movie filming locations – Page 4

March 12, 2013March 11, 2013

The Lobster Shack from “Easy A”

Another location from fave movie Easy A that fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, informed me of while the Grim Cheaper and I were out and about doing some stalking in the Ojai area almost two years ago was the Carrows Restaurant that masqueraded as the Lobster Shack where Woodchuck Todd (Penn Badgley) worked in the flick. So we drove right on over there shortly before heading home that afternoon. And while the Carrows chain serves up some of the best chicken strips and ranch dressing that this stalker has ever sampled, unfortunately, because it was getting late and we had a long drive home ahead of us, we did not wind up eating on the premises that particular evening.

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Even though we were not dining onsite, the staff at Carrows could NOT have been nicer and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming. The hostess informed me that the Easy A shoot had taken place not in the main section of the restaurant, but in an auxiliary room that is only used during the eatery’s busiest hours. And she was even nice enough to open up the room for us and turn on the lights so that I could snap some photographs of it. LOVE it!

The Lobster Shack popped up only once in Easy A, in the scene in which Anson (Jake Sandvig) took Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) – in a clever twist, Penderghast is an anagram for “pretend shag” – out on a less-than-stellar first date. Interestingly, according to a September 2010 Ojai Valley News Blog article, Easy A director Will Gluck, who is a long-time resident of the “Shangri-La of Southern California,” decided to film in the city he calls home “because I wanted the town to be one of my ‘characters’ in the script. Ojai was the perfect place to capture this. It’s also the most beautiful town in the world, and I tried to make it look as good as we all know it to be.”

As you can see below, Carrows Restaurant was dressed heavily with marine-themed décor and white twinkle lights for the shoot.

A lobster tank was even brought in and positioned on the front side of one of the restaurant’s real life planters for the scene.

In what turned out to be a massive stroke of good luck, while I did not have any Easy A screen captures on hand for reference, I somehow managed to pose for a picture in the exact same spot where Olive sat in the scene. Why I chose that particular booth to pose, I will never know, but something in my memory clicked when I saw it and I had a hunch it was where filming had taken place. For whatever reason, my brain holds onto the oddest filming factoids, but, hey, I’ll take it! Winking smile

Olive’s booth is the second booth in from the back side of the room and is denoted with a pink arrow in the photographs below.

The Carrows parking lot also appeared in Easy A, although I accidentally took photographs from the opposite angle of what was shown onscreen.

As you can see below, all of the Carrows signage was swapped out for Lobster Shack signage during the shoot. What I wouldn’t give to have been there to see all of that in person!

In the scene, Anson’s car was parked in the space denoted with a pink X in the aerial view pictured below.

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Carrows Restaurant, aka the Lobster Shack from Easy A, is located at 211 West Ojai Avenue in Ojai. Olive’s date scene was filmed in the restaurant’s auxiliary room, which is situated just to left (east) of the front entrance.

March 11, 2013March 8, 2013

The “Easy A” Coffee Shop

Last Friday, while reading the latest post on Emily Schuman’s fabulous Cupcakes and Cashmere blog, in which she mentioned a recent overnight trip she had taken to Ojai, I was reminded of a stalking adventure along Highway 126 that the Grim Cheaper and I had embarked upon almost two full years ago. We had originally headed up that way to stalk Georgia Rule locations in Santa Paula (which I have yet to blog about), but wound up in Ojai, aka the “Shangri-La of Southern California”, in the late afternoon hours and both absolutely fell in love with the place. While we were there, I happened to text fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, to see if he knew of anything that had been filmed in the area and, as luck would have it, he did! He texted me right back with a list of pretty much every locale featured in fave movie Easy A, one of which was the Ojai Coffee Roasting Company. Well, as you can imagine, once I read the word “coffee”, I immediately told the GC to head on over there.

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Ojai, the name of which was taken from the Chumash Indian word for “moon” and is pronounced “oh-high”, is an absolutely idyllic little community nestled about 12 miles inland from Ventura. The quaint town (it is the smallest city in Ventura County) is known for its picturesque geography, health-minded resorts and charming downtown area. Thanks to a city ordinance, chain stores are, for the most part, restricted from setting up shop (there is no Starbucks within the city limits – egad!), which makes for a unique collection of family-owned and operated specialty stores and restaurants that attract thousands upon thousands of tourists each year. And while I badly wanted to nab a room for a spontaneous little staycation while we were there, because Ojai hotel rates are pretty astronomical, the GC was having none of that.

I was able to sample a latte from the Ojai Coffee Roasting Company, though, so there’s that. Winking smile The small java shop was originally founded in 1995 by Stacey Jones and I am very happy to report that it serves up some great coffee and tea. The baristas were also incredibly nice and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming. And the place is even something of a celebrity hot-spot! Reese Witherspoon apparently gets her java on at Ojai Coffee Roasting Company wherever she is in town and her friend Renee Zellweger stopped by while visiting Ojai for Reese’s wedding to Jim Toth.

Ojai Coffee Roasting Company popped up only once in Easy A, in the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene in which Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) learns that her friend Brandon (Dan Byrd) has run off with a “big, hulking black guy.”

The baristas were even nice enough to tell me where Emma Stone stood in the scene so that I could pose for a picture there, although my positioning was a little too far forward. As you can see below, the blue and white ceramic water dispenser that was visible behind Emma in the scene was there in real life, too. Love it!

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Ojai Coffee Roasting Company from Easy A is located at 337 East Ojai Avenue in Ojai. You can visit the shop’s official website here.

March 5, 2013March 4, 2013

O’Brien’s Irish Pub & Restaurant from “The Truth About Cats & Dogs”

Last month, while spending the weekend in Santa Monica, the Grim Cheaper and I randomly grabbed dinner at Finn McCool’s Irish Pub on Main Street. Immediately upon sitting down, I asked the bartender if anything had ever been lensed on the premises – as I am apt to do whenever I find myself dining somewhere for the first time. (Shocker, I know. Winking smile ) And while he was not sure about Finn McCool’s filming history, he did inform me that a scene from the 1996 romantic comedy The Truth About Cats & Dogs had taken place at a different Emerald Isle-themed watering hole located just a few doors down – O’Brien’s Irish Pub & Restaurant. Because Los Angeles is a place where change seems to be an epidemic, I was absolutely shocked – and pleased – that an establishment that appeared in a movie shot almost two decades ago was still in existence. So I dragged the GC right on out there the following night.

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O’Brien’s Irish Pub & Restaurant was originally founded in 1995, the same year that The Truth About Cats & Dogs was filmed. Amazingly enough, though, despite its longevity, I could find little to no information about the place’s history online.

What I can say, though, is that the watering hole serves up some fabulous food. I opted for O’Brien’s Veggie Patty, with added toppings of cheddar cheese and sautéed mushrooms, and am happy to report that it was absolutely divine. The GC ordered the Slider Burgers and was also very happy with his choice. I was most excited about O’Brien’s champagne offerings, though, which were fantastic!

I loved the place’s low-lit, wood-paneled ambiance, as well.

Check out the antique books displayed on the shelf above the opening to the restaurant’s main room in the photograph below. Love it!

O’Brien’s Irish Pub was featured only once in The Truth About Cats & Dogs, in the scene in which Noelle (Uma Thurman) poses as radio host/animal expert Dr. Abby Barnes (Janeane Garofalo), who is in turn posing as Noelle’s fictional friend Donna, while the two are out on a date with Brian (Ben Chaplin).

It is while at O’Brien’s that Abby spills salsa all over the front of her shirt causing her to say, “Of course! Of course I would do that!” Amen, Abby! That is SO something I would do, as well.

The Truth About Cats & Dogs was filmed in O’Brien’s bar area, which is located towards the back of the restaurant.

The exterior patio area also appeared briefly in the flick.

In a rare twist, the restaurant’s real life name and location were used in the filming. Not only did Brian tell Noelle to meet him at the bar “on the corner of Main and Pier” – O’Brien’s actual location – for their date, but a sign reading “O’Brien’s Irish Pub & Restaurant” was visible on the door in the background of the scene. So incredibly cool!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: O’Brien’s Irish Pub & Restaurant, from The Truth About Cats & Dogs, is located at 2941 Main Street in Santa Monica. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

February 27, 2013February 27, 2013

Bahooka Family Restaurant from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”

This past Sunday morning, my mom emailed me a link to a Los Angeles Magazine article about the upcoming closure of a veritable San Gabriel Valley institution, Bahooka Family Restaurant in Rosemead, with the admonishment, “You’d better take pictures! It HAS to have been in movies.” And she was right. Bahooka has starred in no less than three films over its 37-year history, most notably in a scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas that featured Johnny Depp. I was absolutely shocked to learn that the iconic restaurant would soon be shuttered. While I had never dined there, I worked as a substitute teacher in Rosemead for over eight years and would drive by the oddly-decorated eatery almost every single day. I also used to hear quite colorful stories about the place from fellow teachers who had grown up in the area. So when I found out that Bahooka’s days were numbered, I was a bit heartbroken and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there that very afternoon with the hopes of grabbing some Polynesian-style lunch. Sadly though, we were not able to do so as there was a two-plus-hour wait for a table and the GC was having none of that. I was at least able to snap some photographs of the place for posterity’s sake, though.

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The first Bahooka Family Restaurant, or Bahooka Ribs & Grog as it is also known, was founded by siblings Betty Twigg and Jack Fliegel in 1967 in a building located at 1312 West Francisquito Avenue in West Covina. The tiny eatery featured a scant 13 tables. The second, and much larger, Bahooka location opened in 1976 at 4501 Rosemead Boulevard. And while the West Covina outpost closed its doors in 1980 (allegedly due to a property dispute), the Rosemead outpost, which boasts seating for 350 patrons and a banquet room that serves 80, had been going strong ever since with a loyal following of neighborhood regulars.

When Twigg and Fliegel decided to retire years ago, they handed Bahooka, which supposedly means “shack”, over to their respective children, Steve and Stacey. Now Steve and Stacey are looking to hang up their aprons, as well, but unfortunately, according to this LA Weekly article, have no children to pass the restaurant along to. So on the market it went – with a $3.3 million price tag. The 8,598-square-foot establishment sold in just one day. The new proprietor apparently purchased the Bahooka building, its hundreds upon hundreds of fish (which I’ll get to in a minute) and the site’s liquor license. The Bahooka name, though, was not for sale, as the Twiggs and Fliegels (as well as co-owner Suzanne Schneider) plan on continuing to sell their signature salad dressing, which comes from a 47-year-old family recipe, at grocery stores, including Ralphs and Costco.

Bahooka’s decidedly unique tiki- and nautical-themed décor was collected from various antique shops and scrap yards over the years, creating what countless websites and reviewers have described as a “flotsam and jetsam” dining experience.

Just a few of the whimsical touches include an actual set of antique post office boxes in the restaurant’s entrance area . . .

. . . and a cannon in the parking lot.

The tables, most of which were empty while we were there (which does not coincide with the supposed two-hour wait time), are fashioned with nautical – and Christmas! – adornments.

A few tables are even situated inside of an old jail cell.

The eatery’s most notable décor, though, has to be the 105 (yes, 105!) built-in aquariums which house countless fish, with varieties including pacus, silver dollars, catfish, Jack Dempseys, Oscars, clown knives, and koi. Almost every booth in the place is flanked by at least two aquariums.

The bar, which inexplicably does not have any bar stools, was even fashioned out of a fish tank.

Thanks to the site’s truly unique look, it is not hard to see how it ended up onscreen numerous times over the years. In 1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Bahooka masqueraded as a Hollywood-area restaurant where Dr Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) stopped to use a pay phone, while his friend Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) ordered drinks at the bar.

The restaurant’s legendary 34-pound, 36-year-old pacu fish, Rufus, was even featured in the movie.

Rufus is absolutely HUGE in real life. The photograph below does not even begin to do him justice.

On a Rufus side-note – in a typo worthy of fellow stalker Owen’s When Write Is Wrong blog, the poor fish’s name is misspelled on the sign displayed below his tank.

Rufus’ “twins”, who are both also huge, are pictured below.

In 2007’s The Number 23, Bahooka was the site of the Christmas party where Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) was hit on by his co-worker Sybil (Michelle Arthur).

In the 2010 comedy Barry Munday, Bahooka was where Barry Munday (Patrick Wilson) met Ginger Farley (Judy Greer).

And while IMDB states that the 1993 movie Kalifornia also did some filming at Bahooka, I scanned through the flick yesterday and did not see the restaurant pop up anywhere.

Besides being a filming location, Bahooka is also something of a celebrity magnet. Such stars as Topher Grace, Valente Rodriguez, Oscar De La Hoya, Kirstie Alley, and David Hasselhoff have all been spotted dining there over the years.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Bahooka Family Restaurant, from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, is located at 4501 Rosemead Boulevard in Rosemead. You can visit Bahooka’s official website here. The restaurant will only be open until Sunday, March 10th, after which time its doors will be closed for good.

February 21, 2013February 20, 2013

San Francisco Saloon from “The Ugly Truth”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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

February 8, 2013February 7, 2013

Alfred Hitchcock’s House from “Hitchcock”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Hitchcocks’ bedroom;

bathroom;

and kitchen were all sets constructed on a studio soundstage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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

January 29, 2013January 29, 2013

Lester Siegel’s House from “Argo”

Today’s post is the very first blog written from my new home in the desert. The Grim Cheaper and I moved last Wednesday (it took over 15 hours!) and are finally getting settled in to our Palm Springs pad. There is still quite a bit left to complete, though, and, while the hyper-organized/anal/OCD-side of me has a hard time doing anything while there are still boxes to be unpacked and rooms to be organized, I decided to do a little blogging today, regardless. My posts over the next couple of weeks will most likely be intermittent, though, while we continue to settle in. And now, on with the post! Another filming location from fave movie Argo that I found thanks to the fabulous Los Angeles Times article forwarded to me by Mike, from MovieShotsLA, was the home where Hollywood producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) lived. And I just have to say here how desperate I am to stalk LA/Ontario International Airport, which masqueraded as the Tehran airport in Argo. I have a flight scheduled out of there in early March and, let me tell you, I canNOT wait! But I digress. Anyway, I dragged the GC right on out to stalk Lester Siegel’s mansion a few weekends ago, shortly before our big move.

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

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

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

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

the formal living room;

the bar;

and the backyard and pool.

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

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

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

January 17, 2013January 17, 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That brick wall is pictured below.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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

January 3, 2013January 4, 2013

Redwood Bar & Grill from “Bridesmaids”

Once the rain finally stopped falling this past Saturday morning, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to downtown Los Angeles to stalk a Bridesmaids location that has been at the very top of my To-Stalk list for months now – Redwood Bar & Grill, where Officer Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd) and Annie Walker (Kristen Wiig) went on a spontaneous date towards the end of the movie. I found this locale thanks to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, who has a page dedicated to a few of the spots featured in the 2011 flick.

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Before arriving at Redwood Bar & Grill, I knew virtually nothing about the place, other than the fact that it had been used in Bridesmaids. And because so little of it was shown in the movie, I had no idea what to expect of the interior. Boy, was I in for a surprise!

While fairly non-descript on the outside, the interior of Redwood Bar & Grill is all dim lighting, dark wood paneling and themed nautical décor. Dining there feels like dining in the middle of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, only better. Unfortunately, because the lighting was so low, though, the vast majority of my pictures did not come out. Ugh! Mike, from MovieShotsLA, has promised that he will teach me how to use the aperture settings on my camera in the near future, but in the meantime, you can check out some cool photos of the bar here. (Now why couldn’t my pics have come out that clear?)

Redwood Bar & Grill actually saw its origins as a 1930s-era hamburger stand where Philadelphia native Samuel “Eddie” Spivak sold 10-cent burgers out of a small storefront located at 234 West 1st Street, just downstairs from the Los Angeles Times newsroom. In 1942, Eddie expanded his eatery, as well as its menu, added a bar, and renamed the place the “Redwood House”. Due to its proximity to the newspaper offices, the restaurant became extremely popular with the journalist set, who dubbed the site the “Red Dog”. According to the obituary of Alice Broude, who worked at the Redwood House for more than 50 years, a certain unnamed reporter would place his daily order by stomping his feet three times loudly on the floor. Ha! You can see a photograph of the original Redwood House here and a picture of its former menu here. When the Times Mirror Co., owner of the L.A. Times, decided to expand into the Redwood space in January 1970, Spivak moved his restaurant one block south, where it remains to this day. Despite the move, the watering hole remained popular with Times journalists. So much so that for years the bar was equipped with a special red phone that was connected directly to the paper’s main news desk, just in case any last minute tips came in. It was not only journalists who were drawn to the site, though. Over the years, the Redwood House was frequented by the likes of actors Burt Reynolds and Jack Warden, former presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, and such notorious gangsters as Frankie Carbo (who, according to Broude, refused to eat meat on Fridays) and Mickey Cohen (who, also according to Broude, was a fabulous tipper).

At some point in time, the establishment’s name was changed to the Redwood 2nd Street Saloon and it was taken over by new owners In and Ho Park. Sadly, in June 2005, due to dwindling business and failed lease negotiations, Ho and In closed the eatery, which most regulars had described as a real life Cheers (where everybody knows your name). Thankfully though, restaurateurs Christian Frizell and Dev Dugal stepped in, signed a new lease, renovated the interior, and, in September 2005, re-opened the site as a pirate-themed watering hole named the Redwood Bar & Grill. The décor is now decidedly unique and swashbuckler-esque. I absolutely fell in love with the skeleton candelabra pictured below. I so need to find one for myself to add to my Halloween decorations!

Besides spicing up the décor, Frizell and Dugal also revamped the Redwood menu, and, let me tell you, the food is to-die-for! I opted for the Redwood’s Veggie Burger, made on the premises out of mushrooms, vegetables, and quinoa, and not only was it divine, but absolutely HUGE! The GC ordered a cup of the restaurant’s New England Clam Chowder, which was also fabulous, especially considering the chill in the air that day. I honestly cannot more highly recommend stalking Redwood Bar & Grill! It is a shame that we only just discovered the place as I have a feeling that, were we not moving to Palm Springs in three weeks, it would have quickly become a favorite.

In Bridesmaids, Redwood Bar & Grill is where Rhodes and Annie grabbed a drink after her ill-fated flight to Las Vegas. It is there that Rhodes uttered the super-cute line, “There’s something about you – something about you that sticks.” As you can see below, the place looked quite a bit different onscreen.

Because Bridesmaids was set in Milwaukee, the exterior of an actual Milwaukee-area watering hole – Norman One Step (which is now closed), located at 3218 West Cameron Street – was used for the establishing shot of the bar in the movie.

Redwood Bar & Grill also popped up in the 2009 flick (500) Days of Summer, as The Mill – aka the spot where Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and their greeting-card-writing co-workers karaoked on Day (28).

The stage where Summer and the rest of the gang performed is actually there in real life, too, although the Redwood does not actually host karaoke nights.

And the skeleton candelabra that I fell in love with was even pictured briefly in the flick. Love it!

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Redwood Bar & Grill from Bridesmaids is located at 316 West 2nd Street in downtown Los Angeles. The eatery is open daily from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. You can visit the Redwood’s official website here.

January 2, 2013December 31, 2012

Paula’s House from “Four Christmases”

While I realize that the holidays are now over and that I should be posting about a non-Yule-related locale, today’s house is one that I have been searching for for over a year and finally found on the morning of December 25th – yes, it was a Christmas miracle Winking smile – and I am FAR too excited to wait a full year to blog about it. So please excuse my belatedness. And now, on with the post! Ever since first seeing the movie Four Christmases back in 2008, I have wanted to stalk the supposed Marin-area residence where Brad’s (Vince Vaughn’s) mom, Paula (Sissy Spacek), lived. Thankfully, the flick’s production notes stated that the exterior of the “Zen-styled living space” was actually a private home in Topanga Canyon, so I knew where to begin my search. Try as I might, though, I could not seem to find the darn place. Then, on Christmas morning, while my mom was at work (I know, boo!), my dad was napping and the Grim Cheaper was preparing our turkey dinner, I decided to get some cyber-stalking in and did a quick Google search for Topanga Canyon cottages with stone fireplaces. Lo and behold, one of the first results to come back was a real estate listing for an adorable little bungalow that I immediately recognized as Paula’s! Yay! And while the residence did not appear to be visible from the road, I could hardly wait to stalk the place and dragged the GC right on over there just a few days after we returned home.

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Well, let me tell you, when we pulled up to the property and saw that it was actually visible from the street, I was so excited that I just about started doing cartwheels! Yahoo! As you can see below, the cottage is absolutely idyllic in person. It literally looks like something ripped right out of a fairy tale!

In real life, the residence boasts two bedrooms, two baths, 1,632 square feet of living space, a 236-square-foot detached studio, a sprawling one-acre lot, a fireplace constructed out of River Rock, a sauna, an eat-in kitchen, an outdoor patio, a wrap-around deck, a footbridge built over Garaptas Creek (which runs through the property), several meandering pathways, and numerous park-like areas consisting of willow, oak, sycamore and pine trees. The place is absolutely stunning!

Paula’s bungalow actually shows up only once in Four Christmases, and very briefly at that, in the scene in which Brad and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) arrive at their third holiday destination – which was my personal favorite. The Taboo game segment (which you can watch by clicking below) was absolutely hilarious – “I don’t have an attitude. I’ve shut down. She buzzes me, I’m trying to explain to you how to the play the game, you obviously don’t understand the best ways to play the game, and I’m shutting down.” Love it! But I digress.

In an AMAZING twist, Four Christmases production designer Shepherd Frankel contacted me after reading my post on Brad and Kate’s house from the movie. (And yes, I just about died when I received his email in which he said that he loved reading my blog and seeing my detective work unfold!!!!) Shepherd was nice enough to answer all of the questions posed in my various Four Christmases posts (which I will get to in a bit) and also had this to say when I asked if Paula’s home was indeed a real location: “Yes, we shot at a house in Topanga, but . . . I added all kinds of things to make it bigger. I created sun rooms by enclosing decks. Added skylights built up to help the house appear bigger. Created an entrance. Did all of the set-ups and ‘places’ in the yard.” As you can see below, the real life residence does look quite a bit different – and much smaller – than its onscreen counterpart, although it is (thankfully) still very recognizable from the film.

Amazingly enough, the stained-glass interior of Paula’s cottage was just a set that was built inside of a soundstage at Ren-Mar Studios (now Red Studios Hollywood, which I blogged about here). The set was so incredibly realistic, though, that, before reading through the movie’s production notes, I was absolutely convinced that the actual interior had been used, which speaks to Shepherd’s artistry. As you can see in these real estate photographs as compared to the screen captures below, the actual interior of the residence is much smaller than its onscreen counterpart, and much simpler in design. You can check out some fabulous photographs of Shepherd’s set on his website here.

As I mentioned above, Shepherd was nice enough to answer a couple of questions posed in my other Four Christmases posts. First, he informed me that the backyard of Marilyn’s (Mary Steenburgen’s) house was not a mixture of the actual backyard and a set, as I had surmised. According to Shepherd, “ It was all done onstage where I replicated a version of the rear elevation of the location, but modified it to suit our needs.” He also told me that the view behind Marilyn’s fence was a “plate shot” of the home’s actual neighborhood.

Shepherd also explained that the deleted scene in which Brad and Kate called their respective parents to tell them that they would not be coming home for Christmas was not supposed to have taken place at the couple’s residence, as I had guessed, but in an upstairs coffee break room at the dance studio. So the differing interiors now make sense.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Paula’s house from Four Christmases is located at 1290 Oakwood Drive in Topanga Canyon.