Don’t forget to check out today’s Scene It Before post for Los Angeles magazine – about the DMV from fave movie License to Drive. You can find it here. My columns typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.
Shakey’s Pizza Parlor from “License to Drive”
After reading my January 13th post about Mercedes’ friend’s house from fave movie License to Drive, fellow stalker Chas, of the It’s Filmed There blog, texted to let me know that he had managed to track down the Shakey’s Pizza Parlor from the 1988 flick. As fate would have it, the storefront next door to Shakey’s had appeared in 1976’s The Bad News Bears, a movie Chas had covered on his site. The bad news (pun intended) was that the shopping center where it was once located is no longer standing. The structure was torn down sometime in the ‘90s and a new center subsequently built in its place. Because I had been itching to find it for so long, though, I figured it was still blog-worthy.
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The location pops up once in License to Drive, in the scene in which Les Anderson (Corey Haim) accidentally drives off of an embankment before crash-landing in front of a random Shakey’s Pizza Parlor.
A sporting goods store was visible in the background of the scene and it was that shop that Chas recognized from The Bad News Bears. As you can see below, the sign, logo and roofline of the store from The Bad News Bears (second screen capture below) are an exact match to those of the storefront that appeared next door to Shakey’s in License to Drive (first screen capture below).
You can even make out the word “parlor” on the building next door to the sporting goods shop in The Bad News Bears scene.
While watching The Bad News Bears, Chas had spotted an address number of “19321” on the space next door to the sporting goods store. A quick Google search showed him that there was only shopping plaza in Los Angeles with shops boasting address numbers in 19300 range – The Village in Reseda. When he looked at aerial images of The Village, though, he realized that it was most-definitely not the same spot that had been featured in The Bad News Bears.
Enter the Historic Aerials website, from which we learned that there was once a different shopping center located on the property, one which had been demolished and rebuilt sometime prior to 2003. In the 1980 aerial view pictured below, Shakey’s former location is denoted with a pink arrow. Today, that area is partially comprised of a Chase bank and The Village’s parking lot
A current aerial view of The Village is pictured below with the former Shakey’s location denoted with a pink “X.”
According to this Valley News article, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Reseda Shakey’s took place in December 1964. Because the shopping center where it formerly stood was torn down sometime between 1988 and 2003, I am guessing that the demolition occurred due to damage resulting from the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. That is just a guess, though.
Sick Sam’s Rent-a-Car, which played a role in the movie’s original ending, but is only visible briefly in the background of the final cut, has also since been torn down.
Its former location is denoted with a pink circle below.
Today, a large apartment building stands in that spot.
On a License to Drive side-note – I’ve been searching for photographs of the Cabriolet I drove as a teenager ever since I wrote my post about the License to Drive hospital. As I mentioned in the post, even though I was a mere 11 years old at the time, as soon as I first laid eyes on the white VW convertible Mercedes Lane (Heather Graham) drove at the end of the movie, I became completely obsessed with it. I made it known that it was the only car I wanted to drive upon turning 16 and my amazing parents gifted me one on my 16th birthday! I finally found photographs of it yesterday. That’s me (big hair, don’t care!) with one of my best friends Natalie just a few days after I received it. Seriously, Best. Car. Ever.
It should come as no surprise that my fellow celeb-obsessed friend Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, also drove a white VW Cabriolet in her teens, for the very same reason I did. I couldn’t believe it when I found out! We are so kindred spirits!
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.
Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’s Filmed There, for finding this location! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Shakey’s Pizza Parlor from License to Drive was formerly located at 19341 Saticoy Street in Reseda. It was torn down and no part of the structure currently remains.
Mercedes’ Friend’s House from “License to Drive”
The third – and last – License to Drive locale that I stalked while visiting L.A. a couple of weeks ago was the Colonial-style residence where Les Anderson (Corey Haim) dropped off his dream girl, Mercedes Lane (Heather Graham), in the 1988 classic. I found the abode thanks to Geoff, from 90210Locations, who, as I mentioned in last Thursday’s post about the License to Drive hospital, has an entire page dedicated to locales from the movie on his website.
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The residence was only used briefly in the flick, in the scene in which Les’ dad, Mr. Anderson (Richard Masur) – aka “Poppa” – picked Les up from school to take him for some driving practice. While they are out and about, Les spots Mercedes and begs his dad to let him “go up to her, circle around, maybe at the least say hello to her, and come right back to you.” After a bit of debate, Mr. Anderson agrees – despite the fact that Les does not, in fact, have a license – and gets out of the car, taking with him the three huge grocery bags full of Pampers diapers that he has just picked up from the store. Things do not go according to plan, though (natch), and Les ends up driving Mercedes to a friend’s house in a different city . . .
. . .leaving his father to walk home – carrying the three large bags of diapers.
It is amazing to me that Mercedes’ friend’s house still looks EXACTLY the same today as it did when License to Drive was filmed 26 years ago.
In real life, the stately home, which was originally built in 1941, boasts four bedrooms, five baths, 4,258 square feet of living space, and a 0.41-acre plot of land. According to my buddy E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, at different points in time over the years the dwelling was lived in by screenwriter Norman Panama and actor Ben Gazzara and his wife, actress Janice Rule. The property last sold in October 1993 for $1,045,000.
I am absolutely in love with the sideways-growing tree pictured in the images below.
On a License to Drive side-note – I would LOVE to track down the Shakey’s Pizza that was featured in the movie – so much so that I acquired a list of every Southern California Shakey’s still in business and viewed them all via Google Maps to compare them to screen captures from the flick. Unfortunately, none matched up. Does anyone happen to recognize the place?
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.
Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Mercedes’ friend’s house from License to Drive is located at 661 Woodruff Avenue in Westwood.
The “License to Drive” Party House
Another License to Drive location that I was finally able to cross off my To-Stalk list while visiting L.A. a couple of weeks ago was the house where Les Anderson (Corey Haim), Dean (Corey Feldman) and Charles (Michael Manasseri) attended a birthday party in the 1988 flick, which was one of my all-time favorites. Mike, from MovieShotsLA, actually tracked this spot down ages ago (way back in 2008, shortly after finding Les’ house from the movie, which I blogged about here), but, for whatever reason, it took me over four years to make it out there. Better late than never, though, right?
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Mike found the residence thanks to both an address number of “340” . . .
. . . and a blurry sign from a neighboring street reading “Delfern Drive” that were visible in the background of the party scene.
The residence was only featured once, towards the beginning of License to Drive, in the scene in which Mercedes Lane (Heather Graham) talks to Les for the first time and winds up (sort of) asking him out on a date. In the movie’s DVD commentary, writer Neil Tolkin states that he often drives his kids by the house “to tell them how great things were at one point.” I am unsure of what he means by that exactly, but I absolutely love that he takes his children to stalk the place on a regular basis.
Sadly, the dwelling is a lot less visible from the road now than it was when the movie was filmed. As you can see below, while a tall wall currently surrounds the property, at the time that License to Drive was shot, there was only a small hedge lining the perimeter. Boo!
And while the circular driveway used to be open to the street, it is now secured by a gate at both ends. Again, boo!
You can still catch a small glimpse of the roofline, though, so at least there’s that.
I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the house was also used in the production. According to the DVD commentary, the party scene actually had to be re-shot at one point because Fox executives thought the extras used in the initial filming looked too old to be high school students.
In real life, the residence, which was built in 1937, boasts seven bedrooms, ten baths, 8,532 square feet of living space, and a 0.95-acre corner plot of land. It last sold in June 1994 for $2,750,000 and, according to the BlockShopper website, once belonged to prolific film and television producer David L. Wolper.
As you can see in the below aerial views, the place is absolutely massive!
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.
Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The License to Drive party house is located at 340 North Faring Road in Bel-Air.
The “License to Drive” Hospital
A couple of weeks ago, the Grim Cheaper and I headed to L.A. for a brief visit and just happened to book a hotel on the west side of town for our stay. The location turned out to be quite fortuitous, too, as it allowed me to stalk a few nearby spots that had been on my To-Stalk list for ages – one of which was Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, the Westwood synagogue that masqueraded as the hospital where Mrs. Anderson (Carol Kane) gave birth in 1988’s License to Drive, one of my all-time favorite movies.
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The Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, which was modeled after the prayer houses in Old Spain, was dedicated on September 5th, 1981. Sephardic Jews originally hailed from Spain (Sepharad means “Spain” in Hebrew), but were expelled from the country in 1492. Many wound up in America, by way of Turkey, but kept their Spanish roots. In 1987, Spain’s King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia attended services at the Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, or The Sephardic Temple as it is also known. Of the event, Spain’s then consul general in Los Angeles Pedro Tamboury said, “As we are now approaching the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America, we are also going to commemorate this historic event because we want to make what we call the reencuentro with the Jews from Spain, who were expelled in 1492 but left behind a tremendous heritage of culture and traditions.”
Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel only showed up once in License to Drive, towards the end of the movie, in the scene in which non-licensed driver Les Anderson (Corey Haim) drove (backwards, I might add) his pregnant mom, Mrs. Anderson – as well as his father, Mr. Anderson (Richard Masur), and brother, Rudy (Christopher Burton) – to Elmdale Memorial Hospital after she went into labor. I found this locale thanks to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, who has an entire page dedicated to License to Drive on his site.
While fake “Elmdale Memorial Hospital” signage was added for the shoot and the exterior hand railings have since been changed, the structure is still very recognizable from its onscreen appearance 26 years ago. (How in the heck has it been 26 years since License to Drive premiered?!?!)
The area used for the scene was not actually the front of the synagogue, but its north side entrance on Warner Avenue.
According to License to Drive’s DVD commentary with director Greg Beeman and writer Neil Tolkin, the original ending of the movie was to have taken place at the hospital. As it was originally shot, the final scene showed Grandpa Anderson’s (Parley Baer) beloved Cadillac being crushed by a large construction beam . . .
. . . and then a freeze frame of Les and Mr. Anderson’s shocked faces. Test audiences found it too much of a downer, though, so some additional footage was shot and tacked onto the original ending.
And thank God it was, because the new ending – in which Mercedes Lane (Heather Graham) pulls up to Les’ house, causing him to utter his famous line, “I don’t need the BMW anymore – I already have a Mercedes.” (Cue Billy Ocean’s hit song “Get Outta my Dreams, Get Into My Car.”) – was not only my favorite part of the entire movie, but it quite considerably affected my life. I was only 11 years old at the time and a far cry from getting my driver’s license, but when I laid eyes on Mercedes white Volkswagen Cabriolet convertible, I was a goner. I knew there was no other car I wanted when I turned 16. And on my 16th birthday, my parents surprised me with one. I’ve actually owned three over the years (two Cabriolets and one Cabrio) and if VW currently made them, I would probably still be driving one to this day. Best. Car. Ever.
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.
Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, aka Elmdale Memorial Hospital from License to Drive, is located at 10500 Wilshire Blvd in Westwood. The northern side of the synagogue, on Warner Avenue, was the area that appeared in the movie. You can visit the temple’s official website here.
The “Decisions” Movie Premiere and Celebration of Corey Haim’s Life
This past Sunday night, fellow celebrity stalker and photo-bug extraordinaire Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, invited me to do some stalking of the premiere of Corey Haim’s final movie, Decisions, at the Writers Guild Theatre in Beverly Hills. I could NOT have been more excited to attend because, as I have mentioned quite a few times before on this site, I have been a HUGE fan of Corey’s ever since 1988 when License to Drive first premiered. Because the event was also a celebration of the late actor’s life, many of his longtime friends, as well as most of the actors who starred in Decisions, were in attendance.
The Writer’s Guild Theatre is a very small venue and I just about fell over when one of the event coordinators invited Pinky, the Grim Cheaper, and me to stand INSIDE where there was a small fan area set up just off of the red carpet. So incredibly cool! And, amazingly enough, there were only about five stalkers besides ourselves there so we had fabulous access to most of the stars.
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The event was being hosted by Haim’s longtime friend Corey Feldman, who I have to admit I was not at all a fan of when The Two Coreys was on the air. But I really appreciate how hard Corey has worked to honor his fallen friend by keeping his memory alive in Hollywood ever since his untimely passing. And I am very happy to report that he could NOT have been nicer in person. Corey seemed to be a genuinely kind man and took a lot of time to speak with and take pictures with each of his fans.
According to this recent EW.com article about the event, Feldman was wearing a jacket that Haim had once given him.
The premiere was mostly made up of 80’s stars, which I, of course, could NOT have been more thrilled about! I was most excited about meeting actress Kristy Swanson, whom I absolutely LOVED in the Buffy, the Vampire Slayer movie.
I have to say that it was pretty cool being able to tell her that I dressed up like her character Buffy Summers one year for Halloween back when I was in high school. 🙂
I was also floored to see singer/actor Jeremy Jordan, whom I recognized from the ending credits of the second season of Beverly Hills, 90210. For those of you out there who did not have every episode of the series recorded like I did and have no idea what on earth it is I am talking about right now, at the very end of each show Tori Spelling was shown walking up to the Peach Pit’s jukebox, pointing to a song and saying “Jeremy Jordan, all right!”, after which his video for “The Right Kind of Love” would come on the screen. Pinky later informed me that Jeremy had also starred as Guy Perkins in fave movie Never Been Kissed, which I hadn’t before realized! So incredibly cool!
I just about died when Julie McCullough, who played Mike Seaver’s (aka Kirk Cameron’s) fiancé Julie Costello during the fourth season of Growing Pains, walked in. I absolutely LOVED Julie on the show and was heartbroken when her character was written off of the series in 1990. Julie also starred as Trina, the girl who stole Steve Sanders Corvette, in the Season 1 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Slumber Party”. Love it! Seeing so many ‘80s stars in one place put me into serious overload! I swear, if Tommy Puett had walked in, my head might have just exploded!
Also in attendance was Donna D’Errico, from Baywatch;
Nicole Eggert, from Charles in Charge;
who is seriously pregnant right now!;
John Marshall Jones from the original Melrose Place and Smart Guy;
actor Carlos Ramirez, the twin brother of actor Efren Ramirez (aka Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite);
Jarrod Schulz from the A&E show Storage War$;
and his wife Brandi Passante, who also appears on the show;
Sofia Milos from CSI: Miami, who is absolutely GORGEOUS in person;
Bai Ling, who is easily my mom’s least favorite celebrity, so I just had to get a picture with her 
;
Mary Carey, the adult film actress/Celebrity Rehab star who ran for governor of California in 2003;
Francisco San Martin, who plays Dario Hernandez on Days of Our Lives;
Phoebe Price, who the GC was VERY excited about seeing as she is featured daily on his favorite blog, Dlisted;
Natasha Alam, who plays Yvetta on True Blood;
and Mike Foy, one of the stars of Decisions.
All in all it was a great event and I am so incredibly thankful that I got to be a part of it.
Big THANK YOU to Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, for inviting me to stalk the Decisions premiere! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Decisions will be released on May 13th. You can visit the movie’s official website here.
The Smoke House Restaurant – Where Jim and Pam Held Their Rehearsal Dinner on “The Office”
This past weekend, while out doing some Christmas shopping with the Grim Cheaper, the two of us found ourselves in the Burbank area absolutely ravenous. For whatever reason, though, I could not think of a good place to eat, so the GC suggested we grab a bite at that “old Burbank restaurant across from Warner Brothers Studios”. Because my blondness was in full force that day, I had no idea what on earth he was talking about and just about died when he pulled into the parking lot of the Smoke House Restaurant – the very spot where Jim Halpert (aka John Krasinski) and Pam Beesly (aka Jenna Fischer) hosted the rehearsal dinner for their wedding in the Season 6 episode of fave show The Office titled “Niagara”. And although I have actually stalked this location once before and have even blogged about it, because it was long before The Office had shot there and long before I was even a fan of the show, I decided the restaurant was worthy of a repost.
The original 46-seat Smoke House restaurant first opened in 1946 at the corner of Pass and Riverside Avenues in Burbank. The eatery was a hit with the Hollywood set from the very start, with such stars as Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra (who even has a steak named after him on the Smoke House menu), Judy Garland, Milton Berle, Jack Parr, James Dean, Burl Ives, Walt Disney, and Errol Flynn stopping in regularly to grab a bite to eat. Due to its promise of serving up “fine food at fair prices”, the restaurant became such a Burbank staple that its owners were quickly forced to expand. They started looking for a larger building to move into and, as fate would have it, found one in actor Danny Kaye’s recently constructed Red Coach Inn. Due to city regulations and the Up In Arms actor’s busy filming schedule, Kaye was unable to open the restaurant/night club and in 1949 he sold the never-been-used property to the owners of the Smoke House. The establishment is still located in that very building to this day. And, six decades later, the place is still going strong. In more recent years, such stars as Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, Megan Fox, Andy Garcia, Miley Cyrus, Tish Cyrus, and the entire cast of Friends (who used to stop by regularly after filming) have all been spotted dining there.
George Clooney is such a fan of the place that he named his production company “Smokehouse Pictures” in honor of the legendary restaurant. The actor also did a photo shoot at the eatery in the booth pictured above.
One look at the Smoke House interior and it’s not very hard to see why it has succeeded for over sixty years. With it’s dim lights, dark red booths, and wood-paneled walls, stepping inside the eatery definitely brings one back to a forgotten era. It’s exactly the type of place I’d imagine Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. hanging out at back in the heyday of Hollywood.
Oh, and did I mention the food? During this particular visit I ordered the restaurant’s Cobb Salad and it was easily the biggest salad I’ve ever seen in my entire life! I didn’t even get through one third of it and I was literally STARVING when we showed up at the restaurant. On our previous visit, the GC and I ordered up the eatery’s famous “World’s Greatest Garlic Bread” and I can honestly say that the restaurant wasn’t being arrogant when they conceived that name. It literally was the best garlic bread I’ve ever had in my life! 
Truth be told, though, all of the Smoke House food is FABULOUS, but be forewarned, their portions are ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS! The restaurant’s staff is also INCREDIBLY nice and, even though the place was pretty packed at the time, everyone I spoke with took the time to answer all of my silly questions about the filming that has taken place there over the years.
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In the “Niagara” episode of The Office, the Smoke House stood in for the supposed Niagara Falls-area restaurant where Jim and Pam held the rehearsal dinner for their wedding. The majority of that scene was filmed in the restaurant’s back room, which, luckily enough, was being set up for a private party while we were there, so I was able to snap a bunch of photographs while the room was empty!
Some filming also took place in the restaurant’s bar area.
The Smoke House’s side room was used in the scene in which Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) and Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) are shown eating breakfast the morning following the rehearsal dinner.
The Smoke House was also featured in the Season 1 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Move On”, in the scene in which Susan Mayer (aka Teri Hatcher) sings a deeply personal rendition of the song “New York, New York” to her ex-husband Karl (aka Richard Burgi) while at a local karaoke bar.
The Desperate Housewives scene was filmed on the stage located in the restaurant’s bar area.
You can watch Susan’s karaoke scene by clicking above.
The eatery has also appeared in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Cold Case, and in a Season 2 episode of the reality series The Two Coreys, but I cannot for the life of me figure out which episode and it is driving me absolutely crazy! Does anyone out there know?
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Smoke House Restaurant, where Jim and Pam hosted their rehearsal dinner in the “Niagara” episode of The Office, is located at 4420 West Lakeside Drive in Burbank. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.
The License to Drive School
This weekend, thanks to Mike over at MovieShotsLA, I got to stalk the high school used in fave 80s movie License to Drive. When I found out that Mike had found this filming location long ago, I completely freaked out and of course immediately dragged my boyfriend, and my good friend Nat who was visiting from San Francisco, out to stalk it. It turns out, though, that the License to Drive high school is not really a high school at all, but rather a middle school named Walter Reed. And, let me tell you, for a middle school the place is absolutely HUGE. I couldn’t get over it! I think my entire junior high could have fit on Walter Reed’s front lawn. LOL
Walter Reed Middle School shows up several times in License to Drive, most often as the location where Mercedes Lane waits on an outdoor bench for her Ferrari-driving boyfriend to pick her up after school. It was that bench that I was most excited to see in person as I absolutely worshiped Mercedes growing up! I am happy to report that Mercedes’ bench is still there twenty years later and looks pretty much exactly the same as it did when filming took place. I can’t tell you how excited I was to be sitting in the exact spot my idol Mercedes Lane had sat all those years ago. 🙂 Too bad I didn’t have my denim skirt and white ankle boots on for the picture. LOL
Walter Reed’s unique pick-up/drop-off area located in front of the school is the reason I believe producers chose to use the school for filming. That area worked perfectly for the many pick-up/drop-off scenes featured in the movie.
Besides License to Drive, Walter Reed also appeared in 7th Heaven (as Simon Camden’s elementary school), 2006’s The Shaggy Dog remake, Role Models, Accepted, The West Wing, CSI, and Malcom in the Middle. The exterior of the school is very picturesque and has a very Middle America feel to it, so it is easy to see why it is used so often for filming. I was also excited to find out that quite a few celebs attended Walter Reed during their tween years, including Mayim Bialik (aka TV’s Blossom), Brian Austin Green, Adam Carolla, Teri Garr, Cuba Gooding Jr., Alyson Hannigan, Christina Milian, and, ironically, Khrystyne Haje who played Simone on Head of the Class. I say ironically because the storyline of Head of the Class, the show Khrystyne would later star in, was actually loosely based on Walter Reed’s honor’s program. 🙂
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: Walter Reed Middle School is located at 4525 Irvine Avenue in North Hollywood.
License to Stalk!
When I was about ten years old, my favorite movie in the world was License to Drive starring the two Coreys. I bought the movie on VHS and literally watched it every single Friday and Saturday night. I was absolutely obsessed with Mercedes Lane in the movie, a character played by Heather Graham. I wanted nothing more than to have her spectacular long, curly hair, her cute boyfriend Les Anderson, and, especially, her white VW Cabriolet convertible. Six years later, I was still obsessed with Mercedes and I actually did end up getting a white Cabriolet when I turned 16 and I could not have been happier! I didn’t have the long gorgeous hair or the cute boyfriend, but hey, you can’t win ’em all. 😉 Anyway, I’ve always wanted to stalk the houses used in the movie, especially Les Anderson’s (Corey Haim’s) house and for the past few weeks Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I have made it our mission to find the filming locations from the 80s flick. So I almost fell over on Friday when I received a text message from Mike telling me that he had located Les’ house in the movie! YAY!
I must say that Mike is a true stalking genius and my hat is off to him, yet again! After a few weeks with no luck in locating the Anderson house, Mike noticed that an address for Les and his twin sister is shown quite clearly in the scene when they both receive their driver’s licenses. So Mike Googled the address, and while the one shown on the licenses doesn’t exist in real life, there is in fact a “Dalehurst Drive” in Los Angeles and sure enough, there was the Anderson home, just a few numbers off from the fake address. 🙂 I am starting to realize that, more often than not, producers will show the actual addresses of homes used in productions rather than making up fake ones. All the hours we spent looking for the Anderson house and there it was right under our noses the whole time! LOL
So this weekend, I dragged my boyfriend and my best friend out to do some License to Drive stalking. 🙂 Except for a few minor differences, the house looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did 20 years ago when the movie was filmed. Missing, though, are the front bushes Les drives his Grandfather’s Cadillac through when he sneaks out to go on his date with Mercedes. LOL
I also had to snap some pics of the distinct shaped house located across the street from the Anderson home, just to be sure I was stalking the right place. The neighbor’s house also looks pretty much the same, except for what looks like a small ad-on that must have been done after License to Drive was filmed.
I must say it was VERY COOL to be standing there in front of the Anderson house after countless times of seeing it immortalized on my television screen. I highly recommend stalking the home if you are at all a fan of License to Drive. If you have yet to see the movie, RENT IT! It is a definite 80s classic!! 🙂
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: Les Anderson’s house in the movie is located at 536 Dalehurst Avenue in Los Angeles, near the UCLA campus.
The Other Corey’s House from “The Two Coreys”
Took a little stalking trip to Encino last week to stalk Corey Feldman’s house from the reality show The Two Coreys. I had found Corey’s address on fave website Virtual Globetrotting and even though I am so not a fan of the guy, I had to stalk it because like climber George Mallory said about Mt. Everest – “It’s there.” 🙂
Sadly, there’s not a whole lot of Corey’s house to see from the street as the home is located behind a gate, down a long, curving driveway and his property is lined with huge view-blocking trees. Even with the minimal view, though, the house is definitely recognizable from the Corey’s reality show. According to Zillow (which also has a good bird’s eye view of the home), Corey’s McMansion measures 4,400 square feet, is nestled on a 27,000 square foot lot, and has the following amenities: BBQ area, gated entrance, fireplace, garden, pool, spa and jetted tubs.
Also according to Zillow, the home was last purchased in 2005, which leads me to believe that it truly is owned by Corey Feldman and was not just rented for the filming of the show. While I was there, two guys were working on Corey’s front gate and I asked them if Corey did in fact live there. They told me they “weren’t allowed to talk about it” which pretty much answered my question. 🙂 LOL
One thing that you actually can see from the street is Corey’s mailbox. I honestly don’t know what it is with celebrities and their mailboxes, but it seems like every movie star house I stalk has a seriously hideous mailbox. LOL Maybe it’s a celeb thing and someday when I am rich and famous I’ll understand, but for now I just don’t get it. 🙂
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: Corey Feldman’s house is located at 16221 Elisa Place in Encino. As always, excercise caution when “stalking” and do not disturb the residents in any way.