IAMNOTASTALKER

October 10, 2018October 16, 2019

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.

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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! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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

October 8, 2018October 16, 2019

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! Smile

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

October 5, 2018October 16, 2019

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! Smile

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 4, 2018October 16, 2019

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! Smile

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 3, 2018October 16, 2019

The Salomon Family’s Former Home

The second I pulled the July issue of Los Angeles magazine out of my mailbox, I knew I was a goner. Not only did the publication chronicle the city’s best fried chicken (my favorite food), but six words on the cover stopped me dead in my tracks – “Searching for the Family that Vanished.” Resigned to the fact that I wouldn’t be getting any work done until I devoured the article, I immediately headed over to page 64. For the next hour or so, I remained absolutely transfixed by journalist Stacy Perman’s fascinating story about her childhood best friend/neighbor, Michelle Hoffman, who disappeared without a trace along with the rest of her family – mom Elaine Salomon, step-dad Sol Salomon and half-brother Mitchell Salomon – from their Northridge home on October 12th, 1982. They have never been found, nor has their case ever been solved.

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Piquing my interest even further was the photograph pictured below, a current image of the Salomons’ former home (taken by Michelle Thomas) that ran with the article. As soon as my eyes caught sight of the place, I knew I had to locate it. And yes, I get that some (or most) might find that weird. For whatever reason, though, it is just the way my brain is wired. I come across a mention of a site where something significant happened – good or bad – and it’s like an itch – I have to research it, pinpoint it, and ultimately see it in person.

The hunt for the Salomon residence wasn’t a tough one. In Los Angeles magazine, Perman notes that the pad is on Lassen Street. Further digging led me to a February 4th, 1983 Los Angeles Times article (a portion of which is pictured below) that mentioned the family lived across the street from John Nobel Junior High School. So I opened up Google Maps and headed right on over to the stretch of Lassen situated across from Nobel (which is known as “Alfred B. Nobel Charter Middle School” in actuality). Despite the fact that quite a few properties on the block have a very similar look to the pad pictured in LA mag, I found the right spot fairly quickly at 19232 West Lassen. I headed out to see it shortly thereafter.

The former Salomon home is a strikingly normal dwelling on a remarkably normal street – not the sort of spot you’d expect a murder to take place, let alone a mass murder of an entire family. But that is largely believed to be what happened on the night the Salomons vanished in October 1982. Elaine, a stay-at-home mom, and Sol, an Israeli-born fire extinguisher salesman, moved to the sprawling 4-bedroom, 3-bath, 2,835-square-foot ranch-style abode in the late 1970s, a few years after getting married. Stacy, who lived a few houses down, became fast friends with their teenage daughter, Michelle. She was even set to sleepover the night of the disappearance, but, as she says, “For some reason, I had begged off.”

As she details in her fabulous article, the evening started out ordinarily enough. After the family dined with Elaine’s parents, Murray and Margaret Malarowitz, Sol headed to a car auction with Harvey Rader, a semi-business partner of his who owned a nearby auto repair shop, while Elaine, Margaret and 15-year-old Michelle ventured out to a clothing party (which was similar to a Tupperware party) at a friend’s house. Murray stayed home to take care of 9-year-old Mitchell. The women returned to the Salomon pad around 10:30 p.m. and Elaine’s parents left. Sol had not yet arrived home, which did not appear to be cause for concern to anyone. Later that night, Elaine chatted on the phone with a friend named Barbara Levy, who told police that at around 11:30 there was a knock at the door. Elaine answered and informed Barbara that Rader was there and that she had to hang up, but would call back the following day. That call never came and no one has spoken with her, or any other member of the family, since.

The next night, the people who lived behind Sol and Elaine discovered that their yard was flooding and that the water was coming from the Salomons’ pool, which was overflowing. The neighbor called Stacy and her mother to check on things. When the two arrived at 19232 Lassen, they found the family’s cars parked in the driveway, but no one inside. Stacy’s mother called around to a few friends and family members, but no one had seen or heard from any of the Salomons. She then contacted the police, who entered the property and uncovered quite a cause for concern in Michelle’s bedroom. Not only was the teen’s bed broken, but her pillowcases, sheets and comforter were missing and bloodstains were sprayed across her mattress and wall. Oddest of all, some of her bedroom carpet had been cut out and removed. Other than that and the waterlogged backyard, though, nothing else appeared to be amiss. A little over a week later, two wallets belonging to the family, as well as a couple of other personal items, were found along the side of the Antelope Valley Freeway. Though police questioned Rader, the last person to see the Salomons alive, he feigned innocence, stating that he had dropped Sol off at an Israeli restaurant after the car show (though it was later learned the restaurant was closed that particular evening) and had only popped by the family’s home to pick up a car that he had agreed to repair. Rader instead pointed the finger at the Israeli mob, claiming that Sol was a black market arms dealer (yeah, cause that’s really believable).

Police soon learned that Rader had ties to three other missing persons – Peter and Joan Davis who disappeared from their Granada Hills home on March 17th, 1982, just seven months before the Salomons vanished, and Burbank resident Ron Adeeb who was last seen in January of that same year. Rader’s cousin, Ashley Paulle, later implicated him as the murderer of both the Davises and the Salomons. The killing of Peter and Joan, according to Paulle, took place during a robbery and the murder of the Salomon family was the result of an argument stemming from $20,000 that Rader owed Sol. The path to charging the man was a long one, though, thanks largely to Paulle’s ultimate refusal to testify. Though originally arrested in 1983, Rader was quickly released due to insufficient evidence. He was then re-arrested in 1987, this time for passport fraud, and sent to prison for two years. Shortly before he was set to be released, the DA finally filed charges against him for the Salomon murders and he headed to court. His first trial, which began in May 1989, ended in a hung jury – 11 to 1 for conviction. The second, which started on January 4th, 1990, lasted only a day before a mistrial was called. His third culminated in a not guilty verdict on July 8th, 1992. Sadly, justice for the Salomons has never been achieved.

The case is an incredibly sad one that echoes that of the McStays’ (a disappearance that has riveted me for almost ten years) in chilling fashion. While exactly what happened to the Salomons remains a mystery, their former house still stands – the exterior largely unchanged from the time they occupied it – like a beacon harkening back to a simpler time when people didn’t believe things like that could happen in a neighborhood like theirs. (The photo of the family pictured below comes from the same 1983 Los Angeles Times article I referenced earlier, which, unfortunately, is only available via a Newspapers.com subscription.)

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Salomon family’s former home is located at 19232 West Lassen Street in Northridge.

October 2, 2018October 16, 2019

Anthony’s House from Twilight Zone: The Movie”

Perhaps no film in the history of filmdom has been as mired in controversy as Twilight Zone: The Movie. Bring up the 1983 thriller to anyone and talk will likely turn to the death of three of its actors in a harrowing and, what has been argued, completely avoidable accident. On July 23rd, 1982 at Indian Dunes movie ranch in Valencia, while lensing the segment titled “Time Out,” star Vic Morrow carried two young children, Renee Chen and Myca Dinh Le, through a pond in a simulated Vietnam War battle. A helicopter flying overhead during the shoot happened to get hit by one of the explosive special effects, causing it to crash to the ground, crushing Chen to death and decapitating Morrow and Le in the process. Director John Landis and four other crew members were brought up on manslaughter charges following the disaster, but all were found not guilty at the end of the nearly ten-month trial. The film has been shrouded in darkness ever since, though. Considering my penchant for the macabre, surprisingly, up until just recently I had never watched Twilight Zone: The Movie or done any stalking of it. That all changed when I came across a photo of the sprawling Victorian where Anthony (Jeremy Licht) lived in the “It’s a Good Life” portion of the film on the Then & Now Movie Locations website earlier this summer. Fascinated with the massive structure, I added it to my To-Stalk List and headed right on out to see it in person shortly thereafter.

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The immense Queen Anne-style pad was originally built in 1887 by prominent San Francisco architect Joseph Cather Newsom, who also gave us the Walker House in San Dimas, the Sessions House in Echo Park, and the Carson Mansion in Eureka.

Amazingly, per the Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources, the dwelling was initially located in Pacoima, but was moved – literally picked up and relocated – to its current home at 17410 Mayerling Street in Granada Hills in the 1970s.

The picturesque estate currently boasts 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, 3,842 square feet of living space, 11-foot ceilings, stained glass windows, hardwood flooring, 2 fireplaces, wainscoting, original moldings, beveled glass mirrors, a clawfoot tub (be still my heart!), an updated kitchen with granite counters and stainless steel appliances, a formal dining room, a den, pull-chain toilets (which seriously creep me out for unknown reasons), a glass-ceilinged conservatory, a 2-car garage, a wraparound porch, a vineyard, and a detached 1-bedroom, 1-bath guesthouse with a kitchen and a private yard.

The property last sold in 2015 for $849,000, which seems abnormally low to me considering the sheer size of the house, not to mention the land.

I mean, look at that backyard! It’s huge.

You can check out some MLS photos of the pad from the time it was on the market here.

Though undeniably beautiful, it is not hard to see how the place wound up being cast in a horror/sci-fi film like Twilight Zone: The Movie.

There is just something about old Victorians that renders them downright spooky (read: the Smith Estate).

The “It’s a Good Life” chapter of Twilight Zone: The Movie centers around a misunderstood and rather disturbed young boy named Anthony who can create things with his mind. As such, he conjures up a Victorian house based upon one featured in the cartoon Mouse Wreckers. While segments of the actual 1948 cartoon classic were utilized in the film, the opening scene was altered to show a dwelling matching the Granada Hills pad.

The true imagery featured at the beginning of Mouse Wreckers is pictured below.

Anthony’s residential creation is a true house of horrors in which any family member who disagrees with him or tries to admonish him meets an unpleasant fate, like Ethel (Nancy Cartwright, aka the voice of Bart Simpson on The Simpsons) who gets banished to an evil cartoon world where she is terrorized by animated monsters after an unsuccessful attempt to escape from the home.

Remarkably, the dwelling still looks almost exactly the same today as it did onscreen 35 years ago, excluding a change in paint color and the addition of the detached guest house on the property’s east side.

A close-up view of the guest house is pictured below.

The area around the residence has changed considerably in the ensuing years, as you can see in the Google Street View image as compared to the screen capture below. Though still rather rural in nature, the 17400 block of Mayerling Street has been built up a bit since Twilight Zone: The Movie was shot.

Only the exterior of the property was used in “It’s a Good Life.”

The inside of Anthony’s house, which bears no resemblance whatsoever to the home’s real life interior, was nothing more than a soundstage-built set at Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank. Though the front doors were modeled after those of the actual dwelling . . .

. . . the stairs of the Mayerling pad are situated completely differently than those of its onscreen counterpart, as you can see in the screen captures below as compared to the MLS photo above.

The onscreen living room, which was designed to have a cartoonish feel, also looks nothing like the home’s actual living room.

P.S. Big Bang Theory fans, be sure to check out this great LAist article about the show’s locales that I was recently interviewed for.

Big THANK YOU to the Then & Now Movie Locations website for finding this location! Smile

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Anthony’s house from Twilight Zone: The Movie is located at 17410 Mayerling Street in Granada Hills.

October 1, 2018October 16, 2019

Pasadena Central Library from “Foul Play”

It’s my favorite day of the year! No, it’s not Halloween already – it’s October 1st, which marks the start of my annual Haunted Hollywood postings and the beginning of the Halloween season (well, it marks the latter for most people, anyway – I started decorating for the holiday weeks ago!). To kick things off, I thought I’d write about Pasadena Central Library. I stalked the gorgeous book repository last month in preparation for my October blogs, figuring the place would be the perfect segue into the season thanks to its appearance in several scary productions, most notably the 1990 “thrill-omedy” Arachnophobia. But as I only just learned thanks to a few knowledgeable chat room commenters, while the library was briefly featured in the film’s original theatrical run, apparently the footage shot there was not included in later releases – not in any versions available on DVD nor via streaming. Because the site has numerous other connections to the chiller genre, though – namely a cameo in the 1978 mystery Foul Play – I decided to forge ahead with the post.

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The Pasadena Public Library was originally established as the Pasadena Library and Village Improvement Society in 1882, four years before the city itself was incorporated. Its initial headquarters, built in 1884, was situated on Colorado Boulevard near Raymond Avenue (though it was known as “Raymond Street” at the time) on what was then the Central School campus. Two years after it was constructed, the entire building was moved a few blocks south to 42 West Dayton Street. When the need to expand arose in 1890, the library then set up shop in a dramatic turreted property on the corner of Raymond Avenue and Walnut Street. A model of that site, made from stone taken from the actual building and currently on display in the Central Library’s Main Hall, is pictured below. (Sadly, that structure was razed at some point after the current library was erected. Oh, how I wish it had been left intact! I mean, it couldn’t look more like a real life haunted house if it tried! Can you imagine the Halloween fun that could be had there if it was still standing?)

In 1922, the Bennett, Parsons and Frost architecture firm was commissioned to oversee the development of a civic center for Pasadena set to include a city hall, a civic auditorium, and a new library.

The firm held a design contest for the three structures in which ten architecture companies competed. Myron Hunt (who also gave us Thornton Gardens, Occidental College, Wattles Mansion, the Langham Huntington Hotel, the Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens and the Pasadena Elks Lodge) and H.C. Chambers’ proposal was chosen for the new library and construction on their Spanish Colonial Revival-style masterpiece began on May 19th, 1925.

The structure was completed a little less than two years later and the building was dedicated on February 12th, 1927.

The exterior of the three-story, U-shaped property is comprised of a central courtyard with a fountain, cast concrete friezes, Corinthian cast stone columns, paned arched windows, and outdoor reading alcoves.

While undeniably impressive . . .

. . . the interior is the real sight to behold.

Boasting intricate woodwork, spectacular coffered ceilings, pendant lighting, Italian marble flooring, oak shelving, and ornately carved doorways and hallways, the inside of the building is nothing short of breathtaking.

The sweeping Main Hall is the library’s crown jewel. Measuring 33 by 203 feet, the room features 45-foot ceilings, oak wainscoting and bookshelves, cork flooring (to mask the sound of footsteps), and a set of handsome dark wood and wrought-iron tables that run the length of the space.

Each of the library’s many chambers can be reached via the Main Hall, including the Children’s Room . . .

. . . which was originally named the “Peter Pan Room” in honor of the Maud Daggett-sculpted fireplace that stands as the space’s focal point and depicts the story of the beloved children’s book;

the Reference Room;

the Centennial Room;

the Business Wing;

the Humanities Wing;

and the floors upon floors of book stacks.

The city embarked upon an extensive restoration and “historically sensitive” renovation of the building between 1984 and 1990. The result is nothing short of striking as the photos in this post attest to.

Pasadena Central Library, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is elegant, opulent, and grand.

It is not at all hard to see how the site wound up onscreen copious times.

It is also not hard to see how it ended up in so many productions of the spooky nature. Though gorgeous, with its towering ceilings, dark woodwork, colossal size, and maze-like stacks, the space does lend itself quite easily to the macabre.

I certainly wouldn’t want to be there alone after dark – like Gloria Mundy (Goldie Hawn) found herself in Foul Play.

In the flick, the interior of the Pasadena Central Library appears a few times as the inside of the supposed San Francisco-area Sarah B. Cooper Public Library where Gloria works – and is attacked by Whitey Jackson (William Frankfather) while on the job late at night.

Pasadena Central Library also pops up in the 1988 horror comedy Dead Heat as the spot where Roger Mortis (Treat Williams), Doug Bigelow (Joe Piscopo), and Randi James (Lindsay Frost) search through obituaries.

The venue portrays the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. where Lloyd Bowman (Ken Leung) decodes a threatening cypher from Francis Dolarhyde (Ralph Fiennes) in the 2002 thriller Red Dragon.

In the Season 5 episode of Ghost Whisperer titled “See No Evil,” which aired in 2009, a young student named Steve (Jerry Shea) is haunted by a vengeful specter while studying at Pasadena Central Library late at night.

I happened to visit the library during the filming of the scene, which took place on July 17th, 2009, and am happy to report that the crew could not have been nicer. They even allowed me to snap some photos of the set while the cast was on a break.

I am unsure of why the “hot set” tape was placed around the areas used in the filming, but I am guessing it was because producers had the space set up exactly as they wanted for the scene and did not want any elements disturbed. There were also quite a few special effects involved in the segment, so if sections of the library were already rigged, that would explain the tape, as well.

For one effect, special lamp shades with X’s cut into them were utilized, as a crew member pointed out to me.

The library has cameoed in a plethora of non-scary productions, as well.

Grace McQueen (Jessica Tandy) hosts a story hour in the Children’s Room at the end of the 1991 made-for-television movie The Story Lady.

The site portrays the Harvard Law Library where Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) studies in the 2001 comedy Legally Blonde.

The locale masks as the Georgetown Law Library where Clifford Calley (Mark Feuerstein) secretly meets with Donna Moss (Janel Moloney) and begs her to set up a meeting with Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) in the Season 3 episode of The West Wing titled “H. Con-172,” which aired in 2002.

In the Season 3 episode of Cold Case titled “Beautiful Little Fool,” which aired in 2006, the property plays the Library of Philadelphia where Lilly Rush (Kathryn Morris) and Nick Vera (Jeremy Ratchford) research the Roaring Twenties while trying to solve a murder case.

Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane) meets with a new client at Pasadena Central Library in the Season 2 episode of Hung titled “Beaverland,” which aired in 2010.

Though countless websites claim that Matilda was shot on the premises, I have scanned through the movie numerous times and did not see it pop up anywhere. The library supposedly appears in the 2002 crime thriller The Salton Sea, as well, but I also scanned through that film and did not spot it.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Pasadena Central Library, from Foul Play, is located at 285 East Walnut Street in Pasadena. You can visit its official website here.

September 28, 2018September 29, 2018

California Market Center from “Cruel Intentions”

For such a quintessentially “New York” movie, quite a lot of Cruel Intentions was shot in L.A., which I’m only just now discovering. A few of the more prominent West Coast locales include the modern pad where Blaine Tuttle (Joshua Jackson) lived (it’s actually the Benton House in Brentwood), the Rosemont Estate’s ornate indoor pool (that can be found at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles), Penn Station (downtown L.A.’s 7th Street/Metro Center Station in real life), and, as I recently learned thanks to my friend Owen (of the When Write Is Wrong blog), the office of Sebastian Valmont’s (Ryan Phillipe) therapist, Dr. Greenbaum (Swoosie Kurtz), which is really California Market Center, also in downtown L.A. I headed right on out to stalk the site on a sunny Saturday morning shortly after Owen told me about it in June, but what I did not realize is that the wholesale fashion mart is closed on weekends. So that particular mission was thwarted. I wasn’t able to re-stalk the place until mid-September and, this time, I made sure to hit it up on a weekday.

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The California Mart, as it was initially called, was established by New York lingerie manufacturers Harvey and Barney Morse. Upon moving to L.A. and working the SoCal fashion trade in the 1930s, the brothers discovered there was a need for a centralized spot where retailers could look for and secure merchandise. As Edna Bonacich and Richard P. Appelbaum explain in their 2000 book Behind the Label, “Buyers would come to Los Angeles with their checkbooks in hand, yet wind up spending days wandering through the sprawling Los Angeles basis in a sometimes futile search for suitable manufacturers. The Morse brothers saw an opportunity.” The duo purchased a plot of land for their new marketplace on East 9th and South Los Angeles Streets in 1952 and the complex’s first building was completed in 1963.

The mart’s second building was constructed in 1965 and the third in 1979. All three were designed by the Victor Gruen Associates architecture firm.

The result of their efforts is a sprawling 1.8-million-square-foot marketplace that the L.A. Times dubbed “the heartbeat of the Los Angeles apparel industry” in 1987.

The Morse family continued to own the California Mart until 1994 when it was lost to foreclosure. The site was soon snapped up by the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, who set about refurbishing the interior and increasing tenancy. In 2000, Equitable Life sold to Hertz Investment Group for a cool $90 million. Though the company renamed the vast plaza “California Market Center,” many still refer to it by its original moniker.

In 2005, the complex was acquired for $135 million by Jamison Realty Inc. They subsequently sold it last June for a whopping $440 million to New York-based real estate company Brookfield, who are planning to renovate the space and make it more publicly accessible. (Perhaps keeping it open on weekends might be a good start. Winking smile ) Bert Dezzutti, the head of Brookfield’s Western region, recently told the Los Angeles Times, “We want to open it up literally and figuratively to the street and to pedestrian flow to invite people into space that is somewhat blocked off and difficult to access now.” I really hope their punch list doesn’t include altering the market’s fabulous lobby.

The gorgeous atrium-like space . . .

. . . is capped by a magnificent glass ceiling that is not only stunning to look at, but allows copious natural light to flow in and provides beautiful views of the mart’s three modernist-style buildings.

The 13-story complex currently houses numerous meeting venues and event spaces, more than 1,200 apparel showrooms, a theatre, a print shop, a food court, a fashion school (Otis College of Art and Design), a bank, a large parking garage, and some of the nicest public restrooms in all of downtown.

You can check out some more photographs of the market here.

Cruel Intentions made spectacular use of the complex’s lobby.

It is there that, in the 1999 drama’s opening scene, Sebastian leaves his latest therapy session just seconds before Dr. Greenbaum learns that he has not only seduced her daughter, Marci (a pre-American Pie Tara Reid), but has posted nude photographs of her online.

Dr. Greenbaum catches up with Sebastian in the market’s atrium and proceeds to scream at him from the second floor.

In typical Sebastian fashion, while Dr. Greenbaum is ranting and raving, he meets a cute girl and informs her that he is taking her to lunch.

The California Market Center lobby looks exactly the same today as it did onscreen 19 years ago. To say I was ecstatic to finally be seeing it in person is an understatement. And while I was a bit nervous that the powers that be would yell at me for taking photographs of the space, I am happy to report that all of the security guards and employees I spoke with could not have been nicer.

As Owen later discovered and informed me, an actual CA Market Center suite was also used in the scene as the interior of Dr. Greenbaum’s office.

As you can see in the screen capture as compared to the Google aerial image of the buildings located just north of the complex (both of which are pictured below), the view from the doctor’s windows match that of the actual mart.

California Market Center also popped up in the Season 4 episode of Starsky and Hutch titled “The Groupie,” which aired in 1978, as the spot where Det. Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson (David Soul) and Det. Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) went undercover as a swimsuit buyer and a fashion photographer, respectively.

The mart’s real life interior also appeared in the episode, but it looks quite a bit different today than it did onscreen 39 years ago.

Stay tuned on Monday, folks, for the start of my annual Haunted Hollywood postings! I can’t wait!

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

Big THANK YOU to my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: California Market Center, aka Sebastian’s therapist’s office from Cruel Intentions, is located at 110 East 9th Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the center’s official website here. The property is only open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., so plan accordingly.

September 26, 2018December 6, 2018

Counterpoint Records and Books from “A Lot Like Love”

I obviously need to start paying closer attention to things because for years I was under the impression that all of the locations from fave movie A Lot Like Love had been tracked down. But while scanning through the 2005 romcom to make screen captures for my recent post on the home where Oliver’s (Ashton Kutcher) parents lived in the flick, I just about fell out of my chair when I realized that one spot remained unearthed – the record/book store where Emily Friehl (Amanda Peet) met – or I guess I should say “re-met” – her future fiancé, Ben Miller (Jeremy Sisto). Being that unknown locales plague me like no other and that there’s pretty much nothing I love more than a good book shop, I immediately set about IDing the place. As fate would have it, the hunt turned out to be one of the easiest of my entire stalking career.

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In A Lot Like Love, Emily reconnects with Ben, after initially meeting him at a mutual friend’s wedding, at a spacious record/book store where the two banter over the last copy of an import CD they both want. Feeling lucky, I headed to Google, inputted “large record bookstore Los Angeles” and the very first result kicked back was for Counterpoint Records and Books at 5911 Franklin Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. One look at images of the place told me it was the right spot. If only all of my searches were so simple! So to the top of my To-Stalk List the site went and I headed right on over there a few weeks later.

Counterpoint Records and Books was originally established by John Polifronio and his then girlfriend/now wife Susan way back in 1979 as a classical music boutique that operated out of the back of The Book Treasury, formerly located at 6707 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.

Because of the Boulevard’s rather sketchy nature at the time, the couple decided to relocate the following year and sublet a 600-square-foot portion of a frame store in the more shopper-friendly Franklin Village.

Popular from the get-go, it was not long before John and Susan needed to expand, first taking over the entire frame shop and then spreading over into the storefront next door.

The couple also soon decided to branch out. Longtime collectors of rare and used books, John and Susan eventually found their home overflowing with volumes and elected to incorporate the excess tomes into their inventory.

In 1997, the duo purchased the building that houses Counterpoint, which Susan said in a 2012 interview was the saving grace in the store’s longevity.

The shop, which teems with colorful leaflets, thick novels, stacks of vinyl, copies of used VHS and cassette tapes, and racks upon racks of CDs, remains extremely popular today with locals and visitors alike.

Even actor Ron Livingston is a fan and included Counterpoint in his itinerary for a My Favorite Weekend column for the Los Angeles Times in 2006.

It is not hard to see why the store became such a neighborhood staple. Counterpoint Records and Books is warm, friendly and inviting. The employees that I spoke with not only invited me to take as many photos of the place as I wanted, but spent quite a bit of time chatting with me about the various filmings that have taken place on the premises over the years. Though, shockingly, not a one of them knew about A Lot Like Love!

In the movie, Emily and Ben reconnect while perusing the long CD rack in the middle of the store. Though that area of the shop is largely unchanged from the time that filming took place, the sections around it have been moved. During the shoot, the Religion, Philosophy and Occult sections were situated behind the CDs, but today those shelves house Fiction, as you can see below.

Philosophy and Religion can now be found on the opposite side of the room.

I was thrilled to see that, despite the move, the signage still looks exactly as it did onscreen.

There seems to be a bit of confusion concerning some of Counterpoint’s other cinematic appearances floating around online, so I’ll do my best to clear up the misinformation here.

The shop did pop up at the beginning of Prince’s 2004 “Musicology” music video, which you can watch here.

While many websites state that Counterpoint made an appearance in the 2010 movie Beginners, it was only featured in the trailer (which is where the still below comes from), not the actual film. It seems that the scene shot on the premises wound up on the cutting room floor. To confuse matters further, a different L.A. book boutique – the now defunct Cosmopolitan Book Shop at 7017 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood – does cameo a few times. It is there, not at Counterpoint, that Oliver (Ewan McGregor) and Anna (Melanie Laurent) peruse The Joy of Sex.

Counterpoint Records and Books pops up in Olly Murs’ 2012 “Troublemaker” music video, which you can check out here. (I would be remiss if I did not mention that Olly is such a cutie! I had never heard of him until writing this post and was pleasantly surprised to find while watching his video that he reminds me quite a bit of Michael Bublé in looks and mannerisms.)

Though Curbed Los Angeles reports that Joan Crawford’s (Jessica Lange) book signing in the Season 1 episode of Feud: Bette and Joan titled “You Mean All This Time We Could Have Been Friends?” was shot at Counterpoint, that information is incorrect. Perplexingly, the website even goes so far as to say “According to [production designer Judy] Becker, the production team built a book-signing station for the scene, which Counterpoint opted to keep after filming concluded.” But, as you can see below, the two-story venue that appeared in the episode looks nothing like Counterpoint. Filming actually took place at the Philosophical Research Library at the University of Philosophical Research located at 3910 Los Feliz Boulevard in Los Feliz. You can check out some photos of the space here and here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Counterpoint Records and Books, from A Lot Like Love, is located at 5911 Franklin Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. You can visit the store’s official website here.

September 14, 2018September 8, 2018

Taking the Week Off

My best friends are currently visiting from Switzerland, so I will be taking the next week off from blogging. I will hopefully be back to regular scheduled programming by the 24th – or the 26th at the latest. See you then!