Beverly Hills – Page 2 – IAMNOTASTALKER

February 18, 2015February 17, 2015

Thornton’s Mansion from “Back to School”

Even though I am a definite child of the ‘80s, for whatever reason I had never seen the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield classic Back to School until late last year. I wound up loving the flick and immediately started researching its locations. I covered a few of them in a September post for Los Angeles magazine, but one that I could just not seem to track down was the mansion belonging to “Tall and Fat” clothing store owner Thornton Melon (Dangerfield). I finally enlisted fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, to help in the quest and he ended up finding the pad rather quickly. Thank you, Owen!

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While watching Back to School, I spotted an address number of 9933 on the front of Thornton’s mansion. I was also fairly certain that the property was located in Beverly Hills or Bel Air, so I passed that information along to Owen. Sure enough, when he sent me the address just a few hours later, it was right where I figured it would be – 9933 Shangri La Drive in Beverly Hills. How I was unable to find the place on my own is beyond me!

The same address placard that was visible in the movie is still there today!

The mansion was only featured at the beginning of Back to School, in the scene in which Thornton and his second wife, Vanessa (Adrienne Barbeau), hosted a party for their 5th wedding anniversary, during which they decided to get a divorce.

As you can see, the residence looks quite a bit different today than it did when the movie was filmed 29 years ago due to the massive amount of foliage that now surrounds it.

I was thrilled to see that the house located down the street, which was visible in the background of the scene in which Thornton’s limo driver dropped him off before the party, still looks exactly the same as it did onscreen.

The real life interior of the Shangri La mansion was also used in the party scene.

As was the home’s real life backyard and pool.

You can check out aerial images of the mansion’s backyard, which is pretty darn spectacular, below. The property actually consists of two lots – the lot that the residence sits on and the landscaped lot directly to its south – and therefore has two addresses, 9915 and 9933 Shangri La Drive.

In real life, the home, which was originally built in 1980, boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 baths and 6,929 square feet of living space.

In 2013, the property served as the SVEDKA Summer House and such celebs as Julianne Hough, Derek Hough, Jessica Szohr, Adrienne Bailon and Evan Ross attended events there.

Back to School Mansion (8 of 12)

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Thornton’s mansion from Back to School is located at 9915/9933 Shangri La Drive in Beverly Hills.

December 16, 2014December 15, 2014

The Grill on the Alley from “The Holiday”

This past weekend, while wandering through my local Target with the Grim Cheaper, I happened to spot a DVD of fave movie The Holiday on sale for $3.99! When I saw that the special features included a commentary with director Nancy Meyers and a making-of featurette, I just about flipped my lid and immediately snapped the DVD up. (Though I have seen The Holiday more times than I can count, because I own it on iTunes, I had never seen any of the special features.) It was perfect timing, too, since I am now (finally) in the midst of writing my Christmas-themed posts. I had also just stalked The Grill on the Alley, which was featured in the flick, this past November while my friends Lavonna, Kim, Melissa and Maria were in town (that’s Melissa and Maria above), so I was most excited to listen to the commentary from that portion of the film.

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The Grill on the Alley was originally founded in January 1984 by a man named Bob Spivak. The food industry ran in Bob’s veins – his grandfather owned a Los Angeles ice cream/chocolate shop in the early 1900s and his father was the founder of the Redwood House, now known as the Redwood Bar & Grill, which was featured in Bridesmaids and which I blogged about here. In 1982, at the age of 39 and after a long tenure working in a grocery store and a short tenure owning a soup/salad restaurant, Bob found himself at a transition point in life. Recently divorced, without a job and living on his father’s couch, he decided he wanted to open an upscale steakhouse in Beverly Hills, one that offered fabulous customer service and no-nonsense food. He found financial backers fairly quickly and then secured a space to lease. The only problem with the 4,600-square-foot spot was that its main frontage was on an extremely traffic-y block of Wilshire Boulevard, on a stretch of street that did not allow parking until after 7 p.m. each day. (The Wilshire side of the building is pictured below.)

The location did have a rear entrance, though, reached via a side alley off of Dayton Way, which gave Bob an idea. In a February 2014 The Hollywood Reporter article, he explains, “I went to the building department and asked to place the entrance on the alley. They wouldn’t let me due to an ordinance against businesses opening onto an alley that they had in place. So I pulled maps and realized I had less than an inch of Dayton frontage and went to a hardware store, bought a mailbox and painted 9560 Dayton on it. Just made that address up. Then I went to the post office, mailed myself a letter, got it delivered and showed the canceled stamp to the building department. They approved it!”

That “less than an inch of Dayton frontage” is denoted with red arrows below. What a great story!

Thanks to its proximity to the headquarters of the William Morris Talent Agency, The Grill soon became the place “to lunch” in Beverly Hills. Just a few of the power players and their clients who have been spotted dining there over the years include Michael Ovitz, Sumner Redstone, Rupert Murdoch, Ron Meyer (father of Jennifer Meyer), Tom Brokaw, Vin Scully, Steven Spielberg, Bruce Springsteen, Fred Astaire, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Muhammad Ali, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Barbra Streisand, Johnny Carson, Katie Holmes, Sean Penn, Madonna, Drew Barrymore, Joel McHale, and Michael Douglas.

The Grill remains insanely popular to this day, over thirty years after its founding. In fact, the eatery has spawned six additional Grill on the Alley locations, as well as the casual dining chain The Daily Grill, of which there are currently 21 outposts.

While we were stalking the place, we had the pleasure of meeting The Grill’s longtime maître d’, Pamela Gonyea . . .

. . . as well as the restaurant’s wine education coordinator, Carmen Rupe, both of whom could NOT have been nicer. Bob maintains that The Grill’s customer service philosophy is, “The answer is yes – now what was the question.” And we were certainly given that treatment despite the fact that we were not even dining on the premises! Carmen and Pamela spent quite a bit of time answering all of our questions about the various filmings that have taken place there over the years and they also let us take all of the photographs of the place that we wanted. Carmen even led us over to the center of the dining room to show us exactly where The Holiday had been filmed!

In The Holiday, The Grill on the Alley is where Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) takes Arthur Abbott (Eli Wallach) for dinner shortly after meeting him. Before inviting him to dine with her, Iris asks Arthur if he is busy that evening, to which he gives his famous line, “Busy? Honey, I haven’t been busy since 1978.”

According to Nancy Meyers’ DVD commentary, The Grill on the Alley was chosen for the scene because it is a place that Arthur, a former Hollywood screenwriter, and his colleagues would have frequented in their day. Nancy had the two seated at a regular table in the center of the Grill’s dining room to show they are just regular people, not the “Hollywood elite.” Apparently the booths that line the perimeter of the restaurant are considered prime real estate in real life and where the show biz power players are usually seated.

I, of course, just had to pose for a picture in the same spot where the movie was filmed.

Carmen and Pamela also informed us that The Grill had been featured in the Season 5 episode of Entourage titled “Fantasy Island.”

In the episode, The Grill on the Alley was the spot where Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) discussed the upcoming movie Danger Beach with producer Carl Ertz (Kim Coates). Notice that Vincent and Carl were seated in a perimeter booth in the scene.

Pamela was even visible in the episode!

Pamela and Carmen also let us know that the Season 5 episode of The Hills titled “Keep Your Enemies Closer” had been shot at the restaurant. In the episode, The Grill was where Stephanie Pratt went on a date with a DJ named Robert.

On a side-note – I would like to wish a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY today to my dad, who, despite being chronically ill, always finds a way to regularly do special, extraordinary things for my mom, the GC and me. I love you so much! (That’s me and my dad pictured below during one of my very first trips to Disneyland.)

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Grill on the Alley, from The Holiday, is located at 9560 Dayton Way in Beverly Hills. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

October 17, 2014September 29, 2017

Yvette Vickers’ Former Home

Boulevard of broken dreams – that phrase pops into my head every time I venture down Hollywood Boulevard and see the men and woman costumed as super heroes or movie stars charging tourists to take a photograph with them. I can’t imagine it is what anyone who sets out for Los Angeles hopes to do and is a reminder of the sad turn a life in show business can take. Even those who gain notoriety at some point in their career are not immune to a tragic end – like Yvette Vickers, the actress and Playboy Playmate who was found mummified, alone and forgotten, in her decrepit Benedict Canyon home in 2011. The Grim Cheaper and I ventured out to see her residence in person shortly after her body was discovered, though I never blogged about it. When I learned recently from my buddy Scott Michaels, of the Find a Death website, that the structure had been torn down, I figured it was finally time that I do so.

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For those not familiar with the story, Yvette Vickers grew up with dreams of becoming an actress. The petite beauty graduated from UCLA with a degree in theatre and quickly landed a role in Sunset Boulevard. Though it was an uncredited part, it was quite a substantial first break. Other small roles followed. She was featured in a White Rain Shampoo commercial and the movie Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman, as well as its sequel, Attack of the Giant Leeches. In July 1959, she was named the Playboy Playmate of the Month. Yvette never obtained the level of fame she so desired, though, and spent the next few decades piddling in bit parts, until they, too, dried up. She dabbled in real estate for a time and, then in early 2000, worked the fan convention circuit. Sadly though, Vickers was going blind due to macular degeneration. During her final years she became paranoid and delusional, convinced she had stalkers. It was not long before she was a complete recluse, holed up in her tiny cottage on Westwanda Drive.

Reports differ as to when Yvette purchased the Benedict Canyon property. According to a fabulous Los Angeles magazine article from 2012 titled “Left Behind,” Vickers originally moved into the residence with her first husband (she had three over the course of her life), jazz bassist Don Prell, shortly after their wedding in 1953. She was then granted the home when the two divorced in 1957. Scott Michaels’s account states, though, that Yvette purchased the bungalow in 1980 at a cost of $56,000. Either way, it was inside the 1948 dwelling pictured below that Yvette lived out her final years. The miniscule residence measured one bedroom, one bath and a scant 676 square feet, and sat on a 0.19-acre plot of land. By all accounts, towards the end, the cottage was dilapidated and falling apart in places. Broken windows were held together by duct tape, holes in exterior walls were covered over with tarps and exterior foliage had grown through to the interior of the house. Yvette had also become something of a hoarder, with boxes, clothing and paraphernalia cluttered throughout the tiny structure.

Yvette Vickers House (4 of 7)

On the morning of April 27th, 2011, Vickers’ neighbor Susan Savage happened to pass by the house, spotted some cobwebs in the mailbox and became alarmed. She had not seen Yvette in months and, though that was not unusual, decided to check on her. Of entering the home, Susan said, “I knocked on her gate for long time; it was impossible to open. It was bolted twice, nailed shut, and then, braced at the base with a 2×4. Trust me, it was NOT easily accessible from the street. If it was, our mail carrier might have been able to make contact sooner. I ended up scaling her steeply graded hillside, stepping over high metal barricades and bloodying myself in the process, till I finally got onto her property. All the doors and windows were locked and reinforced from within. I knocked on every door/window, calling her name the whole time. I could see that the lights were on, but there was no response. I went down to the front door of the house, and saw the broken window pane which is how I ultimately got in.” When Savage reached the dwelling’s second floor, she discovered what was left of Yvette’s body, mummified on the floor. It had likely been sitting there for months. Though a lot of criticism was soon thrown at neighbors and friends for not notifying authorities that the 82-year-old had not been heard from in months, it is obvious that Yvette was, at least in her final years, someone who did not want any sort of contact with the outside world.

Next-of-kin was Perry Palmer, Yvette’s half-brother. The two had not known of each other’s existence until much later in life and never grew close. Perry had the home cleared of all of Yvette’s belongings a couple of months after her death and the property was put on the market as “a major fixer-upper” in September 2011 for $499,000. You can check out some photos of what the interior of the house looked like at that time here and you can check out a great video filmed by Scott Michaels about the home here. The residence ultimately sold in January of the following year for $275,000 and was torn down at some point thereafter. Boulevard of broken dreams, indeed.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Yvette Vickers’ house was formerly located at 10021 Westwanda Drive in Beverly Hills.

July 14, 2014July 11, 2014

Martin Weir’s Mansion from “Get Shorty”

While out and about stalking in Beverly Hills two weeks ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, took me on a minor detour to see the mansion where movie star Martin Weir (Danny DeVito) lived in the 1995 comedy Get Shorty. I LOVE the scene that took place at Martin’s pad, so I was beyond excited to finally be seeing it in person.

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Towards the beginning of Get Shorty, Chili Palmer (John Travolta) enlists the help of Martin’s ex-wife, Karen Flores (Rene Russo), in the hopes that she can get the actor to star in a movie Chili is producing. Karen agrees to go to Martin’s mansion to talk to him and tells Chili that she will meet him afterwards at Abiquiu restaurant in Santa Monica (which I blogged about here). Instead of waiting for that lunch meeting, though, Chili buys a map of the stars’ homes and shows up at Martin’s residence at the same time that Karen does. (A man after my own heart!) Upon arriving, he says, “I can’t believe this map is accurate. I bought it for ten bucks from a kid sitting in a lawn chair on Sunset.” Love, love, love!

The mansion’s front gate was shown several times in the scene. It was closed when we arrived, but, as you can see below, still looks very similar to how it appeared in the movie.

The large, circular fountain-like structure that was stationed just beyond the gate in Get Shorty is no longer there, though, or was, perhaps, never there and was simply just a prop installed for the filming. Not having the fountain certainly adds more space for cars, which seems to be a pressing need for the current homeowners, as you can see below. Winking smile

The home’s elaborately carved exterior is absolutely stunning – both onscreen and in person.

In real life, the 13,913-square-foot pad, which was originally built in 1988, has eight bedrooms, nine baths and a 0.66-acre lot. It last sold in July 2007 for $14,800,000.

I believe that the manse’s real life interior also appeared in Get Shorty, but I was, unfortunately, unable to verify that.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Martin Weir’s mansion from Get Shorty is located at 1017 North Crescent Drive in Beverly Hills.

September 18, 2012September 18, 2012

The First Beverly Hills House

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, fellow stalker E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, recently published an e-book about Old Hollywood titled Unscripted: Hollywood Back-Stories, Volume 1 (which you can purchase on Nook here and on Kindle here). I read the entire tome – which was fascinating, by the way – in two nights, highlighter and stalking notebook in hand, and, of course, accumulated quite a few new addresses to add to my ever-growing To-Stalk list – the most notable of which was the address of the very first residence ever to be built in Beverly Hills. And I finally managed to drag the Grim Cheaper out there to stalk the place this past Saturday afternoon.

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The city of Beverly Hills actually had a very inauspicious beginning. The six square miles that now make up one of the most exclusive and luxurious areas on the planet started out as a 4,539-acre Spanish land grant known as “El Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas”, or “The Ranch of the Gathering of the Waters”. In 1900, after a succession of different owners, Burton Green, president of the Amalgamated Oil Company, purchased the site – which at the time was being called “Morocco Junction” and was being utilized as a lima bean farm – and began drilling for oil. And while he did not come across any, he did find an abundance of water and, in 1906, decided to develop the land into an upscale housing community and changed his company’s name to the Rodeo Land and Water Company. Green dubbed his new locality “Beverly Hills”, in honor of his hometown of Beverly Farms, Massachusetts. Ground was broken on the site in 1907, whereupon wide, curving boulevards were mapped out (each planted with a different type of tree), parks were landscaped and model homes were built. The first model home (pictured below) stood at 515 North Canon Drive.

Green began selling plots of land for around $500, but, unfortunately, no one was buying. In order to bring attention to his faltering community, he decided to construct a luxury hotel and, in May 1912, the Beverly Hills Hotel, aka “The Pink Palace”, was born. Amazingly enough, according to Unscripted, the BHH “was an hour carriage ride from Hollywood and three hours by train and carriage from downtown L.A.” And I thought today’s traffic was bad! Winking smile While the hotel proved popular with the showbiz set, it was not until Hollywood darlings Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks purchased a secluded estate in 1920 at 1143 Summit Drive, which they then commissioned famed architect Wallace Neff to transform into a mega-mansion dubbed “Pickfair”, that the city became a celebrity draw. As Unscripted says, “Pickfair brought the stars, who’d never been interested in Beverly Hills, to Beverly Hills. The hilltops within view of Pickfair were soon boasting mansion estates for the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Tom Mix, Rudolph Valentino, Francis Marion and Fred Thompson, and John Barrymore.” And the rest, as they say, is history.

There seems to be quite a bit of discrepancy online about Beverly Hills’ first model home. From what I have been able to gather via property records, the dwelling was originally constructed in 1908, which gels with the timeline of the city’s inception. According to the YouTube video below, though, which was made when the residence was for sale earlier this year, the 5-bedroom, 5-bath, 3,883-square-foot property was “recently built” by architect Alec Dugally. And while I could not find any permits or documents pertaining to a remodel, tear-down or rebuild at the site, according to Redfin, the property was, indeed, renovated in 1948. Adding to the confusion is the fact that Alec Dugally seems to have worked predominantly in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, though, not in 1948 and not in “recent” years. So it seems that both Redfin and YouTube might have some bogus information posted. Either way, someone’s wires got crossed somewhere over the years and I cannot state with certainty that the model home is still in its original form today. If I had to guess, though, I would say that the property was, at some point, remodeled. Boo!

The First Beverly Hills House

According to this Beverly Hills Historic Resources Survey, Green’s model home was still standing in its original form in 1986. As you can (sort of) see below in the Historic Aerial’s view of the house circa 1980 as compared to the more current Bing image, it does appear as if some alteration may have taken place. Because the 1980 view is so hazy, though, it is impossible to say for certain either way.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The first house ever built in Beverly Hills is located at 515 North Canon Drive.

March 30, 2012March 29, 2012

“The Bodyguard” Mansion – aka The Beverly House Compound

After the sad passing of singer Whitney Houston last month, I mentioned to fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, that we should try to track down the mansion where one of Whitney’s most legendary characters, pop star Rachel Marron, lived in 1992’s The Bodyguard. For some very odd reason, I thought that the place had yet to be found, but Mike told me that way back in 2007 he had come across an article on fave website The Real Estalker about “The Beverly House Compound”, the most expensive home then for sale in the United States. In the comments section of the post, someone had reported that the very same mansion had been used as Rachel’s residence in The Bodyguard. How I had not previously come across that information in all my years of stalking is absolutely beyond me, especially considering that the location is one that I have long been itching to stalk. Well, believe you me, once Mike gave me the address, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to Beverly Hills to see the place for myself.

The Beverly House Compound has a vast and storied Hollywood history. It was originally designed by Gordon B. Kaufmann, the very same architect who also designed the Hoover Dam, the Los Angeles Times Building, Scripps College, and the Athenaeum at the California Institute of Technology, a very popular filming location that I have yet to blog about. The Compound was commissioned by banker Milton Gerz in 1927 and cost over $1 million to construct – and we’re talking 1920’s money! In 1947, William Randolph Hearst and his mistress Marion Davies purchased the lavish three-story, 27-room estate, which sat on over 7 acres of land, for $120,000. Hearst died at the residence in 1951, as did Davies in 1961. Legend has it that John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier spent part of their 1953 honeymoon at the property and supposedly the mansion was also used as the West Coast headquarters for the Kennedy Presidential Campaign in 1960.

In 2007, financier Leonard Ross, who purchased The Compound in 1976, put it up for sale for a whopping $165 million, making it the most expensive home on the market in the entire country at the time. In 2010, the estate, minus three acres of land, was re-listed at the reduced price of $95 million. According to several articles, the lavish property, which has been expanded over the years, currently boasts four separate houses, a cottage, an apartment, 72,000 square feet of living space, 29 bedrooms, a two-story library, two movie projection rooms, a living room with a 22-foot arched ceiling, two tennis courts, a tennis pavilion, staff accommodations, a 50-foot entry hall, an 82-foot cascading waterfall, a disco, and three separate pools. You can check out some fabulous interior photographs of the mansion on the This and That and More of the Same blog here.

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In The Bodyguard, the exterior of The Beverly House Compound stood in for the exterior of the palatial home where Rachel Marron lived.

All of the interiors of Rachel’s estate were filmed at the nearby Greystone Mansion, though. You can see photographs of the room that was used as Rachel’s fake bedroom here and here.

And you can see a photograph of the Greystone Mansion kitchen here

And for the gate to Rachel’s home a third location was used! The gate actually belongs to the mansion located at 10231 Charing Cross Road in Beverly Hills, which just so happens to be the very same residence where Jeffrey Lebowski (David Huddleston) lived in The Big Lebowski.

A current Google Street View image of that gate is pictured above. And while it looks considerably different today than it did in The Bodyguard, you can see that the basic positioning remains the same.

I tracked down the location of Rachel’s gate thanks to an address number of “10224” that was visible in the background of the scene in which Frank Farmer (Kevin Costner) first arrived at Rachel’s mansion.

That gate also looks considerably different today, but, as you can see above, much like was the case with Rachel’s gate, the basic positioning remains the same.

The Beverly House Compound has been the site of constant filming over the years. In The Godfather, it was used as the mansion where movie producer Jack Woltz (John Marley) lived. Yes, that mansion.

According to The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations website, only the exterior of The Compound was used in the filming, though. All of the interior scenes – including the infamous horse head scene – were shot at an estate located at 95 Middleneck Road on Long Island.

In the Season 1 episode of The Colbys titled “The Turning Point”, the residence stood in for the supposed Rome mansion where Francesca “Frankie”Colby (Katharine Ross) vacationed with Lord Roger Langdon (David Hedison).

Ironically enough, though, in the following episode, which was titled “Thursday’s Child”, Greystone Mansion stood in for that same Rome mansion.

In the 1979 movie The Jerk, the grounds of The Compound were used as the backyard of the home where Navin (Steve Martin) lived after he became rich.

As you can see above, though, the front of Navin’s home was a different location entirely.

In 1985’s Fletch, The Compound was where Alan Stanwyk (Tim Matheson) lived.

The real life interior of the property was also used in the filming.

In 1985’s Into the Night, the mansion was where Jack Caper (Richard Farnsworth) lived.

The real life interior of The Compound was used in the filming of that movie, as well.

Way back in 1966, The Compound was used as the home of Mrs. Sampson (Lauren Bacall) in the thriller Harper.

At that time, the backyard and pool area of the property looked considerably different than they do today.

In the Season 3 episode of Charlie’s Angels titled “Rosemary, for Remembrance”, the mansion was where Jake Garfield (Ramon Bieri) lived.

The real life interior of the mansion was also used in the filming of that episode.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Beverly House Compound, aka Rachel Marron’s mansion from The Bodyguard, is located at 1011 North Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills. Greystone Mansion, which was used as the interior of Rachel’s home, is located at 905 Loma Vista Drive in Beverly Hills. The gate to Rachel’s mansion, which looks considerably different today, is located at 10231 Charing Cross Road in Beverly Hills.

February 2, 2012February 1, 2012

La Villa Consolata – The Day Spa from the “Driven” Episode of “CSI: Miami”

Back in January, a fellow stalker named Brandi left a comment on my post about the mansion from The Beverly Hillbillies movie informing me that the property’s indoor spa had not actually been used in the Season 4 episode of CSI: Miami titled “Driven”, as I had originally presumed, but that that spa could actually be found at a different ostentatious estate, this one on Mapleton Drive in Beverly Hills. One quick online search and I discovered that Brandi was, indeed, correct and I immediately added the residence to my “To-Stalk” list. As fate would have it, just a few days later, the Grim Cheaper and I happened to be watching the 2001 romantic comedy Good Advice (for about the hundredth time, mind you – it is one of our favorite movies EVER!) and I just about fell off the couch when I spotted the very same spa from CSI: Miami! So I decided that I just HAD to stalk the estate as soon as possible and dragged the GC right on out there this past Saturday afternoon.

As you can see above, in real life, the “Driven” mansion is absolutely GINORMOUS and actually looks more like a palace than a private residence. In fact, according to the Wikinfo website, the property is one of the largest single family homes in all of the United States! Ironically enough, while we were stalking the dwelling, a Hollywood tour van happened to pull up and the guide announced that the estate had once been leased by Donatella Versace, to which the GC yelled out, “It was also featured in an episode of CSI: Miami!” Thanks for having my back, honey! Smile And while I cannot find any information online to back up the Donatella Versace claim, it does look like exactly the sort of place that I would imagine her living. There are also a few internet reports floating around that the home was lived in (at different times, of course) by both Janet Jackson and Tommy Hilfiger, but I believe that information is incorrect. According to CurbedLA, the residence was originally built in 1993 by Pacific-Brokerage-Services-founder Steven Wallace and was awarded to his ex-wife, Jo-Anne, in their divorce shortly thereafter. Current property records show that Jo-Anne still owns the mansion to this day, although it is possible she rented it out to various celebrities over the years.

As you can see in the above photographs from the home’s MLS listing, the 6-bedroom, 7-bath, 27,816-square-foot abode, which sits on 1.15 well-manicured acres of land, is nothing short of unbelievable! The property, dubbed “La Villa Consolata”, features a whopping eight fireplaces!, a domed entryway, a gourmet kitchen, formal gardens, a gym, an indoor and an outdoor pool, a massage room, a game room, a two-level library (which I would give anything to have in my own home!), a master bedroom wing, three elevators!, staff quarters, three family rooms, a detached theater, a guard house, a wine cellar, and a three-level underground disco named “Atlantis”! Who knew that those kinds of amenities were even available in homes?!?! And while the residence has been on and off the market for a couple of years now, it seems to currently be back on again at the bargain price of $27.5 million. You can check out the dwelling’s real estate website and see more photographs of it in all of its ornate grandeur here.

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In the “Driven” episode of CSI: Miami, La Villa Consolata stood in for a supposed Dade-County-area day spa where a group of wealthy women are robbed at gunpoint.

The mansion’s indoor lap pool was used extensively in the episode.

That pool area is pictured above and I have to say that it is pretty darn magnificent!

The interior of La Villa Consolata also masqueraded as a second location in “Driven”. Towards the end of the episode, the mansion stood in for the residence belonging to Cynthia Gilmore (Jacqueline Pinol), where a home-invasion robbery took place.

In Good Advice, La Villa Consolata’s indoor pool is where Cathy Sherman (Rosanna Arquette) attends a yoga class and gets interrupted by a phone call from her husband, Barry Sherman (Jon Lovitz). I SO love that Cathy has a coffee with her while practicing yoga, by the way! SO something I would do! Smile

In the Season 1 episode of Charmed titled “The Wedding from Hell”, La Villa Consolata’s front exterior;

interior;

and backyard stood in for the mansion where Mrs. Grace Spencer (Barbara Stock) lived.

Oddly enough, though, the mansion grounds shown in the beginning of the episode are unmistakably those of The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, which I blogged about way back in October of 2008. I have no idea why two different locations would be used to stand in for the same backyard, but I am guessing that it was some sort of a timing issue in which La Villa Consolata was not available for the entire stretch of time that was needed to film “The Wedding from Hell”, so producers found a similar-looking spot to double for it in certain scenes.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: La Villa Consolata, aka the mansion from Good Advice, the “Driven” episode of CSI: Miami and “The Wedding from Hell” episode of Charmed, is located at 330 South Mapleton Drive in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles. The home used for all of the backyard scenes in Mommie Dearest is located across the street at 355 South Mapleton Drive.

January 3, 2012January 2, 2012

Carrie Fisher’s House

I would like to start off by wishing all of my fellow stalkers a very happy New Year! I hope that 2012 brings each of you joy, laughter, fulfillment, and much good stalking. And now, on with the post! When my good friend, fellow stalker Lavonna, visited Los Angeles back in mid-November, she, along with her daughter Melissa and friends Beth, Kim, and Sandy, attended a taping of The Talk (during which she got a hug from none other than Henry Winkler himself, aka The Fonz!). The guest on that particular day was Carrie Fisher and all audience members were given a copy of the Star Wars actress’ latest book, Shockaholic. Because Lavonna knows how much this stalker absolutely loves herself some celebrity biographies, she kindly passed her copy along to me and I read the 162-page tome in just a few days. And while I did not find it particularly enthralling (it is a very odd, sometimes incoherent, rambling collection of stories), one portion that did pique my interest was when Carrie discussed her current home and its famous former owners, one of whom was the legendary Academy-Award-winning costume designer Edith Head (on whom the character of Edna in the 2004 movie The Incredibles was based). Of the property, and the fact that it is supposedly haunted, Carrie said, “ . . . if Edith did happen to roam her once-beloved home, she never floated past me. Nor did I spot any visions of Bette Davis, who sold the property to Edith, or Robert Armstrong, King Kong’s captor in the original film, who built the house and sold it to Bette.” Well, believe you me, once I read those words and learned of how much the property was steeped in Hollywood history, I became just a wee-bit obsessed with stalking the place. Thankfully, a simple input of the terms “Carrie’s Fisher’s house” on Google yielded a link to a page on fave website Virtual Globetrotting which featured the home’s location. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it the very next weekend.

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Carrie’s 4-bedroom, 4-bath, 4,210-square-foot home, which sits on over 2.5 acres of land, was originally built in 1933 for actor Robert Armstrong, as I mentioned above. According to Zillow, Carrie purchased the property in May of 1993 for a cool $13,745,454. Sadly though, as you can see above, aside from the gate, no part of the house is visible from the street. There are some rather quirky signs posted on the gate, though, which made me LOL. The signs read, “Dear Crossing”, “Beware of Crabs”, and “Public Telephone Within”. I was a bit tempted to ring the buzzer to ask if I could use said public telephone, but the GC ixnayed that idea real fast.

As you can see in the above aerial views, Carrie Fisher’s hacienda-style home is nothing if not private. The residence sits far back at the end of a long driveway and is surrounded by huge trees and tall hedges. According to fave book Movie Star Homes: The Famous to the Forgotten, the property was even more secluded in its early days when it encompassed 5 acres of land, but Edith Head had the lot subdivided sometime during the 1950s. Thankfully, Carrie showed off the dwelling in the November 2004 issue of Architectural Digest, allowing us stalkers an insider’s peek. Aside from Edith Head, Bette Davis, Robert Armstrong, and Carrie Fisher, singer James Blunt also lived on the premises, in Carrie’s guest house, for a time. He even recorded a song in one of the property’s bathrooms – yes, in a bathroom. Apparently, Carrie has a stand-up piano on display in one of her lavatories because, as she says, “We had no place else to put it and the room has good acoustics.”

As I mentioned earlier, I did not particularly enjoy Shockaholic, but there was one section that I did absolutely love and would be remiss by not referencing here. In the beautifully-written chapter titled “The Princess and The King”, Carrie discusses her friendship with Michael Jackson and, as you can imagine, I was absolutely drooling while reading it. One particularly poignant paragraph really hit home for me and I found myself wishing I had written it myself. The paragraph reads, “The thing is, though, I never thought Michael’s whole thing with kids was sexual. Never. Granted, it was miles from appropriate, but just because it wasn’t normal doesn’t mean that it had to be perverse. Those aren’t the only two choices for what can happen between an adult and an unrelated child spending time together. Even if that adult has had too much plastic surgery and what would appear to be tattooed makeup on his face. And yes, he had an amusement park, a zoo, a movie theater, popcorn, candy, and an elephant. But to draw a line under all that and add it up to the assumption that he fiendishly rubbed his hands together as he assembled this giant super spiderweb to lure and trap kids into it is just bad math.” I couldn’t agree more, Carrie, I couldn’t agree more! (The photograph pictured above, from Shockaholic, is of MJ reading Carrie’s 2008 book Wishful Drinking. The caption reads, “President Harry Truman playing golf on island of Kailua, Hawaii. June 1911.” Um, OK. See what I mean about the book being very odd, sometimes incoherent, and rambling? )

A big THANK YOU to my good friend, fellow stalker Lavonna for gifting me with her copy of Shockaholic!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Carrie Fisher’s house is located at 1700 Coldwater Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills. Please keep in mind that the home is private property and do not trespass.

October 14, 2011September 29, 2017

Lana Turner’s Former House -The Johnny Stompanato Murder Site

My grandma, who loves reading Hollywood biographies just as much as I do, recently gifted me with a book about the life of legendary film idol Lana Turner, authored by the star’s only daughter, Cheryl Crane. The ginormous tome, which must weigh at least twenty pounds (not kidding!), is named LANA: The Memories, the Myths, the Movies and, prior to reading it, I knew virtually nothing about the 1950s screen siren. Well, aside, of course, from the fact that she had been embroiled in one of the largest scandals ever to rock Tinseltown – the murder of smalltime gangster Johnny Stompanato, which took place inside of Lana’s rented Beverly Hills manse. So after finishing the book several weeks ago, I decided that the timing could not have been more perfect for me to do some stalking of Lana’s former residence and blog about it during my Haunted Hollywood month.

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Lana rented the large Colonial-style house pictured above in the Spring of 1958, shortly after returning to Los Angeles from England where she had been filming Another Time, Another Place with actor Sean Connery. The 6-bedroom, 6-bath, 6,769-square-foot home had originally been built in 1930 for Gone with the Wind actress Laura Hope Crews. At the time she moved in, Lana had been embroiled in a year-long turbulent romance with Johnny Stompanato, a womanizer who was best known for being mobster Mickey Cohen’s bodyguard. Lana had reportedly been trying to break up with Stompanato for several weeks, all to no avail. On the night of April 4th, 1958, only three days after she had moved into the residence, Lana had once again thrown in the towel on the relationship. After hearing the news, Johnny threatened to cut up Lana’s face and harm both her mother, “Gran”, and 14-year-old Cheryl, who had just returned home from boarding school. In the book, Cheryl describes what happened next as follows: “After John arrived, I sat in my bedroom writing a term paper while I heard his vicious threats carry through the house. In a panic I ran downstairs and into the kitchen, where on the sink counter lay one of the knives Mother had bought earlier in the day. The thought of scaring him away flashed into my mind. I went back up the stairs to Mother’s bedroom and stood outside of her door for a few moments as Stompanato continued threatening to disfigure her. Suddenly Mother threw open the door. John came up from behind, his arm raised as if to strike. I took a step forward and he ran on the knife in my hands. Stompanato looked at me and said, ‘My God, Cheryl, what have you done?’ before falling to the floor. He was dead within moments.”

Cheryl was taken to juvenile hall shortly after the killing and a coroner’s inquest was opened just a few days later, during which Lana testified. The coroner’s jury, who deliberated for a scant 20 minutes, ending up ruling Johnny’s death a justifiable homicide, acquitting Cheryl of all charges. And while theories abound that Lana was actually the one who did the stabbing and used her daughter as a scapegoat in order to avoid jail time and career ruin, legendary author James Ellroy thinks otherwise. In a February 2011 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, he said, “People love to think something is inherently more dramatic, more secret, crazier, uglier, more vicious and vile. People love the inside scoop and will deny all the facts even when they are hit directly over the head with them. It’s a very, very, very common phenomenon to ascribe more intrigue to a prosaic event than the prosaic event truly demands." The world will perhaps never know the exact truth about what happened at 730 North Roxbury Drive on the evening of April 4th, 1958, but I find it absolutely amazing that people are still enthralled with the murder more than five decades later.

According to Cheryl, Lana’s bedroom, where the murder took place, was located on the second floor of the home on the far left-hand side. Lana moved out of the house immediately following the events of April 4th, 1958, only living on the premises a grand total of a few days. According to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory website, actress Virginia Bruce also once lived in the home, as did host Merv Griffin.

Cheryl Crane on the Johnny Stompanato Murder

You can watch an interview with Cheryl, in which she talks about the murder, by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to my grandma for giving me LANA: The Memories, the Myths, the Movies, without which I would not have had most of the information with which to write this post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Lana Turner’s former house, where Johnny Stompanato’s murder took place, is located at 730 North Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills.

October 13, 2011September 29, 2017

Palace Costume – The Halloween Costume Shop from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

One location that I have been wanting to stalk for close to two decades now is the costume shop that was featured in the Season 2 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Halloween”. Not only was that episode one of my most beloved of the entire series, but, as has been made blatantly apparent by now, Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday and I was positively DYING to wander through the very same clothing racks that the 90210 gang had wandered through. So when fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, tracked the place down a while back, I just about died of excitement and immediately added it to my Haunted-Hollywood-To-Stalk list. Being that the store’s actual name – Palace Costume Company – had been visibly displayed in the episode, I am highly embarrassed that I was not able to find the place myself. I mean honestly, what kind of a stalker am I? Winking smile Anyway, I finally dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the store two weekends ago and, as you can imagine, I could NOT have been more excited!

Palace Costume, which was originally a vintage clothing retailer, was founded in the 1960s by a woman named Melody Barnett in a storefront on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. The shop was the very first vintage clothing store to be located on Melrose, a street that is now rife with thrift emporiums and vintage boutiques. In 1970, Palace Costume moved to a 2,000-square-foot space on Fairfax Avenue and began exclusively renting out authentic vintage clothing to film and production crews. According to this October 1998 Los Angeles Business Journal article, Barnett has become so successful in the entertainment industry that she has had to add about 1,000 square feet of space to her store every single year due to her rapidly growing collection. Today, her 36,000-square-foot emporium houses over half a million different pieces, making it one of the largest vintage clothing collections in the entire country. Melody’s costumes have appeared in thousands upon thousands of productions, including Titanic, Chinatown, A Beautiful Mind, Blow, Frida, Pleasantville, Boogie Nights, Evita, Forrest Gump, What’s Love Got to Do with It, and all three Austin Powers movies. In 1998, Barnett had a wooden and stucco façade constructed around her store for security reasons, so the place looks quite a bit different today than it did onscreen on 90210.

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In the “Halloween” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, Brenda Walsh (aka my girl Shannen Doherty), Kelly Taylor (aka Jennie Garth), Dylan McKay (aka Luke Perry), and the rest of the 90210 gang head out to what they call “Hollywood Costume” to pick out some costumes for a Halloween party they are attending that night. As I mentioned above, the name “Palace Costume Co.” is blatantly visible on the storefront in the scene. Yes, I am a blonde! Winking smile

It is while there that Brenda and Dylan find their amazeballs Bonnie and Clyde costumes. It has ALWAYS been my dream to dress up as Brenda and Dylan dressed up as Bonnie and Clyde for Halloween, but somehow I do not think the GC would go for that. Although this year we are dressing up 90210-style, but I am saving that information for a future post! Winking smile

Sadly, Palace Costume is not open to the public, but is only open to industry professionals. Words cannot express how heartbroken I was when we arrived and saw the “not open to the public” sign on the front door. I was literally almost in tears (OK, not really, but I was pretty bummed) as I had so badly wanted to peruse through the countless racks of period clothing like Brenda and Donna had done on 90210. And I had also wanted to verify if the episode had actually been filmed inside of the store or at a different location.

Because I hate making phone calls (I know, I know – I am weird!), I enlisted the help of Mike, from MovieShotsLA (who is doing his own Halloween locations theme this month), to call Palace Costume and ask Melody if any 90210 filming had been done inside of the store. She confirmed that indeed it had. And if you look at the above screen capture from the episode and compare it to the photograph of the inside of Palace Costume, which I got off of the company’s website, you can see that the light fixtures and ceiling do, in fact, match. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to go inside of that place! I am a member of SAG, doesn’t that count for anything?? Winking smile

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Palace Costume, from the “Halloween” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 835 North Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. You can visit the store’s official website here. Palace Costume is sadly not open to the public, but is only open to members of the entertainment industry.