famous movie locations – Page 4

November 10, 2011October 18, 2011

Dolly Green’s House from “Eye for an Eye”

Taking a break today from my many Gossip Girl posts, I thought I would write about a residence that I stalked with fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, way back in mid-July. While he was in town for a little Southern California stalking vacay, the two of us, along with his super-sweet mother, Cynthia, headed out to the Los Feliz area to visit the tiny Tudor-style bungalow where Dolly Green (aka Beverly D’Angelo, who will always be “Ellen Griswold” to me) and her husband, Peter (aka Darrell Larson), lived in the 1996 revenge thriller Eye for an Eye. Chas had somehow managed to track down the property – despite only a small portion of it ever being shown – as well as all of the other locations featured in the movie, a little over a year ago. And while I actually could not even remember what Dolly Green’s abode looked like before we arrived there, let me tell you, I absolutely fell in love with the place on site!

Dolly Green’s little fairy-tale-like dwelling, which was built over the side of a cascading cliff on the winding Glendower Avenue high up in the hills of Los Feliz, is absolutely ADORABLE in person. The abode is so quaint and charming that it looks as if it jumped right out of a Disney cartoon. I half expected the Seven Dwarfs to come walking out the front door, marching along to “Whistle While You Work”, while we were there.

Although calling the home “little” is a bit misleading. While it does appear to be small from the street, the residence is actually quite large. According to fave website Zillow, the dwelling, which was originally built in 1926, boasts 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and measures 2,972 square feet. As you can see above, though, most of that square footage is located on the back side of the hill, below street level and out of view.

And speaking of views, the home boasts some incredible ones! We happened to stalk the residence on a smog-free day and were able to see all the way to Downtown Los Angeles! Amazing!

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Dolly Green’s residence only appears in one brief scene in Eye for an Eye, in which Karen McCann (aka Sally Field) and her husband, Mack (aka Ed Harris), spend the night at their friends’ house immediately following the murder of their teenage daughter, Julie (aka Olivia Burnette). Now that I have seen the property in person, I am shocked that only a small portion of it was shown in the movie. I mean, talk about curb appeal! This place has got it in spades! Why more of it was not featured is beyond me. But then again, I am not a filmmaker, so what do I know? Winking smile

Sadly, I was not able to find any photographs of the actual interior of the residence, so I am not able to say whether or not it was used in Eye for an Eye, but I would guess that it was.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location! Smile You can check out Chas’ extensive Eye for an Eye filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Dolly Green’s house from Eye for an Eye is located at 2757 Glendower Avenue in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. Quite a few other filming locations can be found nearby – the Doppelganger mansion is at 2421 Glendower Avenue; Donna Martin’s house from the B.Y.O.B. episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is at 2405 Glendower Avenue; the so-called “Los Feliz Murder House” is at 2475 Glendower Place, and the legendary Ennis-Brown house, which I have yet to stalk, is at 2607 Glendower Avenue.

October 24, 2011September 29, 2017

Villa Primavera – The “In a Lonely Place” Apartment Building

While doing research on the Double Indemnity house, which I blogged about a couple of weeks ago, I came across some information about Villa Primavera – a courtyard-style apartment building that was featured in the 1950 film noir classic In a Lonely Place. I immediately became intrigued with the West-Hollywood-area building due to an anecdote that was listed on the movie’s IMDB trivia page. Apparently, In a Lonely Place director Nicholas Ray had lived at Villa Primavera upon first moving to Southern California in the 1940s and was so enamored with the place that he decided to build a replica of the entire complex, courtyard and all, on a soundstage at Columbia Studios (now Sunset-Gower Studios) in Hollywood to be used as Humphrey Bogart’s bachelor pad in the flick. At some point during the shoot, Nicholas walked in on his wife, Gloria Grahame, who also starred in the movie, in bed with his 13-year-old son from a previous marriage. Nicholas immediately moved out of the home he shared with Gloria and into the Villa Primavera apartment set, where he ended up living – in what was essentially an exact replica of his former apartment – until filming wrapped. Because the building was so inextricably linked with both In a Lonely Place and the behind-the-scenes turmoil that marked the shoot, I was absolutely dying to see the place in person and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to do just that a few days later.

Villa Primavera was constructed by legendary husband and wife architecture team Arthur and Nina Zwebell in 1923 and was the couple’s very first Spanish-Revival-style building. The charming complex features red-tile roofs, white adobe walls, and a central courtyard with a large tiled fountain, an outdoor fireplace, lush foliage, and wandering brick pathways. The individual apartment units boast corner fireplaces, exposed wood ceilings, and tile floors. The Zwebells loved the design so much that they eventually moved into the Hacienda-like property for a time and legend has it that James Dean and Katharine Hepburn also once called the place home. Sadly though, as you can see above, the ten-unit complex is gated and not much of it can be viewed from the street.

I did manage to catch a brief glimpse of the interior courtyard and central fountain through the front gate, though, and they both looked absolutely beautiful.

Amazingly enough, when the GC and I first arrived at Villa Primavera, this little guy ran up to greet us.

And I just about died when I realized that he was a polydactyl cat, aka a “Hemingway cat”, aka a cat with more than five toes on one or more of its paws! I had watched a television special on the unusual felines a little over ten years ago and have been absolutely obsessed with them ever since. I cannot tell you how incredibly fitting it was that we ran into a so-called “Hemingway cat” while visiting an apartment building with such a storied Old Hollywood history! Love it!

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In In a Lonely Place, Villa Primavera stood in for the supposed-Beverly-Hills-area “Beverly Patio” apartments where frustrated Hollywood screenwriter Dixon Steele (aka Humphrey Bogart) and his beautiful new neighbor, Laurel Gray (aka Gloria Grahame), lived.

The location was such an integral part of the murder mystery – which was fabulous by the way – that it led Roger Ebert to write in an August 13th, 2009 review, “The courtyard of the Hollywood building occupied by Humphrey Bogart in In a Lonely Place is one of the most evocative spaces I’ve seen in a movie. Small apartments are lined up around a Spanish-style courtyard with a fountain. Each flat is occupied by a single person. If you look across from your window, you can see into the life of your neighbor.” It is thanks to that interior view of neighboring units that Laurel is able to provide an alibi for Dixon after he is accused of murdering a young woman whom he had been seen with the night before. And while the courtyard area that is pictured above;

and the interior of both Dixon and Laurel’s individual apartments were recreations built at Columbia Studios, some actual filming did take place on location at Villa Primavera.

In the beginning of In a Lonely Place, Dixon returns home from the Beverly Hills police station after being questioned about the murdered woman and walks across the lawn of the real life apartment building. As you can see, a fake sign reading “Beverly Patio Apartments” was installed for that scene.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Villa Primavera, the In a Lonely Place apartment building, is located at 1300-1308 North Harper Avenue in West Hollywood.

October 20, 2011September 29, 2017

Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery from “Twin Peaks”

As I mentioned in my post last month about The Old Place restaurant, thanks to fellow stalker/David-Lynch-aficionado Brad, from the Brad D Studios website, I recently discovered that fave television series Twin Peaks was shot almost in its entirety in Southern California. Because I have long been a Twin Peaks fanatic, I was beyond eager to start stalking the many locations mentioned on Brad’s blog – the most exciting of which was Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery, the site of the funeral of Laura Palmer (aka Sheryl Lee) in the Season 1 episode titled “Rest in Pain”. Surprisingly, even though Sierra Madre is located just a few miles east of Pasadena and even though the cemetery has been featured in several spooky productions over the years, until perusing through Brad’s site in early September, I had never before even heard of it! So, because the place fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme, I waited to drag the Grim Cheaper out there until this past weekend.

Pioneer Cemetery was originally established in 1881 by Sierra Madre’s founding father, Nathanial Coburn Carter, who, that same year, purchased a 1,103-acre plot of land from Santa-Anita-Park-racetrack-founder Elias Jackson “Lucky” Baldwin. Carter set aside 2.32 of those 1,103 acres to build a cemetery and the first burial, of one of Carter’s servants, took place just a year later in 1882. Today, Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery is the final resting place of over 1,700 souls, including Carter and his family, as well as numerous veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, both World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

I cannot tell you how absolutely amazing it was to wander the grounds of the place and see tombstones dating all the way back to the 1880s, some so old that the inscriptions had simply worn off. And while I realize that “charming” might be an odd word to describe a graveyard, that is exactly what Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery is. It is an extremely small and quiet space, with cherry blossom, sycamore, oak, and palm trees dotting the landscape, as well as several stone benches on which one can sit and reflect.

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In the “Rest in Pain” episode of Twin Peaks, Laura Palmer’s friends and family gather at Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery to lay the slain teenager to rest. This being Twin Peaks, weirdness, of course, ensues – one of the mourners has a Tourette’s moment and starts screaming out “Amen”, Laura’s father, Leland Palmer (aka Ray Wise), jumps on her coffin as it is being lowered into the ground, and a fist-fight even breaks out. Yes, at a funeral!

Laura Palmer’s funeral was held in the northwest section of Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery, in the area denoted with a pink “X” above.

Her funeral location is pictured above.

The crooked tombstone that was visible in the background of the scene is, I am fairly certain, the same tombstone that is circled in the above photograph. In real life, it reads “Fannie J. Garey”.

The tree in front of which James Hurley (aka James Marshall) stood during the funeral is located just east of Laura’s burial site.

In real life, James’ tree is located behind a large gravestone that reads “Gibson P. Kelly” and next to a gravestone that reads “Zola M. Croman”.

A view of tree from the funeral site is pictured above.

And I, of course, just had to pose like James while there. That’s my brooding face above. Winking smile

Amazingly, Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s final film, 1976’s Family Plot, in the scene in which George Lumley (aka Bruce Dern) heads to the supposed “Barlow Creek Cemetery” to look for a missing person whom he has been hired to find. According to a fabulous Sierra Madre Patch article, before filming began, production designer Henry Bumstead, who was a San Marino resident and often used nearby locations in his movies, had the Pioneer caretakers cease weeding the property so that it would appear to be unkempt and dilapidated. The shoot also happened to take place on two particularly gloomy L.A. days, which only added to the macabre atmosphere. And cinematographer Leonard South lit the set without using any artificial lighting to further add to the dismal effect.

The caretaker’s shack which appeared in the scene has since been replaced with a more modern-looking structure.

Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery also shows up once again towards the end of Family Plot, in the scene in which Joseph P. Maloney (aka Ed Lauter) is buried.

For that scene, Hitch brought in a thirty-foot scaffold so that he could shoot the chase sequence between George and Mrs. Maloney (aka Katherine Helmond) from above.

And Mike, from MovieShotsLA, let me know that Pioneer Cemetery was also used in the 1978 horror flick Halloween, in the scene in which Michael Meyer’s psychiatrist, Sam Loomis (aka Donald Pleasence), discovers that Judith Meyer’s headstone, which is supposed to be located in Row 18, Plot 20, is missing. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about the Strode residence, Halloween director John Carpenter is a huge Alfred Hitchcock fan, so I do not believe it was a coincidence that he chose to film a scene at the very same cemetery where the Master of Suspense once filmed.

In the Halloween scene, Dr. Loomis enters the graveyard and parks his car near what is actually Pioneer Cemetery’s exit, on the southeastern side of the property. Amazingly enough, that area still looks almost exactly the same today as it did back in 1978 when the movie was filmed, minus a large tree, which as you can see above, has since been removed.

But the three tombstones that Dr. Loomis parked next to still look exactly the same as they did three decades ago.

The area where Judith Meyers’ headstone was located is directly behind James’ tree from Twin Peaks and in front of a large tombstone which reads “Sinclair”.

Ironically enough, the back of the Sinclair tombstone can be seen behind James during Laura Palmer’s funeral scene.

On a Twin Peaks side note – I had the amazing good fortune to run into Special Agent Dale Cooper himself, Kyle MacLachlan, at the Emmy Awards last month. Kyle could NOT have been nicer and not only agreed to pose for a picture, but also chatted briefly with me about Twin Peaks and how much he loved being a part of it. For this stalker, who had answered “Special Agent Dale Cooper” when asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” as an Eighth Grade yearbook quote, this was a particularly special moment.

Big THANK YOU to Brad, from Brad D Studios, for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery, from the “Rest in Pain” episode of Twin Peaks, is located at 553 East Sierra Madre Boulevard in Sierra Madre. Laura Palmer’s funeral was held in the area marked with a pink “X” in the above aerial view. James Hurley’s tree is located behind a large gravestone which reads “Gibson P. Kelly” and directly next to a gravestone which reads “Zola M. Croman”. In Halloween, Dr. Loomis and the caretaker enter the cemetery in the area marked with a blue arrow above. The spot where Dr. Loomis parks his car is denoted with a blue oval and Judith Meyer’s gravesite is located just west of a large headstone that is marked “Sinclair”.

October 19, 2011September 29, 2017

Laurie Strode’s House from “Halloween”

A couple of months ago, fellow stalker Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, clued me into an INCREDIBLY cool little bit of Haunted Hollywood stalking information that I had not been previously aware of. Apparently, the real life owners of the home that stood in for the Strode residence in the 1978 classic horror film Halloween are so extremely stalker-friendly that they provide a supply of plastic pumpkins on their front porch all year long for fans of the movie to pose with in photographs. Well, as you can imagine, I was absolutely bowled over with excitement upon hearing this news and decided that, even though I had previously stalked the Strode house and blogged about it briefly way back in October of 2008, that it was most-definitely worthy of a re-visit. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to South Pasadena to do just that this past weekend.

And, sure enough, as soon as we arrived at the home, I spotted an assortment of plastic foam pumpkins sitting on a chair on the property’s front porch, along with a framed sign.

That sign reads, “Yes this is the scene with Jamie Lee Curtis from the 1978 Halloween. You may borrow the pumpkin. Have a good time.”

The sign also includes a still from the movie so that fans can refer to it while posing on the front walkway. How incredibly cool are these homeowners??? Big, huge, Andre-the-Giant-sized props go out to them for embracing the cinematic history of their residence and allowing stalkers to share in some of the fun. If I owned a famous movie home, you can bet your bottom dollar that I would be doing this same, exact thing. LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT!

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The supposed-Haddonfield, Illinois Strode residence was featured several times in Halloween. It first appeared in the beginning of the movie in the scene in which Laurie Strode (aka Jamie Lee Curtis) is reminded by her father, Morgan Strode (aka Peter Griffith), to drop a key off at the “Meyer’s place”. According to the fabulous website The Cabinet, that particular scene was the very first of the entire movie to be shot. And according to IMDB’s Halloween trivia page, director John Carpenter hired Jamie Lee Curtis, in what was her very first movie role, as a sort-of nod to Alfred Hitchcock who had cast Jamie’s mother, Janet Leigh, in the iconic role of Marion Crane in Psycho. In another homage to the legendary Hitchcock classic, Carpenter also named the character of Michael Meyer’s psychiatrist “Sam Loomis” after Marion’s lover in Psycho.

The Strode residence next shows up in the scene in which Laurie returns home from school, after having been accidentally scared by Sherriff Leigh Bracken (aka Charles Cyphers).

And finally, it appears in the scene in which Laurie waits, pumpkin in hand, to be picked up by her friend Annie Brackett (aka Nancy Kyes) to go baby-sitting.

It is that scene that the homeowners allow you to recreate with their fake pumpkins. SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

Amazingly, the Strode residence looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did in 1978 when Halloween was filmed. The north-facing side of the house is the area that appeared in the movie.

For whatever reason, the east-facing side, which is pictured above, was not seen in Halloween. According to fave website Zillow, in real life the property is not a single-family home, but a multi-occupancy dwelling which features three separate units.

And while I cannot say for certain that the home’s actual interior was used in the filming, I am guessing that it was.

On a very random side-note – while doing some research on Halloween earlier today, I almost fell off my chair upon discovering that Kyle Richards (star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, whom I loathe more than there are words in the English language to express – I honestly do not think there has ever been a bigger b*tch in the history of reality television, but I digress) had played Lindsey Wallace, the little girl whom Annie babysat, in the 1978 flick.

And on a Halloween side-note – as the GC and I were driving away from the Strode residence, we spotted a house that was decorated beyond belief for the upcoming holiday!

As you can see above, the amount of detail that went into the embellishment of the home is utterly incredible!

I was shocked to discover that the fence which runs along the perimeter of the property and reads “cemetery” above the gate was actually just a prop! I mean, I, of course, realized the “cemetery” part was decoration, but the entire fence? WOW!

And it was not until I was about to leave that I realized the home’s brick façade was also just a decoration! As you can see in the above photograph, the entire front of the residence has been wrapped in some sort of plastic covering. Talk about going all out!!! If I ever have a house, you better believe that this is what it is going to look like every year come Halloween! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Laurie Strode’s house from the original Halloween movie is located at 1115 Oxley Street in South Pasadena. The massively-decorated-for-Halloween home that we stumbled upon is located right around the corner at 1130 Diamond Avenue in South Pasadena.

October 10, 2011September 29, 2017

The “Double Indemnity” House

A couple of weekends ago I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the Beachwood Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills to stalk one of the most famous macabre movie locations of all time – the Spanish-Colonial-Revival-style abode that was featured in Double Indemnity. Incredibly, up until a few weeks ago I had yet to see the 1944 film noir classic, which was directed by Billy Wilder, even though it is largely considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time. And I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I finally did sit down to watch it. Not only did the film not seem dated, but I was absolutely riveted to my chair for the entire 107 minute run time. Sure, some scenes were a bit cheesy – especially the love scenes between Pacific All Risk Insurance Company salesman Walter Neff (aka Fred MacMurray) and disgruntled housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (aka Barbara Stanwyck), not to mention Walter’s silly pronunciation of the word “baby” – but overall the film was incredibly well-done and thoroughly suspenseful, which is shocking being that it was made almost a full seven decades ago. If you have yet to see it, I cannot more highly recommend doing so!

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In Double Indemnity, the supposed-Glendale-area hillside abode pictured above is where Phyllis lives with her abusive oilman husband, Mr. Dietrichson (aka Tom Powers), and his daughter, Lola Dietrichson (aka Jean Heather). It is while walking up to the home at the very beginning of the film that Walter Neff utters what is arguably its most famous line. Of the residence, he says, “It was one of those California Spanish houses everyone was nuts about ten or fifteen years ago. This one must have cost somebody about thirty thousand bucks – that is if he ever finished paying for it.” It is at the house that Phyllis and Walter first meet and fall in love. The two later cook up a scheme to purchase an accident insurance policy for Phyllis’ unknowing husband and then murder him to collect on the claim. The “double indemnity” of the title refers to a clause in the policy which stipulates that in the case of certain more unlikely accidents, i.e. a death on a train, the amount of the insurance payout would double.

Amazingly enough, as you can see above, the house has remained virtually unchanged since 1944 when Double Indemnity was filmed. I simply cannot express how cool I think that is!

The only real difference is the garage door, which has since been modernized. Otherwise though, the home looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen in all of its black-and-white glory.

The view has obviously changed a bit in the ensuing years, though. Winking smile

The screenplay for the movie, which was co-written by Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder, was based on an 8-part serial written by James M. Cain that was first published in Liberty Magazine in 1936. Cain based his story on the real life 1927 murder of Albert Snyder by his wife Ruth Snyder and her lover Henry Judd Gray, the trial of which Cain had covered while working as a journalist in New York. And amazingly enough, it seems as if the house that wound up being used in the movie was the very same house that Cain had written about in his story. In the book he calls the abode the “House of Death” and, of it, he says, “I drove out to Glendale to put three new truck drivers on a brewery company bond, and then I remembered this renewal over in Hollywoodland. I decided to run over there. That was how I came to this House of Death, that you’ve been reading about in the papers. It didn’t look like a House of Death when I saw it. It was just a Spanish house, like all the rest of them in California, with white walls, red tile roof, and a patio out to one side. It was built cock-eyed. The garage was under the house, the first floor was over that and the rest of it was spilled up the hill any way they could get it in. You climbed some stone steps to the front door, so I parked the car and went up there.” Cain’s words could not be a more perfect description of the residence that appeared in the movie, which leads me to believe that the abode must have served as the inspiration for the home in the story and that Cain then later suggested the place to producers to use for the filming. So incredibly cool!

According to an October 17, 2009 Los Angeles Times article, an almost exact replica of the interior of the house was recreated on a soundstage at Paramount Studios in Hollywood for the filming.

As you can see above, in real life the home’s front door is much closer to the bottom of the central staircase than it was onscreen. The actual residence, which was built in 1927 and boasts 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 3,077 square feet of living space, currently belongs to interior designer/set decorator Mae Brunken. You can check out some fabulous photographs of the actual interior of the property here. (The photograph of the home pictured above does not belong to me, but remains the sole property of the Los Angeles Times and photographer Ricardo DeAratanha).

In an interesting twist, as you can see above, producers had the address number of the Double Indemnity house changed from “6301” to “4760” for the filming. I would not have thought that sort of thing happened back in the days before DVD players, pause buttons, and the internet, but all evidence to the contrary.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Double Indemnity house is located at 6301 Quebec Drive in the Beachwood Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills.

October 3, 2011September 29, 2017

The Mills View House from “Picket Fences”

Well, my fellow stalkers, it is finally that time of year again, the month I look forward to all year long – October! With it comes fall leaves, cooler temperatures, and my favorite holiday of them all, Halloween. And you know what that means – I will once again be devoting the entire month of blog posts to locations having to do with Haunted Hollywood! First up is the Mills View house, a Monrovia-area property that I learned about way back in March from a journalist named Toni Momberger who interviewed me for an Inland Valley Daily Bulletin newspaper article she was writing about famous movie homes. Toni told me that she had toured the huge, Victorian-style abode as part of her research for the article and she was shocked to discover that I had never before heard of the place. As fate would have it, the house had been featured prominently in not one, but two spooky productions over the years, so I figured it would be the perfect start to my Haunted Hollywood theme and I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it a few weeks back.

The 5-bedroom, 2-bath, 3,140-square-foot Mills View house, which was built in 1887 by architects Luther Reed Blair and Uriah Zimmerman, was originally situated on a 5-acre plot of land on what was then the corner of Banana Avenue (now Hillcrest Boulevard) and Melrose Avenue. The Eastlake-Victorian-style home was commissioned by William N. Monroe, the founder of Monrovia, as a wedding gift for his son, Milton Monroe, and his new bride, Mary Nevada. Construction on the property began in May of 1887, shortly after Milton and his wife were married, and was completed a mere seven months later. Sadly, the Monroes divorced a short time after tying the knot and ended up selling their wedding home to Colonel John H. Mills and his wife, Elizabeth Cook Mills, in 1893. The Mills dubbed their new residence “Mills View” because on a clear day the island of Catalina was supposedly visible from one of the third floor windows. Unfortunately, Colonel Mills passed away only three months after moving into the home and it went through several ownership changes after Elizabeth subsequently died in 1905. Mills View, which boasts numerous stained glass windows, a third floor attic, hardwood flooring throughout, and five fireplaces with original tilework, became a Monrovia City Landmark on June 4, 1996.

According to this Monrovia Patch article, Mills View has appeared in over 20 productions since 1980 alone. Sadly though, I know of only two – both of which, as I mentioned above, fit the thriller genre. And the property definitely does give off a spooky vibe in person – I think primarily due to its gargantuan size – so it is not very hard to see why location scouts have flocked to it over the years.

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In the Season 1 Halloween-themed episode of fave show Picket Fences titled “Remembering Rosemary”, Mills View was where Rosemary Bauer committed suicide ten years prior by jumping out of a third-floor window, and where Sheriff Jimmy Brock (aka Tom Skerritt) and his deputies Maxine Stewart (aka Lauren Holly) and Kenny Lacos (aka Costas Mandylor) returned to investigate the case after deciding to re-open it a few days before Halloween.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the house, which you can see some photographs of here, was used in the episode.

Mills View was also the primary location used in the 1986 horror flick House. In the movie, it was the haunted property that mystery-writer Roger Cobb (aka William Katt) inherited from his Aunt Elizabeth (aka Susan French). According to the House production notes, for the onsite filming, which lasted two weeks, production designer Gregg Fonseca repainted the exterior of the property and added Victorian gingerbread detailing, a few spires, a wrought-iron fence, and a sidewalk. At the rear of the residence, he covered up the home’s real life clapboard siding with a fake brick edifice and added some much-needed landscaping.

No filming took place inside of the actual home, though. For all of the interior scenes, a replica of the house, which included two full stories, a living room, a den, a staircase, and three upstairs bedrooms, was built on a soundstage at Ren Mar Studios in Hollywood.

And I am fairly certain that the pool shown in the movie was either a fake built on the property solely for the filming or that a second location was used, as Mills View does not currently appear to have a pool.

Two very lucky British House fans were given a personalized tour of Mills View last year and wrote a great blog post about it which you can check out here.

On a Halloween side note – I was finally able to dig up a photograph of me dressed up as Agent Dana Scully for Halloween one year during college, which I had mentioned in the blog post I wrote about meeting David Duchovny back in June. The only picture I could find, though, was not a very good one as my eyes are closed in it. Ah well. That is my good friend Alex, who was dressed up a Parrothead, posing with me.

While going through boxes at my parents’ new house looking for the Dana Scully picture, I also stumbled upon my Fox Mulder doll, which I could NOT have been more excited about! I am so going to have to stalk DD again and get him to sign the doll for me. How incredibly cool would that be??

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Mills View, from the movie House and the “Remembering Rosemary” episode of Picket Fences, is located at 329 Melrose Avenue in Monrovia.

September 28, 2011September 28, 2011

Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant on Wilshire

Because I encountered so much filming location misinformation while researching my post on Bob’s Big Boy Broiler in Downey last week, I decided that I just had to write a blog about the place’s sister eatery, the now-defunct Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile District of Los Angeles, which has also appeared in countless productions over the years. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place this past Saturday afternoon.

Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant, which was originally named Romeo’s Time Square, was built in 1955 by Louis Armet and Eldon Davis, the Googie-style architecture firm that was once deemed the “Frank Lloyd Wright of ‘50s coffee shops” by author Merrill Shindler in a 2009 Daily Breeze article that is sadly no longer available online. The Armet and Davis duo was also responsible for creating the Norm’s Restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard, the iconic Schwab’s Pharmacy on Sunset Boulevard, the now-demolished Holiday Bowl bowling alley on Crenshaw Boulevard, and Twain’s Restaurant in Studio City, which was featured in fave movie A Lot Like Love. The sleek, bright, space-age construction of Romeo’s was designed to catch the attention of passing motorists and lure them – and their wallets – in for a bite to eat.

Romeo’s Time Square went through several changes in ownership and name in the ensuing years, becoming “Ram’s Restaurant” in the 1960s and then, finally, Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant shortly thereafter. In 1994, the property was purchased by the Gold family, owners of the 99 Cents Only Store chain, who sadly shuttered the eatery in 2000. The building has thankfully remained intact, though, and its parking lot is now being used by a 99 Cents Only Store located nearby. As you can see above, the store even made use of one of the original Johnie’s signs, which I think is so incredibly cool.

In 2003, the Gold family made a few restorations to the shuttered restaurant, including repainting the exterior, fixing the cantilevered roof, and repairing the many burnt-out lights on the exterior neon signage. According to this July 15th, 2004 article which appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Eric Schiffer, president of the 99 Cents Only Stores, would like to see the place re-open as a restaurant someday. He said, “This needs to be done in a special way. We’re open to hearing creative uses. We just don’t have time to go out and market the building.” Here’s hoping that a savior steps in soon, much like Bob’s Big Boy did with Johnie’s Broiler in Downey, and restores the historic eatery to its former 1950’s glory. Surprisingly, despite being closed for more than a decade, the restaurant appears to be in pretty good shape. I was able to snap the above photographs of Johnie’s interior through the many windows, on which the shades were, thankfully, not drawn.

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Thanks to its futuristic and streamlined design, Johnie’s has long been a location scout favorite. In a very prominent scene from 1988’s Miracle Mile, the eatery was where Harry Washello (aka Anthony Edwards) learned that the world was about to end.

In 1992’s Reservoir Dogs, Johnie’s was where Mr. Orange (aka Tim Roth) met up with his superior.

In the 1997 disaster flick Volcano, Johnie’s pops up very briefly in the scene in which the firefighters of Los Angeles stand off against the lava from a nearby volcano.

In 1998’s Very Bad Things, Johnie’s was where Michael Berkow (aka Jeremy Piven) announced to a roomful of confused diners that he had just killed his brother.

In 1998’s The Big Lebowski, Johnie’s was where The Dude (aka Jeff Bridges) and Walter Sobchak (aka John Goodman) discussed severed toes, victimless crime, and First Amendment rights.

Johnie’s popped up in 1998’s City of Angels as the spot where Nathaniel Messinger (aka Dennis Franz) told Seth (aka Nicolas Cage) how to become a human.

The diner was featured at the end of 1998’s American History X as the place where Derek Vinyard (aka Edward Norton) and his younger brother Danny Vinyard (aka Edward Furlong) stop to grab a bite to eat before heading over to Venice High School.

Johnie’s also appeared in the 1999 music video for the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ song “Swingin’”, which starred The Mentalist’s Robin Tunney and which you can watch by clicking here.

And the restaurant showed up in 2004 in Reba McEntire’s music video for her song “Somebody”.

Reba McEntire – Somebody Video Filmed at Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant

You can watch that video by clicking above.

The diner was featured prominently in the 2007 music video for Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls”, which is SUCH a great song, by the way! I literally cannot stop listening to it!

Sean Kingston–Beautiful Girls Video filmed at Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant

You can watch that video by clicking above. But be forewarned – it is HIGHLY addictive!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant is located at 6101 Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile District of Los Angeles.

September 26, 2011September 25, 2011

The Emser Tile Building from “Lethal Weapon”

Located just up the street from the original Barney’s Beanery restaurant in West Hollywood, which I blogged about last Friday, is the Emser Tile Building which appeared in a very memorable scene in the first Lethal Weapon movie. And even though I have never actually seen any of the four Lethal Weapon flicks (I know, I know – that has to be tantamount to stalker sacrilege or something!), because I was right there stalking Barney’s, I figured I might as well head on over to the Emser Building to snap some quick pics.

Surprisingly enough, even though the 7-story Emser building is quite unique and appears to be historical, I could find virtually no information about the structure online. All that I was able to discover was that, as you can see in this 1928 picture from The Bruce Torrence Photograph Collection, the building originally belonged to the Bekins moving and storage company. And thanks to the YouAreHere website, I also learned that it was constructed in 1925 by the architecture firm of Niebecker & Jeffers. The property now serves as the corporate offices of Emser Tile, a company that supplies natural stone and tile to commercial builders and contractors.

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In one of the most famous scenes in 1987’s Lethal Weapon, Martin Riggs (aka Mel Gibson) is sent by his new partner, Roger Murtaugh (aka Danny Glover), to the top of the Emser Tile Building in order to talk down a potential jumper.

Instead of talking him out of committing suicide, though, Riggs winds up handcuffing himself to the man and jumping off of the building with him, tandem-style, right into the safety of a police airbag. Sadly, Dar Robinson, the stuntman who stood in for the suicidal man and performed the actual jump in the scene (and yes, he really did jump off of the 7-story Emser Building for the filming!), was tragically killed a few weeks after principal photography on Lethal Weapon had wrapped. Dar, who was the holder of 21 different stunt records and was listed as the highest paid stuntman in the 1986 Guinness Book of World Records, had never so much as broken a bone in his 19-plus year career. But on November 21, 1996, while performing a routine motorcycle stunt in Page, Arizona for the movie Million Dollar Mystery, he accidentally lost control of his bike and careened off of a cliff at the tender age of 39. You can read a more detailed history of the legendary Dar, who was dubbed “King of the Stuntmen”, on the People Magazine website here.

And you can watch a short video in which Mel Gibson talks about Dar and the Emser Building jump by clicking above.

After Riggs jumps off of the Emser Building, Murtaugh pulls him into a vacant storefront where he chastises him for his dangerous behavior and suicidal tendencies. It is there that Murtaugh realizes that Riggs is not acting crazy in order to “draw a psycho pension”, but that he just simply is crazy.

Ironically enough, that storefront was actually vacant when I stalked it back in July, just as it was portrayed to be in the movie. Love it!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Emser Tile Building from Lethal Weapon is located at 8431 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. The storefront where Riggs and Murtaugh discuss the fact that Riggs might actually be crazy is located at 8441/8445 Santa Monica Boulevard. The original Barney’s Beanery restaurant is located just half a block west of the Emser Tile Building at 8447 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood.

September 22, 2011September 21, 2011

The Old Plaza at El Pueblo de Los Angeles from “90210”

Last week, after reading my post on the Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank in which I mentioned that I had actually stalked the iconic restaurant way back in November, fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, sent me a text asking, “If you did not stalk ever again, how many blogs could you write before you ran out?” My response, “I don’t know . . . but A LOT!” If I had to guess I would say there are at least 200 locales stored away in my stalking back log. In fact, there are still quite a few spots from my trip to the Pacific Northwest last May that I have yet to post. So not to worry – even if I were to never stalk again, I would still be cranking out posts for a very long time to come! Smile Anyway, Chas’ text got me to thinking about all of the locations that I have pushed to the back burner in recent months – one of which was The Old Plaza at El Pueblo de Los Angeles, which appeared in the Season 3 episode of fave show 90210 titled “The Enchanted Donkey” and which I had dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk back in July. Speaking of 90210, I would just like to state here, for the record, that I am NOT AT ALL happy about the latest developments in the “Lannie” saga. But I digress.

El Pueblo de Los Angeles, or the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District as it is also called, is the oldest surviving section of the city and serves as a monument to L.A.’s September 4th, 1781 founding. On that day, at a site located along the L.A. River just northeast of the Plaza, eleven families, consisting of 22 adults and 22 children, arrived from the Gulf of Mexico and established a small pueblo with mud huts and a village square. In 1815, a flood washed away that original settlement and it was later rebuilt in 1825 at its current location, which sits on higher ground. The Plaza immediately became the social, commercial, and cultural center of Los Angeles and remained that way throughout most of the 19th Century. By the 1920s, the area had sadly fallen into serious disrepair and was set to be largely demolished to make way for a railway station. Thankfully, a woman named Christine Sterling came along in 1926 and, with help from Harry Chandler and several local businesses, transformed the site into a bustling marketplace and popular tourist attraction. Today, the 44-acre property, which is considered to be the “birthplace of Los Angeles” and is a State Historic Monument and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, consists of five separate museums, a church dating back to 1861, the Mexican marketplace known as Olvera Street, 27 historic buildings, including L.A.’s oldest firehouse, and a central plaza, aka The Old Plaza.

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In “The Enchanted Donkey” episode of 90210, The Old Plaza stood in for the supposed-Cabo-San-Lucas-area marketplace that Annie Wilson (aka Shenae Grimes) and Liam Court (aka my love, Matt Lanter – sigh! Winking smile ) visited while in Mexico during Spring Break. It is there that Annie gets bitten by a rabid monkey which lands her in the hospital. Because the BEST Mexican restaurants in all of Southern California can be found there, the GC and I have visited El Pueblo de Los Angeles countless times over the years. So when The Old Plaza popped up on 90210, I recognized the place immediately.

In “The Enchanted Donkey” episode, the rock that the monkey is sitting on is located in the northern-most section of The Old Plaza, under one of the site’s four historic Moreton Bay Fig trees. Ironically enough, as you can see above, that rock bears a plaque which reads “Los Angeles Plaza”, which, being that the scene was supposed to have taken place in Mexico, explains why it was covered over with a blanket for the filming, . Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

While watching the scene, I also immediately recognized the leather clip that Annie was wearing in her hair as being from Murillo Leather, a store that is located about twenty feet from the Old Plaza and that I mentioned in my post about Olvera Street way back in May of 2009. I have visited the shop, which is owned and operated by Armando Murillo, who made all of the purses and belts worn by Jessica Simpson in the movie The Dukes of Hazzard, countless times over the years and even have a belt that was made by the second-generation leather craftsman.

So while we were there I just had to stop by to ask Armando if my hunch about Annie’s barrette had been correct. He confirmed for me that not only did his hand-crafted hair clip appear in the episode, but that Shenae Grimes herself had come into his shop to pick it out. I was literally drooling hearing Armando talk about meeting Shenae and how incredibly sweet she was. (This was before I was fortunate enough to meet the actress myself this past August.) And while I SO wanted to buy a Shenae-style hair clip while we were there, the GC immediately ixnayed the idea, noting that my hair was far too short to ever be able to get any use out of it. Hmph!

As I mentioned in my post about Olvera Street back in May 2009, The Old Plaza was also featured in Lethal Weapon 3 as the spot where Martin Riggs (aka Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (aka Danny Glover) were assigned to work patrol after being demoted for blowing up a building. It is there that Riggs and Murtaugh threaten to shoot a man for jaywalking and also witness an armored-car robbery.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Old Plaza at El Pueblo de Los Angeles, from “The Enchanted Donkey” episode of 90210, is located at 1 Olvera Street, across from Union Station, in Los Angeles. In the episode, Annie and Liam stood in front of the large rock located under the huge Moreton bay fig tree in the northern-most section of The Old Plaza, in the area depicted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view. Murillo Leather, where Annie’s hair clip was made, is located just up the street from The Old Plaza at 6 Olvera Street in Los Angeles.

September 16, 2011September 15, 2011

Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank from “Heat”

While doing some stalking in the Burbank area way back in November of last year, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the Bob’s Big Boy restaurant on Riverside Drive to grab a bite to eat. And even though the eatery has quite a vast Hollywood history, is a filming location, serves fried food (my favorite!), and is currently the oldest remaining Bob’s in the entire restaurant chain, for whatever reason in my ten-plus years of living in Los Angeles I had yet to dine there. But, let me tell you, the place was well worth the wait! Both the GC and I absolutely LOVED it!

Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank was originally built in 1949 by franchise owners Scott MacDonald and Ward Albert, and was designed by Wayne McAllister, the legendary Googie-style architect who also designed the Biltmore Hotel’s Biltmore Bowl ballroom, the Sands Hotel and Desert Inn in Las Vegas, and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel’s Cinegrill nightclub. In 1993, after several changes in ownership and a few dining room remodels, the property was purchased by the MacDonald family, who immediately set about an extensive renovation in order to restore the Streamline-Moderne-style eatery to its original glory. The MacDonald’s also added a front patio to the premises, re-fabbed the famous exterior signage, and, best of all, re-instated car-hop service from 5 to 10 p.m. each Friday and Saturday night. So incredibly cool! In 1993, the restaurant was also deemed a California Point of Historical Interest.

Visiting Bob’s Big Boy, one is immediately transported back in time, thanks largely to its curved counter and open kitchen ;

cantilevered roof and petal-like umbrellas,

and commanding 50s-style signage –

the most impressive of which is the 70-foot-tall free-standing display sign pictured above.

And the food! Oh, the food! I ordered the chicken strips and they were absolutely out-of-this-world! And don’t even get me started on the ranch dressing! I was almost ready to start eating it by itself, soup-style, it was so good! The GC opted for the famous “Big Boy” double-decker hamburger, which he loved. The “Big Boy” was originally invented by Bob’s Big Boy founder Bob Wian in 1937 and was the precursor to the now-legendary McDonald’s Big Mac. He created the sandwich as a joke one night when one of his regular customers asked for a “different” kind of burger. And the rest, as they say, is hamburger history. Amazingly, Bob was also one of the very first restaurant owners to offer his employees a profit-sharing plan and medical insurance.

Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank has been a celebrity hangout since the very beginning. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there over the years include Bob Hope (who was a regular), James Dean, Mickey Rooney, Dana Andrews, Jonathan Winters, Alexis Smith, Debbie Reynolds, Craig Stevens, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Taylor Lautner, Tiffany Thornton, Tori Spelling, Melissa Joan Hart, David Henrie, Taylor Swift, Joey Lawrence, Cheech Marin, Selena Gomez, Jay Leno, David Lynch, Dennis Haskins, and Freddie Prinze Jr. During the summer of 1965, all four members of The Beatles famously dined at one of the eatery’s back booths, which is pictured above.

That occasion was marked with the gold plaque pictured above, which one employee told me has been stolen countless times over the years. I cannot tell you how much I hate hearing things like that! Apparently, the owners were sick of constantly having to replace the sign, so for a time they left the wall in that area blank. Thankfully though, the plaque was back in its proper place when I stalked the restaurant last year.

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And, as I mentioned above, Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank is also a filming location! The diner was featured twice in the 1995 heist movie Heat. It first popped us as the restaurant where a fresh-out-of-prison Donald Breedan (aka Dennis Haysbert) got hired as a janitor/cook.

Towards the end of the movie, it shows up once again in the scene in which Neil McCauley (aka Robert De Niro), Michael Cheritto (aka Tom Sizemore), and Chris Shiherlis (aka Val Kilmer) convince Donald to be the driver for their upcoming bank heist. Apparently there was once a plaque displayed in the booth where that scene took place commemorating the occasion, but it was stolen countless times as well and had yet to be replaced in November.

In the Season 8 episode of Dancing with the Stars, Derek Hough took Lil’ Kim to Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank to get her into character for their upcoming 50s jive performance. You can watch a clip of that segment being filmed here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking and Happy Voting – don’t forget to vote for me to be the face of About Me! There are only five voting days left – you can vote once every 24 hours now through Tuesday, September 20th.

Stalk It: Bob’s Big Boy, from Heat, is located at 4211 West Riverside Drive in Burbank. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. Priscilla’s Coffee Tea & Gifts, from Desperate Housewives, which I blogged about back in December of 2009, is located just across the street from Bob’s at 4150 Riverside Drive in Burbank.