Actor Profile
Browse filming locations, celebrity homes, and stories associated with Frank Sinatra.
“That’s L.A. – they worship everything and they value nothing.” So says Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) while lamenting the closure of a historic jazz club and its subsequent transition into a samba/tapas place in La La Land. Though I did not like the movie (as mentioned previously), I have to agree with Seb on this one. […]
I grew up about as far removed from Hollywood and the world of show business as you can get. But somehow I was familiar with Chasen’s, the West Hollywood restaurant that played stomping ground to the Tinseltown elite for close to six decades. I’m not sure where my knowledge of the famed eatery came from, […]
The April issue of Los Angeles magazine (for which I wrote my very first print article ever – you can read it here) featured a Time Frame image of one of Santa Monica’s most historic restaurants, Chez Jay, reminding me that while I had stalked the watering hole ages ago, I had yet to blog […]
Palm Springs has long been a playground of the show business elite, largely because back in the days of Old Hollywood, the studios required their stars to always be within a two-hour drive from Los Angeles. The desert – picturesque, secluded and a scant 100 miles from Lalaland – therefore became the obvious go-to spot […]
I love a good true-crime podcast. One that recently got me hooked is Confronting: O.J. Simpson with Kim Goldman, which just finished its first season. In it, the sister of murder victim Ronald Goldman interviews numerous key players in the so-called Trial of the Century, including jurors, prosecutors, witnesses and one of the defense team’s […]
Today’s post is loooooong overdue. For ages now, I’ve been talking about putting together a guide to Palm Springs. Having lived in the desert for over six years, regularly playing a tourist in my own town, has given me quite an insider’s knowledge of the area. Who better to share that knowledge with than my […]
With 365 days of sunshine a year and a plethora of gorgeous lodgings, Palm Springs is the perfect vacation venue to sit around the pool and do nothing. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a wide array of things to do while in town. Below is a list of my favorite local sites to see, […]
New York has no shortage of “secret” places. I blogged about one – Grand Central’s Whispering Gallery – on Friday. Another that the Grim Cheaper and I are fond of is Paley Park, located in NYC’s Midtown East neighborhood. We happened by the site while wandering along 53rd Street during our very first visit to […]
If you follow any lifestyle, fashion or beauty blogger, chances are you’ve seen some variation of the photo above. For those who don’t keep up with influencers, the image is of the cactarium – aka cacti terrarium – at Moorten Botanical Garden in Palm Springs. The structure has been documented on social media so frequently […]
I must be in a very New York state of mind because here I am yet again blogging about a Big Apple locale – a city landmark, actually – the iconic Bemelmans Bar, which is situated inside of The Carlyle Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. I first learned about the popular lounge thanks to […]
Hollywood loves a redux. So do I, apparently, because here I am yet again with yet another location re-do! (For those who missed it, I penned a second post on the Simpson family home from She’s Out of Control last week.) Today’s blog is actually my third go-around with this particular spot (you can read […]
The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon has been in full effect lately when it comes to Old Tony’s on the Pier, a Redondo Beach restaurant I stalked way back in January 2012 with my good friend Mike (he provided many of the images in this post), but have yet to blog about. First, Alison Martino, founder of the […]
One of the most infamous (and humorous) scandals to ever rock Tinseltown involved my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe and her second ex-husband, legendary baseball player Joe DiMaggio. (Their relationship wasn’t always sunshine and roses.) Known as the Wrong-Door Raid, it occurred in the late night hours of November 5th, 1954, but did not become public […]
Upon first moving to the Desert back in January, the Grim Cheaper’s boss, who also resides in the Coachella Valley, told me about a small Palm Springs-area inn named the Colony Palms Hotel that she thought I might be interested in stalking due to its vast Hollywood history. For whatever reason, though, I completely forgot […]
Today’s post is the very first blog written from my new home in the desert. The Grim Cheaper and I moved last Wednesday (it took over 15 hours!) and are finally getting settled in to our Palm Springs pad. There is still quite a bit left to complete, though, and, while the hyper-organized/anal/OCD-side of me […]
Two weeks ago, while doing research on Molly Malone’s (which I blogged about here), I came across a website for another historic Irish pub also located on South Fairfax Avenue in L.A.’s Fairfax District. The bar is named Tom Bergin’s Old Horseshoe and Thoroughbred Club (or just simply Tom Bergin’s Tavern) and not only was […]
Today’s post is going to be a long one, my fellow stalkers, so brace yourselves! I hope that it makes up for the fact that I was on vacation for the past week. Last October, while doing research on Mommie Dearest locations for my annual Haunted Hollywood postings, I came across a page on […]
While doing research on the Chaplin Court apartment complex, which I blogged about last Thursday, I came across some information about an oft-filmed-at Chatsworth-area estate formerly owned by Old Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, that, for some inexplicable reason, I had somehow not previously known about. The mansion, which in most circles is known simply […]
A couple of weeks ago, after doing some stalking in Beverly Hills, the Grim Cheaper and I decided to head over to the Valley to grab dinner at one of our very favorite eateries in all of Los Angeles – Vitello’s Italian Restaurant in Studio City. And even though I have blogged about the place […]
Another Palm-Springs-area location that the Grim Cheaper and I stalked two weekends ago while vacationing in the Coachella Valley was Twin Palms, the former desert home of legendary crooner Frank Sinatra and his then-wife Nancy Barbato. And while I have actually stalked – and even blogged about – this location once before (way back in […]
A couple of months ago I was flipping through one of my favorite stalking tomes, Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, when I came across a blurb written about the legendary Dresden Restaurant in Hollywood. And while I had actually eaten at the Dresden once before upon first moving to […]
This morning my mom sent me a link to an awesome new locations website called “Where It’s At – Pop Culture Is All Around You”. And I, of course, became TOTALLY and COMPLETELY engrossed in it for a good hour and a half. I was so engrossed in it, in fact, that I was late in meeting my […]
This past weekend I dragged my boyfriend out to West Hollywood to grab drinks at a Los Angeles staple that I had yet to stalk – the legendary Formosa Cafe. The small cafe, located on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Formosa Avenue in West Hollywood, was opened up in 1925 by former prizefighter […]
Katharine Hepburn once said, “I have many regrets and I’m sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret . . . if you have any sense.” Katharine was right. One of my biggest regrets in life is that I never got to see the Ambassador Hotel in person before it was torn down […]
Ever since I was a little girl, my family has been vacationing at Hotel Del Coronado on the island of Coronado. Hotel Del is a truly magical place – like no other hotel I have ever seen. Stepping inside it is literally like stepping back in time a hundred years to a completely different era. […]
One of my favorite romantic comedies of all time is A Lot Like Love starring Amanda Peet and Ashton Kutcher – and while I was watching it I absolutely fell in love with the building used as Amanda Peet’s apartment. But as hard as I tried, I couldn’t seem to find this location by searching […]
Halfway through writing this post, I realized I probably should have saved it until February. At that point, though, it was too late to start over, so I figured c’est la vie. Here goes. A few years ago, when I first saw the “Galentine’s Day” episode of Parks and Recreation, I recognized the restaurant featured […]
This past Saturday night, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk a historic restaurant named Carmine’s II, which was featured prominently in the recently-aired Season 2 episode of Modern Family titled “Boys’ Night”. Carmine’s has been a virtual West-L.A.-institution for almost four decades now, having originally been founded in 1972 by New York native […]
This past weekend, while out doing some Christmas shopping with the Grim Cheaper, the two of us found ourselves in the Burbank area absolutely ravenous. For whatever reason, though, I could not think of a good place to eat, so the GC suggested we grab a bite at that “old Burbank restaurant across from Warner […]
One location that I have been wanting to stalk for quite some time now is the historic Nate ‘n Al Delicatessen in Beverly Hills, but because I don’t get out to that area very often, the restaurant had remained an unchecked item on my extremely long “To-Stalk” list for over a year. Until a couple […]
Happy Halloween! I can’t believe the season is already coming to a close! October 31st is always bittersweet for me because, though my favorite holiday, it marks the end of my Haunted Hollywood postings for the year. For my last go round of 2018, I thought I’d blog about one of Los Angeles’ most iconic […]
I hope my fellow stalkers had an absolutely fabulous Halloween 2009! As I’ve mentioned many times before, Halloween is downright my favorite holiday. I pretty much look forward to it all year long! So, today I thought I’d take a little break from my New York blogging to write a post about this year’s Halloween […]
Last week, fellow stalker Owen sent me an email with a tip, as well as this Curbed LA article, about a Haunted-Hollywood-type location that he thought I might be interested in stalking – the imposing brick and marble abode which figures as the focal point of the new television series American Horror Story. And right […]
For Halloween this year, I desperately wanted my boyfriend and I to dress up like Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio. I know, total shocker. 🙂 It all ended up coming together quite perfectly, too, as earlier this summer I found a white dress a la Marilyn’s subway grate ensemble, that was super inexpensive. I also […]
My knowledge of Elvis Presley is basically limited to the fact that he was a singer (duh!), his 1957 drafting into the army served as the inspiration for the play and movie Bye Bye Birdie, he called a spectacular Tennessee mansion named Graceland home (the manse is the setting of one of my favorite plays […]
Another Cary Grant location (and I promise that this is the last of them for a while for those who are hoping for a change of pace) that the Grim Cheaper and I stalked while vacationing in the Palm Springs area two weekends ago was the “Cary Grant Estate”, aka “Las Palomas”, the Andalusian-style, U-shaped […]
This weekend, while visiting the desert, and thanks to my friend EJ at the Movieland Directory, I got to stalk Liberace‘s former Palm Springs manse. His home is an absolutely beautiful Mediterranean estate and there is no doubt whatsoever that it once belonged to Liberace. Besides the large candelabra located in front of the house, […]
I need to preface this post by stating that I am not in any way, shape or form a foodie. I enjoy good, fresh fare, but my meal preferences consist mainly of old fashioned comfort foods (you’ll notice many mentions of different fried chicken entrées in the list below). If a restaurant has bone marrow […]
I don’t think there is any property in Los Angeles, perhaps the world, that has seen as much glamour and as much tragedy as the former Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood. Today, the Renaissance Revival/Beau Arts-style structure, which was once dubbed “The Hotel to the Stars,” serves as a retirement home. And oh, if those walls […]
About fifty miles southeast of Palm Springs lies the Salton Sea, a former resort destination that I had wanted to stalk ever since seeing Troy Paiva’s haunting images of the place on his website Lost America. Due to the fact that it is largely abandoned and hence lacking in public restrooms, I hesitated making the […]
On July 24th, while waiting in line for my morning coffee, my eyes wandered over to a nearby newspaper stand and landed on the headline Historic Racquet Club Hotel Destroyed in Fire. My heart immediately sank as the now vacant Racquet Club of Palm Springs is not only steeped in Hollywood history, but is rumored […]
Way back in September 2011, while the Grim Cheaper and I were out and about doing some stalking in the San Fernando Valley area, we happened to drive past Antonio’s Pizzeria and the GC suggested that we pop in. He had dined at Antonio’s several times in the past and remembered that the place had […]
As I mentioned in Monday’s post, I spent my recent birthday weekend in Room 148 of the Ingleside Inn in Palm Springs – the very room where Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston stayed during their mini-honeymoon shortly following their July 29th, 2000 wedding. I first found out about the Ingleside Inn back in April of […]
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, this weekend was a big one for me. The biggest perhaps! My boyfriend (of over eight and a half years!!) finally popped the question!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂 And I, of course, said yes! This changes things quite a bit for me, as from now on I will no longer be dragging my […]
To continue on with this week’s restaurant theme, today I thought I would write a post about an eatery that the Grim Cheaper and I stalked back in January – the historic Paty’s Restaurant in Toluca Lake, which first opened for business just a little over a half century ago in 1960. I had become […]
