Celebrities – Page 5 – IAMNOTASTALKER

February 21, 2013February 20, 2013

San Francisco Saloon from “The Ugly Truth”

Before we moved in together in 2008, the Grim Cheaper lived on the West Side of Los Angeles and, consequently, the two of us spent the majority of our time out there. During those years, when driving back and forth from his condo, I would often pass by a bar named San Francisco Saloon. The place had always intrigued me (most likely because I grew up in the Bay Area), but, for whatever reason, I never stopped in. Then, back in 2009, I just about fell off my chair when I spotted the watering hole pop up in fave rom-com The Ugly Truth. We were living in Pasadena by then, though, so after I finished watching the movie, San Francisco Saloon pretty much slipped from my mind. Flash forward to this past weekend, when, while driving back to the GC’s boss’ loft in Santa Monica (our L.A. weekend crash pad), we passed by the eatery and I suggested we stop in for a spontaneous stalk and a bite to eat. Thankfully, the GC was game and, in a fortuitous twist, we ended up absolutely LOVING the place.

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Oddly enough, while the San Francisco Saloon website states that the establishment has been “serving spirits since 1934,” I could find virtually no other historical information about the place anywhere. The only scoop that I did come across was this Yellow Pages listing which claims that the bar was named in honor of San Francisco’s oldest watering hole, The Saloon. You can check out some photographs of The Saloon, which was founded in 1861, here. The place definitely does have the same look and feel as its Los Angeles counterpart.

Because I am pretty much the pickiest eater known to man, I was floored to discover that the San Francisco Saloon menu offered countless options. And when I saw that I could substitute a crispy chicken breast for a ground beef patty on any hamburger order, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I wound up creating my own crispy chicken burger with jack cheese, mushrooms, bacon, and ranch dressing, and, while I am sure that it goes without saying, the thing was uh-ma-zing! My “burger” came with a massive side salad full of mixed greens that was also fabulous – and made me feel a bit less guilty about my bacon/cheese/fried chicken-filled main portion. Winking smile The GC dined on the Saloon’s 49er Burger, with a regular beef patty, blue cheese crumbles, grilled onions, and mushrooms, and also absolutely loved it. And the prices were incredibly reasonable, too, which made him happy to no end. My favorite part of the evening, though, was when I ordered champagne and the bartender explained that the Saloon did not actually serve sparkling wine, but that he could make me some mock-bubbly by mixing white wine with seltzer water. How incredibly cool is that? While I have found myself in countless bars that do not serve champagne, never once have I had a bartender offer to make me a substitute. And his concoction turned out to be fabulous, to boot! On a sparkling wine side-note – my good friend Julia, creator of the fabulous Bunnies in L.A. jewelry line, recently asked me if I liked white wine. When I told her that I did not, she responded, “Exactly! It’s basically just flat champagne, so what’s the point?” Um, LOVE IT!

San Francisco Saloon popped up once in The Ugly Truth, in the scene in which co-workers/frenemies Abby (Katherine Heigl) and Mike (Gerard Butler) discuss Abby’s upcoming trip to Lake Tahoe with her new boyfriend, Colin (Eric Winter). Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the bar were used. According to one of the super-nice servers that I spoke with, several other scenes from the movie (all of which apparently wound up on the cutting room floor) were also filmed at San Francisco Saloon, as was an episode of Wilfred, but I was, unfortunately, unable to figure out exactly which episode.

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: San Francisco Saloon, from The Ugly Truth, is located at 11501 West Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

February 20, 2013February 19, 2013

Espresso Profeta from “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”

A couple of years ago, the Grim Cheaper and my cable service stopped providing Bravo TV (and E!) as a part of their basic subscription, which absolutely crushed me being that I was no longer able to watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, one of my very favorite shows. (Don’t even get me started on not being able to watch The Soup regularly!) So when we moved to the desert and realized that our new cable company offered Bravo (and E!), we immediately went on TRHOBH overload and watched almost all of Season 2 and 3 in one evening. Let me tell you, I was in reality TV heaven! Especially when, while checking out Season 2’s “The Lost Footage” special, I was introduced to Espresso Profeta, the most adorable little coffee shop that I had ever laid eyes on, in the scene in which Taylor Armstrong asked Adrienne Maloof to be her daughter’s godmother. I quickly Googled the name and discovered that the quaint little café was located on Glendon Avenue in Westwood. Being that I am a coffee connoisseur AND a stalker, I have no idea how in the heck I had never heard of the place before! So I immediately added the site to my To-Stalk list and when the GC and I were out in Los Angeles this past weekend, it was our very first stalking stop.

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Espresso Profeta, which translates to “The Prophet of Coffee”, was first founded on September 8th, 2008 by Samantha Langford and Mitch Hale. Prior to that date, the space that now houses the café (a brick-walled structure that, I believe, is named either the El Encanto Building or The Harrison Patio Building and dates back to 1924, 1927, or 1929, depending on which website one happens to be reading) was occupied by a different espresso bar, West Burton Coffee & Tea, that was owned solely by Langford. At the time, Hale, who was one of the very first baristas to be employed by the world famous Espresso Vivace in Seattle, was managing Caffe Luxxe in Santa Monica, but had decided it was time to open up his own place. While doing research on founding his shop, he learned that West Burton Coffee & Tea was one of the only sites in Los Angeles to serve Vivace beans. He contacted Langford and the two decided to partner up. In just three days time, the duo closed West Burton, remodeled the space and re-opened it as Espresso Profeta. It has been going strong ever since. And it is not very hard to see why – once I stepped through the front doors, I never wanted to leave!

In real life, Espresso Profeta is every bit as charming as it was made to appear on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Especially the front courtyard area.

And their coffee is to die for! Espresso Profeta takes their java very seriously. While there, I ordered an iced latte and asked the barista to hold back one of the espresso shots as I prefer my lattes more creamy than strong. He explained that it would not be nearly as good sans that second shot, but I convinced him to make it my way, anyway. And he was right. While good, when I returned to Espresso Profeta the following day (did you not see that coming? Winking smile ), I let the barista make my latte his way and it was sheer perfection!

On The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season 2 “The Lost Footage” special, both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of Espresso Profeta were shown.

In the rather awkward scene that took place there, Adrienne turned down Taylor’s request to be her daughter’s godmother. And while I never thought I’d refer to Adrienne Maloof as wise or sage, she was exactly that in her handling of the situation, telling Taylor that being a godmother is “an extremely important position to be in,” and that she should “really put thought into” whom she chooses as her child’s godparent and that she has “to take it seriously.” Um, ya think?

And while I assumed that the beautifully-crafted libations shown in the episode were most likely fabricated for the filming, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that all of Profeta’s espresso drinks, which are pulled using a Syneso machine, really do come out looking like works of art. It was mesmerizing to watch the baristas perform their special brand of frothy magic.

Thanks to the book Location Filming in Los Angeles, I learned that the building that now houses Espresso Profeta masqueraded as the art gallery owned by Carolyn Ellenson Grant (Marie Windsor) in the 1955 film No Man’s Woman.

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: Espresso Profeta, from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season 2 “The Lost Footage” special, is located at 1129 Glendon Avenue in Westwood.

February 14, 2013February 15, 2013

Tom Rose’s House from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

This past weekend, the Grim Cheaper surprised me with tickets for the Children’s Discovery Museum of the Desert annual Discovery Home Tour as a sort-of Welcome-to-Palm-Springs gift. The tour was an experience, to say the least. I honestly cannot remember the last time the GC and I laughed so hard – and for so long. I was “live texting” fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, throughout the day and at one point, after describing a house that had a microwave, mini-fridge, espresso machine, and pantry set up in multiple bathrooms directly across from toilets
(I’m not making this up – residents of that particular abode could literally be sitting on the toilet and making espresso at the same time!), he asked, “What f*cking desert have you moved to? The Sahara?” I have tears in my eyes right now going back through all of the texts from that day. Ah, good times! Anyway, while driving through the Las Palmas neighborhood mid-tour, I mentioned to the GC that I had yet to stalk the Palm Springs residence that Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) visited in the Season 5 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “P.S. I Love You.” I remembered that fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, had the address posted on his site, so I pulled over to look it up. As fate would have it, I actually pulled over directly across the street from the home! I mean, what are the odds of that? So I jumped out of the car and quickly snapped a few pics.

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In real life, the residence, which was originally built in 1983 and sits perched above Patencio Road, boasts seven bedrooms, seven baths, 6,989 square feet of living space, and a 0.73-acre plot of land. The ginormous property was last sold in December 1986 for $3,428,000.

According to a September 2010 Palm Springs Life article, the dwelling belongs to none other than Barbra Streisand and James Brolin, although I was unable to verify that claim through property records or other sources.

The article also states that the residence boasts a “guest mansion”, which, from looking at aerial views, can only be the structure denoted below. It was also built in 1983 and features five bedrooms, six baths, 6,948 square feet, and a 0.9-acre plot of land. Some guest mansion! That place is bigger than most houses!

In the “P.S. I Love You” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, Dylan and Charley Rawlins (Jeffrey King) head to Palm Springs to meet with a possible investor for their movie. That investor, Tom Rose (James Handy), turns out to be a mobster and, as you can see below, things don’t go quite according to plan. Gotta love the later years of 90210!

Before Dylan winds up hanging off of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, though, he meets with Tom Rose at the mobster’s desert mansion. As you can see below, the home’s front gate looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen. (A HUGE thank you to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for making screen captures of Tom’s house for me. I do not own Season 5 of 90210 on DVD, but presumed that the episode would be available for download on iTunes or elsewhere online. Sadly, that was not the case. I could not find “P.S. I Love You” ANYWHERE! Because the vast majority of the episode took place in the Coachella Valley, I was really looking forward to watching it, too. Boo!)

The property’s intercom now looks completely different, though, and was either swapped out for the filming or has since been replaced.

In an odd twist, the house that appeared in the episode looks nothing at all like the actual house that stands behind that front gate. As you can see below, Tom Rose’s residence was Moroccan in style and featured a tall, domed tower . . .

. . . while the real life residence is modern in style and lacks any sort of a tower.

The home’s real life driveway does not match what appeared in the episode, either. While Tom Rose’s driveway opened up to the front of his residence, the actual driveway opens up to the side of the house. Tom’s driveway was also flanked by short stone walls . . .

. . . which are missing in real life. If I had to guess, I would say that, while it is possible that the residence has been vastly remodeled since the filming of 90210 in 1995, I think it is much more likely that a different house (most likely one in the Los Angeles area) was used for the scenes that took place behind the front gate. Don’t quote me on that, though – it is just a guess. If Barbra Streisand really does own the home, as Palm Springs Life states (and because it was last sold in 1986, that means she would have owned it at the time of the filming, as well) this scenario would make sense, as Babs does not strike me as the sort of person who would EVER allow a film crew inside of her residence.

The interior of the property that appeared in the episode is pictured below. And while I am certain that a real life interior was used in the filming and not a set, I am guessing that said interior is located elsewhere, most likely in Los Angeles.

Check out the boom microphone visible in the top of the screen capture below, which Mike pointed out to me.

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.

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for making the screen captures that appear in this post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking – and a very happy Valentine’s Day to all of my fellow stalkers!

Stalk It: Tom Rose’s house from the “P.S. I Love You” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is located at 555 North Patencio Road in Palm Springs.

February 12, 2013February 12, 2013

Roger Azarian’s House from "Beverly Hills, 90210"

One location that I had wanted to stalk pretty much ever since first moving to Southern California was the mansion where Roger Azarian (a pre-Friends Matthew Perry) lived in the Season 1 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “April Is the Cruelest Month”. So when fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, managed to track it down a few years back, I was BEYOND excited – until I took a look at the place on Google Street View, that is, and saw that no part of it was visible from the road. Boo! So I never wound up stalking it. Flash forward to a couple of days before my move to the desert, when I grabbed my buddy E.J.’s Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites book and headed to the San Fernando Valley for a solo stalking adventure. At one point I randomly found myself on Louise Avenue in Encino and thought the street name rang a bell. I pulled over to do some searching on my iPhone and quickly discovered that Louise Avenue just so happened to be where the Azarian mansion was located. So, even though I knew the pad would not be at all visible, I decided to head right on over there for a little looksie.

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As it turns out, Google Maps did not lie – Roger’s residence, sadly, cannot be viewed from the street.

But Bing Maps does provide some fabulous aerial views of the place, so I guess there’s that. Winking smile As you can see below, Roger Azarian’s mansion and the parcel of land that it sits on are both absolutely ginormous!

After doing a bit of research, I believe that the property is actually comprised of two separate dwellings (a main house and a guest house) with two different addresses – one being 4839 Louise Avenue and the other 4825 Louise Avenue.

While the front gate displays a single address, 4839, Zillow shows that the residence located at that number only consists of a scant one bedroom, one bath and 1,200 square feet – far too small to be Roger Azarian’s manse. I believe that those measurements refer instead to a guest house located on the property. According to Zillow, the house at 4825 Louise Avenue boasts seven bedrooms, six baths and 7,186 square feet, which sounds much more like the dwelling that appeared onscreen in Beverly Hills, 90210. For whatever reason, though, the 4825 number is not displayed anywhere on the front gate. You can check out some interior photographs of the property, which was originally built in 1932 and appears to be named “Encino Acres”, here.

In the “April Is the Cruelest Month” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) befriends wealthy budding tennis star Roger Azarian and fairly quickly begins to fear that he is planning to kill to his own father. Quite a few areas of the house were used in the episode, including the front exterior;

the interior;

the pool;

and the pool house.

While doing research for this post, I discovered that Roger Azarian’s manse is quite the oft-used locale. It was also featured on 90210’s sister show, Melrose Place, as the mansion where Arthur Field (Michael Des Barres) lived.

The abode also appeared in another 90210 spin-off, the 1994 series Models Inc., as the home of Chris White (Kurt Deutsch).

In the 1983 television series Emerald Point N.A.S., the dwelling was where Harlan Adams (Patrick O’Neal) lived.

In Seasons 5 through 8 of the television Falcon Crest, the manse was used as the residence of the Agretti family.

In the Season 3 episode of Scarecrow and Mrs. King titled “Welcome to America, Mr. Brand”, the dwelling belonged to Kenneth Clayton-Dobbs (David Fox-Brenton).

Oddly enough, though, a different residence was shown for the establishing shots of the property in the episode.

In the Season 5 episode of Alias titled “Bob”, Encino Acres was where Jack Bristow (Victor Garber) met up with Elizabeth Powell (Caroline Goodall).

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.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location and to fellow stalker Gilles in France for finding episodes of Models Inc. and Emerald Point N.A.S. for me on YouTube and for making the Falcon Crest screen captures that appear in this post! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Roger Azarian’s house from the “April Is the Cruelest Month” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is located at 4825/4839 Louise Avenue in Encino.

February 11, 2013August 10, 2023

Rainbow Bar and Grill – the Site of Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe’s First Date

One locale that I had long heard mentioned repeatedly in the various books and articles I had read about my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe over the years was the Sunset Strip’s Rainbow Bar and Grill – where Joe DiMaggio took the starlet for their very first date. At the time, the establishment was known as Villa Nova, an exclusive Italian eatery that, sadly, shuttered its doors in the late 1960s and moved south to Newport Beach. Because the historic West Hollywood restaurant had changed hands and names over four decades ago, I had always assumed it bared little resemblance to the spot where Joe and Marilyn had once dined. So imagine my surprise when, while doing some online research, I discovered that the locale still looks pretty much exactly the same today (well, the exterior, at least) as it did when it was first established in the 1920s! I immediately added the spot to my To-Stalk list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there shortly thereafter on a Saturday afternoon to grab lunch. Unfortunately, Rainbow Bar and Grill only serves lunch on weekdays, so I had to put my stalking plans on hold. I did manage to get back out there, though, this past October, when my good friends, fellow stalkers Lavonna and Kim, were in town visiting from Ohio. And I have to say that the place was well-worth the wait.

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Stepping into the historic restaurant, with its wood-paneled walls and red leather booths, is like stepping back in time, but in a good way. (The place was all decked out for Halloween when we stalked it and does not usually have ghosts and cobwebs adorning the walls and ceiling. Winking smile )

The historic Sunset Strip eatery was originally founded as the Mermaid Club Café in the late 1920s. (You can check out some really cool 1930s-era video footage in which the restaurant appears here.) In 1933, the establishment was taken over by director Vincente Minnelli and renamed Villa Nova. Due to the strict “no press” policy, the site became a haven for the Hollywood elite. Just a few of the luminaries who dined there include Bing Crosby, Charlie Chaplin, John Wayne, and Dean Martin. Minnelli even proposed to future wife Judy Garland at the restaurant one night over dinner. And, as I mentioned above, in March 1952 (or 1953, depending on which website or book one happens to be reading), Joe DiMaggio met Marilyn Monroe there while on a blind date.

As the story goes, Joe became smitten with Marilyn after seeing pictures from a promotional photo shoot she did with the Chicago White Sox – a photo shoot which I just found out took place at Brookside Park in Pasadena! (And yes, I’m planning to stalk it!) The baseball icon asked a mutual friend named David March to set the two of them up shortly thereafter. Marilyn agreed, but only if David would chaperone. The double date took place on a Saturday night and Marilyn, as usual, showed up about two hours late. And while the legendary blonde did not expect to like the sports star, the two hit it off – over a plate of Villa Nova’s Scalloppine of Veal (according to the book Dishing Hollywood) while sitting at Table 14 (according to Marilyn Monroe Dyed Here). Apparently, Marilyn was quite amused – and surprised -at the many patrons who approached their table that evening – not to meet or catch a glimpse of her, but to shake the hand of the world famous Joltin’ Joe.

I had read on several websites that a plaque commemorating the rendezvous was on display at Rainbow Bar & Grill, but I could not find said plaque anywhere, nor did any of the servers know of its existence. Lavonna did manage to spot a gold plate with Marilyn on it embedded in the sidewalk out in front of the Rainbow, though.

In the late 1960s, as the Sunset Strip became less and less ritzy, Villa Nova moved south to the exclusive Newport Beach area and the eatery’s original site was sold to music producer Lou Adler and restaurateurs Elmer Valentine and Mario Maglieri. (While the GC and I were in Newport this past December, we stopped by Villa Nova’s OC locale to do some stalking, but it was, sadly, closed at the time, so I was only able to get photos of the exterior. I do definitely plan on going back, though.)

Valentine, Adler and Maglieri founded a new restaurant named Rainbow Bar and Grill at the old Villa Nova site and feted its opening by hosting a party on April 16, 1972 in honor of singer Elton John. It was not long before the establishment became a hangout for actors and rock-n-rollers alike and such stars as Jack Nicholson, Elvis Presley, Neil Diamond, Alice Cooper, Mick Jagger, Sylvester Stallone, Robin Williams, Robert De Niro, Nicolas Cage, and John Lennon have all dined there at one time or another. The Beatles even once partied at Over the Rainbow, the Grill’s second-floor private VIP area. And John Belushi supposedly ate his last meal (lentil soup at Table 16) at the Rainbow before passing away from a drug overdose on March 5th, 1982.

Besides being a celebrity hangout, Rainbow Bar and Grill is also a filming location! The restaurant has been featured in two Guns N’ Roses music videos, including the video for their 1992 hit “November Rain”.

You can watch that video by clicking below.

The exterior of the bar also briefly appeared in the group’s video for their 1993 song “Estranged.”

You can watch the “Estranged” video by clicking below.

The Rainbow Room was also featured in the Season 2 episode of Californication titled “The Great Ashby” as the spot where record producer Lew Ashby (Callum Keith Rennie) took Hank Moody (David Duchovny) for a drink after the two were released from jail.

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.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for taking all of the exterior photographs of Rainbow Bar and Grill that appear in this post! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Rainbow Bar and Grill is located at 9015 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit the eatery’s website here. Villa Nova Restaurant is located at 3131 West Coast Highway in Newport Beach. You can visit the Villa Nova website here.

February 8, 2013February 7, 2013

Alfred Hitchcock’s House from “Hitchcock”

Hold on to your hats, my fellow stalkers, ‘cause today’s post is going to be a long one! A couple of months ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, called me up to let me know that he had just watched a screener of the 2012 biopic Hitchcock (he works at a high-profile production company) and, knowing my penchant for the Master of Suspense, suggested I run right out and see it for myself as soon as possible. Thankfully, because Helen Mirren, who played Alma Reville, Hitch’s wife, in the flick, had been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award, Fox Searchlight had made a digital screener available for SAG members and I was able to watch it shortly after Mike’s call. I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the film and learned quite a bit lot about the legendary director that I had not previously been aware of. The locations (all of which are in L.A.) and design of the movie were quite stellar, to boot! And while I recognized that the exterior of the Hitchcock household had been portrayed by Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ former Beverly Hills manse (which I blogged about here), what I did not realize (until Mike told me) was that the interiors were filmed at a residence in Pasadena – one that I was actually quite familiar with and had even blogged about before, way back in October 2008. Because the post did not cover the full filming history of the home, though, I figured the place was most-definitely worthy of a re-stalk and ran right out to do just that a few days before our move.

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The gargantuan Tudor mansion pictured below was originally constructed in 1902 as a Craftsman-style winter home for a Chicago novelist named Gertrude Potter Daniels. Just three years later, in 1905, the property was sold to a new owner, Salt Lake City mining magnate Susanna Bransford Emery Holmes, aka “Utah’s Silver Queen”, and her husband Colonel E.F. Holmes. The couple moved into the property fulltime in 1910 and immediately began an extensive $37,00- renovation project that significantly altered the dwelling. Holmes dubbed her new residence, which was completed in 1922, “El Roble” in honor of a massive oak tree that once stood on the premises.

Today, the dwelling, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004, boasts a three-story, twenty-room, 7,300-square-foot main home, ten bedrooms, six baths, a 1.35-acre plot of land, a two-story freestanding gate house (pictured), chauffeur’s quarters, a pergola, and formal gardens. You can check out some fabulous photographs of what lies behind the mansion’s front gates here.

As you can see below, the land on which the home sits is absolutely gargantuan in size – as is the home itself.

The beautiful residence, which once belonged to Occidental College, was featured as the Pasadena Showcase House of Design in both 1975 and 1996 and its gardens have appeared twice in Sunset Magazine. The place has also been spotlighted countless times onscreen.

As I mentioned above, the exterior of Alfred and Alma’s mansion in Hitchcock was actually that of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ former Beverly Hills home. (Big THANK YOU to Mike for making the Hitchcock screen captures which appear below.)

The interiors were a mixture of both El Roble in Pasadena and studio sets. The areas of El Roble that appeared in Hitchcock include the wood-paneled study, which you can see a real life photograph of here;

the living room, which you can see a real life photograph of here;

and the entryway, which you can see a real life photograph of here.

The Hitchcocks’ bedroom;

bathroom;

and kitchen were all sets constructed on a studio soundstage.

To create the rich interiors of the Hitchcock homestead, production designer Judy Becker consulted historic photographs of the couple’s actual former residence in Bel-Air (which I blogged about here). Of the refrigerator pictured below, set decorator Robert Gould (whose father, as fate would have it, served as a second unit director on the original Psycho) said in a fabulous November 2012 Los Angeles Times article , “We chose the fridge because of the interesting handle with the round detail. It had an innuendo of a peep hole, a subtle way of referencing Hitchcock’s voyeurism throughout the film.” I absolutely love learning little tidbits like that! God is in the details, as they say.

In the fabulous 1978 comedy Foul Play, El Roble stood in for the supposed San Francisco-area residence belonging to Archbishop Thorncrest (Eugene Roche).

During Season 4 of Falcon Crest, El Roble appeared several times as the mansion where Cole Gioberti (William R. Moses) and Melissa Agretti Cumson Gioberti (Ana Alicia) lived.

In the Season 2 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Cross Jurisdictions”, the house was where former chief of detectives Duke Rittle (John Kapelos) was tortured and killed.

In the Season 3 episode of Ghost Whisperer titled “Unhappy Medium”, El Roble was where the Drake family – Susan (Dawson’s Creek’s Mary-Margaret Humes), Nikki (a very young Elisabeth Moss), and Sydney (Austin Highsmith) – lived.

In the Season 4 episode of The Closer titled “Fate Line” (which I actually got to watch being filmed – you can read my blog post about the experience here), El Roble was the residence of murdered horror movie producer Sean Thompson (who was never actually seen onscreen).

In the Season 4 episode of Greek titled “Agents for Change”, El Roble stood in for the home belonging to Evan Chambers’ (Jake McDorman’s) parents, Mr. Chambers (Kevin Kilner) and Mrs. Chambers (Kathryn Harrold).

According to fave website OnLocationVacations, the yet-to-be released movie The Pretty One, starring Zoe Kazan and Jake Johnson, did some filming at El Roble this past June. And while an April 1996 issue of Los Angeles Magazine stated that The Godfather was also filmed on the premises, I scanned through the flick while doing research for this post and did not see the mansion pop up anywhere.

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.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location and for providing all of the Hitchcock screen captures. Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The home used for the interior of Alfred Hitchcock’s residence in Hitchcock is located at 141 North Grand Avenue in Pasadena. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ former mansion, which stood in for the exterior of the Hitchcock house, is located at 918 North Alpine Drive in Beverly Hills.

February 6, 2013February 5, 2013

Robert Kardashian’s Former House

Last October, while I was knee-deep in my Haunted Hollywood postings, fellow stalker/prolific author E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, emailed me to let me know about his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites: Sixteen Driving Tours with Directions and the Full Story, from Tallulah Bankhead to River Phoenix, which he thought I might be interested in. Well, one look at the tome on Amazon and I knew I had to have it! When it arrived, I devoured the thing in two sittings and practically filled up my entire To-Stalk notebook with new addresses, the most exciting of which was the Encino home where Robert Kardashian lived in June 1994 and where O.J. Simpson supposedly stayed in the interval leading up to his arrest for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. In fact, it was from there that O.J. left on the morning of his infamous slow-speed white Ford Bronco chase. That day in Simpson’s life has always fascinated me as there are so many unanswered questions about it. What led up to that infamous chase? Where was O.J. coming from and where was he headed? So, after reading the blurb about the house in E.J.’s book, I just had to run right out and stalk the place.

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According to a June 18, 1994 Los Angeles Times article, Kardashian leased the gargantuan contemporary dwelling, which sticks out quite a bit from the ranch-style homes which surround it, about a month prior to the murders, after the builders failed to sell the place. I believe that Kardashian lived there, along with then fiancé Denice Shakarian Halicki, for only a very short time.

As the story goes, on the morning of Friday, June 17th, 1994, O.J. Simpson was charged with the double murder of Ron and Nicole and was set to turn himself in to the LAPD at their headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. His lawyer, Robert Shapiro, later changed the plan and asked instead for O.J. to be taken into custody at Kardashian’s home, where the football star had been hiding out from the media with his then girlfriend Paula Barbieri. (It was a good hiding place, too – according to the same L.A Times article, none of the neighbors had any idea The Juice was there.) When the police showed up, though, Simpson was long gone. Sometime that morning, he had disappeared from the residence with his good friend and college roommate, Al Cowlings, and headed towards Orange County, either to visit Nicole’s grave at Ascension Cemetery in Lake Forest or to escape to Mexico, depending upon which version of the story you believe. The LAPD issued an all-points bulletin for O.J. and Cowlings at 2 p.m. and, according to Wikipedia, about four hours later someone in the O.C. spotted the duo and notified police, who later found them driving north on the 405 freeway. What followed became television history.

Kardashian’s former home, which was originally built in 1957, but drastically remodeled shortly before he moved in, boasts five bedrooms, five baths, 7,104 square feet of living space, and a 0.40-acre plot of land. The dwelling was last sold in 1997 for $830,000, but appears to have been put on the market again recently during which time it was described as a “fixer-upper.”

Property records also show that some sort of movie shoot took place on the premises in March 2000, but I am unsure of what exactly was filmed.

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.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, for telling me about this location! Smile You can purchase his Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites book here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Robert Kardashian’s former home, where O.J. stayed before his infamous car chase and subsequent arrest, is located at 16254 Mandalay Drive in Encino.

January 29, 2013January 29, 2013

Lester Siegel’s House from “Argo”

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 has a hard time doing anything while there are still boxes to be unpacked and rooms to be organized, I decided to do a little blogging today, regardless. My posts over the next couple of weeks will most likely be intermittent, though, while we continue to settle in. And now, on with the post! Another filming location from fave movie Argo that I found thanks to the fabulous Los Angeles Times article forwarded to me by Mike, from MovieShotsLA, was the home where Hollywood producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) lived. And I just have to say here how desperate I am to stalk LA/Ontario International Airport, which masqueraded as the Tehran airport in Argo. I have a flight scheduled out of there in early March and, let me tell you, I canNOT wait! But I digress. Anyway, I dragged the GC right on out to stalk Lester Siegel’s mansion a few weekends ago, shortly before our big move.

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In real life, Lester’s mansion actually belongs to actress Zsa Zsa Gabor and her longtime husband, Frederic Prinz von Anhalt, who seems to be a rather accident-prone individual – in October 2010, Frederic swallowed a bee that then stung him in the throat; in December 2010, after mistaking nail glue for eye drops, he accidentally glued his own eye shut; and in September 2011, he was hit by a car while walking in Beverly Hills. Yikes! Although there are quite a few conflicting reports about the property’s history online (many of which seem to have been propagated by Gabor and Frederic themselves), the fact of the matter is that the residence was originally built in 1955 for John and Gladys Zurlo. And while famous recluse Howard Hughes did rent the dwelling for a time in the 1960s (and apparently wore a hole in the carpet thanks to his notorious pacing), he never owned the place nor was it built for him. Gabor has also reportedly stated that she bought the pad directly from Hughes, but according to the Zurlos’ granddaughter, Barbara Yobs, the couple themselves sold the home to Gabor in 1973 for $250,000. For the record, it is further untrue that Elvis Presley ever lived on the premises, as Gabor has also claimed. Anyway, due to failing health and mounting medical bills, Gabor and Frederic put the property on the market in June 2011 for $15 million. It has yet to sell, though, so in the meantime the couple has been leasing the place out to film crews. HBO’s yet-to-be released Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra also made use of the estate last year.

Sadly, as you can see below, aside from the front gate, very little of the dwelling is visible from the street. Back in June 2011, fave website CurbedLA posted quite a few real estate photographs, though, which you can check out here. As stated in a Huffington Post article, the home “was built in the ‘50s and doesn’t look as if it has been redecorated since. It is lavish and sings old over-the-top Hollywood glamour.” Yep, that pretty much sums it up. The Hollywood Regency-style dwelling boasts seven bedrooms, seven baths, 8,878 square feet of living space (or 6,393 depending on which real estate listing you check), one acre of land, 270-degree views of downtown Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean, a grand salon, staff quarters, a bar, a rooftop terrace, indoor and outdoor entertaining areas, and a pool. Supposedly, Zsa Zsa swam naked in said pool every morning (yuck!) and also entertained such luminaries as Queen Elizabeth, Bob Hope, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Elizabeth Taylor, Kirk Douglas, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Frank Sinatra, and Henry Kissinger on the premises.

Quite a few areas of the house were used in Argo, including the front exterior;

the circular entry-way (LOVE those red walls!);

the formal living room;

the bar;

and the backyard and pool.

A great aerial view of the house was also shown in the flick. Man, what I wouldn’t give to see the inside of that place!

On an Argo side-note – for those interested in how much of the movie was actually true (and the vast majority of it was – even the part about the Iranian government hiring professional carpet-weavers to piece together documents and photographs that had been shredded by American diplomats just prior to the embassy being taken hostage!), you can check out a fabulous Slate.com article here.

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!

Stalk It: Zsa Zsa Gabor’s house, aka Lester Siegel’s mansion from Argo, is located at 1001 Bel Air Road in Bel Air.

January 22, 2013January 18, 2013

The Canadian Ambassador’s Residence from “Argo”

Last week, while scanning through Argo to make screen captures for my post on the Veterans Affairs Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center in North Hills, which stood in for the Tehran American Embassy in the flick, I got completely sucked in and had to force myself to turn the thing off. Then, the Grim Cheaper and I wound up watching the entire movie over again for the second time just a few nights later. Needless to say, I love, love, LOVE the film and cannot recommend seeing it enough! Argo and Silver Linings Playbook are easily two of the best movies I have ever seen in my entire life, let alone this year. So when Mike, from MovieShotsLA, managed to track down the supposed-Iranian residence where Ken Taylor (Victor Garber), the Canadian Ambassador, lived in the film, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it.

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Surprisingly enough, the Canadian Ambassador’s residence from Argo can actually be found in Los Angeles’ affluent Hancock Park neighborhood – a place I never would have even thought to search. Mike was able to find the site thanks to the Hancock Park Today blog which mentioned in a September 2011 post that the movie was shooting on Rimpau Boulevard “in a house made to look like the Canadian Embassy”. Only the interior of the home was used in the filming, though. The exterior gates and side doorway that were shown in the flick (pictured below) are located elsewhere, in what I am guessing is Istanbul, Turkey, where the cast and crew spent two weeks filming on location.

For those who have yet to see it (and honestly, what are you waiting for??), Argo tells the story of six American diplomatic personnel – Bob Anders (Tate Donovan – who was FABULOUS), Cora Lijek (Clea DuVall – whom I once took an acting class with Smile ), Joe Stafford (Scoot McNairy), Lee Schatz (Rory Cochrane), Mark Lijek (Christopher Denham – who looks exactly like Joel McHale in the movie), and Kathy Stafford (Kerry Bishe) – who hide out in the Canadian Ambassador’s Tehran residence for 79 days during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979. I became just a wee-bit obsessed with stalking the Ambassador’s house thanks to a bit of behind-the-scenes info that was mentioned in this October 2012 Los Angeles Times article about the filming. According to writer Richard Verrier, the shoot at the Hancock Park residence took over a month to complete and, prior to the start, Ben Affleck sequestered the actors playing the Houseguests (as they were called) in the home for seven days so that “they would get used to living in close quarters”. How incredibly cool is that? According to IMDB’s Argo trivia page, Affleck also shot the movie on regular film, later cutting each frame in half and then blowing up the images to two hundred times their normal size in order to match the grainy look of productions shot in the 1970s. How was this guy not nominated for a Best Director Oscar again??? Like really, Academy?

According to fave website Zillow, in real life the one-story property, which was originally built in 1964 and looks quite a bit out of place compared with the stately manors typically found in Hancock Park, boasts five bedrooms, six baths, 5,891 square feet of living space, a 0.46-acre plot of land, an “entertainment pavilion” with a second kitchen, a gym, a two-bedroom guest house, hand-painted ceilings and walls, parking for up to twenty cars (!), crystal chandeliers, a family room with a bar, a library, a breakfast room, and a pool. And while property records state that the abode last sold in 1999 for $1,425,000, I believe it was also put on the market sometime in the last few years, but did not sell. While researching the dwelling, I came across this real estate video on YouTube which shows the house as being vacant. I am fairly certain that the place was also vacant during the Argo shoot, which is most likely how it came to be used in the production.

The Canadian Ambassador’s residence was one of the main locations used in Argo and because the place boasts a very 1970s-style decor, not much of it had to be changed for the shoot. As you can see in the interior photographs of the house below, which I got off of the real estate video, the pad is very recognizable from its onscreen appearance. The areas of the property that were utilized in the filming include the living room (the mirrors that flank the sides of the fireplace were covered over for the shoot);

the dining room;

the game room;

the kitchen (check out that wallpaper!);

one of the bathrooms;

and the pool/backyard area.

Unfortunately, the real estate video does not show the area of the backyard that was featured in Argo, but you can see the columned pavilion that Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) and Ken stood under in a few scenes in the aerial view pictured below.

You can watch the home’s real estate video by clicking below.

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.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Canadian Ambassador’s house from Argo is located at 344 South Rimpau Boulevard in Hancock Park.

January 17, 2013January 17, 2013

The VA Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center aka the American Embassy from “Argo”

There are few things this stalker loves more than opening her mailbox to discover a slew of “For Your Consideration” screeners – something that happens each January shortly before the Screen Actors Guild Awards. This year, the DVDs waiting in my mailbox were Silver Linings Playbook (my pick for best movie of the year), Les Miserables (which I have yet to watch) and Argo (which absolutely KNOCKED MY SOCKS OFF!). I cannot believe that Ben Affleck was not nominated for a Best Director Academy Award. The mere fact that he was able to shoot 90% of Argo, a movie that supposedly takes place in 1970s Tehran, in 2013 Los Angeles is astounding! He deserves an Oscar for that alone. Anyway, a few weeks back, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, sent me a Los Angeles Times article about the Southern California locations featured in Argo and, believe you me, when I read that the Veterans Affairs Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center in North Hills had masqueraded as the American Embassy in the flick, I immediately started chomping at the bit and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place shortly thereafter.

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The Veterans Affairs Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center (try saying that one three times fast!), which is absolutely ginormous, has quite an interesting history. In 1952, Lester and Mary Gentry donated a 160-acre plot of land to the city so that a veterans hospital could be built. The Sepulveda Care Center was the result of that generous donation and by 1993 the site was treating over 275,000 veterans each year. Sadly though, much of the property was damaged during the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the main hospital building subsequently torn down, and the majority of the premises shuttered. In a controversial move, the site was deemed “unsafe” to operate as a care center soon thereafter, yet it is constantly used by production companies for filming. According to a 2009 Los Angeles Daily News article, the designation “was all a smokescreen, a chance for VA officials to save some money, downsize and gut Sepulveda.” And while the property does currently house a working outpatient center, a pharmacy, a nursing home, an X-ray lab, a therapy pool, and a methadone clinic, the majority of the buildings remain vacant. As you can see below, though, a restoration project is currently underway. In February of last year, the city began gutting the interior of two of the dilapidated structures, with the plan to turn them both into housing for homeless vets. In the meantime, the Center is still being used for filming. And lots of it.

According to the Los Angeles Times article about Argo, two locations were used to stand in for the American Embassy in the film. The scenes that took place outside of the embassy walls (pictured below) were shot at a building in Istanbul, Turkey – one that I have yet to track down.

The scenes that took place inside of the embassy walls were, of course, shot at the VA Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center. The L.A Times article states, “A Veterans Affairs medical building in North Hills, with its institutional, red brick facade, turned out to be remarkably similar to the U.S. embassy in Tehran from which six Americans escaped and sought refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador. ‘It even had the same number of stories as the U.S. embassy in Tehran,’ said Chris Baugh, location manager for ‘Argo.’ ‘It was a huge stroke of luck.’” You can check out some photographs of the actual former American Embassy in Tehran here and here. As you can see, it does look quite a bit like the Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center. Following the Iran hostage crisis in 1979, the embassy site ceased functioning as such and today is used by the Iranian government as a training facility for the Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Because the VA site is so incredibly vast (there are over 18 separate, very similar-looking buildings) and so little of the exterior of the American Embassy was actually shown in Argo, the GC and I had quite a time trying to pinpoint the exact spot where filming took place. Thankfully though, we ran into an extremely nice security guard who was all too happy to help. According to him, a façade of the embassy was constructed in a parking lot on the premises during the shoot, and I am fairly certain that that façade is what is pictured in the screen capture below, as it does not match up to any of the actual hospital buildings.

For some of the close-up angles of the embassy, the security guard informed us that Building 4 was used. Because the shots were so tight, though, the structure is not very recognizable from the film. In fact, the only recognizable element, besides the windows, is the brick wall situated at the front of the building.

That brick wall is pictured below.

The interior of one of the VA buildings (according to the security guard, Building 5) also stood in for the interior of the American Embassy in Argo.

Building 4 also appeared in Rob Zombie’s 2007 Halloween reboot as Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, where a young Michael Meyers (Scout Taylor-Compton) was institutionalized after murdering his family.

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

In fact, the very same room that stood in for the Visa Application office in Argo also stood in for the family visiting room in Halloween, as you can see below. So incredibly cool!

Building 4 was also where Brennan Huff (Will Ferrell) and Dale Doback (John C. Reilly) were beat up by kid bullies in the 2008 comedy Step Brothers.

The north side of Building 4 (which I, unfortunately, did not get a picture of) was the main location used in Accepted. In the 2006 comedy, the site stood in for the abandoned Harmon Psychiatric Hospital . . .

. . . which Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long) and his friends turned into the fake South Harmon Institute of Technology.

The location was so prominent in the filming that it was even featured in the movie’s poster.

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

And a pool was even built in the courtyard area for the shoot.

The exterior of VA Sepulveda’s Building 200, which is an actual working medical facility, is also used regularly for filming.

As is the interior. The building was closed when we showed up to stalk it, though, so I could only snap photographs through the front windows, unfortunately.

Building 200 is most notably used on Grey’s Anatomy where it stands in each week for Seattle Grace Hospital.

Because I have never actually watched an episode of Grey’s Anatomy (I know, I know), like a dork I accidentally took a picture of the wrong side of the building.

The south side of the building is the side used as Seattle Grace.

While the majority of the interior of Seattle Grace is just a set, the lobby of VA Sepulveda also pops up occasionally on the show.

The interior of Building 200 also masqueraded as a Geneva-area hospital in the Season 2 episode of Alias titled “Salvation”.

The 1981 horror flick Halloween II was also filmed at the VA Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center, although I am unsure of which exact structure was used in the production. I am guessing, though, that it was the main hospital building that was demolished after the Northridge earthquake.

The Season 8 episodes of Falcon Crest titled “Ties that Bind” and “The Last Laugh” were also supposedly filmed at VA Sepulveda, but I could not find copies of either with which to verify that information.

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 Veterans Affairs Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center, aka the American Embassy from Argo, is located at 16111 Plummer Street in North Hills. Building 4 was used as the exterior of the embassy. Building 200 serves as Seattle Grace Hospital on Grey’s Anatomy. You can check out a map of the Ambulatory Care Center here.