of the final episode in which Detective Greg Kading (Duhamel) visits Voletta at her home in the Keystone State to explain in person why police are no longer looking into her son’s case.

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As soon as Kading walked into Voletta’s yellow-hued kitchen, I immediately recognized it as the kitchen from the Rebel Without a Cause house.  As fate would have it, the pad recently hit the market as a fully-furnished rental and I had come across the listing, which mentioned its 1955 cameo, a few weeks prior and, of course, perused photos of the interior.  For whatever reason, the images of the kitchen stuck with me.  (What can I say, ingraining film locations into my memory is my super power.)  More particularly, the home’s huge hood situated above the center island stuck with me, as did the woven bamboo shades hanging in the window.  (The GC was on a kick to purchase very similar window coverings for our new house, but I found them a bit too tiki-inspired for my taste and finally convinced him to go with more neutral-colored blinds.  Thanks to our many back-and-forth debates on the subject, shades are definitely something I take notice of lately.)  Certain Voletta’s kitchen was the very same one I had seen in the MLS photos, I quickly pulled up the Rebel Without a Cause pad’s listing and was floored to see that they were, indeed, a match – right down to the wall clock, bar stools, and mounted television set!

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The exterior of Voletta’s residence has proved harder to track down.  I did discover that the imagery shown of it is actually stock footage from Shutterstock of “a slow aerial approach and flyover of a Pennsylvania farm house in the Autumn.”  The home is apparently very popular in the stock footage world as I found a second reel featuring it, this one titled “A high angle flyover of a typical snow-covered farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania in the winter.”

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In real life, the Rebel Without a Cause dwelling, which was originally built in 1912, features 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 4,398 square feet, a formal dining room, a sun room, a large veranda, multiple decks, a pool, a barbeque area, a detached gym with a steam shower, and a 0.24-acre lot.

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Voletta Wallace's House from Unsolved-1010201

According to my buddy E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle called the place home for a time in the 1920s.

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Voletta Wallace's House from Unsolved-1010207

Though the Southern Colonial-style residence is often counted among Los Angeles’ most iconic film locations due to its appearance in Rebel Without a Cause, not much of it can actually be seen in the movie.  The lower portion of the pad is just barely visible in the beginning scene in which Jim Stark (James Dean) lays down in the street while playing with a toy monkey shortly before being arrested for “plain drunkenness.”

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Voletta Wallace's House from Unsolved-1010203

The property has a couple of other cameos under its belt, as well.  In the 1959 sci-fi film Teenagers from Outer Space, it portrays the home of Alice Woodward (Sonia Torgeson).

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I am 99.9% certain that the scenes taking place in and around Alice’s pool were shot at a different location altogether.

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Not only do building permits show that no pool existed at the property until 1993, as you can see in the screen captures as compared to the MLS photos above and below, the pool that was eventually built is much smaller than the one that appeared in Teenagers from Outer Space.  It is also situated in a different position with regards to the residence than what was shown onscreen.

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The dwelling also pops up as the Kappa Omega Psi fraternity house where Michael Ryan (C. Thomas Howell) and his friends crash a party in the 1985 comedy Secret Admirer.

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The interior of the home also appeared in the movie.

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

Voletta Wallace's House from Unsolved-1010202

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Voletta Wallace’s house from Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac & the Notorious B.I.G. is located at 7529 Franklin Avenue in Hollywood Hills West.

Tal Weaver’s House from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

Tal Weaver's House from Beverly Hills 90210-1693

Oh man, have I been wanting to say this for years – Tal Weaver’s house has been found!  It is thanks to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, that I finally get to!  For those who have no earthly idea what I am talking about, Tal Weaver – and his house – appeared in the Season 2 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Leading from the Heart.”  In the episode, Tal, played by a very young and very long-haired Gabriel Macht (aka Suits’ Harvey Specter – my latest celebrity crush), throws a raving party at his sprawling Beverly Hills manse that is attended by Brenda Walsh (Shannen Doherty), her brother Brandon (Jason Priestley), and their wheelchair-bound cousin, Bobby (Gordon Currie).  Though the home’s onscreen role was brief, it was extremely memorable and I have spent the past few years trying to track it down.  I recently brought Mike in on the hunt and he managed to get in touch with Phil Buckman, aka the episode’s “Surfer Dude” – “Did you hear what that dude in the wheelchair said to me?” – who, thankfully, remembered where filming had taken place.  Come to find out not only is Tal’s house one of L.A.’s most famous, but it’s a spot I had actually stalked and blogged about previously.  As Phil informed Mike, Tal’s mansion is none other than the Cecil B. DeMille Estate located at 2000 De Mille Drive in Los Feliz.  How I never realized it is beyond me!  So, thank you, Mike and Phil!  (When Mike gave me the good news, I told him, “You’re my hero!” to which he responded, “Some heroes don’t wear capes!”  Winking smile)

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Though I covered the DeMille Estate’s history in my previous post on the pad, I figure a brief recap is in order here.  Built in 1914, the Beaux Arts-style dwelling was originally designed by architect B. Cooper Corbette for Homer Laughlin, co-developer of Los Feliz’ exclusive Laughlin Park community.  Homer did not live at the site long, selling the massive manse to DeMille in 1916 for $27,893.  Five years later, the famed director acquired the home next door – formerly occupied by Charlie Chaplin – and connected the two with an atrium-like breezeway, meshing them into one ridiculously large compound with the Chaplin portion serving as a screening room/offices/guest quarters.  Cecil remained on the premises until his passing in 1959.  His estate then held onto the property for the next three decades, reportedly changing nothing from the time DeMille called it home, even going so far as to put fresh flowers on his desk daily.  The compound was eventually sold to attorney Terry O’Toole and his wife, Evelyn, in 1988.  According to a few articles I dug up via newspapers.com (which I cannot link to as a subscription is needed to view them), the couple briefly updated the estate before selling it to a Japanese company in 1990.

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Tal Weaver's House from Beverly Hills 90210-1692

In 1996, the hilltop abode was purchased by art consultant/curator Lisa Lyons and her husband, art consultant/writer Richard Grossman.  Prolific rehabbers, the couple enlisted architect Brian Tichenor of Tichenor & Thorp to separate and restore the two properties, first the Chaplin home (which they subsequently sold to producer/writer John Wells) and then the DeMille Estate.  The renovation of the latter took a whopping six years.  You can read a great Town & Country article about the extensive restoration here.

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Tal Weaver's House from Beverly Hills 90210-1699

Grossman and Lyons put the 6-bedroom, 10-bath, 7,472-square-foot pad (which also boasts a pool, a pool house/gym, a detached studio, a rose garden, arched windows, iron balconies, molded ceilings, Doric columns, a mahogany-paneled dining room, a formal library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and a whopping 2.1 acres of land) up for sale in 2008 for $26.25 million.  There were no takers, though, so the listing was removed the following year.  It then hit the market again in early 2017 (you can check out the MLS photos here), this time selling after just a couple of months for $24.5 million to none other than Angelina Jolie.  Considering Laughlin Park’s long tenure as a celebrity enclave, the purchase was not surprising.  Besides DeMille, Chaplin and Jolie, just a few of the stars to call the community home over the years include Natalie Portman, Jenna Elfman, Portia de Rossi, W.C. Fields, Carole Lombard, David Fincher, Lauren Graham, and Ellen Pompeo.  Though the neighborhood is gated and not accessible to the public, the Grim Cheaper’s best friend’s parents are longtime residents and we’ve been fortunate to visit many times.  During one of those visits, I did some stalking of the DeMille Estate, which is where the photos in this post come from.  I am so thankful I snapped them, too, because I’m fairly certain getting any pics of the place now would be virtually impossible considering its current resident.

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In “Leading from the Heart,” which originally aired in October 1991, Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) takes a liking to Cousin Bobby, who is visiting from Minnesota, and invites him to a party at her friend Tal Weaver’s house.  As Kelly tells him, “Tal throws the best parties!”

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When Kelly, Bobby and the rest of their group arrive, though, trouble ensues as the only way to gain entrance to the soiree is via a massive set of exterior steps that leads to Tal’s front door.

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So it’s Brandon, Steve Sanders (Ian Ziering) and Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) to the rescue!  With Brenda and Kelly clearing a path, the three carry Bobby up the steps.

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Tal Weaver's House from Beverly Hills 90210-1701

As you can see in the screen captures below (as well as the many above) as compared to the photographs above, when 90210 was filmed on the premises 27 years ago, the DeMille Estate was enclosed with fencing mainly consisting of wrought iron.  Though the posts remain, the ironwork has since been replaced with a stucco wall and wooden gates, making the front steps much less visible – which is perhaps why I didn’t recognize the place as Tal Weaver’s pad.  (Yeah, I’ll just keep telling myself that. Winking smile)

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Things don’t improve much for poor Cousin Bobby upon venturing inside Tal’s residence, for which the real interior of the DeMille Estate was utilized.

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Not only does someone fall onto Bobby’s lap and accidentally spill a drink on him, but Tal asks Kelly to dance, which sends Bobby into an ugly downward spiral.  It is not long before he begs Steve, Dylan and Brandon to carry him back down the steps so that he can call a cab and leave.  While re-watching the episode, I came to the conclusion that Cousin Bobby is actually kind of a jerk.  Pretty much everyone he encounters at the party is incredibly friendly, nice, and accommodating (including Tal and the girl who spilled a drink on him), but he is curt and rude (towards Brandon and Steve, too!) and seemingly does his best not to fit in, even going so far as to read Kelly the riot act when (for the first time in the history of the show!) she has not actually done anything wrong.  (I cannot believe I’m defending Kelly here!)  By the time the credits roll, though, all is good again in Walsh-land, Kelly and Bobby have mended fences, and the gang heads out for a drive – with Brenda behind the wheel (gasp!) – before Bobby’s flight back to the Midwest.

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I would be remiss if I did not post a photo of Tal in all of his long-haired glory.  The role was actually Gabriel Macht’s first television job and, of the experience, he told BuzzFeed, “I remember Jason Priestley being on his phone a lot and dropping all these F-bombs.  I thought that was funny because he was like America’s apple pie golden boy.  I also remember having no idea what to talk about with Shannen Doherty and Jennie Garth while we were hanging around the set.”  So he did what any good theatre student would do – he created a backstory.  In the episode, it is said that Tal and Kelly once attended a Sting concert together, so Macht used that as a jumping-off point.  As he explained to BuzzFeed, “I was coming from theater school, so I was coming up with backstory about our time at the Sting concert and she looked at me like I was crazy.  It was my first TV gig and I wanted him to be this sensitive guy — but I don’t think anyone named Tal Weaver, which is the greatest name in all of television, will ever come across like the good guy.”  (No surprise that Jennie doesn’t sound all that friendly in his story.  Winking smile)

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As I mentioned in my original post on the DeMille Estate, the director is reported to have shot the Garden of Gethsemane scenes from his 1927 film The King of Kings on the grounds of the mansion, but, unfortunately, due to the passage of over ninety years time and the fact that the property and its acreage have been extensively renovated, I was unable to verify that.

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

A MONUMENTAL thank you to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and to Phil Buckman for helping him to do so!  Smile

Tal Weaver's House from Beverly Hills 90210-1705

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Cecil B. DeMille Estate, aka Tal Weaver’s house from the “Leading from the Heart” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 2000 De Mille Drive in Los Feliz.  The residence is located in the gated community of Laughlin Park and is, unfortunately, not accessible to the public.

Skylark Hotel from “Palm Swings”

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One of the best parts of starting this blog is the many connections I’ve been able to make with people who share this unique predilection of mine.  I recently had the pleasure of meeting up with mid-century-modern-house-stalker George Smart, of the USModernist website, who was in town for Palm Springs’ annual Modernism Week.  He had some ideas about a couple of future collaborations between our two sites and also invited me to appear on his podcast USModernist Radio (aka the “Car Talk” of design podcasts).  We recorded the bit at the Skylark Hotel, a fabulous mid-century lodging at 1466 North Palm Canyon Drive that George and his team had taken over for the duration of their visit.  I was unfamiliar with the locale prior to showing up for my interview and was enthralled by the property’s sleek lines, bright colors, and retro touches.  I was even more intrigued when George informed me that the place is a filming location!  As he explained, Skylark Hotel appeared in the 2017 movie Palm Swings, which I had never heard of.  I, of course, streamed it the second I got home.  Sadly, the flick was not good.  At all.  Thanks to its gorgeous architecture, though, I figured the Skylark was still worthy of a blog post.

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Surprisingly, I was not able to dig up much of the hotel’s history online or elsewhere.  In fact, there was not a single mention of the place – past or present – in any of my Palm Springs history or tourism books.

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From what I was able to glean, the property was originally established in 1955.  I believe it initially operated under its current moniker, Skylark Hotel.

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Though I haven’t been able to verify it, according to several blurbs I came across online (here and here), the site was a major celeb hot spot in its early days with such stars as Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Peter Lawford, Jayne Mansfield, and Marlon Brando all frolicking in the 9-foot-deep central swimming pool.

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Per an article in the San Bernardino Sun, by 1988 the hotel was being operated as the Palm Springs Canyon Inn.

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That same year, it was purchased by Fran and Bill Flesher, the owners of Treehouse Fun Ranch, a nudist camp in San Bernardino.  The couple renamed the site “Treehouse Too Hotel” and transformed it into a clothing-optional lodging.

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  They also added a clover-leaf-shaped spa to the grounds.

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As some point, the hotel was again transformed, this time into the clothing-optional gay resort Camp Palm Springs.  It was then that it began to fall into disrepair.

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By the time that hotelier Jesse Rhodes got his hands on the lodging in 2013, many of the original mid-century modern touches had vanished.  As he told Palm Springs Life, “Everything was covered up and painted very dark.  But when I walked into the property, I knew that under all that stuff they had covered up the original architecture would be there – and it was.”  So he set about rehabilitating the structure, which required a virtual gutting of each of the site’s 29 rooms.

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The result is nothing short of retro-fabulous, though that doesn’t come as much of a surprise being that restoring old hotels is old hat for Rhodes, who has also worked on such storied properties as New York’s Plaza Hotel and San Diego’s Hotel Del Coronado.

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Of the renovation process, he said, “I didn’t remodel the hotel, I restored it back to what it was.  There’s a book called Palm Springs Holiday and it has a photograph of the hotel from 1955 with a caption that says, ‘The long-vanished Skylark Hotel.’  Well guess what?  It didn’t vanish.  It’s reappeared exactly the way it was except for the fact that it has Egyptian cotton sheets, flat screen televisions, Wi-Fi, and dual-pane glass windows.  But if you look at that photo from 1955 and compare it to now, it looks the same.”

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One notable difference is the AstroTurf chaise lounge that now graces the hotel’s entrance.  While initially displayed at the Pepper Tree Inn (now Alcazar Palm Springs), the Blue McRight-designed piece, titled “Lawn Chair,” was relocated to the Skylark in 2013.

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Other modern amenities include Danish mahogany and walnut furnishings, custom-made pillow-top mattresses, and mountain and pool views.

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Clothing is also no longer optional, which means children are now welcome.  As Rhodes says of the resort, “Instead of it being straight-friendly or gay-friendly, we’re just friendly.”

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   Back to Palm Swings.  The racy flick (which plays much like a Lifetime Original Movie) revolves around Allison Hughes (Sugar Lyn Beard) and her husband, Mark Hughes (Jackson Davis), a young couple who have just moved to the desert.  As they quickly discern, their neighbors (and pretty much everyone else in the area) are swingers.  (Talk about a cliché.)  So the two decide to test the waters.  (When in Rome, I guess.)  Skylark Hotel shows up twice in the flick.  It first pops up very briefly in the movie’s opening montage in which Allison and Mark are shown driving their U-Haul into town.

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Skylark Hotel is later the site of the raucous annual “Palm Swings Weekend” swingers party, hosted by Ms. Cherry Bomb (Tia Carrere).  (See what I mean?  Come aawwwwnnnn!  Could the premise be any more ridiculous?)

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The Palm Swings Weekend party takes place mainly around Skylark’s pool.

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According to the Desert Sun, not only did Palm Swings utilize the hotel as a filming location, but the cast and crew stayed there during the three-week shoot, which took place in the summer of 2014.  (The fact that the movie was not released until over three years later, and then only digitally, is quite telling.)

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A rendering of the hotel also appeared on the flick’s poster.

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

Big THANK YOU to George Smart, of the USModernist website, for telling me about this location!  Smile 

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Skylark Hotel, from Palm Swings, is located at 1466 North Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs’ Uptown Design District.  You can visit the property’s official website here.

“The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” House

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet House-1200518

My knowledge of the Golden Age of Television doesn’t extend much beyond I Love Lucy, which I watched regularly with my grandma as a child.  I am so out of the loop when it comes to entertainment of that era, in fact, that up until recently coming across a blurb in my friend E.J.’s book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites, I did not realize that The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was based upon the exploits of the real life Nelson family – patriarch Ozzie, his wife, Harriet, and their two sons, David and Ricky – all of whom played semi-fictionalized versions of themselves on the ABC series, which aired from 1952 through 1966.  (The show has the distinction of being the longest-running live action comedy in TV history, though It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia will tie that record when its fourteenth season finishes airing in 2019.)  Not only that, but, as I also learned from E.J.’s book, the family’s actual Hollywood Hills West home was used in establishing shots of the clan’s residence in each week’s opening credits!  I had never before heard of such a case of art imitating life via a location like that and was immediately intrigued.  So I added the dwelling to my To-Stalk List and headed on over to see it in person shortly thereafter.

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Ozzie and Harriet purchased their picturesque 1916 Cape Cod Colonial-style pad, designed by Frank T. Kegley and H. Scott Gerity, in November 1941, shortly after relocating from New Jersey to California upon landing stints on Red Skelton’s radio show The Raleigh Cigarette Program.  The couple parlayed that gig into another radio show, this one based upon their lives, titled The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, which premiered on October 8th, 1944.  While the duo played themselves on the weekly series, child actors were hired to perform as their two young sons.  It was not until the show’s fifth season in 1949 that David and Ricky began portraying themselves.  The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet proved immensely popular with radio audiences and in February 1952, a 75-minute feature based upon it titled Here Come the Nelsons was produced to serve as a sort of test pilot for a television show.  The movie was a hit and the family’s TV series began airing in October of that same year.  The rest, as they say, is history.

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In a rather unprecedented move, Ozzie and Harriet decided to utilize their own home in the opening credits of the series’ early seasons, which you can take a look at here.  Miraculously, despite the passage of more than six decades, the pad still looks very much the same today as it did when the show originally debuted.

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Sadly though, a large fence was built around the exterior of the property at some point which largely blocks it from view.

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During my research for this post, I came across quite a few media reports (including this 2007 Los Angeles Times article) stating that a replica of the exterior of the Nelsons’ home was built by ABC for the series and that no filming of the real life residence ever actually took place.  I am 99.9% certain, though, that the Hollywood Hills West house did, indeed, appear in the early seasons’ credits and that the re-creation was built at some point after the initial seasons aired and was utilized for both the various openings from the series’ later years (one of those openings is pictured below) . . .

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. . . as well as in episodes which required the outside of the family’s house to be shown, such as Season 8’s “The Nelsons Decide to Move” (pictured below).

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The interior of the Nelsons’ home on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was, of course, just a studio-built set, but, from everything I’ve read, it was very closely modeled after the actual inside of the Hollywood Hills West house.

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Though the television series turned the entire family into icons, the Nelsons remained living in their rather approachable digs until 1975 when Ozzie passed away.  Harriet did hold on to the property through 1981, but resided mainly at a modest weekend home in Laguna Beach the couple had owned for years.  (That pad has since been torn down, unfortunately.)

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The residence’s Tinseltown connections doesn’t end there, though.  The property also served as the home of another famous small-screen family – that of Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) and his clan during the first few seasons of Entourage.

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The real life interior of the dwelling was also utilized on the popular HBO series.  (That interior has since been drastically remodeled, but more on that in a bit.  You can see what it looked like pre-remodel here and here.)

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Amazingly, the pad has yet another small-screen connection!  In 2013, it was put on the market (for a cool $3,295,000) and the listing agent was none other than The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Mauricio Umansky.  The property, which boasts 5 bedrooms (all of them en-suite), 6 baths, 5,283 square feet of living space, a 0.49-acre lot, a pool complete with a pool house, a 3-car garage, a whopping 3 fireplaces, a media room, a chef’s kitchen, and a master suite with his and her walk-in closets, was purchased by a development company that same year for $3,025,000.  The group completely renovated the place with interior designer Kishani Perera (you can see photos of what it looks like currently here and here) and sold it in October 2014 for $5,250,000 to Law & Order: SVU’s Christopher Meloni.  He still owns it today.  Talk about a house with a Hollywood pedigree!

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

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet House-1200516

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Nelson family home (both in real life and from The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet) is located at 1822 Camino Palmero Street in Hollywood Hills West.

Chasen’s Restaurant from “Enemy of the State”

Chasen's Restaurant from Enemy of the State-1070182

I grew up about as far removed from Hollywood and the world of show business as you can get.  But somehow I was familiar with Chasen’s, the West Hollywood restaurant that played stomping ground to the Tinseltown elite for close to six decades.  I’m not sure where my knowledge of the famed eatery came from, but it is likely due to the countless celebrity biographies and magazines I read as a child and/or the fact that my mom has long been something of a chili connoisseur.  For those not in the know, Chasen’s was noted as much for its legendary chili as it was for its acclaimed clientele.  Sadly, neither my mom nor I ever got to dine at the restaurant.  It was shuttered in 1995, long before we moved to Los Angeles.  A portion of its Neo-colonial façade still stands, though (it’s now part of a Bristol Farms market), and I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk it way back in May 2013.  Then I promptly forgot about it.  Flash forward to last week.  While researching Baltimore’s Hollywood Diner, I came across a mention that Enemy of the State had done some filming at the Charm City site.  As it turns out, that information was incorrect, but I was thrilled to learn while looking into the matter that the 1998 thriller had actually shot a few scenes at Chasen’s.  So I figured it was high time I blog about the place.

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Chasen’s was originally established in 1936 by New York-based Vaudeville performer Dave Chasen.  Even the restaurant’s inception is steeped in Hollywood lore.  As the story goes, Chasen came out to L.A. to act in a movie and began supplying his actor friends with his special homemade chili, just as he had done with his Vaudeville buddies back home.  Depending on which version of the tale you believe, either director Frank Capra or New Yorker magazine editor Harold Ross suggested Chasen get out of show business and start a restaurant.  He heeded the advice and on December 13th, 1936 opened the doors of Chasen’s Southern Pit.  (Supposedly, Capra had to loan Dave his silverware from home for the opening.) The tiny BBQ joint, which consisted of a scant 6 tables and an 8-seat bar, was an instant hit with the show biz set, despite only serving spare ribs and Dave’s famous chili.

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In 1942, Dave married a Sax Fifth Avenue beauty salon head named Maude Martin, whom pal Dom Amici had brought in to Chasen’s for dinner while she was in town on business.  Dave was immediately smitten.  Following the nuptials, Maude set about expanding both the restaurant’s menu and its square footage, employing renowned architect Paul Revere Williams to spruce up the interior with red leather booths and wood paneling.  Williams was hired for a few additional expansions over the years as the restaurant’s popularity continued to grow.

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For decades, Chasen’s was the place to see and be seen in Hollywood.  Just a few of the legends who regularly dined on the premises include Alfred Hitchcock, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Kirk Douglas, Cary Grant, Walt Disney, Marilyn Monroe, Carol Burnett, Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, and Jack Lemmon.  Ronald and Nancy Reagan even got engaged there (the booth where Ronnie proposed is now on display at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library).  And Elizabeth Taylor was so taken with Chasen’s chili that she reportedly had it flown to her regularly while she was on location in Rome filming Cleopatra.  You can check out some photos of Chasen’s from its heyday here.

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After Dave passed away in 1973, Maude ran the restaurant herself, greeting customers at the front door nightly.  Chasen’s remained popular under Maude’s tutelage and attracted new celebrity clientele such as John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Elton John, Sharon Stone, Madonna, and Jack Nicholson.  Aaron Spelling even hosted annual Christmas parties for the cast and crew of Beverly Hills, 90210 on the premises.  Jason Priestley dedicated a chapter of his book, Jason Priestley: A Memoir, to one of the parties and you can see a photo of the December 18th, 1991 soiree here and the 1993 shindig here.

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Sadly, Chasen’s started to see a decline in patronage during the ‘90s.  Maude eventually sold the restaurant to a developer and its doors were officially closed on April 1st, 1995.  Though there were plans to build a massive 2-story, 89,000-square-foot shopping center on the site, they never came to fruition largely due to neighborhood opposition.  While development sat in limbo for the next few years, Chasen’s remained intact and was rented out for filming and private events.  The project finally got underway in 1999 and the eatery’s interior décor, furnishings and restaurant equipment were auctioned off to the public in October of that year.  The structure was razed shortly thereafter and a 29,000-square-foot Bristol Farms grocery store, which opened in 2000, was built in its place.  Thankfully, the market’s owners decided to preserve a piece of the historic eatery.  As I mentioned above, a portion of Chasen’s Beverly Boulevard façade was left intact during the demolition, was incorporated into the Bristol Farms exterior, and still stands today.  That façade, with the restaurant’s former main entrance denoted with a pink arrow, is pictured below.

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Most amazing of all, the Bristol Farms owners also re-created a section of Chasen’s interior inside the store.  It serves as the market’s onsite restaurant.

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Called Bristol Café, the space serves soups, salads, sandwiches, and other staples.

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Oh, and Dave’s famous chili!  For those who don’t live in the area, but want to know what all the fuss is about, you can make Chasen’s iconic chili at home – recipe here.

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Though I never got to experience Chasen’s first-hand, Bristol Café was not a bad consolation prize thanks to the fact that the space boasts several of the original restaurant’s booths;

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its knotty pine paneling and light sconces;

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and doors.  For anyone who hasn’t been, I highly recommend a visit.

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In Enemy of the State, Chasen’s portrayed Pintero Social Club, the supposed Washington, D.C.-area Italian restaurant owned by mobster Paulie Pintero (Tom Sizemore)The eatery’s dining area was only shown briefly in the flick, though.

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Most of the filming took place in Chasen’s kitchen, including the massive shoot-out at the end of the flick.

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Only the interior of Chasen’s was utilized in the movie.  Exterior scenes involving Pintero Social Club were filmed at a different location.

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Enemy of the State is hardly the first production to feature Chasen’s.  Columbo (Peter Falk) dines there – and, in a tongue-in-cheek moment, gets scoffed at by a waiter for ordering chili – in the Season 3 episode of Columbo titled “Publish or Perish,” which aired in 1974.

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Simon Davenport (Henry Fonda) receives a telephone call from Harry Calder (George Segal) while he is at Chasen’s celebrating his wedding anniversary in the 1977 thriller Rollercoaster.

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Bugsy Siegel (Warren Beatty) tells his wife he wants a divorce over diner at Chasen’s in the 1991 film Bugsy.

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In the Season 3 episode of Melrose Place titled “Love Reeks,” which aired in 1994, Susan Madsen (Cheryl Pollak) has a job interview at Chasen’s.

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Dede Truitt (Christina Ricci) and Matt Mateo (Ivan Sergei) meet up with Bill Truitt (Martin Donovan) and Lucia DeLury (Lisa Kudrow) for a highly awkward dinner at Chasen’s in the 1998 comedy The Opposite of Sex.

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Even Bristol Farms is popular with location scouts.  In the Season 2 episode of Six Feet Under titled “Back to the Garden,” which aired in 2002, David Fisher (Michael C. Hall) waits for Keith Charles (Mathew St. Patrick) at Bristol Café in a very brief scene.

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And in the Season 3 episode of The Osbournes titled “Pain in the Neck,” which aired in 2004, Ozzy Osbourne shops at Bristol Farms with his assistant.

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Chasen’s also appeared in the second episode of the 1989 television series Nightingales, but, unfortunately, I could not find a copy of the episode with which to make screen captures for this post.

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

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Chasen’s restaurant, aka Pintero Social Club from Enemy of the State, was formerly located at 9039 Beverly Boulevard in West Hollywood.   The site is now home to a Bristol Farms grocery store.

The Orchid Tree Inn

The Orchid Tree Inn Palm Springs (43 of 49)

It’s no secret that there’s nothing this stalker loves more than an abandoned site.  Throw in a waterless pool and I am an even happier camper.  So a couple of months ago when I passed by an abandoned motel that appeared extremely accessible in downtown Palm Springs, I immediately pulled the car over for a closer look.  I came to find out the property was a shuttered 1930s-era hotel known as the Orchid Tree Inn and that it not only boasted three pools, but had been deserted for over a decade.  My kinda place!

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The Orchid Tree Inn is a sprawling, ramshackle property that takes up almost an entire block of land.  That was not always the case, though.  The motel, which was founded in 1934 by a man named Horace L. Cook, was originally established as a tiny 10-bungalow complex known as the Sakarah Apartments.  The site offered both short- and long-term lodging.  The original ten units still stand to this day.  One is pictured below.

The Orchid Tree Inn Palm Springs (47 of 49)

The Orchid Tree Inn Palm Springs (46 of 49)

A reader who is a distant relative of Horace recently sent me scans of the property’s original advertising pamphlet!  The booklet boasts of mountain and desert views, a roof garden, gas heating, breakfast nooks, and “tasteful, early Californian furniture.”

She also sent me the photograph below and informed me that the Sakarah was named after a favorite cat.  Couldn’t love that more!

When Horace decided to relocate to Los Angeles in 1941, he sold the property to Beverly Hills contractor Harry Irvin, who renamed it the Apache Lodge.

The Orchid Tree Inn Palm Springs (44 of 49)

The Orchid Tree Inn Palm Springs (45 of 49)

By 1948, the name had been changed yet again, this time to the Bel-Ardo Villas.  The complex was finally given its current moniker, the Orchid Tree Inn, in 1952.  A pool was also added to the property’s central courtyard at that time.  You can check out some postcard images of what the site looked like in those days here and here.  The area featured on the postcards is the same area pictured below.  As you can see, despite the hotel being abandoned for over a decade, it still looks very much the same today as it did then.

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During its heyday, the Orchid Tree Inn played host to several Old Hollywood celebrities including William Holden, Troy Donahue, Tab Hunter, Anthony Perkins, and Rosalind Russell.

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The Orchid Tree Inn Palm Springs (41 of 49)

Over the years, the owners of the inn purchased the many different properties surrounding it.  It eventually came to be made up of seven different structures and complexes, the oldest of which, a private residence, dated back to 1915.  The home, which was Craftsman in style, belonged to a Christian Science Practitioner named Genevieve Reilly for over 45 years.  Sadly, it was destroyed in a fire in 2007 and all that currently remains of it is the stone archway pictured below.

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According to a Historic Site Preservation Board report done on the Orchid Tree Inn in 2010, the archway was hand-laid.

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From what I have been able to gather, I believe that the large stone pad visible below was the bungalow’s footprint.

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The Orchid Tree Inn Palm Springs (12 of 49)

A faraway view showing the footprint, the archway, and the motel units beyond and adjacent to them is pictured below.

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At some point (I believe in the ‘90s), the Orchid Tree Inn acquired a neighboring motel known as the Desert House Inn that was originally built in 1941.

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The Desert House Inn’s dry, but intact pool . . .

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. . . hot tub . . .

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. . . and fountain practically had me drooling!

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While most of the Orchid Tree Inn’s acquisitions were Spanish in style, there was one mid-century modern building formerly located on the premises.  When the nearby Premiere Apartments, originally designed by prolific architect Albert Frey in 1957, were threatened with demolition in 1972, the entire complex was moved onto a vacant plot of land on the Orchid Tree Inn premises.  Sadly, that building was also burned in a fire in 2007 and no longer stands.  It was formerly situated in the area pictured below.

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The Orchid Tree Inn Palm Springs (34 of 49)

The Google Street View images below were taken in 2007 and show what the Premiere Apartments looked like shortly after the fire.  And you can check out some photocopied pictures of the building in its original state here.

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The pool located behind the Premiere Apartments remains intact.

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After over seven decades in business, the Orchid Tree Inn was shuttered in 2005 and has remained vacant ever since.

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The hotel’s former owners held an estate sale during which its furnishings were sold in 2010.  You can check out some photographs of the many items put up for sale here.

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The Orchid Tree Inn Palm Springs (32 of 49)

I was shocked – and delighted – at how photographically accessible the Orchid Tree Inn is.

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Virtually all of the property is visible from the street.

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Even through the chipped paint and crackling walls, it is apparent how beautiful it once was.

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On a neighboring parcel of land sits the former Community Church, which was devastated by a fire in 2013.  It has been left charred and dilapidated ever since.

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The Orchid Tree Inn Palm Springs (7 of 49)

The church was originally designed in 1935 by William Charles Tanner.

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The Orchid Tree Inn Palm Springs (8 of 49)

Developer Richard Weintraub is currently seeking the city’s approval to turn the Orchid Tree Inn and the Community Church into an 89-room luxury resort.  He plans to revive the ten historic bungalows in the process.  The property renderings looks absolutely gorgeous and, being that many portions of the original hotel will be kept intact, I hope the plans are approved and that new life is brought to the site.  In the meantime, though, I sure enjoy passing by it in its current state.

The Orchid Tree Inn Palm Springs (5 of 49)

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

The Orchid Tree Inn Palm Springs (40 of 49)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Orchid Tree Inn is located at 261 South Belardo Road in Palm Springs.  The aerial view below denotes the many different properties that were added to the hotel throughout its history and what year they were originally built.

Orchid Tree Inn Map

William Desmond Taylor’s Former House

William Desmond Taylor house (1 of 2)

Last Saturday, my mom, the Grim Cheaper and I attended a book signing for William J. Mann’s latest tome, Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood.  My mom had heard about the event on our favorite desert radio show, The Bill Feingold Show Featuring Kevin Holmes, and thought I would be interested in the book as it is about the 1922 murder of silent film director William Desmond Taylor, which remains unsolved.  Ironically enough, I had just stalked Taylor’s former home two weeks beforehand, though at the time I knew little about his killing and the ensuing scandal.  The signing, which featured a talk by Mann (that’s him in the rather blurry pic above), turned out to be intriguing and I cannot wait to delve into Tinseltown – and hopefully discover some new stalking locations along the way.

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William Desmond Taylor was born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner in County Carlow, Ireland on April 26th, 1872.  He began acting in school productions as a youngster and then, in 1890, headed to America, first to Kansas and then to the Big Apple, with dreams of becoming an actor.  His marriage to Ethel May Hamilton, the child of a wealthy broker, in 1901, and the birth of their daughter two years later put his acting plans on hold.  Things appeared to be going well for the family, though.  William opened up an antiques store and he and Ethel became well-known members of New York society.  Then, on October 23rd, 1908, Taylor disappeared.  While his wife surmised that he might have gotten lost during a bout of amnesia, the truth was that William had simply abandoned his family.  Upon leaving New York, he traveled with an acting troupe around Canada and parts of the U.S and decided to try his hand at directing.  He arrived in Hollywood in late 1912, armed with a new passion and a new name, William Desmond Taylor.  He directed his first movie in 1914 and became wildly successful after that, going on to direct over 60 films.

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In 1922, William was living at the Alvarado Court Apartments in Westlake.  The upscale complex was comprised of eight, two-unit Spanish-style bungalows situated in a U-shape around a central garden.  A 1948 view of Alvarado Court is pictured below.

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William’s bungalow is denoted with the orange arrow below.  He lived in the eastern side of the structure, in Apartment B.

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Sadly, the Alvarado Court Apartments were bulldozed in the 1950s.  Today, the site where they once stood is a parking lot for a Ross Dress for Less store.

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William Desmond Taylor house (10 of 10)

Taylor’s apartment was located in what is now the northeastern portion of the parking lot  . . .

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. . . in the area pictured below.

William Desmond Taylor house (2 of 10)

William Desmond Taylor house (3 of 10)

On the morning of February 2nd, 1922, William’s butler, Henry Peavey, arrived at the bungalow and discovered his boss laying dead on the living room floor.  Police were called, but before they appeared, Charles Eyton, the General Manager of Paramount Pictures, entered the home, went into Taylor’s bedroom and removed several letters and documents.  The papers were never to be seen again and what was contained within them is anyone’s guess.  William’s death had occurred during the midst of the Fatty Arbuckle rape trial, the fallout from which had hit Hollywood hard financially.  It was a perilous time for the industry and the last thing studio executives wanted was another scandal, so they had come to “clean up.”

William Desmond Taylor house (4 of 10)

William Desmond Taylor house (5 of 10)

The first doctor to arrive on the scene surmised that Taylor had died of natural causes.  It was not until the body was later turned over by the coroner that a bullet hole was discovered.  It is believed that Desmond was killed at around 8 p.m. the evening prior.  He suffered a single gunshot to the back.  Though suspects were plentiful, his death remains unsolved to this day.  One commonly-held theory is that William was killed by Charlotte Shelby, the mother/manager of actress Mary Miles Minter, with whom the director was romantically involved.  Williams was almost thirty years older than the 20-year-old ingénue and if rumors of the illicit affair were to get out, it would have derailed Minter’s career.  Being that Mary was Shelby’s very-valuable meal ticket, the momager was against the romance from the start.  Some believe she killed William to put an end to it once and for all.  (As it turns out, Shelby had been correct in her fears.  Word of the affair quickly got out after Taylor’s murder and Mary’s career did not recover from the fallout.)  While we may never know for sure who killed Taylor, William J. Mann claims to have solved the case during his research for Tinseltown and I am chomping at the bit to read his theory.

William Desmond Taylor house (6 of 10)

William Desmond Taylor house (7 of 10)

On a side-note – I also had the pleasure of meeting legendary Hollywood photographer Michael Childers at the Tinseltown signing.  He and William J. Mann are close friends and when Mann mentioned his name, I recognized it immediately and raced over to get a picture as soon as the reading was over.

William Desmond Taylor house (2 of 2)

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William Desmond Taylor house (1 of 10)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: William Desmond Taylor’s former home was located at 404-B South Alvarado Street, in the Alvarado Court Apartments, in Westlake.  Today, the site is a parking lot for a Ross Dress for Less store.