Josh Duhamel – IAMNOTASTALKER

May 9, 2018May 7, 2018

Voletta Wallace’s House from “Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac & the Notorious B.I.G.”

I have never been a fan of rap. My musical tastes tend to run far more tepid (read: Michael Bublé, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, and ‘80s pop). The Grim Cheaper likes to joke that my iPod song list hasn’t been updated since I first got the device back in 2001. Regardless, when I heard about Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac & the Notorious B.I.G., the recent USA series that chronicles the respective 1996 and 1997 killings of rappers Tupac Shakur (Marcc Rose) and Christopher ‘Biggie’ Wallace (Wavyy Jonez), I was completely enticed. Granted, anything having to do with true crime is pretty much guaranteed to pique my interest, but when I learned that the show was shot in Los Angeles and starred Josh Duhamel, I was all in! Thankfully, it did not disappoint. The GC and I were hooked from episode 1. Presented via a sequence of ever-switching timelines, Unsolved is both thoroughly dynamic and a marvel of historical accuracy. I knew little of either murder case prior to watching, but fell down a rabbit hole of research after each episode aired and was thrilled at the level of precision and veracity displayed. I was also thrilled to recognize the supposed Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania home where Biggie’s mom, Voletta Wallace (Aisha Hinds), lived as the very same dwelling featured in the infamous opening sequence of the 1955 classic Rebel Without a Cause, which I had stalked back in 2012, but never blogged about.

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The residence only appears once on Unsolved in a particularly heart-wrenching scene at the end of the final episode in which Detective Greg Kading (Duhamel) visits Voletta at her home in the Keystone State to explain in person why police are no longer looking into her son’s case.

As soon as Kading walked into Voletta’s yellow-hued kitchen, I immediately recognized it as the kitchen from the Rebel Without a Cause house. As fate would have it, the pad recently hit the market as a fully-furnished rental and I had come across the listing, which mentioned its 1955 cameo, a few weeks prior and, of course, perused photos of the interior. For whatever reason, the images of the kitchen stuck with me. (What can I say, ingraining film locations into my memory is my super power.) More particularly, the home’s huge hood situated above the center island stuck with me, as did the woven bamboo shades hanging in the window. (The GC was on a kick to purchase very similar window coverings for our new house, but I found them a bit too tiki-inspired for my taste and finally convinced him to go with more neutral-colored blinds. Thanks to our many back-and-forth debates on the subject, shades are definitely something I take notice of lately.) Certain Voletta’s kitchen was the very same one I had seen in the MLS photos, I quickly pulled up the Rebel Without a Cause pad’s listing and was floored to see that they were, indeed, a match – right down to the wall clock, bar stools, and mounted television set!

The exterior of Voletta’s residence has proved harder to track down. I did discover that the imagery shown of it is actually stock footage from Shutterstock of “a slow aerial approach and flyover of a Pennsylvania farm house in the Autumn.” The home is apparently very popular in the stock footage world as I found a second reel featuring it, this one titled “A high angle flyover of a typical snow-covered farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania in the winter.”

In real life, the Rebel Without a Cause dwelling, which was originally built in 1912, features 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 4,398 square feet, a formal dining room, a sun room, a large veranda, multiple decks, a pool, a barbeque area, a detached gym with a steam shower, and a 0.24-acre lot.

According to my buddy E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle called the place home for a time in the 1920s.

Though the Southern Colonial-style residence is often counted among Los Angeles’ most iconic film locations due to its appearance in Rebel Without a Cause, not much of it can actually be seen in the movie. The lower portion of the pad is just barely visible in the beginning scene in which Jim Stark (James Dean) lays down in the street while playing with a toy monkey shortly before being arrested for “plain drunkenness.”

The property has a couple of other cameos under its belt, as well. In the 1959 sci-fi film Teenagers from Outer Space, it portrays the home of Alice Woodward (Sonia Torgeson).

I am 99.9% certain that the scenes taking place in and around Alice’s pool were shot at a different location altogether.

Not only do building permits show that no pool existed at the property until 1993, as you can see in the screen captures as compared to the MLS photos above and below, the pool that was eventually built is much smaller than the one that appeared in Teenagers from Outer Space. It is also situated in a different position with regards to the residence than what was shown onscreen.

The dwelling also pops up as the Kappa Omega Psi fraternity house where Michael Ryan (C. Thomas Howell) and his friends crash a party in the 1985 comedy Secret Admirer.

The interior of the home also appeared in the movie.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Voletta Wallace’s house from Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac & the Notorious B.I.G. is located at 7529 Franklin Avenue in Hollywood Hills West.

September 3, 2010September 2, 2010

Esperanza Resort

Another celebrity hot spot that my husband and I stalked while honeymooning in Cabo San Lucas last week was the world-famous Esperanza Resort hotel – a place my girl Jen A. has checked into frequently over the years. The 17-acre property, which is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World, is consistently referred to as Cabo’s most luxurious and exclusive resort. The hotel is made up of only 57 rooms – fifty individual casitas and seven over-sized suites – so it truly offers its guests, many of whom are movie stars, the ultimate in privacy – and service. Just a few of the amenities offered at the resort include a private beach, an award-winning spa with steam caves and waterfalls, an infinity pool overlooking the ocean, a yoga and Pilates studio where the classes are free, an art gallery, loaner iPods, and coconut-milk popsicles which are doled out regularly to those guests lying poolside. Needless to say, the hotel, which is part of the exclusive Auberge Resort chain, has won countless awards over the years, including three of Travel + Leisure Magazine’s 2010 “World’s Best Awards” – #1 Resort, #1 Spa, and #1 Service for their Best in Mexico section. It truly is a remarkable and absolutely beautiful place!

I absolutely fell in love with Esperanza’s The Signature Restaurant, which is pictured above. The restaurant is composed of three different levels of terraces, all of which overlook both the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez, and is breathtakingly beautiful. I SO wanted to grab dinner there during our stay in Cabo, but the Grim Cheaper was having none of that. 🙁

Esperanza’s extensive celebrity guest list reads like a Who’s Who of Hollywood. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there include Fergie and Josh Duhamel (the Esperanza was where the famous 2008 picture of Josh D. painting on the beach was taken), Chelsea Handler, Debra Messing, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, Sheryl Crow, Ashley Simpson and Pete Wentz, Jennie Garth, Usher, Owen Wilson, and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith. In 2003, Elizabeth Berkley married Ralph Lauren’s nephew, Greg, at the Esperanza. That same year Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin honeymooned there, as did Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley in 2007. And according to this Forbes.com article, the Esperanza gifted a free weekend stay to all of the 2002 Academy Award winners.

And as proof that visiting the hotel almost guarantees one a celeb sighting, while we were there my husband and I spotted LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian, who were in town to celebrate LeAnn’s 28th birthday. To clarify, I should say that I actually spotted the two stars – the Grim Cheaper was absolutely clueless. He had gone to the restroom immediately upon our arrival at the hotel, while I grabbed a seat in the resort’s outdoor lounge. Shortly after I sat down, who should walk into the bar area but LeAnn Rimes followed by Eddie C. I recognized the two of them immediately and just about had a heart attack I was so excited! When the GC returned from the restroom, he told me that he wanted to head down to the beach right away to search for the rocks where Jennifer Aniston recently posed for the ad for her newly released perfume (the rocks were our sole reason for visiting the Esperanza and I will be blogging about them on Monday) and grab a drink afterwards. I started making faces at him to alert him to the fact that we were in the presence of celebrities, but he remained clueless. I finally grabbed some paper out of my purse and wrote the above-pictured note. GC took one look at the note, glanced over towards LeAnn, and then said, “Oh OK. Well, come on, let’s go down to the beach.” LOL Needless to say he was not at all impressed. We stayed at the bar for a few more minutes while I debated about going up to LeAnn and Eddie to ask for a photograph, but I ultimately decided against it. They were on vacation at an ultra-exclusive and ultra-private resort and I felt that it would be inappropriate to bother them. And I was happy enough just to have seen them in person, anyway. 🙂 When we returned from the beach about an hour and a half later, we again spotted LeAnn and Eddie swimming and eating nachos at the resort’s pool. And I have to say that while I’ve never thought LeAnn was especially attractive in photographs, she is absolutely GORGEOUS in person. I’d even go so far as to say that she was luminous. Needless to say, seeing her was one of the highlights of my honeymoon. 🙂

And, of course, the Esperanza is also a filming location! The hotel stood in for the Cabo San Lucas resort where Eddie (aka Ben Stiller) and Lila (aka Malin Ackerman) honeymooned in the 2007 movie The Heartbreak Kid.

On a side note, one of my former acting teachers, Roy Jenkins (pictured above), played the role of Buzz in The Heartbreak Kid. So darn cool!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Esperanza: An Auberge Resort is located at Carretera Transpeninsular KM 7 in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

January 14, 2010January 14, 2010

Joe Jost’s from “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton”

As I’ve mentioned countless times before, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton is one of my all time favorite movies. And I have long been dying to stalk the restaurant which stood in for Lil’ Dickens, the Frazier’s Bottom bar where Rosalie (aka Kate Bosworth), Pete (aka Topher Grace), Cathy (aka Ginnifer Goodwin), and Tad (aka Josh Duhamel – sigh!) hung out in the flick. In real life, that bar is named Joe Jost’s and it is actually located in Long Beach, California, a good 2,300 miles west of the real Frazier’s Bottom. So, since we were in the area this past weekend, I just had to drag my fiancé right out to stalk the place.

Joe Jost’s was founded in 1924 by a man named, you guessed it, Joe Jost, who was born in a small town in Yugoslavia. At only 16 years of age, after a four year apprenticeship in a barbershop, Joe left Yugoslavia and immigrated to the U.S. He first settled in New York City where he continued his work as a barber for a few years before moving to the West Coast and setting up a home in Upland, California. In 1920, Joe opened up the first Joe Jost’s, a combination barber shop/pool hall/bar/restaurant, in Newport Beach where he sold such goods as candy, cigarettes, and because prohibition was in effect, a non-alcoholic drink known as “near beer”. In 1924, Joe moved his unique shop to its current location on Anaheim Street in Long Beach. It wasn’t long, though, before the Barbering Commission closed down the barber shop portion of the establishment, claiming that cutting hair in close proximity to alcohol being served was not “safe”. LOL So, Joe abruptly removed his barbershop chairs and installed booths – the very same booths where Joe’s customers still sit today! So cool! 🙂 Joe’s enjoyed immediate success as a restaurant and even managed to sustain itself throughout the depression years. To date, the place has served over 5,000,000 Joe’s Special Sandwiches, over 7,000,000 pickled eggs, over 15,000,000 glasses of beer, and over 1,800,000 pounds of Marmion’s peanuts! Joe’s is such an institution in Long Beach, in fact, that a term known as “josting” has been coined. Josting refers to the act of taking a photograph of oneself in different locations all around the world while wearing a Joe Jost’s T-Shirt. And, let me tell you, the T-shirts have been EVERYWHERE! Joe’s walls are literally COVERED in such photographs and I can’t tell you how incredible it was to be looking at the hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of pictures of said patrons – always with their backs to the camera so that the Joe’s logo can be clearly seen – in such far off places as the Pyramids in Egypt, Heidelberg Castle in Germany, Namoto Island in Fiji, and the Arctic Circle (not kidding!). Most amazing of all, though, were the numerous photographs of soldiers currently stationed in Iraq wearing Joe’s T-shirts. Incredible! What an unbelievably cool tradition!!!

Because my fiancé and I were first-timers, we had to try one of everything on the menu. And I have to say that even though I am a horribly picky eater, I LOVED it all! The pickled egg (pictured above) – which sounds disgusting, I know – was incredible, the Marmion’s peanuts were de-lish!, and the Special . . . oh my god, the Special! What can I even say about it except that it was simply A-MA-ZING! Joe’s Special consists of a homemade Polish sausage (made from their own secret recipe), a pickle, a slice of Swiss Cheese, and mustard smacked in between two slices of rye bread. And, oh my lord, is it good!

Because Lil’ Dickens is the regular hangout of Rosalie, Pete, and Cathy, Joe Jost’s shows up quite a few times in Win a Date. The areas used include the main bar;

and the billiards room, which was decked out with tables and chairs for the filming.

Sadly, though, Pete and Rosie’s dart board was just a prop that was brought in for the filming and is not there in real life. 🙁

Oddly enough, the area of the restaurant that I was most interested in stalking was the men’s bathroom, not so much because I wanted to see it in person, but because I wanted to verify if it was really there. As I had suspected, though, the Lil’ Dickens bathroom, in which Pete confronts Tad telling him that if he breaks Rosalie’s heart he’ll tear him to pieces with his “bare hands or vicious rhetoric” LOL, is not the real Joe Jost’s bathroom. Joe’s men’s room actually consists of one single room with a toilet and a sink (yes, I actually sent my fiancé in there to report back to me!), and because the scene called for a considerably larger restroom with actual stalls, a set had to be built. Interestingly enough, though, according to Dan, one of the SUPER nice Joe’s crew members that I spoke with, the Lil’ Dickens bathroom set was actually built right there on the Joe Jost’s property, in the back area of the restaurant.

The crew even ended up using the real Joe’s men’s room door, after making some small modifications, as the door of the Lil’ Dickens men’s room set. So cool!!!!

The crew also modified the real life Joe Jost sign, which is located in the pool hall area of the restaurant, into a Lil’ Dickens sign for the shoot. Love it! 🙂

Win a Date is hardly the only production to film at Joe’s, though. The restaurant is also where Kevin Costner took Whitney Houston on a date in 1992’s The Bodyguard.

And where they danced to John Doe’s version of the song “I Will Always Love You”, which Whitney calls “depressing” in the scene. LOL

The interior of Joe’s also stood in for the bar where Angelina Jolie worked in Gone in 60 Seconds.

The exterior of that bar (pictured above), however, was a different location altogether.

Joe’s showed up twice in the 2007 movie License to Wed, first as the site of Mandy Moore and John Krasinski’s pre-marriage group counseling . . .

. . . and second as the spot where John and his friend, DeRay Davis, grab a drink towards the end of the movie.

Producers definitely took some liberties when filming the exterior scenes for License to Wed, though. In the flick, it is made to appear as if Joe’s is part of a tall building located underneath the L Train somewhere in Chicago. In real life, though, Joe’s is a simple, small, one-story structure located on a busy Long Beach street corner. I SO love how they incorporated the real life Joe’s storefront into the digitally altered Chicago-area establishing shots, though, rather than using a real Chicago location for the exterior. So cool! Joe’s has also been featured in the movies Madison, The Vanishing, and True Confessions and in episodes of Chance of a Lifetime, The ‘60s, Roswell, Boomtown, Clubhouse, and Classmates. You can see a full list of Joe’s Hollywood credits here.

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Joe Jost’s is a VERY cool place and I honestly can’t recommend stalking it – or ordering up one of its Specials – enough!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Joe Jost’s is located at 2803 East Anaheim Street in Long Beach. You can visit their website here.

December 4, 2009December 3, 2009

JMJ Ranch from “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton”

Another location that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I stalked during our day in the the Valley together a few months back was the Fraziers Bottom farm that movie star Tad Hamilton purchased in fave film Win a Date with Tad Hamilton. In real life, Tad’s property is named JMJ Ranch and it is not located anywhere near Fraziers Bottom, West Virginia, but about two thousand miles West in Thousand Oaks, California. As so often happens when searching for filming sites, I actually came across this one while looking for another location entirely. After seeing the Season One episode of The Mentalist entitled “Carnelian Inc.” earlier this year, I became absolutely obsessed with finding the ranch that was featured in it. And it was while searching for that locale that I came across the website for JMJ Ranch and immediately recognized it as the one from Win a Date with Tad Hamilton. YAY! So, since Mike and I were in the area a few weeks back, we decided to drive by the property to see if it was at all accessible to the public. And amazingly enough, it was! Or so we thought. LOL

When we first pulled up to JMJ Ranch, the main gates were wide open, several people were horseback riding in the central ring, and there was no posted sign saying the area was private property. Because I had read online that JMJ is an actual working ranch, I turned to Mike and said “OH MY GOD, I think it’s actually open to the public!” So, of course, the two of us drove right in. And, let me tell you, I almost had a heart attack I was so excited! 🙂

I spotted Tad’s little white ranch house pretty much immediately upon entering the property and just about hyperventilated as we pulled up to it! The fact that Josh Duhamel (aka the love of my life) had once been in the very spot I now found myself was almost too much for me to bear. 🙂 Now, I know that rumors of JD’s infidelity are currently flying around Hollywood, but I honestly have to say that I just don’t believe all the hype. If the rumors do turn out to be true, though, and Josh really did cheat on his wife, then all bets are off – he’ll be dead to me, just like that little homewrecker Angelina Jolie! But in the meantime, I have to say, my heart still belongs to JD. 🙂

I so love the above screen capture, by the way!! Sigh. 🙂 But I digress!

Only one brief scene from Win A Date took place at JMJ Ranch. After announcing that he has purchased a house, or as he says “it’s actually a farm, with a house, and a silo for my wheat” LOL, Rosalie (aka Kate Bosworth), Cathy (aka Ginnifer Goodwin), and Pete (aka Topher Grace) show up to tour the property. While there, know-it-all Pete attempts to give Tad some lessons in certain farming skills like milking a cow and chopping wood, but as it turns out, thanks to his training for various movie roles, not only does Tad know how to do said activities, but he can actually do them better than Pete. LOL

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JMJ Ranch is actually an oft-used filming location. Besides Win a Date, the property has also been featured in Dynasty, Dallas, Knots Landing, Cracker, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, The Fall Guy, Picket Fences, Hot Shots Part Deux, Robin Hood: Men In Tights, Route 9, and Private School.

The 300 acre ranch truly is a beautiful spot, with large open fields, towering oak trees, winding roads, and rustic barns, and as we drove through the property I got to thinking that it would be the perfect spot to host a wedding. 🙂 Being that filming locations often double as wedding venues, I thought there was a pretty good chance that the ranch might also be available for special events and made a mental note to find out. Well, after driving around for about five minutes, a very angry woman on a tractor drove up to Mike and I and informed us that we were on private property. WHOOPSY! We apologized profusely and explained that we had been driving by, saw the open gate, and thought the area was open to the public. I also told the woman I was currently in the market for a wedding venue and asked if the ranch was available for such occasions. My question was met with an emphatic “NO!” – LOL – at which point, Mike and I thanked the lady for her time and quickly left. So, unfortunately, I can’t recommend stalking JMJ Ranch as it is definitely NOT open to the public. 🙁 But at least you can live vicariously through the photographs I was able to take before being kicked off the property. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: JMJ Ranch from Win a Date with Tad Hamilton is located at 930 West Portrero Road in Thousand Oaks. The property is not actually open to the public, so please do not trespass. You can visit the JMJ Ranch website here.

August 25, 2009August 25, 2009

The Win A Date With Tad Hamilton Grocery Store

One movie location that I have wanted to stalk for what seems like forever is the L.A. area grocery store that stood in for the Fraziers Bottom Piggly Wiggly Supermarket in fave romantic comedy Win A Date With Tad Hamilton. Josh Duhamel! Sigh! 🙂 I was so obsessed with finding this location, in fact, that a few years ago when I happened upon a real Piggly Wiggly store while visiting a small town in Arkansas, I just about died of excitement! Because Piggly Wigglys can only be found in the Southeastern United States, I had never seen one in person before. So, I immediately made my fiance pull the car over so that I could take a photograph out in front (pictured above). 🙂 Anyway, thanks to the production notes on my Win A Date DVD, I knew that producers had used a 14,000 square foot vacant supermarket somewhere in Van Nuys to represent the West Virginia grocery store where Kate Bosworth, Topher Grace, and Ginnifer Goodwin worked in the movie. With that information in hand, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I pretty much scoured the entire Van Nuys area looking for the store, but, sadly, came up completely empty handed. I even went so far as to have my dad, who used to work in the grocery industry, call up some of his old business contacts to ask them if they knew of a Van Nuys grocery store that was used in the filming of a movie back in 2003. Sadly, none of them did. At that point I honestly thought the Win A Date With Tad Hamilton Piggly Wiggly was going to be a lost cause. Until master stalker Chas entered the picture and promised to help me locate the ultra-elusive store. And locate it, he did! In just a few short hours, no less!

Since Chas knew that Mike and I had pretty much already turned the entire city of Van Nuys inside out looking for the Win A Date store, he decided to disregard the production notes and begin his search just outside the city limits. And it’s a good thing he did because it turns out that the Win A Date supermarket is not actually located in Van Nuys, but in the neighboring city of North Hills. Today, the Win A Date grocery store is actually a 99 Cents Only Store, but at the time of the filming it was a recently vacated former supermarket. According to the DVD’s production notes, the crew decked out every square inch of the empty market with signage and props received on loan from the Piggly Wiggly Corporation. The crew did such a good job of dressing up the store, in fact, that people from the neighborhood stopped in and actually tried to shop! LOL Lucy Fisher, one of the Win A Date producers, said “When we tried to explain that it was a movie set , they still tried to push their way in. Everything looked so bright and shiny and delicious, but it was all fake. Still there seemed no way to convince the neighbors that it was not a real market.” LOL LOL LOL Oh, how I wish I could have seen the store all dressed up as a Piggly Wiggly – that would have been just about the coolest thing ever!

I am very happy to report that, despite some changes, the exterior of the 99 Cents Only Store is still very recognizable from the film. The Piggly Wiggly signage has, of course, long since been removed and a small facade has now been added to the market’s sloped roof, but otherwise it still looks pretty much the same as it did in the movie.

The only major difference I noticed while stalking the place is the fact that in the movie there were two sets of entrance doors, one located on each side of the market, while today there is only one set of doors, located in the center of the store. I asked my dad about the change and he said that it is a fairly common alteration for grocery stores to make, as having only one means of exit greatly cuts down on the possibility of theft.

Although the interior of the market was used extensively in the filming of Win A Date , it, sadly, has been changed quite significantly since the 99 Cents Only Store took over. In fact, it looks as if the 99 Cents Only Company had the building completely gutted and remodeled before they moved in. 🙁 While stalking the place, I actually walked around the entire store, hoping to find some small remnant leftover from the filming that took place there just six short years ago, but, unfortunately, there was not one single thing.

Even though the Win A Date Piggly Wiggly looks considerably different post-filming and even though in reality it’s just your average, everday grocery store, I could NOT have been more excited to finally be stalking it! I was literally pinching myself the whole time, as this was one location I never thought I’d actually find.

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Big THANK YOU to Chas for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Win A Date With Tad Hamilton grocery store is really the 99 Cents Only Store located at 8723 Sepulveda Boulevard in North Hills.

July 21, 2009July 20, 2009

The Win A Date With Tad Hamilton House

I am forever indebted to fellow stalker Chas who has succeeded in finding a location that has eluded me for the past few years, a location that has been at the very top of my ultimate stalking list ever since the movie it was featured in first premiered in January of 2004. The location in question? Rosalee Futch, aka Kate Bosworth’s, charming little Craftsman home from fave movie Win A Date With Tad Hamilton. It was just a few months ago that I found out that Win A Date had been filmed in its entirety on location in Los Angeles and since that time I have been completely obsessed with finding the main house used in the movie. Unfortunately, though, I had absolutely no luck in locating it. I even went so far as to contact Win A Date’s location manager via Facebook, who sent me back a one line response saying “Long time ago – think house is in Melrose Heights”. I had never heard of a place named “Melrose Heights” prior to that, so I immediately go to Googling and found out that an area with that name does actually exist in Los Angeles, but that it is a high-end shopping district. Not to be deterred, I considered the possibility that the house was located near Melrose Heights, and enlisted the help of Mike, from MovieShotsLA . The two of us set about searching any and all residences near the small shopping district, but came up empty-handed. Just last week, fellow stalker Owen joined in the search and also combed the Melrose Heights area, just in case Mike and I had missed something. They say two heads are better than one, but in this case even our three heads combined couldn’t find that house! Until Chas stepped in, that is!

Chas spent a full two days looking for the Win A Date house (how do I even begin to thank him for that???) and eventually found it in an area of Los Angeles known as Melrose Hill. Um, hello . . . Melrose HILL??? What happened to Melrose Heights???? In all fairness, though, I guess the location manager almost got the name right. But, as we all know, “almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades”. LOL Mike, Owen, and I would now like those 80+ wasted hours of our lives back! 🙂

I cannot tell you how darn excited I was to finally be seeing the Win A Date house in person. In fact, I am surprised I didn’t run my car right off the road on my way to stalk it – I was THAT excited. 🙂 And I am happy to report that, aside from a change in paint color, Rosalee’s house looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did when the movie was filmed back in 2003. It’s no surprise at all that this particular house was chosen as the residence of Rosalee Futch, the All-American girl with the All-American values. It’s exactly the type of place where you’d expect to find her living. The Win A Date house is located on an adorable little tree-lined street that looks like it could very easily be found in a place called Frazier’s Bottom, Virginia, the town where the movie supposedly takes place. The Melrose Hill Neighborhood is an absolutely charming place that was built between 1911 and 1926 and consists of only 45 homes. One walk through the area’s tree lined streets and it’s not hard to see why Los Angeles Magazine named it one of L.A.’s “10 Great Neighborhoods” in 2003.

Rosalee’s Craftsman house shows up repeatedly throughout the movie, most notably the front porch area, which, as you can see in the above photograph, has since been covered over quite a bit with foliage.

And it appears that the real life interior of the home was also used for the filming of some scenes in the movie.

Ironically enough, I think I was more excited about seeing the street light out in front of Rosalee’s house than the actual house itself. While searching for the Win A Date home, Mike and I had studied that darn street light for hours, trying to figure out where in L.A. it might be located. Neither one of us had ever encountered a lamppost that unusual in all of our stalking adventures and I was beginning to think it was a fake. So, I can’t tell you how excited I was when I saw those unique lights lining the streets of the Melrose Hill neighborhood. It was validation for me that all of those hours we spent searching for the house weren’t for naught! Those lights really do exist! LOL And now, if a location with those particular street lights ever comes up in a movie again, we will know exactly where to find it! 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Chas for finding this location for me!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Rosalee’s house from Win A Date With Tad Hamilton is located at 814 Melrose Hill Street in the Melrose Hill Neighborhood of Los Angeles.

June 24, 2009June 24, 2009

Santa Anita Park

This weekend, I dragged my fiance out to Santa Anita Park, aka the Santa Anita race track, in Arcadia for some major stalking. Our original plan was to catch a movie at the theatre located next door to the track, but a funny thing happened on the way to the show. 🙂 While driving to the movies, I got an email from fellow stalker Owen who told me that Santa Anita Park stood in for the entrance to Walley World in fave 80s movie National Lampoon’s Vacation. Needless to say, I was absolutely SHOCKED! All this time I’ve lived in L.A. and had no idea that Walley World was literally right in my own backyard. So, I made my poor fiance detour the car and, with Owen’s directions in hand, the two of us headed over towards the racetrack. 🙂

Santa Anita Park first opened its doors on Christmas Day of 1934 and has the distinction of being known as Southern California’s oldest race track. Elias Jackson, aka “Lucky”, Baldwin had originally built a horse racing track on what is now the Arcadia County Golf Course in 1907. Sadly, though, just two years after its opening, the government passed the Walker-Otis bill, which outlawed gambling and forced Lucky to close up shop. Twenty-five years later, after California had legalized parimutuel betting, a company named the Los Angeles Turf Club opened up a race track just a few blocks from the former track’s site. The Los Angeles Turf Club was owned by movie producer Hal Roach and a doctor named Charles H. Strub. Roach and Strub commissioned their new track to be built in the Art Deco style by architect Gordon B. Kaufman, who is most well-known for designing both the Hoover Dam and the L.A. Times Building. The original exterior of the race track building still stands at Santa Anita Park to this day. Santa Anita has hosted a number of memorable competitions over the years, including the equestrian events of the 1984 Olympic Games and Seabiscuit’s big win – and final race – which took place on February 9, 1940. Because of the involvement of movieman Hal Roach, the race track has long been associated with the silver screen. Celebs like Bing Crosby, Louis B. Mayer, Alex Trebek, Errol Flynn, and Spencer Tracy all owned horses that raced at Santa Anita at one time or another. And, of course, the track has also shown up in several Hollywood productions.

I have actually been dying to stalk the race track ever since it appeared in my favorite episode of the television series Las Vegas. In the Season Three episode, entitled “Everything Old Is You Again”, Danny McCoy (played by – sigh – Josh Duhamel) has a flashback of sorts in which he fantasizes about what it would be like to run a 60’s era hotel and casino named the Jubliee. In the episode, the entire cast dons 60’s regalia, uses terms like ” Poindexter” and “It’s a gas”, and dances to the Twist. Everyone, that is, except for poor Danny, who doesn’t quite have the moves to the latest dance craze down yet. He spends pretty much the entire episode begging people to teach him how to do the Twist. I’m telling you, it is SUCH a cute episode! And, it just so happens that the Club House at Santa Anita Park stood in for the Jubliee Hotel and Casino in the episode. My fiance immediately recognized it when we first saw the show a few years back. So, I really could not have been more excited to stalk the place this weekend!! In a lucky twist of fate, while we were snapping some photos out front, an INCREDIBLY nice valet came up and started talking to us. I told him that the Vegas episode that had filmed at the Park was my very favorite and he asked if my fiance and I wanted a tour of the areas used in the episode. IF we wanted a tour???? IF we wanted a tour???? LOL OF COURSE we wanted a tour! 🙂

Both the interior and the exterior of the Club House were used as the Jubilee Hotel and Casino in the “Everything Old Is You Again” episode.

The main entrance to the Club House also served as the main entrance to the Jubilee.

According to the valet, hundreds of casino gaming tables and slot machines were brought in to turn the main room of the Club into the casino’s main floor.

Other areas of the Club where filming took place include the bar where Sam (aka Vanessa Marcil) “worked”, which is, in reality, a cafeteria counter;

the main lobby area;

the Club’s cafe, where Mary worked in the episode . . .

which is also the same area where Mary taught Danny to do the Twist :);

the steps located just outside of the cafe doors, where Danny asks Mary out on a date;

and the Jubliee’s “pool” area. Because Santa Anita Park doesn’t actually have a pool, the Jubilee’s “pool” was in actuality just the Club’s back porch area. Producers simply added some chaise lounges, a handful of bikini-clad women, some wet cement, splashing sounds, a bit of movie magic, and voila – they had themselves a hotel swimming pool! 🙂

At the end of the episode, Danny finds himself in the lobby of the present day Montecito Hotel and Casino, where Chubby Checker just happens to be on hand to entertain the guests . . .

. . . and to lead everyone, including Danny, in a rousing rendition of the Twist. See, I told you it was a cute episode! 🙂

The racetrack was also featured in the Season Two Valentine’s Day episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 entitled “And Baby Makes Five”. In the episode, Andrea finds some luck at the track by betting on horses with names such as Lovesick, Unrequited, and Grand Amour. Notice a theme here? 😉

And, as mentioned in my introduction, the Park was also used in National Lampoon’s Vacation. In the movie, an un-used portion of the track’s parking lot stood in for Walley World’s main entrance. According to IMDB, a painted backdrop was installed behind the above pictured overpass to give the illusion of roller coasters in the foreground. Love how you can still see the yellow divider lines in the road that were used in the filming!!

The racetrack’s GINORMOUS parking lot area stood in for Walley World’s parking lot, where Clark and his family race each other- with “Chariots of Fire” playing in the background – to the theme park’s entrance. Again, a huge painted backdrop was used in this scene to create the illusion of roller coasters.

Walley World’s main entrance – where Clark, upon hearing the news that the park is temporarily closed, punches Walley Moose in the nose – is actually Santa Anita’s South Entrance. The entrance was dressed up quite a bit for the filming, so in person it looks much different than how it appeared onscreen in Vacation. Also adding to the difference in appearance is the fact that the movie was filmed in 1983, long before Santa Anita’s main tower, which you can see in the above photograph, was built. An interesting sidenote – it’s fairly common knowledge among locationites that Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia was used for the filming of the scenes inside of Walley World. So why, you ask, was Magic Mountain’s real entrance not used in the movie? Well, apparently, the original ending of Vacation involved Clark W. Griswold and family leaving the “temporarily closed for repairs” Walley World and heading over to Roy Walley’s house, gun in hand, to demand that he entertain them. When that ending didn’t fare well with test audiences, the finale we all know and love was shot on location at Magic Mountain. Rather than waste money re-shooting the parking lot scenes, producers just used the scenes that had already been filmed at Santa Anita Park. And the rest, as they say, is history!

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Santa Anita Park has also been featured in Seabiscuit, A Day at the Races, The Dark Horse, and the television series Jockeys, Grey’s Anatomy, and The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Santa Anita Park is located at 285 West Huntington Drive in Arcadia. Las Vegas was filmed at the Park’s Club House. The entrance to Walley World was really the South Entrance of Santa Anita Park.

The overpass that the Griswold’s drive under when entering the Walley World parking lot is a bit tricky to find. It is located directly off of Huntington Drive, near 659 West Huntington Drive. The overpass leads to Westfield -Santa Anita Shopping Center and runs over one of the un-used areas of the racetrack’s parking lot. You can see its exact location in the above map.

April 9, 2009April 8, 2009

The W Hotel

This weekend while out doing some stalking of L.A.’s Westside, I dragged my boyfriend to the W Hotel, which was featured in both fave movie Win A Date With Tad Hamilton and the new 90210. I have wanted to stalk the W ever since I first watched Win A Date over four years ago, but somehow never got around to it until this past Sunday. I actually can’t believe that I waited so long to stalk the modern style hotel, but, as I’ve said before, in L.A. there’s just so much to stalk and so little time! 🙂

The W Hotel is actually featured quite a few times in Win A Date. The poolside restaurant, named “The Backyard”, shows up in the very beginning of the movie as the location where Tad and his agents (who are both named Richard Levy) do lunch. It is during this luncheon that Tad is told he must clean up his public image and thus the “Win A Date With Tad Hamilton” contest is born.

The W also shows up a bit later on in the movie as the hotel where contest winner Rosalee Futch (aka Kate Bosworth) stays while she is in L.A. The front entrance of the hotel is shown when she first checks in, as well as when she is picked up and dropped off for her dream date with Tad.

The lobby area of the hotel and the stairway leading up to the pool are also both featured in the movie.

On the new 90210, Naomi Clark, following in the footsteps of Dylan McKay from the original series, forgoes living with her parents to permanently check in to the ultra-trendy W. In the episode entitled “By Accident”, Naomi moves out of her cheating father’s house and into Room 723 of the hotel. The W has been featured on the series several times since then, most prominently in the Valentine’s Day episode entitled “Of Heartbreaks and Hotels”.

Many areas of the hotel were shown in that episode including the front entrance;

the lobby;

the hotel’s NineThirty Restaurant where Silver and Dixon share a Valentine’s Day dinner;

the hotel’s coffee bar where Naomi first meets cutie bartender Liam (in real life the coffee bar is set up daily between 6 and10am just outside of the NineThirty Restaurant, but sadly it had already been removed by the time we got there, so I didn’t get to snap a photo of it);

the hotel’s Whiskey Blue Bar where Silver and Naomi grab some tea;

and, just like in Win A Date, the hotel’s Backyard restaurant where Naomi gets stood up by Liam.

I HIGHLY recommend stalking the W! The hotel somehow manages to be ultra-trendy and ultra-modern, yet extremely welcoming at the same time. The staff truly could not have been nicer to me and answered all of my silly questions about the filming of 90210 and Win A Date. 🙂 Since we were stalking the place in the middle of the day, though, we weren’t able to grab a drink in the hotel’s Whiskey Blue Bar. But you can bet that is something I am going to do in the very near future. I also must book a room and drag my boyfriend there for the weekend sometime! Even though ultra modern hotels are usually not my thing, I really fell in love with this one. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The W Hotel is located at 930 Hilgard Avenue in the Westwood area of Los Angeles. You can visit their website here.

March 18, 2009January 30, 2011

Tad Hamilton’s House

Another day, another Tad Hamilton location! Last week while searching for the Sex and the City honeymoon house I ran across aerial views of a Malibu home that looked very familiar to me (pictured above). It didn’t take long before I realized the house was used as Tad Hamilton’s ultra-modern white mansion in fave movie Win A Date With Tad Hamilton. So, of course, I dragged my boyfriend right out to stalk it! 🙂

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When I first saw Win A Date back in 2004, I assumed Tad’s house was just a set. I knew the pool area was most likely authentic, but the interiors seemed far too stylized to be real. But it turns out that Tad’s house is actually a real home located right on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

In Win A Date, both the interior and the exterior of the real home were used quite extensively. The pool area shows up most prominently in a scene that was deleted from the actual movie, but that is featured in the DVD’s deleted scenes section. In the scene, Paris Hilton parachutes from an airplane into Tad Hamilton’s pool in an attempt to meet the movie star (pictured above).

Also featured in Win A Date is Tad’s entryway;

the front of the home;

the living room area;

and the wet bar.

I can’t even imagine living in a place like Tad’s. It’s just so modern and so . . . what’s the word I’m looking for? Oh, yeah, “blue”. In real life and in the movie the home has an odd blue tint to it, as you can see in all of the screen captures pictured above. It does look like a great place to have a party, though. 🙂 And it’s not hard to see why producers chose it as the home of the gorgeous, but somewhat shallow and morally empty movie star Tad Hamilton. You can compare the above screen captures to these real life interior photos of the house.

This same home was also featured in the 1991 movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day where it was used as the residence of computer scientist Miles Dyson and his family. It is this home that Linda Hamilton shoots up in an attempt to kill Miles towards the end of the movie. As you can see in the above screen captures, the interior of the home has been extensively remodeled since then and looks nothing like it did when Terminator 2 was filmed there over 18 years ago.

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In fact, at first glance the Win A Date house and the Terminator 2 house seem like different homes altogether. But they’re not. Although it is slightly hard to see, the above screen captures show that the stairs leading down to the living room area, the doorway leading to the kitchen, and the stairway and landing that lead to the second level are in the exact same position. The house has been given a major facelift, but structurally it’s the same as it was all those years ago in Terminator 2.

I can’t really say that I recommend stalking Tad Hamilton’s house. The above photographs show what you can see of the home from the Pacific Coast Highway – which is minimal. Aside from a white cabana-like structure, exterior pool lights, and a cement sign with the address number on it, virtually nothing is visible from the street. So Tad Hamilton and Terminator 2 fans will just have to be satisfied with cyber-stalking the home instead.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Tad Hamilton’s house is located at 30065 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

March 16, 2009April 3, 2009

The Win A Date With Tad Hamilton Motel

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I heart Josh Duhamel! Sigh! So, last week, on a whim, I decided to do some stalking of fave movie Win A Date With Tad Hamilton. A few years back I had read on IMDB that Win A Date was shot almost entirely on location in a small town called Fayetteville, West Virginia. But since I knew that at least one Win A Date scene (the diner scene) was actually filmed in Los Angeles, I decided to do a little digging to see if I could find some other Tad Hamilton filming locales in the L.A. area. So I popped in my Win A Date DVD and watched the special features to see if they uncovered any behind the scenes info. And, lo and behold, according to the DVD’s production notes it turns out that the ENTIRE movie was filmed in Southern California. Apparently, West Virginia was only used for a few brief set-up shots. That’s the last time I ever listen to IMDB! 🙂

Once I discovered that significant piece of information, I immediately began searching for the small motel Tad stays at while visiting Rosalee in the film. I don’t know why, but it has always been a dream of mine to stalk that hotel. I know, I know – it’s kind of a silly stalking dream being that the motel is small, old, and fairly dingy. But ever since I first watched Win A Date, I have vowed to someday make a special trip out to West Virginia to stalk the Bide-A-Way Motel, as it was called in the film. Well it turns out I didn’t need to go clear across the country to do so. Like Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz, my “heart’s desire was right in my own backyard.” 🙂

While watching the movie I had noticed the address number 2413 on the front of the motel. So I started googling “2413” and “Los Angeles motel” and almost immediately was directed to a small inn named La Crescenta, located in – you guessed it – La Crescenta. And literally five seconds later I was in my car on my way out to stalk the place. 🙂 La Crescenta Motel, which was formerly known as the May-Lane Motel, was built in 1946 by an Indiana native named Glen Pine. The Motel’s original name is a hybrid of Glen’s children’s names – Maynard and Alane. The tiny motel was owned and operated by the Pine family for close to fifty-six years before being sold in 2002. The current owner is currently courting plans to tear down the motel to make room for a two-story strip mall (just what L.A. needs – another strip mall!) and a 138-space parking structure. Although many La Crescenta citizens are trying to stop the demolition of the historic inn, it looks like the hotel will most likely be leveled. 🙁 Such a bummer!!

I am happy to report, though, that the La Crescenta Motel looks exactly the same in person as it appeared onscreen in Win A Date. Although, I did notice some inconsistencies while I was there. For one thing, La Crescenta’s office doesn’t have a little orange door located right next to it, as the office in Win A Date did. (Don’t ask – for some reason I remember odd little details like that. LOL) Turns out that the little orange door is actually located right next to Room number 8 at the motel (pictured above). So, apparently, the interior of Room 8 was used as the interior of the Bide-A-Way Motel’s office during filming. I could not for the life of me figure out why the producers didn’t just use the real motel office for filming. But then my boyfriend suggested that most likely the real La Crescenta Motel office didn’t look exactly how the filmmakers wanted their Bide-A-Way office to look. So, instead of remodeling the real office and having to shut it down for a week or two, they just remodeled Room 8 to make it look like the office of a small town motel. Which makes total sense! My boyfriend is becoming quite the little stalker. 🙂

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What makes the fact that producers used Room 8 as the motel office even stranger is that Room 8 is supposedly the room Tad stayed in during his time at the Bide-A-Way. LOL But the exterior of the real Room 8 did not match up to the exterior of Tad’s room in the movie. After looking around the motel it became apparent that the exterior of Room number 11 was used as Tad’s room. You can compare Tad’s room to Room 11 in the above pictures.

And one final inconsistency – yes, I have way too much time on my hands LOL – the window location and position of the door of the exterior of Room 11 don’t match up to the way Tad’s room appears onscreen. So I am guessing that filmmakers used another La Crescenta room altogether to film the interior motel room scenes for Win A Date. Or there is also the possibility that the interior of Tad’s room was filmed on a soundstage and not in a La Crescenta Motel room at all. LOL Confused yet? Cause I sure was. 🙂 Why do filmmakers do this to us? Just pick a room and stick to it! Geez! LOL What’s even more ironic, though, is that apparently people from all over the world come to stay at the La Crescenta Motel just because it’s been featured in movies. The most requested room? You guessed it – Tad’s room – number 8. LOL If those people only knew that filming didn’t actually take place there!

La Crescenta Motel, which is a favorite of location scouts, was also featured in the Season 10 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 entitled “I Will Be Your Father Figure” where it was used as the Arizona motel Kelly, Matt, and Dylan stayed at while looking for Dylan’s father, Jack McKay (pictured above). At that time it was still known as the May-Lane Motel. La Crescenta Motel has also made an appearance in Heroes, The House of Sand and Fog, The Portal, and in quite a few episodes of fave show The X-Files. I do love me some Fox Mulder! 🙂 Supposedly the motel was also featured in the 1946 Christmas Classic It’s A Wonderful Life, although I haven’t been able to confirm that. You can read a good article on the history of the motel and the filming that has taken place there on this forum.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Win A Date With Tad Hamilton motel, aka La Crescenta Motel, is located at 2413 Foothill Boulevard in La Crescenta. If you want to stalk the hotel, do it fast as it could be torn down in as little as two months. 🙁