December 2010 – IAMNOTASTALKER

December 31, 2010December 31, 2010

UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference Center from “The American President”

Before heading to Lake Arrowhead, where the Grim Cheaper, my parents, and I spent Thanksgiving weekend this past November, I did some research on filming in the area and just about fell off my chair when I discovered, thanks to the official Lake Arrowhead website, that part of the 1992 romantic comedy The American President had been shot on location there. Unfortunately, the website did not specify which scene in particular had been shot in the area nor did it say where exactly filming had taken place. So, I immediately called upon fellow stalker Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, who put me in touch with the movie’s location manager, Richard Davis Jr., whom he happens to know, and Richard was kind enough to write me back that very same day! Yay! Richard informed me that filming had taken place at the UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference Center, which stood in for the president’s country retreat, Camp David, in the flick. So, I dragged my parents and the GC right on out to stalk the place pretty much immediately upon arriving in the lakeside city.

The UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference Center, which was originally known as the North Shore Tavern, was first constructed in 1921 and at the time was Lake Arrowhead’s most exclusive resort. The property changed hands a few times over the years and was transformed into everything from a yacht club to a grammar school. In 1957, the Los Angeles Turf Club, the property’s then-owner, sold off the vast majority of the grounds, including the lake, to several different buyers, but they decided to donate the main lodge to a school. The lodge was first offered to USC, who declined it. The L.A.T.C. next approached the Regents of the University of California, who accepted the gift and still own the property to this day. The state of the art facility is currently comprised of over forty acres of land and features a large swimming pool, an indoor Jacuzzi, a ropes course, three dining rooms with first class catering service, an amphitheater, a rock wall, a zip-lining course, volleyball and tennis courts, hiking and biking trails, 12 conference rooms incorporating 9,000 square feet of meeting space, and 105 guest rooms, including 81 “condolets” – two-story villa-type dwellings.

In The American President, the conference center’s main lodge stood in for Camp David, where President Andrew Shepherd (aka Michael Douglas) took Sydney Ellen Wade (aka Annette Bening) for a weekend getaway. The lodge is only shown for a very brief six seconds in the scene in which Marine One, the presidential helicopter, lands on the conference center’s expansive front lawn. Of filming the scene, which took place on March 29, 1995, Richard Davis Jr. said, “The snow had melted before we could land the helicopter so we crushed about 4 tractor trailer loads of block ice and spread it around like snow. The chopper landed on that and VFX painted in the rest. The shots looking down from the helicopter were shot in Tahoe and cut in. Winter ended early that year. Another couple of weeks and we probably would have had to go to Alaska.” So incredibly cool!

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Richard also informed me that the interior and exterior of the actual cabin where Andrew and Sydney stayed in the scene were just sets that were built inside of a studio soundstage.

The real life interior of the main lodge is pictured above.

Thanks to fave stalking guide Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors (which also had The American President information listed, but for whatever reason I failed to see it), I found out that the UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference Center was also used as Cascade, the supposed Vermont-area sanitarium where “ugly duckling” Charlotte Vail (aka Bette Davis) was sent in the 1942 film Now, Voyager. I cannot tell you how incredibly cool I think it is that the property still looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did when the movie was filmed over 68 years ago! Love it! Love it! Love it!

The center’s tennis courts were also used extensively in Now, Voyager and they, too, still look very much the same today as they did in the movie.

Until next time, Happy Stalking and a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! Smile

Stalk It: UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference Center from The American President is located at 850 Willow Creek Road in Lake Arrowhead. You can visit the center’s official website here.

December 30, 2010December 31, 2010

Slacking Off . . . Again!

I unfortunately do not have a blog to post for today (yet again!), but I do have a good excuse. My dad had surgery yesterday at Cedars- Sinai Hospital to determine how much damage was done to his pancreas over the past three years while he was taking the medication that caused his pancreatitis. What was supposed to be a one hour surgery kept getting delayed and delayed and we ended up spending the entire day at the hospital. Because I was sans computer, I was not able to write a post. I promise to be back tomorrow, though, with a whole new blog!

So, until that time, Happy Stalking! Smile

December 29, 2010December 28, 2010

Architect Frank Gehry’s House

One location that I stalked quite a while back, but have yet to blog about is the residence belonging to legendary 81-year old Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, a man who is perhaps best known for his contemporary designs of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Downtown Los Angeles, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Dancing House in Prague, the Experience Music Project in Seattle, and his new line of jewelry for Tiffany & Co. Gehry and his wife, Berta, purchased their pink Dutch Colonial-style Santa Monica home in 1977 and the architect immediately began a process of “deconstructivism” on it. Interestingly enough, he left the exterior of the home completely intact and untouched, but stripped down the interior to the point that only bare studs and wood framing remained. He subsequently set about rebuilding the interior with more modern-style elements and then proceeded to wrap the exterior of the original house with a new frame made of corrugated metal, plywood, glass, aluminum, and chain-link fencing, essentially wrapping the entire house with a brand new exterior.

According to the Arch Daily website, of the unusual design, the architect said, “I loved the idea of leaving the house intact. I came up with the idea of building the new house around it. We were told there were ghosts in the house . . . I decided they were ghosts of Cubism. The windows . . . I wanted to make them look like they were crawling out of this thing.” He also stated, “Here we are being surrounded by material that’s being manufactured in unimaginable quantities worldwide and is used everywhere. I don’t like it, no one likes it, and yet it’s pervasive. We don’t even see it. I noticed and started to find ways to beautify it. I wanted to take the curse off the material. It’s also why I made cardboard furniture. Cardboard is another material that’s ubiquitous and everybody hates, yet when I made the furniture with it everybody loved it.” Ironically enough, although he had received quite a bit of recognition prior to the remodel, it is Gehry’s Santa Monica house that is largely credited with putting the now-iconic architect on the map.

And while the unique abode became an architectural phenomenon virtually overnight, Gehry’s neighbors were not quite as appreciative of his aesthetic. Legend has it that one even went so far as to shoot at the house late one night in a show of protest! In 1991, Gehry angered both his neighbors and architectural enthusiasts alike when he once again remodeled the property, this time to meet the needs of his family – he had two growing teenage boys at the time who each wanted a room of their own. Architectural purists apparently feel that the most recent remodel makes the house appear too “finished”, but, as you can see above, the new design still retains quite a bit of rawness and the place is definitely still an acquired taste. In fact, the Grim Cheaper used to live just a few blocks away from the property and we would often drive by and marvel at the residence’s atrocity. It wasn’t until years later that we realized who the house belonged to and its architectural significance.

The oddest part of the property, in my mind at least, is the extensive use of chain-link fencing, which in most instances seems to appear virtually out of nowhere. And even though the residence is not really my cup of tea, I can’t recommend stalking it enough for the mere fact that there is literally no other place like it in the entire world.

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Gehry’s house was hilariously recreated – animation-style – for the Season 16 episode of The Simpsons titled “The Seven-Beer Snitch”, in which Marge Simpson commissions Gehry, whom she calls “the bestest architect in the world”, to build a concert hall in Springfield. That concert hall winds up going bankrupt on its opening night and is later turned into the Springfield Prison.

You can see some great interior and close-up photographs of the Frank Gehry residence here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Frank Gehry’s house is located at 1002 22nd Street, at the corner of Washington Avenue, in Santa Monica.

December 28, 2010December 27, 2010

Caffe’ Opera – aka Dog Years Diner from “American Pie”

Shortly after selling their house a few months back, my parents moved into an apartment building in Old Town Monrovia. Since that time, they have become regular patrons of their new favorite restaurant, Caffe’ Opera – the very spot that stood in for Dog Years Diner, the supposed Grand Rapids, Michigan-area hangout of Jim Levenstein (aka Jason Biggs), Chris Ostreicher (aka Chris Klein), Kevin Myers (aka Thomas Ian Nicholas), and Paul Finch (aka Eddie Kaye Thomas), in the 1999 gross-out comedy American Pie. So, when my parents suggested that we dine at the eatery on my dad’s recent birthday, I jumped at the chance as, even though I wasn’t a big fan of the flick, I had always wanted to stalk the restaurant due to the fact that both the interior and the exterior of it had been used in the movie. The building where filming took place is actually the historic Monrovia Savings Bank Building which was originally constructed back in 1923. The bank operated at the site until 1934, at which point it consolidated with a sister branch located just up the street. Different businesses subsequently moved into the space, until 2003 when it was taken over by Varo Angeletti, the original owner of Pasadena’s Sorriso Ristorante which I blogged about back in November, who used it as the site of his new Italian bistro, Caffe’ Opera.

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Caffe’ Opera is a FABULOUS restaurant that serves up some absolutely HUGE portions! I opted for the Crusted Rosemary Chicken entrée and it was A-MA-ZING! The GC and I have actually been back there with my parents twice now since my father’s birthday and the place has been spectacular each time. Honestly can’t recommend stalking it enough. I would suggest splitting an entrée with your date, though, as the servings are literally HUMONGOUS!

At the time that American Pie was filmed, the Caffe’ Opera space was actually a vacant storefront inside of which producers built the interior of the Dog Years set. The set was actually based on a real life restaurant in Grand Rapids, Michigan named Yesterdog Diner where Adam Herz, the movie’s screenwriter, hung out during his high school years. You can see some photographs of the actual Yesterdog restaurant here.

Sadly, the interior of the Monrovia Savings Bank Building was completely renovated in 2000, two years after American Pie was filmed, and looks completely different today than it did onscreen.

Sadder still is the fact that the exterior of the building was also remodeled at the time and looks quite a bit different today than it did when filming took place, although, unlike the interior, it is still vaguely recognizable. The changes to the exterior include the awning being swapped out, the front doors being moved to the opposite side of the building, and the large tree out front being chopped down.

The “6 Blocks From Downtown See Great Falls” mural is, of course, not there in real life.

But you can see the building’s then-real life “402” address plaque in the movie’s closing scene. So cool!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Caffe’ Opera, aka Dog Years Diner from the first American Pie movie, is located at 402 South Myrtle Avenue in Old Town Monrovia. You can visit the eatery’s official website here. Caffe’ Opera is located just a few doors down from the since-demolished building that stood in for the Tiki Post in fave movie Never Been Kissed (its former location was at 408 South Myrtle Avenue) and across the street from the Monrovia Coffee Company (which can be found at 425 South Myrtle Avenue), which also appeared in the flick. Yesterdog Diner, the restaurant upon which Dog Years was based, is located at 1505 Wealthy Street SE in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

December 27, 2010December 27, 2010

Dirty Dancing: The Limited Keepsake Edition DVD

Well, I unfortunately do not have a new blog to post for today and it is all the Grim Cheaper’s fault! You see, on Christmas Eve morning he gifted me with an early Christmas present – the Blu-ray DVD of Dirty Dancing: The Limited Keepsake Edition, which contains hours upon hours of extras including a feature devoted to all of the locations used in the film. As you can probably imagine, I just about died upon opening it and spent that entire day watching the special features and therefore did not have time to write a new post for today. I did find out a huge amount of Dirty Dancing location information from it, though, and now know where pretty much every single scene in the movie was filmed. And you know what that means! Oh yes, the Grim Cheaper and I will be taking a trip to Pembroke, Virginia and Lake Lure, North Carolina to stalk all of the DD locales in the very near future! For those who are wondering, the majority of the Kellerman hotel scenes – including Baby’s cabin, the dining hall where the family eats, the gazebo where she takes her first dance lesson and gets partnered up with Mrs. Shumaker, and the kitchen where Penny was found crying – can all be found at the Mountain Lodge Hotel in Pembroke, West Virginia. The hotel even offers a Dirty Dancing tour in which guests stalk each and every location featured in the movie and also get to reenact scenes while there! So incredibly cool! All of the staff-type scenes – including the dance hall segments, the rehearsal scenes, and the staff cabin scenes – were filmed at the now-defunct Chimney Rock Boys Camp in Lake Lure, North Carolina. Sadly, most of the Lake Lure locations were either demolished shortly after the movie was filmed or destroyed in a fire a few years later, but Baby’s steps remain and it is those steps that I am longing to see more than anything else! But, until I actually get out there, I offer this AMAZING link of photographs taken by a woman and her husband who somehow managed to pinpoint the exact spots where filming at Lake Lure took place. I seriously think that woman might just be my new best friend! Smile

If you are at all a fan of Dirty Dancing, I honestly cannot recommend enough picking up your own copy of the Limited Keepsake Edition DVD! Other special features include two commentaries, some original screen tests, numerous cast interviews, deleted scenes, extended scenes, alternate scenes, a trivia reel, a making-of featurette, and an outtakes reel (which is actually the only disappointing extra on the entire DVD as the segment only lasts about 30 seconds). The edition also includes a keepsake book about the movie AND, best of all, a $50 coupon to stay at the Mountain Lake Hotel. LOVE IT! Smile

Anyway, I promise to be back tomorrow with a whole new post, so, until that time, Happy Stalking! Smile

December 24, 2010December 23, 2010

The “It’s A Wonderful Life” Train Station

If there is anything I have learned over the past ten-plus years that I have lived in Southern California, it is that stalking tips often come from the most unlikely of places. Take for instance this past weekend. The Grim Cheaper’s father has long been a collector of model trains, so last Sunday afternoon the GC headed over to the Whistle Stop train store in Pasadena to do some Christmas shopping for his dad. While there he stumbled upon some vintage locomotive photographs taken by photographer Stan Kistler. Amazingly enough, one of those photographs happened to be a May 1946 image of the former Santa Fe Lamanda Park Train Station in Pasadena which at the time was dressed to appear as the Bedford Falls Train Station for the filming of It’s A Wonderful Life! And while the GC did not actually purchase the photograph for me (he didn’t earn that nickname for nothin’!), when he got home he immediately told me about it and, let me tell you, I almost fell out of my chair! I could not believe that one of the most famous Christmas movies of all time had been filmed right in my own backyard and that I had not previously known about it! Because the GC had failed to write down – or remember – exactly which station had been used in the filming (men!), I immediately ran right over to the Whistle Stop to find out. I also purchased the photograph (which is pictured above), not for myself, but for fellow stalker David in Seattle, as It’s A Wonderful Life is one of his all time favorite movies.

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Written on the back of the photograph was the information that I was seeking. The It’s A Wonderful Life train station was actually the now-defunct Santa Fe Lamanda Park Station located at the intersection of East Walnut Street and North San Gabriel Boulevard in Pasadena. Sadly, the station was torn down in 1953.

And even though the station is no longer in existence, I just had to stalk its former site. The above photograph is what the intersection of North San Gabriel Boulevard and East Walnut Street looks like circa 2010. As you can see, there is no sign of the former station anywhere, which I had expected. What I had not expected, though, was the fact that there was also no sign of the former railroad tracks. Before arriving at the intersection, I had been convinced I would be able to find some small remnant of the tracks somewhere in the vicinity.

What I did spot while I was there, though, was an elevated section of the road that looked to be just about the same size as a set of train tracks. That area is marked with the pink lines in the above photograph.

Another view of that elevated portion of land is pictured above. I am guessing that the former railroad tracks are located just beneath that area of land and that instead of actually removing the tracks when the Santa Fe Railroad Line was dismantled in the 1950s, workers simply just poured cement over them leaving what you see above.

So, if my hunch is correct and that bit of land is in fact the former home to a set of train tracks, then I am fairly certain the patch of grass pictured above is where the Lamanda Park Train Station used to be located. But again, that is just a guess.

The station was featured towards the beginning of It’s A Wonderful Life in the scene in which George Bailey (aka James Stewart) and Uncle Billy (aka Thomas Mitchell) wait to pick up Harry Bailey (aka Todd Karns), who has just returned home after graduating from college, at the Bedford Falls train station.

Pictured above is a close-up view of the vintage photograph I purchased for David. The “Bedford Falls” prop signs are denoted with the pink arrows and one of the production’s lighting rigs is denoted with a blue arrow. So incredibly cool! You can see a photograph of what the Lamanda Park station looked like back in 1936 on the Palomar Skies blog here and here.

A very MERRY CHRISTMAS to all of my fellow stalkers! I hope you all have a fabulous holiday with your loved ones. Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The former Lamanda Park station, aka the Bedford Falls train station from It’s A Wonderful Life, was located at the intersection of East Walnut Street and North San Gabriel Boulevard in Pasadena. My best guess as to the station’s exact location is denoted with the pink arrows in the above aerial view.

December 23, 2010December 23, 2010

The First Congregational Church of Los Angeles from “My So-Called Life”

Fellow stalker/My So-Called Life aficionado Andrew recently went on a mission to try to track down the church that was used in the Season 1 Christmas-themed episode of fave show My So-Called Life titled “So-Called Angels”. He had just picked up the most-recently released boxed set of the series, which came out in 2007, and was floored to discover that actor Wilson Cruz, who played Ricky Vasquez on the show, had recorded a commentary for the “So-Called Angels” episode and had described the location of the church as being on 6th Street close to Downtown Los Angeles. Even with that detailed information, though, this locale proved to be a tough one to track down. Thankfully, Andrew hit a stroke of luck, though, when he noticed that the doors of the church in the episode featured very intricate carvings. He figured those doors had to be unique and, sure enough, they were! Just type the words “carved doors”, “church”, and “Los Angeles” into Google and the very first entry that appears is for the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, located on the corner of South Commonwealth Avenue and West 6th Street, about a mile from Downtown Los Angeles, right where Wilson Cruz had said it would be. Yay! So, once Andrew told me the good news, I immediately dragged my dad right on out to stalk the place – just in time for Christmas, too!

The Gothic revival-style First Congregational Church of Los Angeles was constructed in 1932 by brothers James Edward Allison and David Clark Allison, the same architecture team that designed the Beverly Hills Post Office and UCLA’s Royce Hall. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property are absolutely gorgeous in person. In fact, I think it is safe to say that I have never seen a more beautiful place of worship in my entire life! The church is literally breathtaking – especially decked out in all of its Christmas glory!

The First Congregational Church of Los Angeles’ main sanctuary, which stretches 198 feet in length and reaches 76 feet in height, is home to the world’s largest pipe organ, features carved oak pews, and is dotted with countless stained glass windows which were designed by Judson Studios in Pasadena.

The bronze doors that Andrew noticed in the “So-Called Angels” episode were designed in 1946 by artist Albert Gilles and, unbelievably, they measure three inches thick and weigh in at a whopping one thousand pounds apiece! The doors were so heavy, in fact, that I could hardly open them when we went to leave!

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In the “So-Called Angels” episode of My So-Called Life, the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles was the spot where Angela Chase (aka Claire Danes), along with the rest of the Chase family, and her friends Brian Krakow (aka Devon Gummersall) and Ricky wind up on Christmas Eve night after a heartbreaking course of events during which Ricky gets beaten up by his father and ends up first living on the streets and then in an abandoned warehouse. I had actually forgotten how very heartbreaking the episode was until I re-watched it last week. So incredibly sad!

The area where Patty Chase (aka Bess Armstrong) found Ricky lighting candles is located just to the left of the church’s main altar, although that area looks a bit different today. There are no candles located in that particular alcove (which I was seriously bummed about as I had planned on lighting one), nor is there a visible stained glass window. The red carpet has also since been removed.

The pew where Patty and Ricky sat in the scene is located just to the left of the alcove.

The exterior of the church looks a bit different today than it did during the filming, as well. The large potted plants which flanked the front of the church in the episode are no longer there, but I have a hunch that those trees were actually props brought in specifically for the filming and were never actually there in real life.

The street lamp that was pictured at the very end of the episode is actually there in real life, though, which I thought was just about the coolest thing ever! Smile

My So-Called Life is not the only production to have filmed at First Congregational. The church also stood in for New York’s St. Thomas Episcopal where Wilhelmina Slater (aka Vanessa Williams) almost married Bradford Meade (aka Alan Dale’s) in the Season 2 episode of Ugly Betty titled “A Nice Day for a Posh Wedding”.

First Congregational was also where the funeral for Preston Blake (aka Harve Presnell) was held in the 2002 Adam Sandler comedy Mr. Deeds.

It was also used as the church where Mary Jane Watson (aka Kristen Dunst) almost married John Jameson (aka Daniel Gillies) in Spiderman 2.

And it stood in for New York’s Trinity Church where the climactic final scene of 2004’s National Treasure took place.

Both the opening and one of the closing scenes from 2003’s Daredevil were also filmed at the church.

The First Congregational Church of Los Angeles has also appeared in episodes of Californication, The Riches, The West Wing, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Shark, The Closer, Bones, The Practice, Cold Case, Joan of Arcadia, Six Feet Under, Jag, and The X-Files and in the movies Nancy Drew and Into the Wild. The church even has a page on its website which chronicles the many productions that have been filmed on the premises over the years (although My So-Called Life is ostensibly missing from the list). So love it!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Andrew for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, from the “So-Called Angels” episode of My So-Called Life, is located at 540 South Commonwealth Avenue in Los Angeles. You can visit the church’s official website here and you can check out its extensive filming resume here.

December 22, 2010December 21, 2010

The Smoke House Restaurant – Where Jim and Pam Held Their Rehearsal Dinner on “The Office”

This past weekend, while out doing some Christmas shopping with the Grim Cheaper, the two of us found ourselves in the Burbank area absolutely ravenous. For whatever reason, though, I could not think of a good place to eat, so the GC suggested we grab a bite at that “old Burbank restaurant across from Warner Brothers Studios”. Because my blondness was in full force that day, I had no idea what on earth he was talking about and just about died when he pulled into the parking lot of the Smoke House Restaurant – the very spot where Jim Halpert (aka John Krasinski) and Pam Beesly (aka Jenna Fischer) hosted the rehearsal dinner for their wedding in the Season 6 episode of fave show The Office titled “Niagara”. And although I have actually stalked this location once before and have even blogged about it, because it was long before The Office had shot there and long before I was even a fan of the show, I decided the restaurant was worthy of a repost.

The original 46-seat Smoke House restaurant first opened in 1946 at the corner of Pass and Riverside Avenues in Burbank. The eatery was a hit with the Hollywood set from the very start, with such stars as Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra (who even has a steak named after him on the Smoke House menu), Judy Garland, Milton Berle, Jack Parr, James Dean, Burl Ives, Walt Disney, and Errol Flynn stopping in regularly to grab a bite to eat. Due to its promise of serving up “fine food at fair prices”, the restaurant became such a Burbank staple that its owners were quickly forced to expand. They started looking for a larger building to move into and, as fate would have it, found one in actor Danny Kaye’s recently constructed Red Coach Inn. Due to city regulations and the Up In Arms actor’s busy filming schedule, Kaye was unable to open the restaurant/night club and in 1949 he sold the never-been-used property to the owners of the Smoke House. The establishment is still located in that very building to this day. And, six decades later, the place is still going strong. In more recent years, such stars as Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, Megan Fox, Andy Garcia, Miley Cyrus, Tish Cyrus, and the entire cast of Friends (who used to stop by regularly after filming) have all been spotted dining there.

George Clooney is such a fan of the place that he named his production company “Smokehouse Pictures” in honor of the legendary restaurant. The actor also did a photo shoot at the eatery in the booth pictured above.

One look at the Smoke House interior and it’s not very hard to see why it has succeeded for over sixty years. With it’s dim lights, dark red booths, and wood-paneled walls, stepping inside the eatery definitely brings one back to a forgotten era. It’s exactly the type of place I’d imagine Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. hanging out at back in the heyday of Hollywood.

Oh, and did I mention the food? During this particular visit I ordered the restaurant’s Cobb Salad and it was easily the biggest salad I’ve ever seen in my entire life! I didn’t even get through one third of it and I was literally STARVING when we showed up at the restaurant. On our previous visit, the GC and I ordered up the eatery’s famous “World’s Greatest Garlic Bread” and I can honestly say that the restaurant wasn’t being arrogant when they conceived that name. It literally was the best garlic bread I’ve ever had in my life! Smile Truth be told, though, all of the Smoke House food is FABULOUS, but be forewarned, their portions are ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS! The restaurant’s staff is also INCREDIBLY nice and, even though the place was pretty packed at the time, everyone I spoke with took the time to answer all of my silly questions about the filming that has taken place there over the years.

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In the “Niagara” episode of The Office, the Smoke House stood in for the supposed Niagara Falls-area restaurant where Jim and Pam held the rehearsal dinner for their wedding. The majority of that scene was filmed in the restaurant’s back room, which, luckily enough, was being set up for a private party while we were there, so I was able to snap a bunch of photographs while the room was empty!

Some filming also took place in the restaurant’s bar area.

The Smoke House’s side room was used in the scene in which Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) and Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) are shown eating breakfast the morning following the rehearsal dinner.

The Smoke House was also featured in the Season 1 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Move On”, in the scene in which Susan Mayer (aka Teri Hatcher) sings a deeply personal rendition of the song “New York, New York” to her ex-husband Karl (aka Richard Burgi) while at a local karaoke bar.

The Desperate Housewives scene was filmed on the stage located in the restaurant’s bar area.

You can watch Susan’s karaoke scene by clicking above.

The eatery has also appeared in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Cold Case, and in a Season 2 episode of the reality series The Two Coreys, but I cannot for the life of me figure out which episode and it is driving me absolutely crazy! Does anyone out there know?

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Smoke House Restaurant, where Jim and Pam hosted their rehearsal dinner in the “Niagara” episode of The Office, is located at 4420 West Lakeside Drive in Burbank. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

December 21, 2010December 21, 2010

The Michael Buble “Crazy Love” Concert – A Second Time!

Last Monday night, my mom, my dad, the Grim Cheaper, and I all headed to Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles to attend the final show of Michael Buble’s “Crazy Love” Tour. And, as you can imagine, I could NOT have been more excited! When I attended the cutie crooner’s concert back in April of this year, the experience was extremely bittersweet for me as my dad, who – if it is at all possible – loves Michael even more than I do, was too sick to attend. Thanks to a hook-up from fellow stalker David, we had absolutely AMAZING seats and although I enjoyed myself immensely while there, I couldn’t help but be distracted by the fact that my dad was not sitting next to me, as he would absolutely died over our proximity to the stage. So, when I found out a couple of weeks ago that MB would be returning to Los Angeles to finish up his tour, I just about had a heart attack and informed the GC that, come hell or high water, we would ALL be attending – my mom, my dad, the GC, and I. You see, after three years of living with pancreatitis – to the point that he was giving himself numerous daily injections of Dilaudid pain medication at home – after over 15 surgeries and one very unsuccessful trip to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, and after literally almost missing my wedding due to pain, my dad is finally, FINALLY healthy again! As it turns out, one of his cholesterol medications was causing the pancreatitis, which we only discovered thanks to an extremely astute emergency room doctor at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, whom we happened to meet by chance after my dad’s pancreatic specialist told my mom, while en route to a West L.A. hospital in the midst of one of my dad’s attacks, that there was “nothing more he could do for him” (not kidding!). My mom immediately turned the car around and drove to Huntington, their local hospital, and the rest is history! My dad is now on his 45th day (and counting) of (relatively) no pain! Halleluiah! The bad news is that, for better or worse, he will forever have pancreatitus and will, therefore, always be subject to pain, but at least now it’s a manageable pain and he can once again live a normal life. So, to celebrate my dad’s newfound good health and his 64th birthday, which was on the 16th of December, the GC and I purchased four tickets to the MB “Crazy Love” show. Because I love surprises, we waited until the day before the concert to tell my dad of our plans and he started bawling upon opening the box and seeing the tickets. Smile One of the best moments of my life, right there.

Thanks to another hook-up from fellow stalker David, I was again able to secure FABULOUS seats to the show – in fact they were the EXACT same seats that we sat in during the previous MB concert! My dad almost died when he saw how close we were to the stage! Thank you, David!

The arena was literally JAM-PACKED with people, so the fact that we were able to get tickets at all, let alone such great ones, was absolutely incredible!

MB’s opening act was, again, Naturally 7 , an acoustic group that specializes in what they call “vocal play” – i.e. they perform without the assistance of instruments, but instead use their voices and bodies to simulate various musical instruments and sounds. And I have to say that they were absolutely A-MA-ZING! If I hadn’t been there, witnessing the whole thing with my own eyes, I would have been CONVINCED that they had instruments onstage with them!

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After Naturally 7 performed for about an hour, the lights went down and it was time for Mr. Buble to come out. He opened up the show with a rousing rendition of “Cry Me A River” and, let me tell you, the crowd went absolutely wild! But no one more so than me and my dad! My dad’s mouth literally hung open – and I am fairly certain that he also teared up a bit – upon seeing Michael step out onto that stage and realizing how very close to him we were. Smile

I can easily say that Monday night’s concert was JUST as fabulous as the one we saw in April, if not more so! Before seeing the show, I was a little worried that it would simply be a carbon copy of the previous concert and that all of Michael’s jokes were, in actuality, scripted and were not as off-the-cuff as they had seemed. But I am VERY happy to report that that was not the case AT ALL! Even though the song list was, for the most part, identical to April’s show, it truly felt as if we were attending a completely different concert, mostly due to the fact that all of Michael’s jokes and monologues were new and spontaneous. He truly plays off and engages the crowd and all of the hilarious stories we heard this time around were different than the ones he told at the previous show. LOVE IT!

And, as I mentioned last time, Buble is FUNNY! Like ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS! His show is equal parts concert/stand-up comedy act. At one point he introduced his pianist Alan Chang, who has been with him since 2003, by saying, “He is my friend, my pianist, my writing partner, my musical director, and . . . my part-time lover,” and then he broke out into a spontaneous rendition of Stevie Wonder’s 1985 hit “Part-Time Lover”. LOL LOL LOL Michael is also a fabulous impersonator and can speak in just about any accent imaginable, which he did throughout the night. He also did a fabulous impersonation of Elin Nordegren for us, during which he danced across the stage, pretending to wear clogs, while reprimanding Tiger Woods for his lascivious ways. Afterwards he said, “I’m sure she doesn’t really sound like that, but in my head she does.” Winking smile

It is also readily apparent not only how much the guy loves being onstage, but how much he enjoys interacting with his fans. One lady in the front row had a sign stating, “Michael, I’ve been with you for FORTY shows!” Well, Michael took one look at that sign, said “I have GOT to give you a hug!”, immediately jumped down to the floor, and embraced the woman. As you can imagine, I just about died over that one! I mean, is that all it takes to get a hug from Michael Buble? Oh GC, you know what that means! Next year we are going to at least forty of his shows! Winking smile

The most unique aspect of an MB concert, though, is that while there you feel as if you are hanging out with the singer in his living room. Even though there are 14,000 people surrounding you, due to his easy-going and sincere nature, Michael somehow manages to make the whole thing seem intimate and personal.

And his show is FUN! Michael is a barrel of energy and spends the entire two hours sliding across the stage, spinning around, and bouncing up and down. His jubilance is absolutely contagious and he has somehow even managed to make a fan out of the GC, who, prior to April’s concert, could just take or leave the guy.

As was the case last time, Michael was accompanied onstage by nothing more than a microphone, a stool, and his amazing band. There were no histrionics, no big dance numbers, no special effects. It was just a man and his voice and, let me tell you, he ABSOLUTELY BROUGHT DOWN THE HOUSE! He had that audience on its feet for the entire second act of the show! Even my mom and dad were standing and dancing for the last hour! So incredibly cool!

Also, much the same as last time, my favorite segment of the show definitely had to be the big Michael Jackson Tribute/”Twist & Shout” number. Michael introduced the segment by saying he was going to sing a song from the movie that won the 1986 Academy Award for Best Picture – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Then he said, “No, I’m just kidding – Ferris Bueller did not actually win the Oscar that year, but it TOTALLY should have!” LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT!

At one point during the concert, Michael actually walks through the audience over to the “B-Stage”, which is located on the other side of the venue. While there he sang an absolutely beautiful acoustic version of his hit song “Home” accompanied only by his guitar player. I don’t remember him singing the song in that manner during the April show and it turned out to be one of my favorite performances of the entire evening. Sigh!

Michael ended the show with his new song “Hollywood” while accompanied by Naturally 7 and it was FABULOUS. I absolutely LOVE that song!

He, of course, came back out after “Hollywood” to sing an encore, during which a cloud of confetti burst from the sky setting the stage for “Let It Snow”. Because the Christmas tune is one of my dad’s very favorite Buble songs, we could NOT have been more excited to hear it.

As always, Michael finished his encore with the Leon Russell-penned “Song For You”, which he says he hopes to end every show with for the rest of his life.

All in all, it was an ABSOLUTELY amazing night and the BEST possible present we could have ever given my dad in honor of his newfound good health! Amazingly enough, my mom actually saw the Beatles perform live in concert when she was a teenager and she said that the Michael Buble show was far more exceptional. Talk about a compliment!

A BIG, HUGE THANK YOU to fellow stalker David from both me and my dad for hooking us up with these amazing tickets! You rock, my friend! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Sadly, you can’t – last Monday night’s show was the last of Michael Buble’s “Crazy Love” Tour. But you can find out information about the singer’s upcoming appearances on his official website here. And you can follow Tory Class, MB’s Tour Marketing Manager, on Twitter at @ToryonTour here.

December 20, 2010December 20, 2010

Adrianna’s New Rental from “90210”

Back in July of 2009, fellow stalker Jennie wrote to me asking for some help in tracking down a location that appeared in both the 1996 Aaron Spelling television series Kindred: The Embraced and the current reality show Celebrity Fit Club. Because I had never seen either of the shows, though, for this particular stalking venture I had to call in the team – aka Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and fellow stalker Owen – and, magically, Chas came through in record time. He somehow managed to track down a Celebrity Fit Club crew member who told him that the show was primarily filmed at a convent in Los Feliz that belonged to the Los Angeles Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I immediately added the place to my ever-growing “To Stalk” list, but, for whatever reason, never made it out to actually see it in person. So, you can imagine my surprise when I recognized the property as the mansion Adriana Tate-Duncan (aka Jessica Lowndes) rented on the recently-aired Season 3 episode of 90210 titled “Holiday Madness”. I literally just about fell out of my chair and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place that very weekend.

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From what I’ve been able to gather online, it appears that the property no longer belongs to the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but is now owned by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and is known as the Cardinal Timothy Manning House of Prayer for Priests. (Although there is a Facebook page which claims that the property is now the International Institute of Theological and Tribunal Studies and is owned by the Graduate Theological Foundation of Indiana, so I’m not really sure what the story is.) Regardless of who currently owns it, though, the structure was originally built in 1928 as a private home for Los Angeles broadcasting/automobile tycoon Earl C. Anthony, a man who not only brought major league baseball to Southern California for the first time, but who was also part of the team that invented gas stations and the car radio. The Anthony House, as it later came to be known, was designed by architect Bernard Maybeck, the same man who gave us the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Anthony had commissioned his previous abode to be built by the legendary Greene & Greene architecture firm, but once Anthony, who owned several Packard automobile dealerships at the time, caught wind of the fact that one of the Greene brothers had purchased a car made by a competing brand, he refused to work with the architects on any subsequent projects and hired Maybeck to build his Los Feliz home. LOL! Maybeck incorporated Italian Villa, French Chateau, Spanish Mediterranean, and Tudor elements into the design of the mansion and it wound up costing a whopping $500,000 to construct. At the time it was the most expensive house in Hollywood. After Anthony’s widow passed away in the early 1950s, the mansion was purchased by Sir Daniel J. Donohue and his wife, who, in 1971, bequeathed the entire property to the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who continued to own it until earlier this year.

Sadly, the 8.5-acre property is closed to the public and not much of it is visible from the street, but, as I’ve said many times before, that’s why God created aerial views! And you can see some fabulous close-up pictures of the former convent on the I.I.T.T.S. Facebook page here.

In the “Holiday Madness” episode of 90210, the former convent was used as Adrianna’s new, massively huge, $20,000-per-month rental.

Both the interior and the exterior of the property were used extensively in the episode . . .

. . . especially during Adrianna’s Christmas party scenes.

As I mentioned above, the property is also used extensively each season on the hit reality television show Celebrity Fit Club.

The Anthony House was also the site of the wine festival in the Season 4 episode of Brothers and Sisters titled “The Wine Festival”.

The property has also appeared in episodes of The A-Team, Dirty Sexy Money, Knight Rider, Dynasty, Airwolf, Falcon Crest, The Greatest American Hero, and Hart to Hart.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Adrianna’s new house from 90210, aka the former Los Angeles Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary convent, is located at 3431 Waverly Drive in Los Feliz.