Santa Monica – IAMNOTASTALKER

April 29, 2020April 28, 2020

The Galley from “The Laundromat”

Instagram has been life-changing, as far as ease of taking photographs goes. Before restaurant and shop owners recognized the influencing and advertising power of the social media platform, I was regularly blocked from snapping pictures of places I stalked. Now image capturing is encouraged and it has been nothing short of fabulous for my blog! One locale that never gave me grief over photos is The Galley, Santa Monica’s oldest restaurant. With some of the friendliest servers around and the best food in town, the eatery is one of my favorites in all of L.A. The Galley was actually one of the first places the Grim Cheaper took me for dinner very early on in our relationship and when he lived in Santa Monica, we would drop by almost every Friday night for its stellar happy hour. While I officially stalked it back in March 2013 (hence my dated haircut above) and listed it in My Guide to L.A. – Restaurants in 2015, I failed to dedicate a post to the site because, as far as I knew, nothing had been filmed on the premises. So I was ecstatic when I spotted it while scanning through the 2019 Netflix film The Laundromat earlier this year!

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Established by Ralph Stephan way back in 1934, The Galley was originally located on the Santa Monica Pier. It moved to its current home at 2442 Main Street in 1946.

Dimly lit, warm, and inviting, the watering hole was a hit with the Hollywood set from the get-go. Just a few of the famous names who regularly stopped by include Errol Flynn, Carole Lombard, Edward G. Robinson, Tyrone Power, Ann Sheridan, Joe DiMaggio, and my girl Marilyn Monroe. The latter two supposedly got into quite the argument at the bar one evening which had Joltin’ Joe storming out of the restaurant in anger.

The Galley’s interior is nautical in theme and definitely does not subscribe to the “less is more” mentality. Nearly every square inch of the place is decked out in netting, shells, portholes, and other sea-faring accoutrements, most of which are actual set pieces from the 1935 film Mutiny on the Bounty. Legend has it, the props were given to Stephan by the flick’s stars Clark Gable and Charles Laughton, both of whom were Galley regulars.

Most notable is the Bounty’s large wooden wheel, which hangs from the restaurant’s ceiling.

When Stephan retired in 1989, he sold the beloved eatery to Ron Schur, a longtime patron. As the story goes, Schur was a huge fan of The Galley’s signature salad dressing, a take on Thousand Island. One evening, he asked his regular waitress Millie for the recipe. She refused to tell him, which only served to make him more determined to obtain it. He returned night after night with the same inquiry until Millie finally bellowed, “If you wanna know so badly, why don’t you buy the f*cking place?” Well, Ron eventually did just that, taking over operations in January 1989. The restaurant – and the salad dressing – has been going strong ever since.

The eatery had fallen into a bit of disrepair prior to Schur taking over, so he immediately began restoring it, set-piece by set-piece. Thankfully, he made few changes, telling The News-Pilot in 1990, “Remodeling is the dirtiest word in the English language.” A man after my own heart! Along with expanding the space, doubling its capacity from 60 to 120, Ron also began serving lunch and added a back patio, now a favorite spot of patrons. Otherwise, though, The Galley remained pretty much as it was when it originally opened decades prior.

Schur, who goes by the name “Captain Ron,” also strung a plethora of multi-colored twinkle lights from the ceiling, creating what the Santa Monica Mirror described as an “ambiance of permanent Christmas.” As Ron informed the paper, he made the addition because Christmas creates “a feeling of good will toward all.” Though the lights definitely foster a feeling of warmth, they also wreaked havoc on many of my photos, as evidenced below.

Famous for its four-pound buckets of steamed clams, all of The Galley’s fare is stellar, though I have to say that I am partial to the chicken tacos, available in the bar. The restaurant’s happy hour, offered daily, is easily the best in Santa Monica with one of the most extensive menus I’ve ever come across. From the crab cakes to the fried calamari to the hot dog, you honestly can’t go wrong no matter what you order!

The eatery pops up several times in The Laundromat as the supposed Lake George, New York restaurant owned by Matthew Quirk (David Schwimmer) and Captain Paris (Robert Patrick). One look at the myriad of multi-colored Christmas lights and bamboo booths and I knew immediately filming had taken place at The Galley.

Considering its longevity and whimsical décor, I’m shocked that the restaurant has not appeared in more productions, but I have not been able to dig up any additional cameos.

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: The Galley, from The Laundromat, is located at 2442 Main Street in Santa Monica’s Ocean Park neighborhood. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

September 9, 2019September 8, 2019

The Georgian Hotel from “BH90210”

While I was initially on the fence as to my feelings regarding BH90210, I have to say the meta-revival has really grown on me. Though I did not particularly love the pilot, by episode 4, I was absolutely enthralled and am so saddened that Season 1 will be coming to a close this week. And it’s not just the nostalgia factor that is hooking me. The show is really well done and really funny. Can I hear it for a Season 2, please?!? One thing about the production that I cannot get behind is the fact that none of it is shot in L.A. In a perplexingly move, Fox chose to shoot the reboot of one of the most famous series about Los Angeles in Vancouver of all places! Sacrilege, I know! BH90210 doesn’t even really make use of SoCal establishing shots. So I was thrilled to finally see a local spot, Santa Monica’s The Georgian Hotel, pop up as the exterior of the private club Jason Priestley belongs to in episode 4. I actually stalked the locale years ago, but never blogged about it. Figuring now was the perfect time to do so, I scanned through my extensive photo library to look for my pics of it, but couldn’t find them anywhere. So I called upon my friend Brian, of the Celebrity Net Worth website, who lives in L.A., to stalk the property on my behalf the next time he was in the area. Incredibly, he obliged the following day! Thank you, Brian!

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The Art Deco masterpiece that is The Georgian Hotel was commissioned by judge Harry J. Borde, owner of the neighboring Hotel Windermere which was originally established by his mother, Rosamund, on Ocean Avenue in 1909. (That site has long since been demolished.) As Santa Monica grew in popularity with vacationers, Borde decided to build a second, adjacent lodging, figuring it would also be profitable. Ground broke on his new project in 1931. Designed by architect Eugene Durfee at a cost of $500,000, the striking Georgian opened to the public in 1933.

At its inception, the 8-story hotel, commonly referred to as “The Lady,” boasted such modern amenities as a beauty parlor, a formal dining room, a barber shop, and, per a 1933 newspaper ad, “electrically-equipped kitchens.” Rates started at $40 a night. Oh, how times have changed! Today, rooms at The Georgian run about $300 on the low end.

The Georgian became a celebrity haven from the outset. Not only did the beach provide more temperate climates than other areas of L.A., but hidden in the hotel’s basement was a speakeasy. Some of the stars who frequented the place during its early days, whether to illegally imbibe or just relax, include Charlie Chaplin, Carole Lombard, Clark Gable, Bugsy Siegel, Al Capone, and Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle.

The lodging has gone through several renovations and transformations throughout its 86-year existence. It even served as an upscale apartment building in the ‘60s, housing the likes of Rose Kennedy, who summered onsite.

Today, the property offers 84 rooms (28 of which are suites), turn-down service, complimentary Wi-Fi (a rarity in L.A.), 24-hour room service (yes, please!), a gym, views of Palisades Park and the Pacific Ocean, the alfresco Veranda Restaurant, a business center, and event space. What happened to the basement speakeasy, you ask? Per the hotel’s website, it is being re-opened as Nineteen33 Underground Kitchen & Bar in the very near future.

Thanks to its exclusivity, The Georgian remains a celebrity enclave today, with such luminaries as Matthew Perry, Al Pacino, Tim Robbins, Matt LeBlanc, Robert Downey Jr., Ron Yerxa, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Claire Danes, Nicolas Cage, Oliver Stone, Robert De Niro, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Charlie Webber all known to stop by.

On BH90210, The Georgian masks as the private club Jason Priestley belongs to (and is a founding member of), where the cast regularly hangs out. It’s kind of like the modern-day Peach Pit. Oddly, while the club has appeared in every episode from “The Pitch” on, typically only the interior is shown. The Georgian did not pop up until episode 4, “The Table Read.” The two establishing shots featured are below. The very same images were also used in episode 5, “Picture’s Up.”

Only the exterior of The Georgian is utilized on BH90210. The Interior of Jason’s club is nothing more than a set created at North Shore Studios in Vancouver, where the series is lensed.

Said set actually reminds me a lot of the Beverly Hills Beach Club set from the CW’s 2008 90210 reboot, which you can see images of here.

BH90210 is not the only production to feature The Georgian. Det. Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) and Det. Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson (David Soul) chase down a hit man there in the Season 4 episode of Starsky & Hutch titled “Ninety Pounds of Trouble,” which aired in 1979. As you can see, the hotel looked very different – and much less colorful – then.

The following year, it popped up in an establishing shot of the Los Angeles hotel where con man Harley Dexter (Vincent Baggetta) stayed in the Season 4 episode of Charlie’s Angels titled “Three for the Money.”

Chili Palmer (John Travolta) heads to The Georgian to track down Ray ‘Bones’ Barboni (Dennis Farina) and retrieve his stolen “black leather jacket, fingertip length, like the one Pacino wore in Serpico” in Get Shorty.

In the 1995 classic, The Georgian is said to be located in Miami. It is not very hard to see how it got pegged for the role, being that it does have a very Florida look and feel to it.

Lucia DeLury (Lisa Kudrow) and Bill Truitt (Martin Donovan) also check in to The Georgian while visiting Los Angeles in the 1997 comedy The Opposite of Sex.

Big THANK YOU to my friend Brian, from Celebrity Net Worth, for stalking this location for me and taking all of the photos that appear in this post. Smile

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: The Georgian Hotel, aka Jason Priestley’s private club on BH90210, is located at 1415 Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. You can visit the property’s official website here.

October 27, 2017October 26, 2017

John Adams Middle School from “Heathers”

The Grim Cheaper is a celebrity magnet. Literally everywhere he goes, he runs into someone famous. It’s maddening because 90% of these encounters occur when I am not with him. Like the time he stopped by a Starbucks while on his way to a business meeting and saw Keanu Reeves sitting outside. Or the night he ate dinner at a table next to Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart and then watched as the two flew off on their private plane from the airport situated adjacent to the restaurant. And I won’t even get into that day he popped into a Circuit City (remember those?) to find Britney Spears perusing the CD aisle. The encounter that was easily the most painful for me, though, was the time he spotted Christian Slater in a grocery store. That one killed this ‘80s lover’s heart. I was so bummed that as soon as he texted me about it, I hopped in my car and drove to the market to see if I could spot the actor. Sadly, he was long gone by the time I got there. That was years ago, but to this day, every time I am in that particular store, I can’t help but scan every square inch of the place for a possible Christian sighting. Oddly, while I have always loved Slater, I never liked what is arguably his most popular movie, Heathers. I did stalk one of its main locations, John Adams Middle School, a couple of years back, though, and figured what better time to blog about it than during my annual Haunted Hollywood postings.

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And no, I did not have a brain tumor for breakfast. I am fully aware that Heathers does not exactly fit into the scary movie genre. But as Horror Freak News stated in a 2015 article, “Heathers isn’t a horror movie (or even a horror comedy) but the irreverent film (released in 1988) has a body count to rival most teen-slashers. And besides, for Horror Freaks who came of age during the 1980s, Heathers was essential viewing!” Anyone who doesn’t feel the flick fits in with my Haunted Hollywood theme can go do you-know-what with a chain saw. Winking smile

The movie’s fictional Westerburg High School (named for Paul Westerberg, the lead singer of The Replacements, Winona Ryder’s favorite band at the time of the filming), supposedly located in Sherwood, Ohio, is actually an amalgamation of a few different L.A.-area places. Interior scenes, as well as a few exteriors, were shot at what was then Osaka Sangyo University Education Center (OSULA), but is currently Bridges Academy, at 3921 Lauren Canyon Boulevard in Studio City. You can check out some photos of the inside of Bridges here. As you can see, it looks much the same today as it did when Heathers was shot almost 30 years ago. The lockers are even still green!

The most recognizable spot used to portray Westerburg, though, is easily John Adams Middle School, at 2425 16th Street in Santa Monica, which appeared in the vast majority of Heathers’ exterior school scenes. John Adams’ rear parking lot, situated off of 17th Street in the northeast portion of the campus, popped up countless times throughout the movie.

But it is the site’s auditorium that should be most memorable to fans.

In Heathers, John Adams’ auditorium, which is located in the north portion of the campus along Pearl Street, masked as the exterior of Westerburg’s gym.

The structure was featured several times in the flick. It was in front of the auditorium that, in the immortal words of Heather Duke (my girl Shannen Doherty), Martha ‘Dumptruck’ Dunnstock (Carrie Lynn) “tried to buy the farm” by belly-flopping “in front of a car wearing a suicide note.” Spoiler alert – Martha lives through the event in what Heather so eloquently describes as “just another case of a geek trying to imitate the popular people and failing miserably.” (Heathers is nothing if not a wellspring of great one-liners!)

Most notably, the auditorium was the site of Heathers’ infamously explosive climax in which Veronica (Ryder) thwarts J.D.’s (Slater) nefarious plan to “infect a generation” by blowing up a gym full of students during a pep rally. Instead, J.D. winds up detonating the bomb on himself at the bottom of John Adam’s auditorium steps, while Veronica lights a cigarette using the ensuing flames. Man, the movie is dark! I had forgotten how much so until my latest re-watch, which had me shuddering. Heathers is not just dark, it’s pitch black!

Only the exterior of John Adams’ auditorium was used in Heathers (you can check out what the inside of the building looks like here) and, unfortunately, I am unsure of where interior gym scenes were shot. While the campus does boast a large gymnasium where I thought filming might possibly have occurred, as you can see in these photographs as compared to the screen captures below, it does not match the space that appeared in the movie. Filming did not take place at Bridges’ gym, which you can see pictures of here and here, either. And while several internet sources claim that the gym scenes were shot at Verdugo Hills High School, as you can see in this YouTube video, that does not appear to be the case.

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: John Adams Middle School, aka Westerburg High School from Heathers, is located at 2425 16th Street in Santa Monica. The parking lot from the movie is situated off of 17th Street in the northeast portion of the campus and the auditorium can be found off Pearl Street in the northern section.

February 3, 2016February 2, 2016

The “Say Anything . . . ” Amphitheatre

Sorry to have been MIA the past couple of days. The Grim Cheaper surprised me on Sunday morning with a two-night trip to Big Bear to play in the snow. We had an absolute blast scurrying around in the frost and even managed to get some stalking in! I will be blogging about those locations soon, but in the meantime, on with today’s post! My recent Say Anything . . . kick is showing no signs of waning. As of late, I have been working with an awesome guy named Greg, who runs The Uncool, Cameron Crowe’s official website, to try to track down some of the 1989 movie’s unknown locales. He has proved invaluable and recently figured out that the graduation scene was lensed at Santa Monica College’s amphitheatre. I had been on the hunt for that darn amphitheatre for what seemed like eons! It was one location (of many) that constantly lingered at the back of my mind, always begging me to find it. I cannot tell you how many Google searches I did for “amphitheatre” and “Los Angeles.” I even thought I had found the right spot a few years back when I happened to walk by Blair High School in Pasadena and spotted its large outdoor theatre. Upon arriving home later that day and comparing photos I snapped to screen caps from Say Anything . . . , I realized it was not the right place. So when Greg informed me that he had found it, I was ecstatic! That happiness didn’t last long, though.

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Late last year, I recruited fellow stalker Michael, of The Golden Spoon Café and Downtown Christmas Shopping District from The Brady Bunch fame, to assist in the search for missing Say Anything . . . locations, so when I received the fabulous news from Greg regarding the amphitheatre, I immediately let Michael know. He quickly shot me an email back, though, that quelled my excitement. While doing some preliminary research on the amphitheatre, Michael discovered that the venue had been torn down. More heartbreaking still was the fact that it was only just razed in 2009! Had I only found it a few years earlier, I could have seen it in person. Despite my dismay over the demolition, I decided it was still a blog-worthy locale and recently set out to stalk where it once stood.

Thanks to a 2007 aerial view of Santa Monica College provided by Michael, I knew that the amphitheatre was formerly situated in the northeast section of the campus . . .

. . . just beyond the wall pictured below.

That area is currently a construction zone (hence the wall surrounding it), but will eventually be the site of a new student services building.

Michael also tracked down the photograph of the amphitheatre that appears below (he seriously did all of my legwork for me – thank you, Michael!), which was featured in a study of the college’s renovation performed by Christopher A. Joseph & Associates.

In Say Anything . . . , the Santa Monica College amphitheatre masked as the outdoor theatre where the supposed Seattle-area Lakewood High School graduation ceremony took place. As you can see, the venue that appeared in the scene is a direct match to the amphitheatre pictured in the image above. Oh, how I wish I had gotten to see it in person!

The amphitheatre was only featured briefly in the graduation scene and was the site of Diane Court’s (Ione Skye) famous “I’ve glimpsed our future and all I can say is ‘Go back!’” valedictorian speech.

The scene that takes place immediately following the graduation ceremony was filmed elsewhere, at a park-like location that I am as yet unsure of.

Santa Monica College was originally established in 1929 and at the time was known as Santa Monica Junior College. It was renamed Santa Monica City College in 1945 and then, in 1970, it underwent yet another name change when “City” was dropped from its title. Today, it is known simply as Santa Monica College.

The campus’ 1,500-seat amphitheatre, which was funded by the Associated Students, was built in 1967.

Besides its appearance in Say Anything . . ., the school has another show biz connection – it boasts many famous alumni, including Dustin Hoffman, James Dean, Hilary Swank, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nia Long, Laila Ali, Penn Badgley, Cam Gigandet, David Geffen, Alison Lohman, Sean Penn, Ryan Seacrest, Gloria Stuart, Buzz Aldrin, and Kristine Sutherland.

Santa Monica College is quite beautiful and, while I figured that it had to have been featured in other productions over the years, try as I might I could not find any information verifying that.

Big THANK YOU to Greg, of The Uncool website, for finding this location and to fellow stalker Michael for his instrumental help in researching it!

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: Santa Monica College is located at 1900 Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica. The amphitheatre that appeared in Say Anything . . . was formerly located in the northeast corner of the campus, just north of the Art Complex and northeast of the Theatre Arts building, in the area denoted with a pink arrow below.

October 13, 2015September 29, 2017

Mary Miles Minter’s Former Mansions

The death of William Desmond Taylor remains one of Hollywood’s most notorious unsolved mysteries, over 90 years after its occurrence. On the evening of February 1st, 1922, the 50-year-old director was shot and killed in his Westlake apartment complex. Though there were suspects aplenty, no one was ever indicted in the murder and the case was officially closed without resolution (for the second time) on February 23rd, 1938, never to be re-opened. Common belief, though, has long since held that the guilty party was Charlotte Shelby, the mother of 19-year-old starlet Mary Miles Minter, with whom Desmond was said to be having an illicit May-December affair. I became fascinated with the case after reading Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood and stalked the site of Taylor’s former bungalow as part of my 2014 Haunted Hollywood postings. So this year I thought it only fitting to venture out to visit two mansions that once belonged to Mary and Charlotte, the addresses of which I found thanks to my buddy E.J. Fleming’s new book, Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites: Seventeen Driving Tours with Directions and the Full Story.

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The life of Mary Miles Minter was a strange one. The actress was born Juliet Reilly on April 25th, 1902 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Her mother, then known as Lilla Pearl Reilly, soon tired of what she deemed a lowly existence in the Bayou and moved Juliet and her sister, as well as her widowed mother, Julia Miles, to New York, hoping to catch a taste of the good life. Lilla changed her name to Mrs. Charlotte Shelby and quickly became the stage mom to end all stage moms, pushing her daughters into the limelight. Charlotte was the OG momager. Before there was a Dina Lohan, before there was a Kris Kardashian, there was a Charlotte Shelby. It wasn’t long before Juliet caught the eye of theatre producer Charles Frohman, who hired the nine-year-old to act in rather sexy stage productions. When Juliet’s age was questioned by child labor advocates, Shelby’s response was to acquire the birth certificate of a 16-year-old dead relative named Mary Minter and pass it along as her daughter’s. The scheme worked and from that point on the youngster was known as Mary Miles Minter. Shortly thereafter, Charlotte relocated the family to Los Angeles and Mary quickly secured a $1.3-million contract with film magnate Adolph Zukor, going on to act in 54 silent films.

After finding success, Charlotte, using Mary’s money, leased the family a mansion in Hancock Park that had once belonged to silent screen star Mary Pickford. Today, the estate, which still stands at 56 Fremont Place, is a popular filming location, appearing in everything from Taken (screen capture below) to CSI: Miami to Beverly Hills, 90210. During the time the family was living there, Mary landed a role in the 1919 movie Anne of Green Gables. William Desmond Taylor, who was then 47, was the director. For 17-year-old Minter, it was love at first sight. Though rumors of an affair between the two are still persistent to this day, Tinseltown author William J. Mann asserts that Taylor kept her at arms length. Either way, Mary was smitten and wanted nothing more than to marry Desmond, retire from the film industry and have his children. Charlotte would have none of it, though. Mary was her meal ticket and she did not want the gravy train to end.

In late 1920, when the lease on the Hancock Park mansion was up, the family headed to the East Coast for a brief vacation. Upon returning, Charlotte, using Mary’s money once again, purchased a 20,000-square-foot, 3-story, 40-room mansion that they named Casa de Margarita (or Casa de Marguerite, depending on which website you are reading). They lived at the property for a short time before beginning a renovation project in the fall of 1921, at which point they relocated to a house at 2039 Hobart Boulevard in Los Feliz, where they remained until the spring of 1922. It was while they were living on Hobart that Taylor was murdered in his bungalow. Mary’s career came to an almost screeching halt.

Charlotte was immediately painted as a prime suspect. Shelby had vocally opposed her daughter’s adoration of Taylor for years, had done everything she could to keep the two apart, and had even once threatened him publicly, saying “If I ever catch you hanging around Mary again, I will blow your goddamned brains out.” A grand jury was convened at one point, and while they chose not to indict her, the murder plagued both Charlotte and Mary for the rest of their lives.

At the time of William’s murder, Hollywood was in a precarious position thanks to the Fatty Arbuckle scandal, which had hit the industry hard financially. Studios did not want their stars to have connections to any sort of salacious behavior as it proved detrimental to the success of their movies. The Famous Players-Lasky Corporation decided that Mary had to go. When she was informed that her contract would not be renewed, she was just shy of her 21st birthday. The unemployed actress had just moved out of Casa de Margarita and into a Hollywood Hills bungalow. The move had caused an estrangement between the star and her mother and, unfortunately for Mary, it was Charlotte who held the purse strings. Without a studio contract, she no longer had a way to pay the bills.

By the summer of 1923, Mary was in dire straits. She was broke, had lost the love of her life, her career had disappeared, she had developed a heroin problem and gained a large amount of weight. To stir up publicity (which would hopefully lead to a job), she created a fake story claiming an attempt had been made on her life and that the killer’s intentions had been to forever silent her on what she knew about Taylor’s death. Neither the police nor the tabloids bought her story, though. The starlet then moved to New York for a time, hoping to carve out a career on the stage, but it never took shape. She eventually began legal proceedings against Charlotte in order to regain the money she made as a young star. For reasons that are not entirely clear, but that I am guessing have to do with the lawsuit, Shelby was forced to sell Casa Margarita at auction in December 1932.

Mother and daughter eventually reconciled. Ever the shrewd businesswoman, Charlotte had invested Mary’s money rather wisely and the two moved in together, first to an estate in Beverly Hills and then, in the 1950s, to a spacious, 6-bedroom, 9-bathroom (!!!), 5,501-square-foot home known as the Bishop Conaty House in Santa Monica. The pad, which sits on 0.46 acres, was originally constructed in 1907 for the Reverend Bishop Thomas Conaty of Los Angeles and San Diego. Charlotte and Mary would live there for the rest of their days.

Mary’s later years were not happy ones. The former starlet started turning into a recluse. Shortly after Charlotte passed away in 1957, Minter married a real estate developer named Brandon O’Hildebrandt. When he passed away in 1965, she grew even more reclusive. Last year I attended a Q&A about Tinseltown and photographer Michael Childers happened to be in attendance. He spoke of meeting Minter at her home in her final years and described her existence as a very “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? situation.“ Apparently, the then obese actress surrounded herself with photographs from her younger years and continued to wear the hairstyle and clothing from her movie star days. On one particularly bad night in 1981, a robber broke into Mary’s residence, tied her up and stole $300,000 worth of items. It was later discovered that her caretaker was behind the theft.

On August 4th, 1984, Mary Miles Minter passed away silently at the home, her film legacy largely forgotten, but her entwinement with one of Hollywood’s most infamous unsolved murders still very much intact.

Casa de Margarita served many incarnations after it was sold by Charlotte in 1932. For a time the property was utilized by a seminary, then it became a home for unwed mothers, and then a shelter for children. Today, it is a family service center named Children’s Institute, Inc. According to this article, the dwelling still boasts much of its original décor, including large fireplaces, a grand staircase, built-in bookcases, a central courtyard with a fountain, and hardwood flooring. It is also supposedly haunted. You can see some interior photos of it here.

A big THANK YOU to my friend E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, for providing these addresses. For those who are as into Haunted Hollywood locales as I am, I highly recommend his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites: Seventeen Driving Tours with Directions and the Full Story (the second edition was just released via McFarland). The tome is chock full of macabre spots (I swear, one year virtually all of my Haunted Hollywood locations came from the first edition), all of which are well-researched and well-documented. As I have mentioned many times before, E.J. is one of the very few fellow stalkers whose information I trust. He is a rare breed in this field in that his data is accurate, his locales unique (read: not regurgitated from all of the other websites out there), and his story-telling bar none!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Casa de Margarita, aka Mary Miles Minter’s former mansion, is located at 701 South New Hampshire Avenue in Koreatown. The home where Mary spent her final years can be found at 144 Adelaide Drive in Santa Monica.

April 23, 2015April 17, 2015

New “L.A.” Mag Post – About the “Three’s Company” Building

Be sure to check out today’s Los Angeles magazine post – about the apartment building from Three’s Company. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.

April 10, 2015April 9, 2015

18th Street Coffee House from “Modern Family”

As I have said countless times before on this blog, there’s pretty much nothing I love more than a filming location that serves coffee. So I thought stalking the 18th Street Coffee House in Santa Monica, which was featured in the Season 6 episode of Modern Family titled “Rash Decisions,” would be a pleasant experience. I was wrong. But more on that in a bit.

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In “Rash Decisions,” Alex Dunphy (Ariel Winter) attends a college interview for Princeton at a local café. While there, she realizes that the interviewer, Vanessa (Aya Cash), is bored, so she recounts a story recently told by her sister, Haley Dunphy (Sarah Hyland), involving sneaking into Dodger Stadium. In doing so, she inadvertently calls Vanessa “slut.” Interview over!

Thankfully, 18th Street Coffee House’s real life exterior signage was clearly shown in the scene which made the place easy to track down.

When I showed up to stalk the café, I took several photographs outside before walking in, large camera in hand. I ordered my drink, camera still in hand (did I mention it was large?), and asked the barista all sorts of questions about the filming of “Rash Decisions,” questions she seemed just barely to tolerate. The attitude there is just a wee bit pretentious (as evidenced by countless reviews on Yelp). I fangirled out nonetheless, explaining that I had come in solely to see the place because of its appearance on Modern Family. After I got my latte, I snapped the picture below and all of a sudden the barista got upset with me, not-at-all politely informing me that photographs were most certainly not allowed on the premises. You’d think she would have mentioned this beforehand, while I was asking about Modern Family, when she undoubtedly had to have seen the big ol’ camera in my hand. Either way, I would have expected her to be polite about the whole thing, which she was not. I’ll never understand places that don’t allow photographs, but do allow filming. Not to mention that there are a myriad of customer pictures of the place featured on the 18th Street Coffee Shop Facebook page. Go figure.

The 18th Street Coffee House actually has quite a few rules. Cell phone use is prohibited there, which is something I can typically get behind. Who wants to listen to someone talking loudly on a phone inside of an eatery? That is one of my biggest pet peeves. But, according to several Yelpers, at 18th Street you aren’t allowed to look at your phone. So if you want to grab a coffee, sit down and answer a few emails, be forewarned that you will not be allowed to (though the guy in the above photo appears to be doing so). The rule is apparently in place to encourage interaction and conversation. While I agree that it is a nice sentiment to want customers to interact with the people they are dining with rather than having their heads buried in cell phones during a visit, when someone is alone I don’t see why he or she should not be able to check their email or surf the web via their cell phone. I’m all about having rules and like the thought of a restaurant wanting to establish a peaceful, quiet environment, but there is also such a thing as overkill. (This scene from Bridesmaids comes to mind.)

It has long been rumored that the 18th Street Coffee House is owned by Bob Dylan and this 2002 Los Angeles magazine article stated that the place’s business permit, as well as that of the boxing club located downstairs from it, are in the name of Dylan’s manager, Jeff Rosen. When asked about the ownership, Jeff said, “I know nothing about that . .. Can’t you find something more interesting to write about?” Yep, that pretty much sums up the attitude of the whole place.

My coffee was excellent, though. The place was not so pretentious as to not offer whole milk (another of my pet peeves when it comes to coffee shops), so my latte was perfectly creamy and delicious. And I will say that the café is definitely picturesque, both inside and out, though I will, sadly, most likely not be going back.

The 18th Street Coffee Shop has appeared onscreen several times. In the Season 1 episode of Californication titled “The Devil’s Threesome,” which aired in 2007, Mia Lewis (Madeline Zima) and Dani (Rachel Miner) discussed what Dani thought was Mia’s new book [though the tome was actually written by Hank Moody (David Duchovny)] over coffee at 18th Street.

In 2009, the coffee shop popped up in the Season 7 episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm titled “Denise Handicapped,” as the spot where Larry David (playing himself) met a handicapped woman named Denise (Anita Barone).

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: 18th Street Coffee House, from the “Rash Decisions” episode of Modern Family, is located at 1725 Broadway in Santa Monica.

January 26, 2015January 31, 2015

South Fork Inn from “Revenge”

Finding today’s location had me feeling like a complete moron. Though my obsession with Revenge has waned in recent months (I have only watched three episodes from the current season), I remained hell-bent on tracking down the Colonial-style structure used in establishing shots of the South Fork Inn on the series. I figured the location was most likely a private home and scoured the internet for months looking for it, all to no avail. Then a couple of weeks ago, I decided to once again try my hand at finding it and proceeded to search through every location database that I knew of, comparing the Colonial-style homes listed with screen captures from the show. I found the right spot fairly quickly and could not believe my eyes once I did. Turns out the location is well-known to me – it was featured regularly and prominently on my favorite TV show of all time, Beverly Hills, 90210. South Fork Inn is none other than the Marion Davies Guest House at the Annenberg Community Beach House, aka the former Sand & Sea Club, aka the very same spot that stood in for the Beverly Hills Beach Club on 90210. (Insert facepalm here.) Granted, the property has changed quite a bit since 90210 filmed on the premises, but still, how I did not recognize it is beyond me.

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The five-acre beachfront property, which was originally known as Ocean House, was constructed in 1928 at a cost of $3.5 million for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and his mistress, Marion Davies. The lavish compound was designed in the Georgian Colonial-style by architects Julia Morgan and William Flannery. The site was comprised of a three-story main house featuring 55 bathrooms, 37 fireplaces, a theatre, a ballroom and a basement pub. The property also boasted three detached guest houses, as well as servants quarters, dog kennels, tennis courts, and two swimming pools. (Flannery designed the main estate, while Morgan was responsible for the pool, guest houses and other detached structures, as well as all interiors.) The parties held at the compound during Hearst and Davies’ tenure there were legendary and often included guest lists numbering in the thousands. Such luminaries as Howard Hughes, Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, Bette Davis, Carole Lombard, Cary Grant, Winston Churchill, and Gloria Swanson all spent time at the massive estate at one time or another.

Hearst and Davies vacated the mansion in 1946 in order to move to Beverly Hills. The couple took quite a loss on the place, selling it to a man named Joseph Drown for a measly $600,000. Drown immediately transformed the site into a hotel named Oceanhouse and a beach club named the Sand & Sea Club. The hotel was never a huge success, though, and in 1956, Drown had the main house and many of the original structures demolished. He then added three new buildings to the premises and continued to operate the property as the Sand & Sea Club.

For reasons that are a bit hazy, the land where the Sand & Seas Club stood was acquired by the State of California in 1959. The state in turn handed management of the land over to the City of Santa Monica. It was still being leased back by Drown, though, and the site run as a beach club. In 1964, Drown sold the club to Douglas Badt, who continued to operate it as the Sand & Sea Club until October 1990, when the city decided that a private club could not be situated on public land. It became a public club for a short time after that and was used often for filming. Then, the 1994 Northridge Earthquake rendered the site unsuitable for public use. It sat vacant and boarded up for several years following. (I took the below photo of the place in 2000.)

The city eventually started making plans to renovate the site and turn it into a public beach club, and renowned philanthropist Wallis Annenberg donated $28 million to the cause. Annenberg had been a member of the Sand & Sea Club as a child and wanted to see the once-great property resurrected. During the renovation, all of the remaining Ocean House structures were demolished, aside from one of the guest houses, which is currently known as the Marion Davies Guest House . . .

. . . and a 110-foot Italian marble swimming pool. Sadly, other than those two elements, no part of Hearst’s original compound, or the Sand & Sea Club remains.

The Annenberg Community Beach House opened on April 25, 2009. The site is open to the public daily and is also used as a special events/wedding venue – and, of course, for filming.

The Marion Davies Guest House pops up regularly as the South Fork Inn on Revenge.

The Guest House is only used for establishing shots, though. The interior of the Inn is just a set built inside of a soundstage at MBS Media Campus where the series is lensed.

In the pilot episode of Revenge, which was shot on location in North Carolina, the City Club of Wilmington was used as the exterior of the South Fork Inn.

Oddly, the interior South Fork Inn scenes from that episode were shot elsewhere, though.

As you can see in the images below, the property used for interior filming (which could very well be a private residence) is addressed “400.” That number does not match up to the address of the City Club of Wilmington, which is located at 23 South 2nd Street. UPDATE – A fellow stalker named Brian let me know that the interior scenes were shot at the Dudley Mansion located at 400 South Front Street in Wilmington. You can see some interior photographs of the place here.

Fellow stalker Glenn also just let me know that a different exterior was used as the South Fork Inn in the Season 3 episode titled “Homecoming.” That location is actually The Culver Studios at 9336 West Washington Boulevard in Culver City.

The Annenberg Community Beach House also popped up in the Season 3 episode of Revenge titled “Confession,” this time as a swanky beach club in the scene in which Nolan Ross (Gabriel Mann) first met Patrick Osbourne (Justin Hartley).

Filming of that scene took place on the patio overlooking the pool area.

ScreenShot041

During the second and third seasons of Beverly Hills, 90210, which aired in 1991 and 1992, the Sand & Sea Club masked as the Beverly Hills Beach Club, where Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) worked and the rest of the West Bev gang hung out. The Marion Davies Guest House was not used in the filming of those episodes, though. [To make screen captures for this post, I had to re-watch several of the episodes in which Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) and Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) cheated on my girl Brenda Walsh (Shannen Doherty) and let’s just say it had me feeling all kinds of ragey! ;)]

During the third season of Saved by the Bell (or fifth, if you’re watching Netflix), which aired in 1991, the Sand & Sea Club masked as the Malibu Sands Beach Club, where Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and the gang worked for a summer.

While the Marion Davies Guest House was not used in the filming of Saved by the Bell, either, it was briefly visible in the background of the episode titled “The Game,” as you can see below.

No interior filming of Saved by the Bell took place at the Sand & Sea Club. The interior of the Malibu Sands Beach Club was just a set built inside of a soundstage.

While doing research on the Sand & Sea Club for this post, I came across the photograph below. Apparently, Bethenny Frankel was a Production Assistant on Saved by the Bell during the early ‘90s and worked on some of the beach club episodes! How cool is that?

The Sand & Sea Club also made an appearance in the 1990 movie Side Out.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Marion Davis Guest House, aka South Fork Inn from Revenge, is part of the Annenberg Community Beach House, which is located at 415 Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica. You can visit the property’s official website here.

October 1, 2014September 29, 2017

Whitey Bulger’s Former Apartment

It is finally that time of year again – October 1st, the start of my Haunted Hollywood postings. And I could not be more excited, so let’s get to it! The October 2013 issue of Los Angeles magazine featured an absolutely enthralling article about the arrest of the infamous Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger. I read the column, titled “The Old Man Next Door,” in one short sitting and was elated that author Steven Mikulan had included the address of Bulger’s former Santa Monica apartment building. I finally made it out to stalk the place in January of this year, but held off on blogging about it until now as I figured the locale would make for a perfect Haunted Hollywood posting.

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James Bulger was born in 1929 in Boston’s North End. He was given the nickname “Whitey” thanks to his bright blonde hair and reportedly hated the moniker as much as fellow mobster Benjamin Siegel hated being called “Bugsy.” Whitey moved to a South Boston housing project with his family at a young age and his life of crime began shortly thereafter. By the age of fourteen, he had been arrested for larceny and was eventually sentenced to a juvenile facility. By 30, he was serving time at Alcatraz for a bank robbery conviction. After his release, it was not long before he was running South Boston’s infamous Winter Hill Gang. (Jack Nicholson’s Frank Costello character in The Departed was based on Bulger.) In 1993, a task force was implemented to catch and arrest Whitey for numerous crimes, including 19 murders. The task force was ready to take Bulger in the following year, but he was tipped off and immediately fled Boston. Oddly enough, he originally went on the lam with a longtime girlfriend named Teresa Stanley. She tired of life on the run fairly quickly and, upon her return to Massachusetts, Whitey asked a different longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, to flee with him. Apparently, Greig didn’t mind playing second fiddle.

Upon arriving in Santa Monica in 1996, James and Catherine took up residence at the Princess Eugenia apartment building located at 1012 Third Street. They lived for the next 15 years under the aliases of Charlie and Carol Gasko. Their life at the Princess Eugenia was a fairly quiet one, though Whitey could often be seen on his balcony looking through a pair of binoculars. The couple went on daily walks, were friendly with neighbors and took care of a couple of local stray cats. Their two-bedroom, two-bath apartment hid a more sinister existence, though. Holes in the walls concealed a stash of $822,198 in cash and a collection of thirty guns.

The Gasko’s lurid past caught up with them on June 22, 2011. The previous day, a former Icelandic native named Anna Bjornsdottir had randomly watched an FBI video about Bulger and Greig on TV and recognized the couple immediately. Anna had lived at the Embassy Hotel Apartments (now named Palihouse) across the street from the Princess Eugenia many years prior and had become friendly with Catherine thanks to a stray neighborhood cat that both women cared for. She called the FBI and less than 24 hours later they had infiltrated Whitey’s building. Shortly thereafter and thanks to some help from Josh Bond, the Princess Eugenia’s manager, Bulger and Greig were arrested without incident in the building’s garage.

Greig wound up pleading guilty to identity fraud and conspiring to harbor a fugitive and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. She is currently serving her time at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Whitey’s trial lasted two months and he was convicted of 31 counts, including murder involvement, drug trafficking, racketeering, money laundering, and extortion. He was given two life sentences plus five years and is currently serving that time at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona.

During their stint at the Princess Eugenia, Whitey and Catherine lived in Apartment 303, a corner unit located on the western side of the building’s third floor. Their unit is denoted with an orange arrow below. You can check out some photographs of the interior of the apartment from the time that the couple lived there here. To say the place was odd would be an understatement. Why there was a bed in the living room is beyond me. You can also see some interior photographs of what the space currently looks like here.

In an eerie twist, while writing this post I learned that Whitey’s former apartment unit is blurred out on Google Street View, as you can see below. I looked up Google’s privacy policy and apparently anyone can request to have their residence blurred from view. Whether this request was made by Whitey himself (a distinct possibility considering he had plastic sheets, duct tape, and black curtains covering all of his windows when he lived at the Eugenia) or the new tenants is anyone’s guess, but I was pretty spooked when I came across it. Freaaaaaaky!

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Princess Eugenia, aka Whitey Bulger’s former apartment building, is located at 1012 Third Street in Santa Monica.

September 29, 2014September 28, 2014

Callahan’s Diner from “Zodiac”

In the early years of our relationship the Grim Cheaper lived in Santa Monica, just a few blocks from a local staple named Callahan’s Diner. Even though I knew the eatery was a filming location and supposedly served up some fabulous grub, for whatever reason we never ventured in for a meal. I am kicking myself now, too, because the restaurant, which has been in operation since 1948, is set to close at the end of the year. So when I found myself in the area a couple of weeks ago, I seized the opportunity to snaps some pics of the place.

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It was late afternoon when I stopped by Callahan’s, just a few minutes before I had to pick the GC up from a meeting, so, unfortunately, I did not have time to grab a bite to eat. But the owner, Abraham Vazquez, was nice enough to spend some time chatting with me and invited me to snap all of the photographs of the place that I wanted.

The Streamline Moderne-style building that houses Callahan’s – and the neighboring Vienna Pastry – was constructed by restaurateur Art Groves in 1946 for his eponymous Groves Restaurant and Bakery. In 1948, he leased out the restaurant portion of the property to Melvin Callahan and Callahan’s Diner was born. The café proved successful for four decades. In 1988, Melvin sold the site to Abraham, who thankfully kept Callahan’s name, décor and menu intact. While Abraham also enjoyed a long, successful run, he recently announced that Callahan’s will be shutting its doors on December 31st. A new company, LGO Hospitality, purchased the building not long ago and made plans to raise Vazquez’s rent when his lease is up at the end of the year. He, sadly, cannot afford the price hike. The good news is that LGO has a long history of preserving historical locations and announced in a press release that while the Callahan’s menu will be transformed, the floor plan and décor will remain largely the same.

Callahan’s has appeared onscreen a few times over the years, most notably in the 2007 thriller Zodiac. The eatery was featured in three scenes from the movie – well, sort of. It first popped up as the supposed San Francisco-area diner where Inspectors David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) discussed some handwriting samples over a BLT sandwich.

Towards the middle of the film, it was used in the scene in which Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) bought David lunch and informed him that books on cyphers had been stolen from both the Presidio Library and the Oakland Army Terminal Library.

Now here’s where things get weird. The third scene to take place at Callahan’s involved Robert sharing with David the various evidence he had compiled on suspect Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch). Prior to stalking the restaurant, I had come across a piece of Zodiac trivia on IMDB that stated, “Though Callahan’s Diner was a set built for the film, the Callahan’s Diner logo and window script is identical to that used by Callahan’s Diner at 1213 Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, California.” I assumed the trivia was bupkis, especially once Abraham had confirmed for me that filming had actually taken place on the premises. But while watching the third scene that was supposedly shot at the eatery, I noticed that some portions of the interior did not match up to what was shown in the earlier scenes or to the real Callahan’s interior.

What first tipped me off to the inconsistencies was when David was shown leaving Callahan’s through a door located on the restaurant’s western side – a door that does not exist in the real life space. A partition separating the entryway from the booths was also visible in that segment of the scene. There is no such partition at Callahan’s, though, as you can see below.

There was no such door or partition in that area in the earlier scene in which David and William discussed handwriting samples, either.

What was shown in the handwriting sample scene does match perfectly to the real restaurant, though, as you can see below.

A wide shot of the restaurant was also featured in the evidence scene and, again, it does not match the real life interior of Callahan’s.

Nor does it match what was shown in the earlier lunch scene.

The interior shown in the lunch scene does match the actual Callahan’s interior, though. All of this leads me to believe that, as implausible as it may sound, while the lunch scene and handwriting sample scene were filmed on location at Callahan’s, the evidence scene was shot on a set modeled to look like it. The reason this was done is anyone’s guess.

Abraham also informed me that Callahan’s Diner had been used in music videos for both Snoop Dogg and Lionel Richie, but I am unsure of which videos. If any of my fellow stalkers are aware, please let me know.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Callahan’s Diner, from Zodiac, is located at 1213 Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica. You can visit the eatery’s official Facebook page here.