While perusing through my extensive backlog of stalking photographs recently, I realized that there were a few L.A. Story locales that I had yet to blog about, one of which was the former site of KCET Studios in Los Feliz, where Harris K. Telemacher (Steve Martin) worked in the 1991 comedy. I had actually stalked the spot way back in May, but, for whatever reason, never got around to writing about it. So here goes.
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The 4.5-acre lot located at 4401 Sunset Boulevard in Los Feliz has been the site of a moviemaking facility just shy of one hundred years. The first studio to be established there was Lubin Manufacturing Company in 1912, which was founded by film producer Siegmund Lubin to create educational videos. After he sold the location in 1913, it changed hands numerous times and then was eventually purchased by an actor named Charles Ray in 1920. Ray built several red brick structures on the premises, most of which still stand to this day. He also constructed a cutting-edge soundstage with a glass-enclosed stage, glass roof, removable sides, a water tank, and extensive electrical equipment. Amazingly, that soundstage, known as Studio A, is still currently in use. When Charles Ray Productions went bankrupt in 1923, the locale again went through a succession of different owners including Monogram Pictures, Allied Artists, and ColorVision. In 1971, KCET purchased the facility for $800,000. The company remained there for the next 40 years.
The studio, which was named a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1978, was acquired by the Church of Scientology to be used as one of their “production of religious and social betterment audiovisual properties” in April 2011.
In L.A. Story, KCET Studios stood in for the KYOY 14 news facilities. The exterior of the structure was shown in one of the movie’s opening scenes, in which Harris arrived at work to give his daily wacky weather report. In the scene, he drove through the studio’s east entrance, which is located near 1441 North Hoover Street.
I am fairly certain that the area where Harris parked his car in the scene is on the studio’s north side, near the intersection of Sunset Drive and North Commonwealth Avenue. I could not match the exact angle of the screen capture below being that the spot where Harris parked is located on the studio grounds, but I believe the street visible behind him is North Commonwealth Avenue.
And that the satellite pictured below is the one he parked next to.
The interior of one of the studio’s soundstages was also used as the KYOY 14 news set in the film.
Thanks to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, I learned that the exterior of the former KCET Studios was also featured as the City Emergency Hospital where Dr. Miles J. Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) was evaluated in the 1956 horror flick Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
I believe that the area used as the hospital entrance is the gate located near 4368 Sunset Drive, just east of where Harris parked his car in L.A. Story.
One location that had been on my To-Stalk list for what seemed like ages was the Hawthorne-area home where my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe spent the first eight-and-a-half years of her life. Fellow stalker Lavonna had texted me the address years ago, but because I so rarely find myself in that neck of the woods, I was never able to make it out there. Until a couple of weeks ago, that is, when I realized that the residence was not too far from a hotel near LAX where the Grim Cheaper and I happened to be staying. So I dragged him right on over to stalk it (and to a Four Christmases locale that I will be writing about in late December).
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Gladys Mortensen was single, living in Hollywood and working as a film cutter at Consolidated Film Industries when she became pregnant with Marilyn in 1925. In December of that year, shortly before she was to give birth, she headed to Hawthorne in the hopes that she could move in with her mother, Della, for a brief time before and after the delivery. Della had other plans, though – she was about to sail to Borneo to make amends with her estranged husband, Charles Grainger, who was working in the oil fields there. Arrangements were instead made for Gladys to stay across the street at the home of Wayne and Ida Bolender, a deeply religious couple who served as foster parents to several children.
The Bolenders had moved into the 3-bedroom, 1-bath, 1,376-square-foot clapboard residence pictured below in 1919. At the time, the home, which was built in 1913, boasted 4 four acres of land (it now sits on a 0.20-acre parcel), where the family raised chickens and goats and grew vegetables. The property’s original address was 459 East Rhode Island Street, but during the re-districting of the area in the ‘30s and ‘40s it was changed to 4201 West 134th Street. You can see a photograph of the house from the time that the Bolenders owned it here. It is absolutely REMARKABLE how little of it has changed over the past ninety-plus years! You can also check out a picture of a newborn Marilyn in front of the dwelling here, in which a “459” address placard is visible in the background. So incredibly cool!
Gladys gave birth on June 1st, 1926 in the charity ward of Los Angeles General Hospital. She named her new daughter Norma Jeane Mortensen. After twelve days, the two returned to the Bolender’s. Gladys spent about three weeks at the Hawthorne house with Marilyn before heading back to Hollywood and her job at Consolidated in July. She left her baby behind, paying Wayne and Ida $5 a week to care for her. Contrary to what has been reported, Gladys did not abandon Marilyn entirely, but came to visit her on a weekly basis, often spending the night.
When Gladys’ son from her first marriage, Jackie, from whom she was estranged, died at the age of 14 in August 1933, she became compelled to regain custody of Norma Jeane. She took on a second job and by October 1934, had saved enough money to purchase a six-thousand-dollar house (at 6812 Arbol Drive in Hollywood – sadly, it’s no longer standing). That same month, eight-year-old Marilyn left the Bolenders and moved in with her mother. She didn’t stay long, though. Gladys had a nervous breakdown in late December and was committed to an asylum, at which point Norma Jeane was sent to live with one of her mother’s good friends, Grace McKee. She didn’t stay there long, though, either. By 1935, Gladys could no longer afford to care for Marilyn and sent her to the Los Angeles Orphan’s Home (now Hollygrove Home for Children, which I blogged about here). The girl who would become the world’s most famous blonde spent the remaining years of her childhood being bounced around from foster parents to family members. Then, at the tender age of 16, she married her first husband, James Dougherty, and moved into a guest house in Sherman Oaks, which also, unfortunately, no longer stands. You can read my blog post on that location here.
A couple of months ago, my favorite desert radio personalities “Bulldog” Bill Feingold and Kevin Holmes interviewed Tyson Wrensch, co-author of Until Someone Gets Hurt. The book, which chronicles the disappearance and murder of 74-year-old Palm Springs retiree Clifford Lambert at the hands of five San Francisco-based grifters (27-year-old playboy Daniel Garcia, 26-year-old Nepalese expat Kaushal Niroula, 26-year-old bartender Miguel Bustamante, 69-year-old attorney David Replogle, and 30-year-old former Marine Craig McCarthy), sounded absolutely intriguing and I ordered it immediately. Sadly, it turned out to be a bit of a disappointing and rather difficult-to-follow read. The story did fascinate – and sicken – me, though, and as soon as I finished reading it, I ran right out to stalk Lambert’s former house. And while I do realize that this article would fit in best with my Haunted Hollywood postings, I wanted to write it while the details were still fresh in my mind. So here goes.
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The convoluted story of Lambert’s disappearance began in April 2008 when the former art dealer, who had just recently broken up with his much-younger partner of 14 years, met Daniel Garcia online. The two began a digital flirtation and it was not long before Cliff flew his new friend out to Palm Springs for the weekend. While there, Daniel pilfered some of Lambert’s credit cards and bank statements and, in a rather brazen maneuver, used one of those credit cards to upgrade his seat to First Class on his flight home to San Francisco. Cliff caught wind of it immediately and severed all ties to the con man. Or so he thought. A couple of weeks later, Garcia showed up on Lambert’s doorstep, flowers in hand, to apologize. The atonement was a ruse, though, because during the visit, Daniel stole several of Cliff’s paintings, jewelry, and silver pieces.
A few months later, Garcia, his good friend Kaushal Niroula, who was a seasoned con artist, and Niroula’s boyfriend, David Replogle, began making plans to kidnap Cliff, whereupon they would force him to sign over his estate. (Lambert’s flashy lifestyle and expensive toys had led Daniel to believe he was a multi-millionaire. He wasn’t. While well off, Cliff did not have anything close to the amount of money that Garcia suspected.) In early December 2008, Niroula, posing as a New York estate lawyer named Samuel Orin, called Lambert and told him that he was poised to receive a large inheritance. The two made arrangements to discuss the matter in person and Niroula headed out to the desert. He was accompanied by his good friend Miguel Bustamante and Bustamante’s roommate, Craig McCarthy, both of whom were being paid to execute the kidnapping. At some point during their stay, and for reasons not made entirely clear in the book, plans changed, though, and Kaushal decided that Lambert would have to be killed.
On December 4th, Kaushal and Cliff met for the first time at Dink’s Restaurant to “discuss the inheritance.” While the two were dining, McCarthy and Bustamante snuck into Lambert’s garage and hid. For whatever reason, though, when Cliff arrived home, they chickened out and fled. The following night, Kaushal and Lambert met once again, this time at Lambert’s house to “finalize paperwork.” At one point, Niroula excused himself and went to let Miguel and Craig into the home through a side door. The two then killed Cliff by stabbing him to death with kitchen knives while Kaushal watched. After cleaning up the mess, they put him into the back of his own Mercedes and drove to a remote area where they buried him in a shallow grave. His body has never been found.
Shortly thereafter, Replogle forged documents that gave one of Niroula’s acquaintances, a 67-year-old Palm Springs art dealer named Russell Manning, power of attorney over Clifford’s estate. (It is likely that Manning did not know about the murder. Replogle had told him that Lambert was in jail for raping Niroula and infecting him with HIV and was signing over his estate as reparation.) Once the group had their hands on Lambert’s bank accounts, they began to blow through his money. In less than a month, Niroula and Garcia spent over $215,000. They also attempted to put his house on the market. Thankfully, the real estate agent they contacted about the sale had an instinct that something was fishy and did some online digging. When he learned that Lambert had been reported missing, he called the police. Around that same time, Bustamante showed up at Cliff’s house with a moving van and five day laborers and began to clear the place out. One of the neighbors saw the group, immediately contacted the authorities and Bustamante was arrested. While in custody, he folded and confessed the whole sordid tale. Warrants were soon issued for his five accomplices and all were arrested shortly thereafter.
While McCarthy pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 25 years in prison and Manning pled guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 5 years, Replogle, Garcia, Bustamante, and Niroula all stood trial. They were each eventually found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Lambert’s former 4,301-square-foot house, which was originally built in 1954, was put on the market as a probate sale in May 2011 for $879,000. From what I can glean from property records, it sold fairly quickly for $737,000. It was then put on the market again the following year and sold in June 2012 for $1,030,000. According to the 2011 real estate listing, the Mid-century abode boasts four bedrooms, five baths, a 0.34-acre corner plot of land, a pool, a formal dining room, a large living room with an architectural fireplace and wood-beamed peaked ceilings, an office, a wet bar/ice cream bar, a guest wing, a large master bedroom with a double-sided fireplace, and, as you can see below, soaring views of the San Jacinto Mountains. You can check out some current interior photographs of the residence here, as well as some pictures from the time that Cliff owned it here.
According to a sign posted on the dwelling, the place is named Villa dei Leoni (which is the Italian translation of “House of Lions”). I am unsure if Lambert gave the pad its nickname or if it was done by a previous or subsequent owner.
I am also unsure if the gold L’s posted on the home’s front and side gate stand for Lambert or Leoni.
While I typically love true crime stories, this one was so completely twisted and perverse that it was almost repulsing. Reading about such morally-devoid people was quite tough for me to stomach. For those who are interested in additional information on the case (and it’s not pretty, let me tell you), you can check out a more in-depth write-up here and you can watch Part I of a KMIR 6 news special by clicking below.
One of my favorite movies growing up was the 1980 comedy Nine to Five. I would watch it on an almost daily basis (no joke!) and practically had the thing memorized. I can still belt out the theme song to this day, in fact. (I am guessing the majority of my fellow stalkers can, too.) A couple of weeks ago, while rummaging through our DVD collection, I happened to come across the flick and realized I had not seen it in years, so I immediately popped it in. I was a little afraid that it would not live up to my memories of it, so I was floored to find myself laughing throughout. The movie definitely stands the test of time. That garage-door-opener/hang-glider contraption was pure genius! Anyway, immediately after watching, I, of course, headed straight to my computer to do some location sleuthing and was floored to discover that the mansion belonging to Franklin M. Hart Jr. (Dabney Coleman) in the flick had already been identified and that, according to the photos I found, still looked pretty much exactly the same as it did in Nine to Five. So I ran right out to stalk it while I was in L.A. a couple of weeks ago.
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In Nine to Five, Doralee Rhodes (Dolly Parton), Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin) and Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda) hold their “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” of a boss, Mr. Hart, hostage (by forcing him into a hang gliding harness strapped to a customized garage door opener) for three weeks at his stately Tudor mansion while they try to find proof that he has been embezzling money.
As you can see below, today the house has quite a bit of foliage blocking its visibility from the street and the western portion of it seems to have been remodeled a bit since Nine to Five was filmed. Otherwise though, little else of the dwelling has been altered in the ensuing years.
In real life, the 1932 mansion boasts seven bedrooms, ten baths (!!!), 9,738 square feet of living space, and a 1.76-acre lot.
I was unable to determine if the estate’s actual interior appeared in Nine to Five, as I, unfortunately, could not find any interior photographs of the place online. In 1984, the abode was featured extensively in the pilot episode of Murder, She Wrote, which was titled “The Murder of Sherlock Holmes.” (Pictured below.) The interior shown in the episode looks completely different than the interior of the house from Nine to Five, though, so either the property was remodeled in between productions or a set was built for the filming of the movie. (It is highly unlikely that a set was built for Murder, She Wrote as the mansion only appeared in one single episode.)
Pictured below is the kitchen that appeared in Nine to Five, as compared to the kitchen that appeared in Murder, She Wrote. As you can see, they do not even remotely resemble each other.
Neither do the living rooms;
or stairways.
Further confusing the matter is that in Murder, She Wrote, a different location altogether was shown in establishing shots of the exterior of the mansion at night. And while I at first thought that interior filming might possibly have taken place at that second mansion, that does not appear to have been the case.
In “The Murder of Sherlock Holmes,” there is a shot of a character walking out of the interior of the residence onto the front porch, in which the exterior steps, arched façade and paneled front door are visible. Those elements match the exterior of the Nine to Five mansion (which you will be able to see more clearly later on in this post). I’ll leave it up to my fellow stalkers to be the judge on this one, but my best guess is that the interior of Mr. Hart’s mansion was just a set.
The exterior of the mansion also appeared very briefly in set-up shots of Bel-Air in the Season 1 episode of Dragnet titled “The Big Jade,” which aired in 1967.
The Nine to Five mansion was also where Jim Rockford (James Garner) and Warren Weeks (a very young Ron Rifkin) hid from the police by crashing a wedding in the Season 3 episode of The Rockford Files titled “The Trouble with Warren,” which aired in 1976.
As you can see below in a screen capture from Murder, She Wrote as compared to a screen capture from The Rockford Files, the front door, brick steps and arched overhang that appear in both episodes match each other perfectly.
A small portion of the interior of the mansion also appeared briefly in “The Trouble with Warren.”
And while the residence was also reportedly used in the 1981 television miniseries Jacqueline Susann’sValley of the Dolls, I could not find a copy of that production with which to verify that information.
As I mentioned in last Wednesday’s post, fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, recently got on a kick of tracking down missing locations from his all-time favorite comedy, the 1983 classic National Lampoon’sVacation. One of the locales he managed to find was the Town House Motel in Glendale, where Clark W. Griswold (Chevy Chase) and his family – wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo), son Rusty (Anthony Michael Hall) and daughter Audrey (Beverly Hills, 90210’s Dana Barron) – spent the first night of their road trip from Chicago to Los Angeles. [I also did some digging and pinpointed the gas station where Clark tried to fill the new Wagon Queen Family Truckster (it’s the Little America Hotel at 2515 East Butler Avenue in Flagstaff, Arizona) and the rest stop where he danced with a sandwich (it’s the Shaw Creek Rest Area near 25090 Highway 160, just east of El Dorado Lane, in South Fork, Colorado).] And while Owen informed me that the Town House Motel was, sadly, no longer standing, I figured since I was already in the area stalking the car dealership from the film, I might as well drop by.
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Towards the beginning of Vacation, Clark and the gang spend the night at a roadside lodging somewhere outside of St. Louis, Missouri. They wind up at the motel unexpectedly, after Clark, who has fallen asleep at the wheel, pulls in there accidentally. In the scene, the Griswold’s Wagon Queen Family Truckster (newly-adorned with graffiti that spells out “Honky Lips” LOL) goes careening down West Campus Street, heading south. It then veers across East Colorado Street and straight into the parking lot of the Town House Motel, losing a few pieces of luggage in the process.
While watching the scene, Owen had spotted an address number of “1510” above the property’s front entrance. From there, he did a Google search for “1510,” “motel” and “Los Angeles,” and one of the first results to pop up was an eBay sale for a 1950s matchbook from the Town House Motel located at 1510 East Colorado Street in Glendale. As he quickly discovered via a Street View search of that address, though, the structure had been bulldozed and a new, much larger hotel was now standing in its place. Sadness! You can check out what the Town House used to look like here and here.
The new property is named the Glendale Lodge and, as you can see below, it looks nothing at all like the former Town House.
I am fairly certain that one of the Town House’s real life rooms was also used in the filming, although the vibrating bed was most likely a prop.
Fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, recently embarked upon a mission to try to track down some of the unknown locations from one of his favorite movies, the 1983 classic Vacation. He had quite a bit of success, too, managing to pinpoint two elusive spots, one of which was the Norwalk motel where Clark W. Griswold (Chevy Chase) skinny-dipped with The Girl in the Ferrari (Christie Brinkley) – a place I was absolutely dying to stalk while in L.A. two weeks ago, but unfortunately, the long trek down to that area made it unfeasible to do so. Anyway, Owen’s quest had me reviewing some of the movie’s more well-known locales, including Glendale Dodge Chrysler Jeep, which I had long been aware stood in for the supposed Chicago, Illinois-area Lou Glutz Motors in the flick. Even though I lived mere miles from the dealership for over 13 years, because I assumed it had long since been remodeled, I figured it was not worth a stalk. So when I saw via Google Street View that the spot remained virtually unchanged from its onscreen appearance three decades ago (yes, three decades!) I was absolutely floored and decided that I had to write a blog post on it, stat!
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In the opening scene of Vacation, Clark arrives at Lou Glutz Motors with his son, Rusty Griswold (Anthony Michael Hall), to pick up the Antarctic blue Super Sports Wagon with the CB and optional Rally Fun Pack that he ordered for his family’s upcoming road trip to Los Angeles. After turning in his “ol’ gas guzzler,” he learns from salesman Ed (Eugene Levy) that the car he purchased has not actually arrived yet. And while Ed tries to steer Clark to a “damn fine” Wagon Queen Family Truckster in metallic pea, Clark, who is not your “ordinary, everyday fool,” cannot be deterred from the auto that he originally ordered.
That is until his old car comes back from the wrecking area, completely flattened. As you can see in the photographs above and below, aside from a difference in paint color and the addition of some bright red awnings, the dealership has been pretty much left untouched since Vacation was filmed in 1983! Despite several changes in ownership, the exterior stairway, the plants below it, the screen above the service bay, and even some of the directional road markings all still look exactly the same as they did onscreen.
The exterior of the showroom also remains in its 1983 state, minus the addition of a second set of doors.
The Star Lincoln-Mercury dealership that was visible in the background of the scene also still looks exactly the same as it did onscreen, but I, unfortunately, did not snap any photographs of it.
I honestly cannot express how cool it was to stalk this location and to see in person how closely it still resembles the images of it that are ingrained in my memory from having watched the flick so many times over the years. LOVE IT!
I am extremely excited to announce (to those who haven’t already heard via Facebook or Twitter) that I was recently invited to contribute a weekly blog post to the CityThink section of Los Angeles magazine online. (I’m feeling so very Carrie Bradshaw! ) My post, Scene It Before (thank you, fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for the title!), will chronicle filming locations (duh!) then-and-now and will run each Thursday. I could NOT be more floored about this new endeavor and hope all of my fellow stalkers will check it out each week. My first column, which was published this past Thursday, can be read here. (I actually wanted to make this announcement last Friday, but felt weird mixing in such happy news with a blog about the assassination of JFK.) And now, on with the post!
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Back in September, my mom texted me to ask if I had ever stalked a huge, white boat-shaped house on Mulholland Drive. Such a property was being featured on an episode of Million Dollar Listing that she was watching at the time and real estate agent Josh Altman had mentioned that the site was often rented out for movie and TV shoots – so much so that the owner was said to make about $700,000 a year on filming alone! (In fact, during the episode Altman loses the listing because a movie production company swept in and rented the place for four months – for $320,000! When Altman learned the unfortunate news, he asked if the flick being filmed was Titanic 2. LOL) I had never even heard of such a structure before, but was, of course, immediately intrigued. Thankfully, I found the pad rather quickly that very same night via a Google search (there aren’t that many houses shaped like ships on Mulholland Drive, I guess). One look at the images Google kicked back had me absolutely drooling. The place was easily one of the most architecturally unique residences I’d ever laid eyes on. So I ran right out to stalk it while the Grim Cheaper and I were in L.A. two weeks ago.
Before arriving at the property, I had an inkling that it would not be very visible from the street, so I was floored to discover the opposite to be true.
Kinda makes you want to scream out, “I’m the king of the world!”, huh?
The 5-bedroom, 8-bath, 4-level, 11,000-square-foot residence, which was originally built in 1992, offers glass walls, 300-degree views, 2,500-square-feet of outdoor living space, an office, a pool, 2 spas, a fire pit, a gym, a nightclub/theatre, a wine cellar, 2 kitchens, and parking for 8 cars. It was last offered for sale for a cool $6,749,000. You can check out the real estate listing, complete with interior photographs, here.
For such a unique dwelling, the entrance to the property is actually quite non-descript, as you can see in the below Google Street View image. (Unfortunately, Mulholland Drive is a very busy thoroughfare and there was absolutely nowhere for me to pull over to snap photographs in the vicinity of the, ahem, stern area.)
I was floored to discover while doing research for this post that the abode has quite a few celebrity connections. According to MailOnline.com, pop group One Direction stayed there for seven nights this past August during the last week of the North American portion of their Take Me Home tour. Harry and the gang shelled out $27,000 for the privilege. Yep, $27,000 for seven nights! (While the article also states that the boat house is located in a gated community, that information is actually incorrect. As you can see above, the home is situated right on Mulholland Drive and is quite accessible.) According to Virtual Globetrotting, model Katie Price and then-husband, singer Peter Andre, leased the residence back in 2008 and Curbed LA states that Prince rented the pad for a time, but, for whatever reason, never actually lived on the premises.
The episode of Million Dollar Listing my mom had watched back in September was Season 6’s “All Aboard,” in which Altman and his assistant, Mikey, hosted a broker’s open house at the boat-shaped residence.
Of the property, Altman said, “Some houses, they sell themselves. This one, not so much. Not only is it shaped as a ship, but it probably needs about a million dollars worth of upgrades. It looks like the freaking Love Boat in here! This thing is straight out of the ‘80s.” LOL The place is definitely unique – you gotta give it that. It is not very hard to see why the pad has been utilized so often as a filming location.
Thanks to Curbed LA, I learned that in 2002 the top ten finalists from the first season of American Idol were put up in the mansion. (Once I heard the news, I ran right home and watched our American Idol: The Search for a Superstar DVD, which chronicles the series’ first year. Man, that season was great! In my mind, no other season has even come close to comparing.) Quite a few areas of the house were shown in those episodes, including the front exterior;
the kitchen;
several bedrooms;
the pool;
the living areas;
and the carport.
That same year, the boat house was featured in Eve’s “Gangsta Lovin’” music video.
You can watch that video by clicking below.
In the Season 3 episode of Californication titled “Slow Happy Boys,” which aired in 2009, the abode was where Sue Collini (Kathleen Turner) lived and threw a rowdy party.
The interior of the property also appeared in the episode.
Big THANK YOU to my mom for telling me about this location!
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Mulholland Drive Boat House is located at 15105 Mulholland Drive in Bel-Air. You can check out a good view of the residence from Woodcliff and Cody Roads, which run just north and east of it.
As most of my fellow stalkers already well know due to the deluge of media attention, today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I was not yet even a twinkle in my parents’ eyes on November 22nd, 1963, so I did not experience the tragic events firsthand, but they have always intrigued me. I have read quite a bit on the subject, watched countless documentaries and, of course, have my conjectures – as do most Americans. While not a conspiracy theorist, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I do not think there was a second (or third) gunman in Dealey Plaza that afternoon, but I do strongly suspect that someone put Oswald up to the shooting. Knowing Kennedy’s relationship with organized crime, the fact that Lee was murdered by mobster Jack Ruby less than 48 hours after the assassination only furthers my belief. Simply put, I think someone wanted to shut him up. Whatever the true story is, I doubt it will ever come to light, but it sure is fascinating to speculate over. So when my good friends/fellow stalkers Lavonna and Kim headed to Dallas, Texas last week and informed me that they would be touring Dealey Plaza, I asked if they would tell me of their experiences and share their photographs for a blog post. They were happy to do so and sent me a plethora of pics and information, without which this write-up would not have been possible. So thank you, Lavonna and Kim!
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In most of the JFK documentaries I have watched, visitors to Dealey Plaza invariably comment on the site being much smaller in person than it appears to be in photographs and on film. Kim and Lavonna had the same reaction. Kim said, “I was surprised by the size, it always seemed more spread out in photos.” And Lavonna stated that after being on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository building and seeing the spot from which Oswald made his fateful shots and its proximity to the motorcade route, she came to the belief that he was the sole gunman.
Kim, Lavonna and Debbie’s first stop once arriving in the plaza was The Sixth Floor Museum, which was established inside of the Depository building in 1989. After the Texas School Book Depository Company moved out of the structure in 1970, there were plans to demolish it. Local citizens protested the tear-down, though, and the county finally acquired the property in 1977. The site was then renovated and re-opened as the Dallas County Administration Building in 1981. Only the lower five floors of the space were used as offices – the sixth and seventh were left vacant.
Because the location remained such a tourist draw, plans were eventually drawn up for a museum to be installed on the empty levels. The site was opened to the public on Presidents’ Day 1989.
The Sixth Floor Museum serves as a tribute to Kennedy’s presidency and legacy, and also chronicles the dark day in which he was murdered. Several exhibits and artifacts are featured inside, including the sign that hung at the Depository’s entrance in 1963.
Also displayed are amazing chromogenic prints of both John and Jackie Kennedy, each designed by Alex Guofeng Cao. The portrait of John was created by merging 50,000 tiny images of Jackie. How incredible is that?
Jackie’s print, in turn, consists of 50,000 fused photos of John.
Oswald’s infamous sniper perch, which was both painstakingly restored to its 1963 condition and re-created using crime scene pictures, is exhibited, as well, albeit behind a glass partition. Of the display, Kim said, “Scruffs in the floor, the boxes, light fixtures, etc. are frozen in time.” Sadly, photographs were not permitted in that area. You can check out a picture of what the space looks like on The Sixth Floor Museum website here. Kim described being in the vicinity of such a tragic event as such, “I found the whole experience very sad. I don’t know a lot about Kennedy and his politics, or the assassination and all that followed. But you can definitely tell this was a pivotal moment for America that was felt worldwide.”
Photographs were allowed from the window located directly above Oswald’s perch. That view is pictured below.
Upon leaving the museum, Kim, Lavonna and Debbie walked the final segment of Kennedy’s fateful parade route, starting on Houston Street, from which, at 12:29 p.m. on November 22nd, 1963, the presidential motorcade made a sharp left onto Elm Street, directly in front of the Texas School Book Depository building.
That turn caused the convoy to slow considerably as it headed toward what has since become known as the “triple overpass.”
Directly north of those X’s is the much-talked-about grassy knoll, where police initially ran following the shooting. Many believe that a second gunman stood behind the wooden fence (which is a reproduction of the original) that runs along the northern end of the area.
It was on the grassy knoll, on top of the white pillar pictured below, that Abraham Zapruder stood, his secretary perched on the ground behind him providing balance, while shooting his now infamous video.
Lavonna, Kim and Debbie next embarked upon the JFK Trolley Tour, put on by Big D Fun Tours, which retraced both the presidential motorcade route and Lee Harvey Oswald’s steps following the assassination. Immediately after the shooting, Lee ducked out of the Texas School Book Depository building, walked a few blocks, caught a bus, then a taxi, and headed about three miles south to the boarding house where he had been living.
The residence, which is currently owned by Patricia Hall (granddaughter of Gladys Johnson, the home’s 1963 proprietor), has not changed one iota in the past fifty years, as you can see below.
The place, which offers tours, is currently for sale for $500,000.
Amazingly enough, the real life boarding house was used in the filming of the 1991 movie JFK. (A number of the actual assassination locations appeared in the flick – far too many for me to chronicle here.)
The actual interior of the home, including Lee’s actual former bedroom, was also featured.
You can watch a fascinating video about the residence by clicking below.
After leaving the boarding house, Oswald walked south. Near the intersection of 10th and Patton Streets, Officer J.D. Tippit spotted Lee and stopped him to ask some questions from his police car. When Tippit tried to exit the cruiser during the conversation, Lee shot him three times. He then went around to the rear of the car and fired again before fleeing the scene. A witness called police to report the incident and Tippit was subsequently transported to Methodist Hospital, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival.
A memorial plaque for the fallen officer was installed at the site in 2012. (It was instituted a year prior to the 50th anniversary, so that the event would not be overshadowed by today’s commemoration for JFK.)
After shooting Tippet, Oswald passed by the Ballew Texaco Station, now Santos Muffler & Radiator, and threw his jacket underneath a 1954 Oldsmobile that was parked in an adjacent lot.
He then headed east on West Jefferson Boulevard and ducked in and out of the storefronts pictured below in an attempt to avoid police, although officers were not yet looking for him at that time.
Johnny Brewer, the manager of Hardy Shoe Store, now Liz Bridal & Quinceañera, noticed Oswald’s odd behavior and walked outside to observe him more closely.
Brewer followed Lee about 100 feet, at which point the assassin headed inside the Texas Theatre, where he slipped past ticket clerk Julie Postal without paying for admittance. Once Oswald was out of sight, Brewer told Postal to call the police.
Officers quickly arrived on the scene, entered the auditorium and, after a brief scuffle, arrested Oswald, less than ninety minutes after he fired the fatal shots that killed Kennedy.
Two days later, Oswald was set to be transferred from Dallas Police Headquarters, now the Dallas Municipal Building, to the county jail. At 11:21 a.m., while Lee was being escorted to a waiting car located in the basement of the headquarters building (in the area directly behind the metal door pictured below), a nightclub owner with underworld ties named Jack Ruby walked into the space unnoticed and shot him, supposedly to spare Jackie Kennedy the ordeal of going through a trial. (Yeah, sounds suspicious to me, too.) Following in Kennedy’s footsteps from almost exactly 48 hours prior, Oswald was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital and pronounced dead at 1:07 p.m. On March 14th, 1964, Ruby was convicted of murder with malice and received the death sentence. That conviction was later overturned and, a little over three years after the Oswald killing, while he was awaiting a retrial, Jack Ruby passed away of a pulmonary embolism at – you guessed it – Parkland Memorial Hospital.
Big THANK YOU to my dear friends/fellow stalkers Lavonna and Kim for providing the photographs and information that appear in this post and for sharing their experiences of being at Dealey Plaza.
I just finished reading a fabulous book about one of Hollywood’s first and biggest controversies titled Room 1219: The Life of Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood by Greg Merritt. Prior to reading the tome, I knew little about actor/comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, but had always been fascinated by his rape and murder trial, which rocked Tinseltown to its core. I had actually previously stalked two of Fatty’s former West Adams homes after finding their addresses thanks to fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory, and his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites. My original intent was to blog about them during the month of October, but once I discovered that the pads aren’t reported to be haunted and that the Roscoe scandal did not actually take place on either premises I decided to hold off until November. So here goes!
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The tale of Fatty is a sad one. The robust comedian became Hollywood’s golden boy and one of its highest paid stars in the 1910s, after toiling penniless for years on the Vaudeville circuit. Cut to Labor Day weekend 1921, when Roscoe made the fateful decision to go to San Francisco with two friends. He stayed in Room 1219 of the Saint Francis Hotel (a location that I hope to stalk in the near future) and threw a raucous party. A young actress name Virginia Rappe was in attendance. She drank quite a bit at the soiree and, at some point, ruptured her bladder, dying four days later from peritonitis in a nearby sanitarium. One of Rappe’s friends falsely accused Arbuckle of raping Virginia and causing her death. Despite the fact that doctors found no evidence of a rape, Fatty was arrested for murder. The media had a field day denouncing the comedian and his films were soon banned in most states. His first two trials resulted in hung juries and he was finally acquitted – and given a written apology from the jury – at the third in April 1922. His career never recovered, though, and he was forced to work mostly behind the scenes under a pseudonym for the remainder of his life, which was not long. Roscoe passed away from a heart attack in 1933 at the age of 46.
According to E.J., Roscoe rented the Vienna Secessionist-style mansion pictured below in the late 1910s (although I’ve also heard reports that he lived there after his trials ended). The residence had been commissioned by businessman/real estate developer Lycurgus Lindsay (love the name!) in 1908 and was constructed of hollow hard-burned terra cotta from Western Art Tile Works, a company Lindsay owned. The property was designed by Charles Frederick Whittlesey, who also devised the original Wentworth Hotel in Pasadena, which was later re-built as the Huntington Hotel. In 1908, the home’s grounds measured over four acres, stretched from West Adams Street all the way to West 27th Street, and included three large terraced-pieces of land and a greenhouse. The dwelling, which was considered fire- and earthquake-proof, boasted three stories, a large reception hall with an art-glass window depicting a waterfall, a formal dining room, a butler’s pantry, servants’ quarters, leaded glass windows, a conservatory, and quarter-grain oak and Peruvian mahogany detailing.
According to the Los Angeles History blog, Lindsay lived at the residence, which is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, from the time it was completed in 1910 to 1913.
At some point, the property was obtained by the Our Lady of the Bright Mount Roman Catholic Polish Church and a parish was subsequently constructed in the front yard area, almost completely obscuring the mansion from view. In fact, when the Grim Cheaper and I first went to stalk it, we drove right by the place without even realizing it was there.
It is so sad to me that such a gorgeous edifice has been so obscured. Thankfully though, one of the priests who happened to be on the premises noticed us taking photographs and invited us behind the gates for a better view.
In 1919, Roscoe leased another West Adams-area mansion located about three miles east. The property had originally been commissioned in 1905 by United States Navy Commander Randolph Huntington Miner and his wife, shipping heir Tulita Wilcox Miner. The two-story, twenty-room Tudor revival-style dwelling boasted a drawing room that could hold two hundred people, a gabled roof, a Japanese meditation garden, a koi pond, and stained glass windows. In 1917, the Miners migrated to France and leased out their home to silent film siren Theda Bara. When Theda moved out in 1919, Roscoe and his then-wife Minta Durfee moved in. A short time later, they purchased the pad from the Miners for $250,000.
According to Merritt, Arbuckle spent copious amounts to decorate the place. He writes, “He imported an intricately carved front door from Spain (cost: $12,000) and bought and bought and bought: ornate mahogany paneling, gold-leafed bathtubs, crystal chandeliers, Oriental rugs, marble counters, fine-art paintings, antique china. The red lacquer dining room table with golden-clawed feet was from China. The lanai featured a Hawaiian royal chair. There was a Japanese bridge over the pond. Forever fascinated by technical gadgetry, Arbuckle had his closets and dressers wired with lights that came on when a door or drawer was opened.” The home’s humongous detached garage had space for all six of Roscoe’s luxury cars, including his beloved custom-built Pierce-Arrow. (You can see the spire of nearby St. Vincent de Paul Church, which I blogged about here, on the right-hand side of the top photo below.)
The Virgina Rappe scandal and Roscoe’s ensuing unemployment left the actor virtually destitute. To pay for the trials (which it is rumored cost him $750,000 – and that’s 1920s money!), he deeded his mansion to Joseph Schenck. He continued to live on the premises, though, leasing the property back from the legendary producer. By June 1922, Fatty’s manager Lou Anger and his wife had rented the residence for themselves, allowing Arbuckle, whose own wife had since moved out, to stay there as well. By December of that year, the broke – and broken – comedian was living by himself in a small bungalow in Hollywood. Today, the property serves as a rectory for Congregation of the Mission and is known as the Amat House, named (I believe) in honor of the first bishop of Los Angeles, Thaddeus Amat y Brusi.
Stalk It: Fatty Arbuckle’s former homes are both located in the West Adams District of Los Angeles – the Lycurgus Lindsay house can be found at 3424 West Adams Boulevard and the Amat House is located at 649 West Adams Boulevard.
On the November 4th episode of Dancing with the Stars, which featured singer Cher as a guest judge, contestants Leah Remini and Tony Dovolani danced a Viennese Waltz that adorably reenacted Cher’s first encounter with Sonny Bono to the 1965 hit “I Got You Babe.” In the segment showing Leah and Tony prepping for the performance, Leah mentioned that Sonny and Cher first met at a coffee shop in L.A. Well, believe you me, those words were hardly out of her mouth before I had my phone in hand to try to track down the location of that coffee shop. Through a simple Google search, I quickly learned that the name of the shop was Aldo’s, but I could not seem to find an address for it anywhere. So the following morning I emailed fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory, to see if he might be able to help and he responded just a few minutes later with two possible addresses. From there it was not too hard to figure out the right one. Sadly, the building that once housed Aldo’s was demolished around 1991 and the site today is just a vacant lot (I think – but more on that later). I still ran right out to stalk it, though, this past week while the Grim Cheaper and I were in L.A.
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To find the address for Aldo’s Coffee Shop, E.J. scanned through old Los Angeles phone directories and came up with two results – 6413 Hollywood Boulevard and 6721 Hollywood Boulevard, as you can see below. Cher mentioned in her autobiography, The First Time (which I checked out from the library the day after the Dancing with the Stars episode aired), that the Aldo’s where she met Sonny was located next door to the KFWB radio station studio. From there, I tracked down the station’s location in 1962, the year Sonny and Cher met, which turned out to be 6419 Hollywood Boulevard, meaning that the correct Aldo’s was the one at 6413. Eureka!
Cher, who was 16 at the time, met Sonny thanks to her then-boyfriend, record-promoter Red Baldwin. Of their first encounter, Cher writes, “One day Red told me, ‘I have a great friend who just split up with his wife. He’s a weird guy, but he’s a lot of fun, and everyone loves him. Maybe you could introduce him to your roommate, and we could double-date.’ So we all decided to meet. One afternoon at Aldo’s Coffee Shop, a hangout for radio people and disc jockeys who worked next door at KFWB, Red and I sat down at a table with Melissa, my roommate. Then someone came in, and everybody turned around. The room started buzzing – ‘Sonny’s here! ‘Hey, Son!’ – and that’s when I got my first look at Salvatore Phillip Bono. I will never forget it, because everyone else in the room disappeared, just washed away into some fuzzy soft focus, like when Maria saw Tony at the dance in West Side Story.” She later states, “And I actually thought to myself, Something is different now. You’re never going to be the same.” And while she broke up with Red the following morning, it took a bit more time for Sonny to feel the fireworks, initially telling Cher, “I don’t find you terribly attractive.” LOL
Sadly, I cannot find any photographs of Aldo’s online. You can check out a picture of what the KFWB building, which was demolished in 1991, looked like in 1972 here, though. The photo below was taken from virtually the same angle. While comparing the storefronts that appear in the 1972 image to the listings in the 1973 Los Angeles phone directory, I noticed that some things did not seem to add up and have come to the conclusion that Aldo’s was most likely located in the western-most space of the building denoted with a pink arrow below, which is currently addressed 6411 Hollywood Boulevard. I believe that structure was also torn down at some point and rebuilt (and its address subsequently changed from 6413 to 6411), as it does not match the building that stands in that spot in the 1972 photo. Without seeing actual images of Aldo’s, though, I cannot be certain.
The site does boast a fabulous view of the Hollywood Sign, so at least there’s that.
You can watch Leah and Tony’s adorably sweet “I Got You Babe” dance by clicking below.
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