Year: 2018

The Old Orange County Courthouse from “American Horror Story: Asylum”

It is a sad truth that many filming locations are not publicly accessible. (I’m looking at you Fremont Place, Golden Oak Ranch, the Jack Rabbit Slim’s exterior from Pulp Fiction, pretty much all of the houses from Scream, and Venice High School! Yes, I have toured the latter several times, but I have never been able to stalk the hallway Britney Spears shimmied down in her “. . . Baby One More Time” music video and it remains one of my top must-see spots.) I am very happy to report that is not the case with the Old Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana, though. As the Grim Cheaper and I were thrilled to discover upon visiting last March, not only is the property open every weekday, but guided tours are also offered and photographs even encouraged! Now that’s my kind of place! We wound up spending several hours exploring the building, learning all about its architecture, history, and, of course, onscreen portrayals, the most famous of which was as the ultra-spooky Briarcliff Manor in American Horror Story: Asylum. So to the top of my Haunted Hollywood To-Blog List the site went!

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The handsome Richardsonian Romanesque-style property, designed by architect C. L. Strange, opened for operation on November 12, 1901, after 17 months of construction. During its early years the 30,000-square-foot, two-and-a-half-story building served as the county courthouse, as well as housing offices for county workers including the Board of Supervisors, the sheriff, and the district attorney.

Built of Arizona red sandstone and Temecula granite, with a metal rooftop painted to look like tile, the structure, which cost $117,000 to complete, really is a sight to behold.

They just don’t build ‘em like this anymore.

We happened to arrive at the courthouse just as the sun was gracing its edifice with majestic palm tree shadows, making it even more striking.

I mean, come on!

The Old Orange County Courthouse looks a bit different today than it did when it was initially built thanks to the loss of the towering cupola that once capped its roof. The 63-foot-tall piece, modeled after that of Trinity Church in Boston, suffered damage during the 1933 Long Beach earthquake and had to be removed. You can see a photograph of it when it was still intact here.

Aside from the elimination of the cupola and some other minor changes made to the roof following the quake, little of the building has been altered since it was constructed 117 years ago.

The place did fall victim to a few unsightly renovations over the years, including the removal of the exquisite original tiling, the addition of carpeting, and the installation of a drop ceiling, but thankfully the courthouse was brought back to its former glory via a massive restoration project that took place from 1983 to 1992.

Though no legal proceedings have taken place on the premises since a new, larger courthouse was built in 1969, its main tribunal, Courtroom No. One, remains intact.

The wood-paneled venue was the site of numerous famous trials during its heyday, including that of Beulah Overell and George Gollum, who in 1947 were accused of killing Beulah’s parents by blowing up their yacht, as well as that of Henry Ford McCracken, who was charged with the slaying of ten-year-old Patty Jean Hull in what became California’s first murder trial in 1952.

Today the Old Orange County Courthouse, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also California State Landmark No. 837, operates as a county park and houses the marriage license bureau, the Orange County History Center, and the Orange County Archives.

The building also functions as a special events venue, a setting for wedding photographs, and, of course, a filming location.

The Old Orange County Courthouse was featured prominently throughout American Horror Story: Asylum as Briarcliff Manor, a supposed Massachusetts-area tuberculosis ward where more than 46,000 people died. The property was shown in both present day, in which it was made to seem dilapidated and abandoned . . .

. . . and its 1960’s state, when it was still in operation as a sanitarium.

The courthouse’s façade was digitally altered for the series, which aired from October 2012 to January 2013. As you can see below, not only was an entire floor added to the structure, but its roofline and gable windows were also adjusted slightly.

Despite the changes, the building is entirely recognizable from its many appearances on the show.

Only the exterior of the courthouse was utilized on American Horror Story: Asylum. Briarcliff’s sprawling interior was a studio-built set.

The Old Orange County Courthouse cameoed as Briarcliff Manor once again in the 2014 episode of American Horror Story: Freak Show titled “Orphans.”

AHS is hardly the only production to have featured the property.

The exterior of the building appeared as the outside of the courthouse where the murder trial of Thelma Jordan (Barbara Stanwyck) took place in the 1950 noir The File on Thelma Jordan . . .

. . . which coincidentally starred convicted killer Paul Kelly, whom I wrote about last week.

The lobby and stairwell of the Old Orange County Courthouse also appeared in the film.

Fellow stalker Jeff let me know that in 1967 the building was used in an establishing shot of the courthouse where Aunt Bee Taylor (Frances Bavier) serves on a jury in the Season 8 episode of The Andy Griffith Show titled “Aunt Bee, the Juror.”

The trial of Clarence Earl Gideon (Henry Fonda) at the beginning of the 1980 made-for-television movie Gideon’s Trumpet took place in Courtroom No. One.

As did North’s (Elijah Wood) trial to emancipate himself from his parents in the 1994 comedy North.

The Old Orange County Courthouse was used for exteriors of the supposed Massachusetts-area tribunal where Brooke Taylor Windham (Ali Larter) went on trial for murder in the 2001 hit Legally Blonde.

The building’s central staircase also made an appearance in the film.

The actual courtroom scenes were shot elsewhere, though – I believe on a set.

Despite that fact, I still had to do my best Elle Woods while there.

Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) argued a preliminary hearing in Courtroom No. One in the 2002 biopic Catch Me If You Can.

DiCaprio returned to the site to shoot Bruno Hauptmann’s (Damon Herriman) trial scenes for 2011’s J. Edgar.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Old Orange County Courthouse, aka Briarcliff Manor from American Horror Story: Asylum, is located at 211 West Santa Ana Boulevard in Santa Ana. You can visit the property’s official website here. The building is open to the public Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

October 23, 2018
Chateau Emanuel from “The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley”

I am a HUGE fan of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movies, as I have mentioned previously. Passport to Paris, When in Rome, New York Minute – all favorites, even though I am just a wee bit off age-wise when it comes to their target demographic. So when fellow stalker Chris (he’s the one who tracked down the location of the Full House downhill derby) emailed me this past summer and mentioned that he knew of a few other locales from the twins’ many productions, I was all in. One he informed me of, Chateau Emanuel from “The Case of Thorn Mansion” episode of The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley, especially piqued my interest. The massive property sits high atop a bluff overlooking pretty much all of Eagle Rock and I was shocked that in my 15+ years of living in neighboring Pasadena and stalking its environs, I had never come across the place. Because it played an abandoned and haunted house in the episode, I figured the pad had all the makings of a great October post. So I ran right out to stalk it.

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Chateau Emanuel was originally commissioned by Bekins Moving Company founder Martin Bekins. Designed by architect F. Eugene Barton, whom Martin also secured to design the seven-story Bekins Storage Building in nearby Glendale, the Dutch Colonial-style manse was completed in 1927.

When Martin passed away in 1933, the residence was acquired by philanthropist Wilfred “Bill” Lane, who made his fortune by inventing a perforating gun that expedited oil well drilling. The property did not change hands again until 1965, when Lane’s widow sold it to Emanuel and Maria Kvassay. It then remained in the Kvassay family for the next five decades.

The Kvassays, who founded the Sierra Packaging Company, emigrated to the United States from Czechoslovakia after it fell to communist rule. The couple became activists, working to free their native country from communism, and, as such, held numerous fundraisers and political events at the home, which at the time was known as the “Bekins-Lane Mansion.” The dwelling was also the site of countless press functions, weddings, meetings, and galas during the Kvassays’ tenure. Just a few of the politicos and luminaries who attended gatherings there over the years include Stan Lee, Oliver Stone, Marion Ross, Shirley Temple Black, Dr. Edward Teller, Eric Roberts, Rita Wilson, Jesse Jackson, Archbishop José Horacio Gómez, and Lech Wałęsa. Ronald Reagan even hosted a fundraiser for his presidential re-election campaign at the residence in 1984.

When Emanuel and Maria passed away, their three sons inherited the property. Two of the boys remained living on the premises and eldest son, Robert, became the main caretaker, rechristening the place “Chateau Emanuel” in honor of his late father.

The sprawling manse became too much for Robert to handle in recent years, not to mention too expensive – per the Tracy King Team website, water and power bills ran a good $3,500 each month and the lawn took a whopping four hours to mow! In 2010, Robert put the pad on the market with a price tag of $5.99 million. There were no takers, though. He relisted it the following year at a reduced $4.45 million, but no one bit. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles eventually expressed interest in purchasing the residence in 2016 in order to turn it into a retreat and prayer center. In an interesting twist, Katy Perry was even involved in the deal. The pop star offered to buy the pad for the church as part of her ongoing quest to acquire the former Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary convent in Los Feliz. That plan never came to fruition, though, due to zoning problems and in 2017, Chateau Emanuel was listed once again, this time for $5.5 million.

Per the real estate listing, which describes the place as a “compound,” the property boasts a 5,700-square-foot main house with 9 bedrooms, 10 baths, 2 full kitchens, numerous fireplaces, a wet bar, a game room, 2 sitting rooms, an art room, maid’s quarters with a full bath and separate entrance, and a dining room with space for 40 guests. There are also 2 detached guests homes on the premises, the first measuring 3,500 square feet and the second 1,100. The lush 2.1-acre grounds feature a greenhouse, a croquet court, a bistro, a pool, a spa, a stage, rose gardens, a pond, several fountains, pathways, arbors, four gates, cabanas, and parking for 40+ cars! I was particularly taken with the charming wooden footbridges, which look like something out of a fairy tale. I half expected to see Snow White running across one while we were there!

In January of this year, Chateau Emanuel finally sold to none other than Chris Hardwick for $5,250,000. The comedian does not plan on living in the abode, but instead purchased it out of a desire to protect it. Chris was first informed of the dwelling by his mom, real estate agent Sharon Hills, and was quickly smitten. As Curbed Los Angeles explained in an article about the sale, “His purchase of the Bekins estate was motivated in part by the worry that, because the property is so large, it could be sold and redeveloped or otherwise altered. ‘He truly bought this property to preserve it,’ says Hills.’” A man after my own heart! Chris is said to be keeping the home open to historical organizations who wish to hold events there. I’m guessing it will also be available for filming.

In “The Case of Thorn Mansion” episode of The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley, which was released in 1994, Chateau Emanuel portrays the abandoned Thorn Mansion, supposedly located on Black Widow Lane in Transylvania, where the Olsen & Olsen Mystery Agency detectives (“We’ll solve any case by dinner time!”) investigate a supposed haunting. Spoiler alert – the pad turns out not to be haunted. As the twins discover, the “ghost” that neighbors reported seeing on the property was just Mr. Thorn’s granddaughter who was tending to her late grandfather’s beehives.

The property’s real life interior also appeared in the episode.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chris for finding this location!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Chateau Emanuel, from “The Case of Thorn Mansion” episode of The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley, is located at 1554 Hill Drive in Eagle Rock.

October 19, 2018
Weatherwolde Castle

It is not everyday one comes across a mention of a random castle located on a sleepy residential street in Los Angeles. So when I found out about Weatherwolde Castle in Tujunga thanks to this page on the Dupont Castle website a couple of summers ago, I took immediate note and started researching further. The mini manor seemed to be shrouded in mystery, boasting quite a storied past. It was even rumored to be haunted! Knowing it would make for a fabulous October post, I jotted down its address and raced out to see it shortly thereafter – and then somehow forgot about it. It was not until this past February, when Nick Carr, of the fabulous Scouting New York and Scouting Los Angeles websites, posted this Instagram photo of another highly unique residence located right down the road from Weatherwolde (which I stalked the same day as the castle) that I was reminded of the place. So to the top of my Haunted Hollywood To-Blog List it went!

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Google “Weatherwolde Castle” and quite a bit of lore and legend will be kicked back. That is in large part thanks to its former occupants – one set of occupants in particular. As the Los Angeles Times stated in a 2005 piece on the home, “And then there’s the mystery factor. None of the castle’s owners has welcomed neighbors inside — not even members of the historical society. Much of its provenance is fortified by curiosity and rumor.” The vast majority of that curiosity and rumor was propagated by William and Yvonne Kenward, who lived in the castle from 1974 to 1979. During their five-year tenure, the duo was interviewed several times and seemed to love furthering the intrigue surrounding the place, claiming that the unusual pad was built by a French count whose wife was either pushed or jumped to her death from a second-story window during a party on the premises. The two also asserted that the subsequent owners, a Dutch couple, disappeared without a trace shortly after moving in. The next residents, they alleged, found the castle to be haunted by ghosts with, you guessed it, “thick Dutch accents.”

The home’s actual history is much tamer. It was originally designed by engineer/architect George J. Fosdyke for a New Orleans bookkeeper named Marcel Dumas in 1928. At the time of its inception, the 3-story French Normandy-style property boasted 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,535 square feet, a turret with a spiral cantilevered cement staircase, a stone fireplace with a chimney featuring a fleur-de-lis sculpting, a main hall, Gothic arches, a one-acre plot of land, landscaped gardens, and a crypt. Marcel dubbed the dwelling “Chateau de Sales.” Unfortunately, aside from the fleur-de-lis detailing, virtually none of it is currently visible from the street.

Dumas (I swear I can’t read that name without thinking of this!) lost the home due to unpaid taxes in 1940, upon which it was snatched up by Jack Harris and his wife, Dixie Ann (though Jack falsely told anyone who would listen that he won the castle in a lucky game of poker). Dixie Ann worked as a secretary to Selznick International Pictures head David O. Selznick. As such, many Hollywood luminaries spent time at Chateau de Sales, including Boris Karloff, Orson Welles, Bela Lugosi, and Robert Mitchum. The Harris family lived on the premises until 1974, when they sold to the Kenwards. It was William and Yvonne who gave the pad the name Weatherwolde Castle, meaning “snug within from the weather.” Though the duo sat for numerous interviews during their years of ownership, they remained rather secretive about their home. A 1977 Los Angeles Times article (from which the photo below showing a rear view of the property comes from) stated, “The Kenwards have an unlisted telephone number and give interviews only on condition that the location of their castle will not be disclosed.” Lucky for them IAMNOTASTALKER was not around in those years.

In 1979, the Kenwards sold Weatherwolde to Hollywood producers/writers Michael Baser and Barbara Stoll. The couple made several modernizations in the years that followed, including covering the original concrete flooring with hardwood and adding lots of white cabinetry and shelving. Baser and Stoll put the pad on the market in 2005 and it wound up being purchased by developer Scott Anderson who found the three plots of land the structure stood on more attractive than the castle itself. He made plans to raze it and build three new homes in its place. The first part of the demolition process involved excavating the trees and foliage dotting the property, as well as demoing the rear patio, the front wall, and the stone crypt. Doing so caused Weatherwolde’s façade to become visible to passersby for the first time in decades. That’s it post-excavation below. You can check out some additional photos of the place from around the same time here and here.

Google Street View circa June 2008 also provides some good imagery of the castle post-excavation, as you can see below. Neighbors who had long since forgotten about the estate began to take note – and action. They did not want such a unique home demolished. Bulldozers wound up being stopped at the very last minute thanks to the efforts of concert promoter/area resident Gina Zamparelli, who was contacted by the Crescenta Valley Heritage group at midnight the night before the razing was to take place. Gina quickly penned a press release and sent it out to her many media contacts. Her cries were heard loud and clear. By 6 the next morning protesters were out in full force. When the demo crew arrived on the scene, they took one look at the ruckus and left. A judge stepped in and put an official stop to the entire construction project shortly thereafter.

In a tragic twist, at around the same time, locals, who figured the pad was going to eventually be razed, started looting, removing anything and everything from the premises including stained glass windows, doors, hinges, light switches, handles, and appliances. The castle’s iron staircase railing was even pinched via a neighbor wielding a sledgehammer. Within a matter of days, Weatherwolde went from being fully functional and in fabulous shape with gorgeous greenery and landscaping to completely barren, its interior utterly destroyed thanks to both the excavation and the pillaging. Amazingly, one local preservationist, a musician named William Malouf, was still interested in purchasing and restoring the once grand home. After quite a bit of negotiating, Anderson finally agreed to sell Weatherwolde and two of its plots of land to him in October 2005 for $650,000. The developer held onto the third plot, situated just north of the castle, and constructed the rather unattractive 4-bedroom, 3-bath, 2,352-square-foot house pictured below, which he sold for $690,000.

William got to work right away and, miraculously, was able to reclaim virtually all of the items that had been stolen – even the staircase railing. His efforts to repair the castle, which became Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #841 in 2006, are a true labor of love. You can listen to a fabulous 2014 speech he gave about the project and see photos of the restored interior here. I was surprised to see when I arrived, though, that what is visible from the street remains a bit unkempt and that chain-link fencing still surrounds the place. Malouf did mention in his speech that the area where Anderson built the new home pictured above was formerly the site of Weatherwolde’s driveway and entrance gates. When the land was split, extensive work had to be done to add a driveway to the other side of the property. I am guessing – and hoping – that at some point a new gate will be installed to replace the chain-link fence, as well.

Per aerial views, the backyard still seems to be a work in progress, too. I can only imagine how fabulous the place is going to be when the entire restoration is complete – not to mention how perfect it will be for trick-or-treating each October! Here’s hoping Malouf is into Halloween!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Weatherwolde Castle is located at 10633 Commerce Avenue in Tujunga.

October 18, 2018
Ray Raymond and Dorothy MacKaye’s Former House

I have been told that I am ridiculously easy to buy presents for. Anything pink or sparkly, dainty and gold, or having to do with Los Angeles automatically fits the bill. Some gifts are so perfectly suited to me when it comes to the latter category, in fact, that I have received them on multiple occasions. Case in point – The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals, a 514-page tome dedicated to Tinseltown’s most famous crimes, which my mom originally bought me for Christmas in 2013. When the Grim Cheaper came across the publication a few years later while perusing the stacks at our local Barnes & Noble, he snatched it right up and gave it to me the following Christmas, not realizing that my mom had already done so. Both copies remain on my bookshelf today, heavily highlighted, dog-eared and annotated. Chapter 5, titled “The ‘Almost Perfect’ Murder,” about the 1927 killing of Ray Raymond at the hands of his wife’s lover, especially piqued my interest. Prior to reading it, I had never heard of the actor or his homicide, but I devoured the story in minutes, promptly added the address of his former home to my To-Stalk List, and finally made it out there last month while prepping for my Haunted Hollywood posts.

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Ray Raymond was born in San Francisco in 1887. Described as a “song and dance man,” he found success on the vaudeville circuit early in life. While acting in a play in New York in 1921, Ray’s eye was caught by his much younger leading lady, Dorothy ‘Dot’ MacKaye (also sometimes written as “Mackaye”), and, despite a 12-year age gap – he was 34, she was 22 – and the fact that he was already married, he quickly took up with her, ditching his wife in the process. Ray and Dot reportedly wedded that August (though it has been claimed the two never actually tied the knot) and a baby girl the couple named Valerie was born the following year. In 1926, the family of three moved to Los Angeles, eventually settling into a small bungalow located at 2261 Cheremoya Avenue in the Hollywood Hills.

Their 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 1,622-square-foot home, which was originally built in 1922, still stands today boasting a 0.16-acre lot and a detached 2-car garage, which is just visible in the images below.

The quaint dwelling, largely hidden from the road, was not the site of many happy times for Ray and Dot. Not only did Ray reportedly have a major drinking problem, but he spent most of his time touring the country playing vaudeville shows. And Dot . . . well, Dot was in love with someone else.

During Raymond’s time away, MacKaye rekindled her longtime friendship with so-called “tough guy” actor Paul Kelly, whom she had met as a teenager while acting in a play in New York. Born in 1899, Kelly was a true child star having appeared in more than 55 movies before he even turned 18. The red-haired looker moved to Los Angeles around the same time as Dot and Ray and settled into an apartment conveniently located right around the corner from their home at 2420 North Gower Street. It was not long before the two were engaged in a torrid affair, of which neither took great pains to hide. As Dot’s maid later testified, when Raymond was touring, the young mom often did not come home at night, instead choosing to stay over at Paul’s. Newspapers of the day also reported that the couple regularly asked Kelly’s “Japanese houseboy” Jungle to serve them meals and gin fizzes, their apparent drink of choice, in bed.

Ray returned from touring in mid-April 1927 distraught over the affair. He confronted Dot about it and she did little to deny things. Ray also mentioned his wife’s indiscretion to friends, which apparently set Paul over the edge. On the evening of April 16th, under the pretense of going out to buy Easter eggs (I’m not making that up), Dot headed to Paul’s place where the two got drunk on gin fizzes (natch). She told her lover that Ray had been spilling the tea to his buddies and Paul, inexplicably enraged, called Ray to confront him. Raymond suggested that Kelly come to the Cheremoya house to talk in person and, at around 7:30 p.m., Paul headed over. Upon arriving, Ray demanded to know where Dot was. An argument ensued and things rather quickly turned physical, but the 5’7”, 135-pound Raymond was no match for the 6’, 180-pound Kelly, who was 12 years his junior. Paul pummeled Ray, punching him six times in the head and the actor collapsed to the floor. Ray’s housekeeper and daughter witnessed the entire altercation.

Though Ray appeared to be OK in the hours following the fight, he fell into a coma the next day. Dot, hoping to avoid publicity and questioning from authorities, called in a favor from a doctor who was a personal friend and her husband was quietly transported to Queen of Angels Hospital (now Dream Center) at 2301 Bellevue Avenue in Echo Park. The damage had been done, though. Raymond passed away at 5:20 a.m. on April 19th. After being slipped $500, Dot’s doctor friend signed off on the death certificate, claiming “natural causes.” Someone at the hospital smelled a rat, though, and notified the newspapers that an actor who was badly beaten had died. Police were contacted and an autopsy was ordered. Ray, it was found, had actually died from brain hemorrhaging caused by the beating. Paul and Dot were arrested.

Their trials were reportedly the most attended in California history up until that time. Kelly wound up being convicted of manslaughter and was sentenced to one to ten years at San Quentin. He served two and was released on August 2nd, 1929. Dot was convicted of compounding a felony and was sentenced to one to three years, also at San Quentin. She was released after ten months. The two, of course, found their way back to each other and were married in February 1931. Hollywood inexplicably embraced the duo despite the murder. As Paul Drexler stated in a 2018 San Francisco Examiner article about the case, “Killing someone is not generally considered a good career move. It is frowned on in the bible and there is no mention of this technique in any of the books of Dale Carnegie, Stephen Covey, or Tony Robbins. For Paul Kelly, however, this act secured a long and successful acting career.” Kelly indeed made a huge comeback, starring in hundreds of films post-release. He even won a Tony award in 1948! Dot also walked away from the affair fairly unscathed, penning a play based upon her experience behind bars titled Women in Prison, which was later made into the 1933 movie Ladies They Talk About starring Barbara Stanwyck. The couple’s wedded bliss did end up to be rather short-lived, though. On the evening of January 2nd, 1940, Dot was involved in a car accident and, in an eerie echo of Ray’s death, while she appeared fine in the hours following, she passed away from internal injuries three days later. Kelly, who later remarried, died of a heart attack at the age of 57 in 1956. That karma never forgets! Ray and Dorothy’s marital home is the only element of the whole sordid tale that seems to have fared well in the end. Per Zillow, the tiny bungalow is currently worth a whopping $1.58 million!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Ray Raymond and Dorothy MacKaye’s former home is located at 2261 Cheremoya Avenue in the Hollywood Hills.

October 17, 2018
COMET & CHARGE! October Giveaway!

A Halloween-themed giveaway? Say whaaaa? IAMNOTASTALKER is proud to bring you the COMET & CHARGE! October Giveaway! Hushaween! Midnight Movies! Babylon 5! And More!

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It’s the sound… of silence!

This Halloween tune in to COMET TV as they bring you the horror classics that will send shivers down your spine. Before Buffy, before Edward, and before a certain Count, there was Nosferatu. The classic Vampire film, which is followed by The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the original Phantom of the Opera.

Sure to send you to another world, COMET TV brings Space: 1999 and Babylon 5 back for classic spacey adventures! Everyday you can see Babylon 5 and Space: 1999 has back-to-back episodes on Saturday and Sunday evenings! Talk about out of this world!

So you can’t sleep? COMET TV has the solution with cult classic midnight movies airing Mon – Fri! You can pencil in Night of the Creeps, get sucked into Vampires on Bikini Beach and do your best to escape The House on Haunted Hill!

And CHARGE! has the classic series CHiPs! Join Ponch and Jon as they cruse the freeways of Los Angeles solving crime… Back when you could cruse the freeways of Los Angeles!

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Entering is easy – simply click on the link below, follow me on Instagram and then provide your Instagram handle. If you already follow me on Instagram, then simply click below to enter and input your Instagram handle. The contest begins today and runs through November 5th. The winner will be announced on November 6th.

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This giveaway is open to US residents only. Each household is only eligible to win the COMET TV and CHARGE! October Prize Pack via blog reviews and giveaways. Only one entrant per mailing address per giveaway. If you have won the same prize on another blog, you will not be eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification. The prize will be sent via FedEx or USPS. No P.O. Boxes please.

October 16, 2018
Some R & R

Sorry to have been MIA the past few days. I had to have minor surgery and have been recuperating. I hate to take time off during my favorite season, but I should hopefully be back to regularly scheduled programing this week. Thanks for your patience.

October 15, 2018
Gia Scala’s Former House

I am embarrassingly ignorant when it comes to Old Hollywood. So much so that when a fellow stalker named Alan tipped me off to a few celebrity death sites including that of Gia Scala via a comment on my Challenge Lindsay page in early 2017, I thought he was referring to the ‘70s supermodel who was the subject of an eponymous biographical film starring Angelina Jolie. As soon as I inputted the name into Google, I realized my mistake – he was actually alluding to a raven-haired actress best known for her role in 1961’s The Guns of Navarone. Upon researching further, I became quite a bit transfixed by the starlet’s mysterious death, as well as the pedigreed Hollywood Hills home where it occurred. So I added the address to my To-Stalk List and headed on out there earlier this year.

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Born Giovanna Scoglio in Liverpool, London on March 3rd, 1934, Scala migrated to Italy with her parents at three months old. At 15, she headed to the U.S., Long Island specifically, where she lived with an aunt and attended high school. The acting bug hit her early and upon graduation, Gia moved to New York City, began studying under Stella Adler and worked as a reservations clerk at Scandinavian Airlines to make ends meet. She landed a studio contract in 1954, a role in All that Heaven Allows with Rock Hudson the following year, and fame came shortly thereafter.

Sadly, her years in show business were marred by scandalous headlines and severe despondency, both largely stemming from the passing of her mother in 1958, a death which she was said to have never gotten over. Gia attempted to jump off the Waterloo Bridge just a few months later while filming The Angry Hills in London.

Scala found temporary happiness in 1959 when she married actor/stock broker Don Burnett. The two settled into a picturesque 1940 Cape Cod home boasting two bedrooms, three baths, maid’s quarters, and a den at 7944 Woodrow Wilson Drive in Hollywood Hills West.

The couple eventually separated in 1969, divorced the following year and Gia was given the residence in the settlement. Following the dissolution of her marriage, she found herself disconsolate and the subject of tabloid fodder once again. In May 1971, the actress was arrested for drunk driving and, during the subsequent hearing, she passed out in the courtroom. The judge sent her to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation, which caused her to miss a different hearing for a different charge – this one for assaulting a parking lot attendant the month prior. Photos from that arrest are a far cry from images of the actress taken early in her career. In July, Gia suffered injuries, including the loss of a portion of her index finger, after her car overturned on an embankment. It took rescue workers 45 minutes to retrieve her from the wreckage. In November, she was in court yet again for harassing her ex-husband who had since remarried. Gia, Burnett claimed, had not only set his car on fire, but had kicked a hole in his front door. Scala was not in a good place.

Things came to a tragic end on April 30th, 1972. As reported in the newspapers of the day, early that morning, Gia got into an argument with Larry Langston and three other “hippie-type” young men who were staying in her home. The actress had apparently hired the men to do odd jobs around the property. When Gia informed them the arrangement was no longer working out, an altercation occurred. Langston and his friends, who claimed Gia had been drinking heavily and taking barbiturates, decided to leave. They supposedly put her to bed at 6 a.m. Langston then returned that evening at 8 p.m. to gather his belongings and say goodbye to Scala. When he headed upstairs to her bedroom, he found her nude lifeless body sprawled on the bed surrounded by both liquor and prescription bottles – which all sounds rather suspicious to me. Gia fires four men working in her home, an argument ensues and one of those men then finds her dead a short time later? That’s a lot of red flags, especially considering some reports claim her body was bruised and her pillow stained with blood. Coroner Thomas Noguchi (who also performed Marilyn Monroe’s autopsy) ruled the death accidental, though, caused by acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication and advanced arteriosclerosis. Gia’s good friend, male model William Ramage, thinks the latter explains her erratic behavior in the years leading up to her death. As he said in a 2009 interview, “Her brain simply was not getting enough oxygen.” It was a grim ending for someone with such potential.

Shortly after the actress’ passing, her home was purchased by Sally Kellerman, aka Major Margaret ‘Hot Lips’ Houlihan from M*A*S*H, who proceeded to live there for the next four decades, initially with first husband, Rick Edelstein, and then with second husband, Jonathan D. Krane, and their two children, Jack and Hannah. At some point, she also purchased the cottage next door at 7932 Woodrow Wilson. Jack, who grew up on the premises, became convinced the two pads were haunted. As he told People magazine in 2016, “I always asked if someone died in one of these houses, and my parents said no. I have always felt something strange. That house is haunted, for sure. I’ve had a few ghost stories over there. It’s creepy.” He didn’t elaborate on who exactly the spectral visitors were, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one was Gia Scala.

Several years after moving in, Kellerman invited her friend Frank Gehry over for a meal. The renowned architect took one look at the property and immediately suggested a renovation. As Sally told the Chicago Tribune, “Frank Gehry came to dinner and he was like, ‘This is how you live, big movie star? We can gut the upstairs, and change everything in every room, and add a three-story contemporary wing with a rooftop garden.’ So I have a combination Frank Gehry-Cape Cod house.” (The three-story contemporary addition is pictured below.)

Gehry completed his work on the pad in 1983. During the renovation, he left many of the dwelling’s original, traditional elements intact, partially covering them with modern touches. The result of his efforts is a home that looks much like Gehry’s own residence in Santa Monica.

Sadly, Kellerman and Krane lost the property to foreclosure in 2014. You can check out some photos of what it looked like around that time here. It was then snatched up by flippers who gave the place yet another renovation before putting it on the market once again in 2015. (Post-reno pics can be viewed here.) The home, which today boasts 5 bedrooms, 6 baths, 4,412 square feet, a pool, a spa, beamed ceilings, a massive walk-in closet, gardens, and a 0.22-acre lot, was purchased later that year by One Direction’s Niall Horan for $4 million. But its Hollywood pedigree doesn’t end there! Per the 2015 real estate listing, at some point during his pre-acting days Harrison Ford did carpentry work on the residence. Talk about some major Tinseltown connections!

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Alan for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Gia Scala’s former home is located at 7944 Woodrow Wilson Drive in Hollywood Hills West.

October 10, 2018
Neve Campbell’s Former Haunted House

I love a good haunted house, especially at this time of year. One owned by a celebrity is even better. One owned by the star of my favorite horror film of all time? Well, I can’t think of anything more thrilling – or more perfectly suited to my annual October postings. So when I came across a mention of a ghost-inhabited pad formerly belonging to the Scream Queen herself, Miss Neve Campbell, in the book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites (written by my buddy E.J. Fleming, from the Movieland Directory website), I just about came unglued and promptly added the place to my To-Stalk List. Identifying the residence in person wound up taking quite a bit of legwork once I finally got out there, though, thanks to a mysterious and misleading address placard. But more on that in a bit.

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Per Berg Properties, Neve purchased the 3-bedroom, 4-bath, 2,347-square-foot home at 8875 Wonderland Avenue in 1996 for $745,000. Upon moving into the dwelling with then husband Jeff Colt that summer, shortly after wrapping production on the first Scream installment, Campbell, a classically-trained ballerina, installed a dance studio on the premises. Other amenities included a pool, a spa, a 0.17-acre lot, and plenty of privacy thanks to a large amount of foliage surrounding the perimeter. Of the purchase, the excited actress told Detour magazine, “I just moved into my first house with Jeff Colt and we’re very, very excited. It’s in the Hollywood Hills . . . all of a sudden I’m obsessed about houses and furniture. I walk around the Party of Five set thinking, ‘That’s a nice table.’”

Things weren’t all sunshine and roses, though. As author Elina Furman explains in her 2000 book Neve Campbell: An Unauthorized Biography, the star awakened one night “after sensing what she believed to be the presence of a young woman’s ghost. Concluding that her new house was haunted, Neve dubbed her resident specter Madame X. The story got even more interesting when she discovered that a twenty-two-year-old maid had been brutally murdered in the house in 1991. The domestic was working for a mystery writer when a delivery man entered the home and committed the crime. Years later, the furnace in Campbell’s house would turn off and on by itself and the lights would dim of their own accord. Unwilling to be frightened out of her new home, Neve made friends with the spirit, much as her character in The Canterville Ghost had befriended Simon de Canterville. She now considers the specter one of the family. ‘She’s cool. I’m cool. We don’t bug each other, so it’s all right,’ she confirmed to Detour in March 1998.”

The actress also talked about the haunting during her 2011 press tour for Scream 4 (though she mentions living in the home with friends and not her ex-husband). As she told Daily Mail, “I know that ghosts exist because I’ve seen one. A few years ago I moved into a haunted house in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, with some friends. It turned out that it was inhabited by the ghost of a woman who had been murdered there in 1991. Doors would repeatedly slam, windows would open and ashtrays would fly off dressers. Then there were times when the ghost would actually walk into the room. After a while it felt normal. I’d pass her in the hallway and casually wish her good morning.”

Though I have no doubt as to Neve’s claims about the residence being haunted, I do question if a murder actually happened on the premises. I cannot find a reference to such a killing anywhere – though searching for a homicide that occurred on Wonderland Avenue, or in the Laurel Canyon area in general, is admittedly difficult considering that almost every result kicked back has to do with the infamous Wonderland murders, which took place just down the street in 1981. My hunch, though, is that the story is pure conjecture, a tale told to Campbell by a mischievous neighbor or perhaps a real estate agent with a penchant for the macabre.

Though I can’t say for certain whether or not a murder occurred there, one definite odd element concerning the property is its address placard, which reads “8909.” When I first showed up to the corner of Wonderland Avenue and Holly Place, where Neve’s former pad was supposed to be located per both Google and my GPS, I was thoroughly confused to see the 8909 number. Figuring both map programs were off by a few hundred feet or so, I proceeded to walk up and down the block looking for 8875 Wonderland. I came up empty. I was further surprised upon returning to 8909 to discover that its address did not coincide numerically with its neighbors. I surmised that the number had to have been changed at some point, snapped some photos of the place, and headed home to investigate the matter further.

Searching Google and newspapers.com for “8909 Wonderland Avenue” and “8909 Holly Place” yielded pretty much nada. So I headed over to the City of Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety website to look through old records. An inquiry into that database for “8909 Holly” also yielded nothing. But “8875 Wonderland” kicked back a treasure trove of info, all of which assured me that the house I took photos of was not only Neve’s former residence, but that it bears the address 8875. As you can see in the permit below, filed in 1990, 8875 is noted as being on the corner of Holly and Wonderland, right where my GPS said it would be.

Another permit I dug up from that same year featured a diagram of 8875 that perfectly matches the layout and placement visible in aerial views of the structure with the 8909 placard.

And a parcel map available on the Los Angeles County Office of the Assessor website also shows 8875 Wonderland in the exact spot where the 8909 placard is currently hung. Why a different address number is displayed at the property is a complete mystery, but what I do know is that Neve Campbell’s former haunted house is most definitely located on the northeast corner of Holly Place and Wonderland Avenue.

The actress sold the pad in February 2000 for $850,000 and it has not changed hands since. I guess the current owner doesn’t mind having a phantom roommate, either.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., of the Movieland Directory website, for finding this location!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Neve Campbell’s former haunted house is located at 8875 Wonderland Avenue in Hollywood Hills West.

October 8, 2018
Chabelita Tacos from “Truth or Dare”

Roadside taco stands don’t usually conjure up images of the macabre. Today’s locale is no different. In fact, the eatery – Chabelita Tacos – is a bright and colorful addition to the Harvard Heights skyline. But since it did appear in a memorable scene in the 2018 horror flick Truth or Dare, I thought it was only appropriate to include it in my Haunted Hollywood postings.

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Chabelita Tacos pops up toward the end of Truth or Dare, in the scene in which Markie Cameron (Violett Beane) receives a truth challenge from her father, Roy Cameron (Brady Smith), via an old iPhone video while she is sitting alone at a desolate outdoor restaurant.

Thanks to a street sign reading “Western” visible in the background of the segment, pinpointing the eatery was a snap. I had already tracked down the pad where Markie lived with her friends Olivia Barron (Lucy Hale) and Penelope Amari (Sophia Ali) in the movie to 2233 West 21st Street and figured the restaurant was likely nearby. So I opened up Google maps to where Western runs through that area and found Chabelita Tacos almost immediately, literally right around the corner from the house!

I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk it a few days later.

While signage in the windows proclaims that the restaurant serves the “Best Mexican Food in L.A.” (a sentiment Chowhounders wholeheartedly back up, though Yelpers do not), we had already eaten when we arrived on the premises, so we did not get to sample any of the fare.

Though technically a walk-up taco stand . . .

. . . the place has quite a bit of interior seating.

Surprisingly, aside from the fact that it has been around since at least 1992, I could not find much information about the history of Chabelita Tacos posted anywhere online – nor was I able to figure out what “Chabelita” translates to in English.

In the Truth or Dare scene, Markie is seated outside of Chabelita Tacos at one of the metal tables positioned along West 20th Street . . .

. . . on the same bench that I am sitting on in the photo below (though I am facing the opposite direction). How cool is it that the image of the divided food plate visible on the wall behind Markie in the bottom screen capture above is still painted on Chabelita’s wall?!

The area used is pictured below, though from a different vantage point than what was shown onscreen.

While the segment shot on the premises was brief, it was seriously creepy thanks to the iPhone video of Roy, whose face became warped when the demon Calax took over his body.

Chabelita Tacos was also featured in the opening scene of the 2003 comedy National Security as the spot where Hank Rafferty (Steve Zahn) and Charlie Reed (Timothy Busfield) grab a late night bite.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Chabelita Tacos, from Truth or Dare, is located at 2001 South Western Avenue in Harvard Heights. Olivia, Markie and Penelope’s house from the movie is right around the corner at 2233 West 21st Street.

October 5, 2018
Olivia, Markie and Penelope’s House from “Truth or Dare”

If Ghostface from the Scream franchise ever called me to inquire “What’s your favorite scary movie?”, things might get a little confusing because the only answer I’d be able to give would be Scream. It’s honestly the sole flick in the genre that I truly love. I did recently watch Truth or Dare, though, and found it to be pretty enjoyable – as well as downright terrifying. I was on the edge of my seat throughout! And yes, it is a bit on the dumb side, but it made for a fun watch – up until the end that is, which was sorely disappointing. Regardless, I thought it would only be appropriate to stalk and blog about a couple of its locales this month in honor of my Haunted Hollywood theme. First up is the Craftsman-style home where doomed college student Olivia Barron (Lucy Hale) lives with her similarly-doomed roommates, Markie Cameron (Violett Beane) and Penelope Amari (Sophia Ali), in the 2018 film. Thankfully, the pad was an easy find.

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In an early scene in which Olivia, Markie, Penelope and their friends leave home to head to Mexico for Spring Break, not only was it apparent that their residence was located on a corner and that the backyard was situated on the side of the property and not the rear (two incredibly helpful identifying markers) . . .

. . . but the signage of an adjacent street, Gramercy Place, was visible.

I ventured right on over to Google to search aerial views for a corner home with a large side yard abutting Gramercy. I decided to start my hunt at the 10 Freeway and first work my way north. If I had no luck in that direction, I’d switch gears and head south. As soon as the aerial imagery came into focus, though, I just about fell out of my chair because there was the Truth or Dare house staring me right in the face, literally one block north of the 10 at 2233 West 21st Street.

The handsome dwelling pops up numerous times in Truth or Dare, though it is never quite explained how three college kids can afford such spacious, fancy digs.

For whatever reason, we are not given a full view of the house in the movie.

Instead, the property is only ever shown in tight, abbreviated shots.

The best glimpse we get of the place is via the rather harrowing scene in which Penelope is dared to walk along the edge of the second-story roofline until she finishes drinking an entire bottle of vodka.

The speared side gate that figures so prominently in the segment isn’t actually there in real life, but was a set piece brought in for the filming.

In actuality, a wooden fence stands in that spot. I could not get a great shot of it due to the car parked in the driveway, but you can just make it out to the right of the pad in the images below.

In another rather fortuitous bit of luck, when I headed over to Image Locations’ filming library to see if I could dig up some photos of the inside of the Truth or Dare house, I was thrilled to discover that the place was actually the very first listing under the Craftsman category! One look at the pictures posted told me that the interior was definitely utilized in the flick. As you can see, the screen shot of the girls’ living room below is a perfect match to this image of the home’s real life living room.

As is this shot of Olivia’s bedroom to this photo of the property’s master suite.

The pad’s actual dining room parallels what was shown onscreen, as well . . .

. . . as does the built-in buffet.

In real life, the 1905 abode boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 3,126 square feet of living space, and a 0.18-acre lot.

Though a gorgeous example of Craftsman architecture, it is not surprising that the dwelling wound up in a horror film. The place just has a very looming quality about it.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Olivia, Markie and Penelope’s house from Truth or Dare is located at 2233 West 21st Street in Los Angeles’ Harvard Heights neighborhood.

October 4, 2018