Marilyn Monroe’s Former Burbank Apartment Building

Marilyn Monroe Burbank apartment (6 of 10)

Shortly before I headed to Los Angeles for my weeklong birthday celebration with out-of-town friends Kim, Lavonna, Katie and Kaylee (that’s Katie and Kaylee in the above pic), I came across a Curbed post that mapped 43 properties where my girl Marilyn Monroe once lived.  The blurb practically had me foaming at the mouth, obvs.  I immediately sent the link to Lavonna and she added several of the addresses to her To-Stalk list, one of which was an apartment building located directly across the street from Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank.  Since the girls had already scheduled a WB VIP Tour for the trip, this particular locale was quite convenient and we included a stalk of it on that day’s itinerary.

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Prior to reading the Curbed post, I had no idea that Marilyn had ever called Burbank home.  According to the article, she lived in an apartment building at 131 South Avon Street for a very brief period during the summer of 1947 in what seemed to be some sort of house-sitting arrangement.

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Marilyn Monroe Burbank apartment (1 of 10)

Per Realtor.com (and several other websites), the 13,283-square-foot structure (which I believe is comprised of 13 units) was originally built in 1835 – 179 years ago.  Yeah, that seems a bit ridiculous to me, too.  My guess is that the 1835 date is a typo (that somehow got picked up by numerous sources) and that the building was actually constructed in 1935.

Marilyn Monroe Burbank apartment (3 of 10)

Marilyn Monroe Burbank apartment (2 of 10)

  Realtor.com also notes that the property was renovated in 1995.  As you can see below, it definitely seems to have received a facelift at some point because the façade looks rather modern, especially the front doors and windows.

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Because the building does look so new, I had originally wondered if Marilyn’s former domicile had been torn down at some point and a different edifice built in its place.  That does not appear to have been the case, though.  Pictured below is a 1972 aerial view of the property, as well as a current one.  As you can see, the structure of the building seems to be the same in both images.  Which means that Marilyn’s former home is actually still standing!  How incredibly cool is that?

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A peek inside the front doors – courtesy of Lavonna.  Someone needs to tell the person in 102 that it’s time for the Christmas bow to come down.  Winking smile

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Marilyn’s former Burbank home is located two doors north of the “fake Fendi” building from Sex and the City, so we also did a little stalking of that locale.  And while we didn’t have any Fendi on us at the time, we were packing some Louis Vuitton (none of it fake, mmmkay!), so we just had to pose for a picture with it.  Winking smile

Marilyn Monroe Burbank apartment (2 of 2)

Marilyn Monroe Burbank apartment (1 of 2)

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

Marilyn Monroe Burbank apartment (8 of 10)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Marilyn Monroe’s former apartment building is located at 131 South Avon Street in BurbankThe fake Fendi building from Sex and the City is located two doors south at 141 South Avon Street.

Parisian Florist – The Flower Shop Joe DiMaggio Used to Send Roses to Marilyn Monroe’s Gravesite for 20 Years

Parisian Florist Marilyn Monroe (2 of 8)

As a child, I remember often hearing about the weekly delivery of roses that Joe DiMaggio sent to the grave of his former wife, Miss Marilyn Monroe, for two full decades.  This was long before my obsession with the blonde bombshell had taken hold, but the gesture stuck with me as an extraordinary act of love, the ultimate valentine, if you will – especially considering that The Yankee Clipper was married to the starlet for less than a year.  So when I recently came across the address of the florist that supplied those roses in the book Marilyn Monroe Dyed Here, I figured there was no better time to blog about the place than today, and ran right out to stalk it.

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Parisian Florist has been standing at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and North Sierra Bonita Avenue since it first opened in 1924 (yep, ninety years ago!).  Brothers Louis and Max Alhanati purchased the business in 1960, becoming its third owners.  It is still run by the Alhanati family to this day.  Thanks to its location and plethora of luscious blooms, the shop became popular with the Hollywood set from the outset.  Just a few of the luminaries who regularly ordered from Parisian Florist include Jackie Gleason, Clifton Webb, Raymond Burr, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, Robert Mitchum, Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Janet Gaynor, Rock Hudson, Charles Laughton, and Telly Savalas.  The site was also a favorite of Marilyn’s.  So, on August 7th, 1962, Joe contacted Parisian Florist and asked Louis to design a casket blanket for the starlet’s funeral.  He also ordered several floral wreaths, hearts, and crosses to be placed at her crypt.  Louis’ designs were the only arrangements Joe allowed at the ceremony.

Parisian Florist Marilyn Monroe (4 of 8)

Shortly following the funeral, Joe again contacted Louis and asked that six roses be delivered to Marilyn’s final resting place thrice weekly.  His original order stated, “Six fresh long-stemmed red roses, three times a week . . . forever.”  For the next twenty years, a half dozen French Baccara blooms were placed each Monday, Wednesday and Friday at Marilyn’s crypt at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park, for which Joe was billed annually.  (Amazingly, Louis never once raised the price on him.)  According to this Ellensburg Daily Record article, for unknown reasons DiMaggio requested that the deliveries be reduced to twice weekly in early 1962 (every Tuesday and Saturday).  Shortly thereafter, he cancelled the order altogether.  Per this Lakeland Ledger article, the last six flowers were sent to Marilyn’s grave on August 31st, 1982.  Of the halt, Louis said, “I really don’t know why it was 20 years. He gave me no reason.”  More than 18,000 roses were delivered in all over the twenty-year period.  As I said, it was the ultimate valentine.

Parisian Florist Marilyn Monroe (3 of 8)

Blonde that I am, when I walked into Parisian Florist I asked the woman working if I was indeed at the shop that had supplied Marilyn’s gravesite roses.  She smiled and pointed upwards.  While I typically consider myself to be an observant person, I must have been wearing a bag over my head that particular day because I somehow missed the huge display above the main desk commemorating DiMaggio’s weekly deliveries.

Parisian Florist Marilyn Monroe (7 of 8)

The people at Parisian Florist could NOT have been nicer and the woman I spoke with (whom I believe is Alhanati’s daughter) even brought out a baseball that Joe had signed for Louis.  I literally just about passed out upon seeing it!  The autograph reads, “To Louis, the Flower Man.  Best Wishes, Joe DiMaggio.”

Parisian Florist Marilyn Monroe (8 of 8)

Parisian Florist had the most gorgeous hydrangeas on display when I was there (I am a sucker for hydrangeas and peonies).  Sadly, because I was going to be out and about for several hours that day, I was not able to purchase any.  If we still lived in the L.A. area, though, I sure know where my Valentine’s Day flowers would be coming from.  Winking smile

Parisian Florist Marilyn Monroe (5 of 8)

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

Parisian Florist Marilyn Monroe (1 of 8)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Parisian Florist, where Joe DiMaggio ordered weekly flowers for Marilyn Monroe’s gravesite for twenty years, is located at 7528 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.   You can visit the florist’s official website here.

Clark Gable’s Former House

Clark Gable's House (2 of 6)

Speaking of Clark Gable . . . another location that I stalked recently was the Encino-area ranch where the “King of Hollywood” lived for over two decades.  I first read about this locale, as I did yesterday’s (the Playa del Rey house where Judy Lewis, Gable and Loretta Young’s secret love child, was born), in fellow stalker E.J.’s book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites.  So, while doing some solo San Fernando Valley stalking a few days before my and the Grim Cheaper’s big move to the desert, I figured I might as well stop by the residence to check it out.

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Clark Gable’s ranch was originally built in 1933 for director and founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Raoul Walsh.  Gable and his then girlfriend, soon-to-be wife, Carole Lombard visited Walsh at his 20-acre property, which featured a nine-bedroom main house, a detached garage, citrus groves, alfalfa fields, a barn, a pigsty, a henhouse, and horse stables, and absolutely fell in love with it.  When they heard that he was planning on selling the site, they jumped at the chance to purchase it, which they did in 1939, shortly after their nuptials, for a cool $50,000.  According to E.J., at the time, the home’s entrance was located on Petit Drive (as you can see in this 1940 census, the original address was 4525 Petit Drive; it is now 4543 Tara Drive) and the property was surrounded by acres upon acres of orchards and fields.  Tabloids quickly labeled the two-story clapboard residence “The House of Two Gables”.

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Lombard tragically passed away in a plane crash just two years later, on January 16th, 1942, and it is said that Gable never recovered from his grief.  Shortly after her death, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and was sent to Europe to fight in World War II.  Upon his return to America in 1944, he thought about selling the ranch, but ultimately decided to keep it and wound up living there with his fourth and fifth wives, Lady Sylvia Ashley and Kay Williams Spreckles, respectively.

Clark Gable's House (5 of 6)

Sadly, on November 5th, 1960, while changing a tractor tire in the ranch’s driveway, Gable suffered a heart attack.  The following morning, he was taken to Hollywood Presbyterian hospital, where he passed away ten days later, on November 16th, 1960.  Despite being married to Kay at the time, the actor was interred next to Carole Lombard at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.  Spreckles and John Clark Gable (Kay and Clark’s son and Clark’s only legitimate child, who was born four months after the actor’s death) continued to live at the ranch until 1973, at which point it was sold to developers.  Financier Michael Milken later bought the place in October 1977 for $587,500 and it appears that he still owns it to this day.  According to Zillow, the dwelling currently boasts seven bedrooms, nine baths, 7,093 square feet of living space, and a 1.17-acre lot.

Clark Gable's House (1 of 6)

As you can see below, the home’s wooden exterior archway . . .

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Clark Gable's House (6 of 6)

. . . and crookedly-placed white picket fence still look exactly the same today as they did when Gable lived there.  Sadly though, little else of the place is visible from the street.  And while the house still stands in much the same form as it did during Gable’s time, the twenty acres that once surrounded it were subdivided during the 1980s and transformed into a housing tract named the Clark Gable Estates.  The streets in the neighborhood, Tara Drive and Ashley Oaks, were named in honor of Gable’s most famous movie, Gone with the Wind, which I think is so incredibly cool. I wonder if someday a community will be named after my man Matt Lanter.  One of the streets could even be dubbed “Liam Court”!  Winking smile

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Clark Gable's House (3 of 6)

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.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, for finding this location!  Smile

Clark Gable's House (4 of 6)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Clark Gable’s former house is located at 4543 Tara Drive in Encino.

The House Where Judy Lewis, Loretta Young and Clark Gable’s Daughter, Was Born

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Today’s locale is easily one of the coolest I have visited in my 13-plus years of living in Southern California, which is ironic being that it is comprised of mostly vacant land.  I am talking about the one-time location of the house where Judy Lewis, the secret love child of screen siren Loretta Young and movie legend Clark Gable, was born.  I learned about the spot in fellow stalker E.J.’s book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites and, although I knew next to nothing about Loretta Young at the time, was immediately intrigued.  So I added the address to my To-Stalk list and began doing some preliminary cyber-stalking to see what the residence looked like now.  When I went to Google Street View, though, it only showed miles upon miles of what looked like vacant swampland.  I emailed to E.J. to ask if he knew what had happened to the area and he replied with a link to this CurbedLA article about the so-called Ghost Streets of Playa del Rey.  Well, believe you me, although I was sad that Judy Lewis’ birth house was no longer, hearing that Los Angeles had its own ghost town had me salivating and I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there just a few days later.

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As the story goes, Loretta Young and Clark Gable met on the set of the 1935 film Call of the Wild.  She was 22 and single, he was 35 and married to his second wife, Ria Langham.  The two quickly began an affair that had Hollywood tongues wagging and it was not long before Loretta was pregnant.  In order to hide the pregnancy, which she thought would destroy both her and Clark’s careers, the young star took off to Europe for an extended vacation with her mother, Gladys Royal.  The rumors did not stop, though, and reporters followed Loretta and Gladys’ every move.  Mother and daughter wound up secretly returning to L.A. and Loretta immediately went into hiding at a rental property that she and Gladys owned at 8612 Rindge Avenue in Playa del Rey.  At 8:15 a.m. on November 6, 1935, Judy Lewis was born.  Loretta returned to her mansion in Bel Air shortly thereafter and Judy was left at the Rindge Avenue house in the care of a nurse.  She remained there until July 1936, at which time she was sent to St. Elizabeth’s Infant Hospital in San Francisco.  Loretta “adopted” Judy about five months later.  Rumors, of course, circulated around the adoption and as Judy grew up and came to resemble her famous father more and more, those rumors only caught fire.  As you can see below, there is absolutely NO denying that Judy Lewis was Clark Gable’s daughter.  It was not until Judy confronted Loretta at the age of 31 (at Loretta’s home in Palm Springs, which I am now going to have to stalk!), though, that the star admitted she was Judy’s biological mother and that Gable was her biological father.  Such an incredibly sad story.

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And while Judy states in her book that she was born at “8612 Rindge Street” in Venice, I have been able to surmise (with about 99.9% certainty) that, because there is no Rindge Street in Venice, Judy’s former house was actually located at 8612 Rindge Avenue in Playa del Rey, a neighborhood about two miles south of Venice.  I believe that Judy’s former residence is the one denoted with a pink arrow in the historic aerial view, circa 1952, below.

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Judy’s former house was located in Surfridge, an affluent seaside community that was founded in the 1920s by Minneapolis-born real estate developer Fritz Burns.  The neighborhood, which was situated overlooking the Pacific Ocean, immediately attracted celebrities including Cecil B. DeMille and Carmen Miranda, who had custom homes built there.  In 1928, a tiny airfield that was mostly used to host air shows was constructed on a plot of land neighboring and just east of Surfridge.  That airfield eventually became Los Angeles International Airport, what is now the sixth busiest airport in the world.  You can see LAX in the background of the photographs below.  It is almost shocking how close it is to the former Surfridge neighborhood.

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As LAX began to expand in the 1960s, Los Angeles World Airports started to purchase -  and subsequently tear down – houses in the Surfridge community.

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More than eight hundred residences wound up being razed, but, for whatever reason, roads, sidewalks, retaining walls, and street lights were left intact creating a spooky, almost surreal neighborhood of cracked streets that wind through empty lots.  Today, the area encompasses between 302 and 470 (depending on which newspaper article you are reading) fenced-in, vacant acres.

Judy Lewis birth house (13 of 28)

Judy Lewis birth house (14 of 28)

And while Los Angeles World Airports considered developing the site by building an 18-hole golf course, a sand dune preserve and a viewing station to watch planes take off and land, those plans wound up being thwarted for a variety of reasons.  All that exists on the property now is a 200-acre butterfly preserve where the once-endangered El Segundo blue butterfly now flourishes.  According to a recent Los Angeles Times article, a portion of the site is set to be restored in the near future, though, whereupon several ghost roads and ancient foundations will be removed and native plants brought in to return the area to its pre-developed state.

Judy Lewis birth house (2 of 28)

Judy Lewis birth house (9 of 28)

In the meantime, it’s a great place to watch planes take off and land, not to mention an intriguing stalking location.

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You can check out some great photographs of the Surfridge neighborhood before it was razed here and here.

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The abandoned Surfridge community is even a filming location.  The site was featured in the music video for the Azure Ray song “New Resolution”.

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You can watch that video by clicking below.

Thanks to fellow stalker Jeff, I learned that the Surfridge neighborhood was also featured in the climax of the 2011 thriller In Time, although a little CGI trickery was employed to change the background of the scene.  You can read about the exact areas of Surfridge that appeared in the movie on the Seeing Stars website here.

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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.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, for telling me about this location!  Smile

Judy Lewis birth house (6 of 28)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The house where Judy Lewis, Loretta Young and Clark Gable’s daughter, was born was formerly located at 8612 Rindge Avenue in Playa del Rey.

The Glendale Amtrak Station from “Bulletproof”

Glendale Amtrak Station (13 of 20)

I don’t know about y’all, but this stalker is so darn excited for Halloween that I am practically bursting at the seams!  I have already decorated my apartment with all things orange and black (much to the Grim Cheaper’s chagrin) and can hardly wait for Monday when I can begin my Haunted Hollywood postings.  Only three more days to go!  Yay!  Smile  Anyway, while going through some stalking photographs from earlier this year, I came across pictures of the Glendale Amtrak Station that the GC had taken way back in May and I decided that it was about time I do a blog post on the place.  So here goes.

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The Glendale Amtrak Station was originally constructed in 1924 on the site of the former 1883 Atwater Track Office.  The Mission Revival-style structure was commissioned by the Southern Pacific Railroad line and was designed by architect Kenneth MacDonald Jr. (who also designed Villa de Leon in Pacific Palisades and the Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation in North Hollywood) and structural engineer/architect Maurice Couchot (who also designed The Bellevue Club in Oakland and the 1917 warehouse that later became the Gift Center in San Francisco).  The site was originally named the Glendale Southern Pacific Railroad Depot and then was later known as the Tropico Station.

Glendale Amtrak Station (14 of 20)

Glendale Amtrak Station (18 of 20)

In 1989, Southern Pacific sold the depot to the city of Glendale for $3.5 million, at which time the name was changed to the Glendale Amtrak Station (or the Glendale Amtrak/Metrolink Station or the Glendale Transportation Center, as the site is also sometimes called).  A $6 million renovation and extension project was begun shortly thereafter, during which the building was restored to its original 1923 grandeur.  As you can see below, the result is nothing short of spectacular!  The dazzling exterior of the Glendale Amtrak Station, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, features elaborately sculpted terra cotta;

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a faux second story;

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ornamental wrought-iron detailing;

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and ornately carved wooden doors.

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The small, one-room interior boasts a terra-cotta tiled floor,

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intricately painted exposed wooden beams;

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checkered tile baseboards;

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and old-school wooden benches.  (I love the arty photograph that the GC took below.  I think it’s a framer!  Smile)

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The second I walked inside the historic depot, I was instantly taken back to the famous train station scene from the Season 4 episode of Family Ties titled “The Real Thing: Part 2”, during which Alex P. Keaton (Michael J. Fox) finally professed his love to Ellen Reed (Tracy Pollan).  While the train station featured in that scene was just a set, it was very reminiscent (to me, at least) of the Glendale Amtrak Station.  When I mentioned this to the GC, he said, “I don’t remember a train station scene from Family Ties.”  I swear, how did the two of us end up married???

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You can watch the Family Ties train station scene by clicking below.  “Now, what did you think I would say at this moment . . . ”  Sigh!  Has to be one of the best scenes in television history.  Smile

“Family Ties” Train Station Scene

In 1996’s Bulletproof, the Glendale Amtrak Station stood in for the supposed Pasadena bus station where Keats (Damon Wayans) and Moses (Adam Sandler) met up with special agents Gentry (Xander Berkeley) and Cole (Sal Landi).

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Glendale Amtrak Station (15 of 20)

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Glendale Amtrak Station (4 of 20)

Bulletproof was hardly the first production to film on the premises, though.  In 1931’s Big Business Girl, the station was where Johnny Saunders (Frank Albertson) bid adieu to his lady love, Claire ‘Mac’ McIntyre (Loretta Young).  Although, not much of the station is visible in the scene.

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The Glendale Amtrak Station also stood in for the depot where Kay Curtis (Glenda Farrell) and June Dale (Mary Brian) missed their train in 1933’s Girl Missing.  Not much of the station can be seen in that movie, either, though.

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The only recognizable detail from the station that is visible in the movie is the ornate light fixture pictured below.

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Glendale Amtrak Station (6 of 20)

Thanks to the stalking tome Location Filming in Los Angeles by Harry Medved, Marc Wanamaker and Karie Bible, I learned that 1927’s Horse Shoes, 1931’s One More Chance and 1934’s Here Comes the Groom were also shot at the Glendale Amtrak Station, but, unfortunately, I could not find copies of any of the productions with which to make screen captures for this post.  The Glendale Amtrak Station was also featured in 1927’s College and 1948’s Act of Violence, which you can see screen captures of on the Silent Locations blog here.  And True Blood apparently did some filming on the premises a couple of weeks ago, as well.  The station also had a brush with history when, on September 20th, 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev stopped there for about six minutes.   You can see a photograph of his visit here.

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Glendale Amtrak Station (16 of 20)

And while IMDB states that 1966’s The Trouble with Angels was filmed at the Glendale Amtrak Station, when I scanned through the movie yesterday, I found that the two depots did not match.  Upon digging further, I came across this article which stated that the station used in the opening and closing scenes of the flick was actually the Monrovia Santa Fe train station located at 101 West Duarte Road.  Sure enough, as you can see in this historic photograph, the two depots are indeed one and the same.

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And while countless websites state that the Glendale Amtrak Station was where Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) dropped off Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) in the thriller Double Indemnity, that information is actually incorrect.  In reality, the station used in the 1944 flick was the old Burbank Southern Pacific Station, which once stood at 201 North Front Street, but was sadly partially burned down in 1991 and then completely demolished a few years later.  The Burbank Metrolink Station was subsequently built on that site.  You can check out some historic photographs of the former Burbank Southern Pacific Station here and here.  As you can see, there is no denying that it matches the station that appeared in Double Indemnity (pictured below) perfectly.

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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.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Glendale Amtrak Station, from Bulletproof, is located at 400 West Cerritos Avenue in Glendale.

The Former Site of the Roxbury

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In honor of my girl Shannen Doherty’s new reality series, Shannen Says, which premieres next Tuesday (can’t wait!), I thought I would blog today about one of the actress’ famed hangouts from her Beverly Hills, 90210 days – the Roxbury in West Hollywood.  Back when I was a teenager and knee-deep in my 90210 obsession (ah, who am I kidding, I am still knee-deep in it!), I clamored for any and all magazines featuring the show’s stars.  I would practically drool while reading of their various comings and goings, especially Shannen’s, and as her name became more and more synonymous with the Roxbury, the legendary Sunset Strip club became seared into my memory.  I, sadly, never had the opportunity to stalk the place, though, as it closed its doors in 1997, long before I moved to Los Angeles.  But back in 2002, after an acting class, one of my friends invited me to grab some drinks at a hot spot named Miyagi’s.  Not being a nightclub kinda girl myself, I turned down the offer, to which my friend said, “Are you sure?  Miyagi’s used to be the Roxbury, where your girl Shannen Doherty hung out.”  Well, believe you me, once I heard those words, I was in!  In true Hollywood fashion, not even Miyagi’s stood the test of time, though, and, as you can see above, today the location houses a newly-opened Pink Taco.  But I figured since the site was hallowed ground for any 90210 fan, it was definitely blog-worthy.

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The building that stands at the corner of Roxbury Road and West Sunset Boulevard has long been the darling of the Sunset Strip.  The spot’s first incarnation was a celebrity supper club named The Players, or The Players Club, that was founded in 1940 by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Preston Sturges.  During its Players days, such luminaries as Humphrey Bogart, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Rudy Vallee, William Faulkner, George S. Kaufman, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles and Howard Hughes all hung out there.  Despite its popularity, the club started to falter by the early 1950s, though, most likely due to the fact that Preston often closed the three-story, 12,000-square-foot venue, which included a barber shop, a hydraulic stage, a burger stand, and three different restaurants, in order to host private parties for his famous friends.  In 1953, his creditors sold the place to new owners who opened a Japanese restaurant named Imperial Gardens on the site.  That eatery also proved to be quite popular with the Hollywood set and catered to such stars as John Savage, James Woods, John Travolta, and Olivia Newton-John.

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In 1989, after an amazing 36-year run, Imperial Gardens closed and partners Brad Johnson and Elie Samaha purchased the establishment and transformed it into the Roxbury. Virtually overnight, the club became the place to see and be seen in Hollywood.  The stars of 90210 flocked there like moths to a flame and were spotted partying on the premises virtually every night.  Oh, what I wouldn’t have given to have been 21 and living in Hollywood at that time.  Winking smile Besides Tori Spelling, Brian Austin Green, Shannen Doherty and Mark Wahlberg (pictured at the club in a November 1992 People Magazine article), other celebrities that spent time at the Roxbury during its almost decade-long reign on the Sunset Strip include Cher, John Travolta, Madonna, Tom Cruise, Prince, Sylvester Stallone, River Phoenix, Christina Applegate, Eddie Murphy, and, of all people, Geraldo Rivera.  The club was so popular that it even inspired the movie A Night at the Roxbury, although no actual filming took place on site.  And Eric Huerta, the Roxbury’s longtime bouncer, became so well-known himself that a Los Angeles Times article was written about him in November of 1993.  As usually happens with hotspots in Los Angeles, though, the Roxbury’s star began to fade and eventually closed in 1997.  Shortly thereafter, Miyagi’s, a Japanese-inspired club/restaurant, opened in its place.  I do not remember much of what Miyagi’s was like from my one visit there back in 2002, aside from the fact that the place was huge, the food was good, and, as I danced, all I could think about was that Shannen Doherty herself had one danced in the very same spot.  I was practically pinching myself all night.

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Miyagi’s closed its doors sometime in 2008 and was purchased by Harry Morton, owner of the Pink Taco restaurant chain and son of Hard Rock Café founder Peter Morton.  The young restaurateur immediately set about gutting the interior of the place and wound up discovering some traces of the historic Players Club in the process – including the entrance to a former underground (now sealed) tunnel that once connected the hotspot to the Chateau Marmont and was used by celebrities who wanted to escape prying eyes.  And while Pink Taco did not officially open until yesterday, a private birthday bash was held there on March 23rd in honor of Jared Eng, the blogger behind the JustJared website.  Some of the stars who attended that soiree include Fergie, Rumer Willis, Kellan Lutz, Lance Bass, Natasha Bedingfield, Seth MacFarlane, Avril Lavigne, and a few of this generation’s 90210-ers including Shenae Grimes, Jessica Stroup, and my love Matt Lanter (sigh!).

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Thankfully, the exterior of the Sunset Boulevard hotspot hasn’t changed much over the years and despite the fact that it is now painted a bright pink (and yes, that is a whole lotta pink!), it still looks much the same as it did in the 1940s.  You can see what The Players used to look like here, Imperial Gardens here, the Roxbury here, and Miyagi’s here.  And you can check out some interior pictures of the new Pink Taco on fave website EaterLA here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Pink Taco, aka the former site of the Roxbury, is located at 8225 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.  You can visit the restaurant chain’s official website here.

Bugsy Siegel’s Former Resort – Club Arrowhead of the Pines

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Another place that I stalked while visiting Lake Arrowhead this past Thanksgiving was the Bracken Fern Manor country inn, which in the 1930’s was part of a private gambling club/resort named Club Arrowhead of the Pines that was run by none other than legendary mobster Bugsy Siegel.  Because the Grim Cheaper is obsessed with all things mob-related, I knew that this was one location that he would actually be interested in stalking.   Smile  Bugsy came up with the idea of opening his exclusive members-only resort in the late 1920’s, after realizing that Lake Arrowhead was quickly becoming the new playground of the Hollywood elite.  The property, which cost a whopping $1.3 million to construct, opened on July 4, 1929.  At the time, the resort was comprised of three individual buildings consisting of a private gambling club, a brothel, a speakeasy, luxury guest quarters, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts, a barbershop, a private gas station, a ski lift, horse stables, and a highly-coveted supply of artesian well water – which was used in the making of moonshine.  Most important of all though, the resort provided its guests with privacy.  In fact, Bugsy had chosen the out-of-the-way, wooded locale due to its extreme seclusion and remoteness.

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The building that now houses Bracken Fern Manor was known as “The Market” during the time that Bugsy operated the property.  The Market was made up of a soda fountain and a butcher shop on its bottom floor, an icehouse in its basement area, and the top floor housed the now-infamous brothel, aka “The Crib”, where Bugsy employed a crew of wannabe starlets to “entertain” his gentlemen guests.

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The resort’s former Clubhouse, which housed the property’s private gambling club and speakeasy, is now known as the Tudor House and is currently vacant.  The building is located directly across the street from Bracken Fern Manor and still looks very much the same today as it did back in the 1920s.  You can see an old photograph of the Tudor House here.  At the time that Bugsy managed the property there was a secret underground tunnel which connected the Clubhouse to the Market and allowed male guests to travel to the brothel undetected.

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According to the Bracken Fern Manor website, while that underground tunnel has long since been filled in, the door and steps which formerly led down to it are still, in fact, intact.  I am fairly certain that door is pictured above, but unfortunately I could not find anyone to verify that while we were stalking the place.  We did venture inside the inn while we were there as I had really wanted to talk to someone about the property’s storied history, but unfortunately the place seemed rather deserted.  Not to mention it was also completely run-down.  It is DEFINITELY not as nice as it appears on the website.  I had almost booked us a room there to spend Thanksgiving weekend, as I thought the GC would have loved staying in a hotel formerly owned by Bugsy, but after seeing the inside of the place I was so incredibly thankful that I hadn’t.  In fact, my mom told me that if she had had to spend Thanksgiving at the Manor she would have absolutely killed me!  So, while I can’t say that I’d recommend staying at the inn, I would definitely recommend stalking it.  I can’t tell you how cool it was to see the 81-year old property in person and to imagine all of the debaucherous goings-on that took place there during the Prohibition years.   

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Bracken Fern Manor, aka the former “Market” from Club Arrowhead of the Pines, is located at 815 Arrowhead Villa Road in Lake Arrowhead.  You can visit the inn’s official website here.  The Tudor House, aka Club Arrowhead of the Pine’s former Clubhouse, is located across the street at 800 Arrowhead Villa Road.  You can visit the Tudor House website here.