The West Wing – IAMNOTASTALKER

April 1, 2020April 1, 2020

Hilton Checkers Hotel from “The West Wing”

One of the best parts about finally watching The West Wing for the first time is all of the L.A. locales I’ve been able to identify and stalk (you can read about a few of them here, here, and here). One spot that I recognized on sight was Hilton Checkers Los Angeles, which masked as a supposed Washington D.C.-area hotel in the Season 1 episode titled “Take This Sabbath Day.” I’ve had the pleasure of staying at Checkers several times over the years (even once in the penthouse!), so it was not hard to ID it when it appeared onscreen. Though I blogged about the lodging back in 2009, I figured it was worthy of a redo, so while staying at the Millennium Biltmore, which is across the street, back in December of last year, my mom and I headed over to Checkers for a cocktail and to do some stalking! I was shocked when I walked in to discover that the place had been completely revamped and looked quite a bit different than it did during my last visit in late 2017.

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Initially opened as the Mayflower Hotel in 1927, the property was designed by architect Charles Whittlesey.

Built on a lot measuring a scant 60 by 160 feet, the skinny lodging towers over the street below at 12 stories, which was the city’s height limit at the time.

The Mission Revival-style façade boasts amazingly intricate Spanish Moorish ornamentation with a nautical theme. Sadly, the bas-relief sculptures of the Mayflower and the Santa Maria that once flanked the hotel’s front doors have since been removed.

The Los Angeles Conservancy describes the building’s original interior as “Pilgrim Revival.” With restaurants named Mayflower Tavern and Ye Bull Pen Inn (you can check out what the latter looked like here), The Mayflower certainly had a different aesthetic than it does now. At some point, Chart Room, another bar with a maritime slant, opened on the premises. You can see the exterior of it here. It’s quite a leap from the hotel’s current state!

The Mayflower shut its doors in 1985 at which point it was purchased by a group of developers who began a massive $49-million, 4-year renovation. Two floors were added to the top of the structure to house the property’s mechanical appliances as well as a new gym and spa. (You can see those two rather boxy floor additions in this side image of the hotel.) The lobby area was also revamped to include a new bar, a new restaurant and a library lounge. Rooms and suites were expanded considerably, bringing down the total units from 348 to 188. The site re-opened as Checkers in December 1989. The Hilton eventually took over the property in 2002 and it became known as Hilton Checkers. The AAA Four Diamond lodging boasted a very upscale European interior, with ornate mirrors, plush seating and dark wood tables scattered throughout, as you can see in the pictures below, which were taken during a 2009 stay.

I loved the look of the place, but in 2019 management embarked upon yet another massive renovation.

Several lobby walls were removed in order to open up the bar (now named 1927 Bar+Kitchen) and library. The bar circa 2009 is pictured below.

And there it is today.

Yes, the interior is sleeker, brighter and airier, but I think it has lost quite a bit of its charm.

Per aerial views and this image, the rooftop pool, one of my favorite aspects of the hotel, also appears to have been filled in (the photo below is from 2009).

Though the hot tub remains.

I still consider the place one of downtown L.A.’s top lodgings, despite the changes. As my mom and I discovered, 1927 Bar+Kitchen serves up some fabulous fare and libations, the onsite Zagat-rated restaurant, Checkers Downtown, remains one of the area’s top eateries, and the hotel is within walking distance to pretty much every local attraction.

In the “Take this Sabbath Day” episode of The West Wing, which aired in 2000, Checkers masks as the D.C. hotel where Joey Lucas (Marlee Matlin) stays while in town. It is in the lobby bar that Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) apologizes to Joey on behalf of the president.

The West Wing was not Checkers’ first rodeo.

The hotel served as the outside of San Francisco’s Bix restaurant in the 1992 thriller Final Analysis.

In the Season 1 episode of Shark titled “Fashion Police,” which aired in 2006, Sebastian Stark (James Woods) dines with the mayor in Checkers Downtown . . .

. . . and later crashes a party on the rooftop deck.

Checkers appears as the exterior of The Algonquin Hotel in the Season 7 episode of Mad Men titled “Field Trip,” which aired in 2014.

It pops up as the New Amsterdam Hotel, where Vikram Singh (Sunkrish Bala) hacks into the mainframe of the attorney general’s office, in the Season 8 episode of Castle titled “XX,” which aired in 2015.

Irvin Irving (Lance Reddick) and Jun Park (Linda Park) also dine on Checkers’ rooftop patio in the Season 3 episode of Bosch titled “Right Play,” which aired in 2017.

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: Hilton Checkers Los Angeles, from the “Take This Sabbath Day” episode of The West Wing, is located at 535 South Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. Please be advised that the hotel is temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Check the website for any updates.

December 13, 2019December 12, 2019

Bridges Auditorium from “The West Wing”

I am one of the few people in the world who did not watch The West Wing when it was on the air. And boy was I missing out! The Grim Cheaper and I started binging the series on a whim this past January and now can’t get enough! The show is so good, I could cry! It’s literally one of the best productions to ever grace television screens! Early in our binging, I, of course, went on a deep dive to unearth some of its locations and was thrilled to come across a 2012 Architectural Digest article that spelled out one locale in particular, stating “Because The West Wing had not yet acquired an East Room set in time, the series’ second-season Christmas episode, ‘Noël,’ featuring the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, was filmed in the lobby of Pomona College’s Bridges Auditorium, in Claremont, California.” Well, believe you me, the venue went straight to the top of my To-Stalk List and I headed out there way back in February, but I’ve held off on blogging about it as I figured it would make for an excellent holiday post.

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The Mabel Shaw Bridges Music Auditorium, as it is formally known, was commissioned by Appleton and Amelia Shaw Bridges in honor of their daughter, Mabel, who passed away while attending Pomona College in 1907.

Designed by San Diego-based architect William Templeton Johnson in the Northern Italian Renaissance style, the venue was constructed from 1930 to 1931 at a cost of $650,000.

Bridges Auditorium was dedicated on September 18th, 1931 and its inaugural concert season officially kicked off the following month, on October 27th, with a performance by Artur Rodziński and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Since then, it has gone on to host a slew of celebrated personalities. Just a few of the luminaries who have set foot on its stage include Steve Martin, Muhammad Ali, Amelia Earhart, Benny Goodman, James Earl Jones, and Bono.

Sadly, the hall was closed when I visited, so I did not get to see the interior.

The exterior is pretty darn spectacular, though, with a towering arched overhang lined with grand columns and topped by a cathedral ceiling.

The auditorium itself, which you can see photos of here, boasts rich red carpeting, seating for 2,494 guests, and a magical ceiling mural spanning 22,000 square feet that was hand-painted by Giovanni Smeraldi, the famed artist who also adorned the ceilings of Doheny Memorial Library’s Los Angeles Times Reference Room, the Pasadena Main Branch of the Bank of the West, St. Vincent de Paul Church, and the Millennium Biltmore Hotel’s South Galleria. (The latter, coincidentally, is also a West Wing locale!)

It is Bridges Auditorium’s lobby that is its real claim to fame, though. Featuring a coffered ceiling, marble columns, and a grand staircase, the versatile space has appeared onscreen as everything from a courthouse to a college admissions office to the White House (twice!). You can take a look at the beautiful room here.

In The West Wing’s “Noël” episode, which aired in 2000, President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his senior staff attend a congressional Christmas party during which Yo-Yo Ma performs – and yes, the actual Yo-Yo Ma guest-starred! As mentioned above, the production team transformed Bridges’ lobby into the White House’s East Room for the shoot. Architectural Digest notes, “Although smaller than the actual East Room—the largest room in the White House, primarily used for entertaining—the space, says [production designer Kenneth] Hardy, had the right feeling. He and his production crew hung replica chandeliers and added chairs, flowers, and presidential portraits.” It was a lot of preparation for what essentially amounted to about two minutes of screen time, much of which was interspersed with flashbacks of Josh Lyman’s (Bradley Whitford) shooting from Season 1. Nevertheless, the space did look beautiful in the scene.

The Bridges Auditorium foyer also masked as the courthouse lobby where Hillary Whitney Essex (Barbara Hershey) collapsed in the 1988 drama Beaches.

It again portrayed the White House – this time its grand entry hall – in the 1993 comedy Dave.

And in the Season 3 episode of Gilmore Girls titled “Let the Games Begin,” which aired in 2002, the foyer masqueraded as the main administration building at Yale University, where Richard (Edward Herrmann) forced Rory (Alexis Bledel) into an impromptu interview with the Dean of Admissions.

The exterior of Bridges Auditorium also appeared briefly in the episode.

The theatre itself is where the body of a murdered ballerina is found in the Season 3 episode of Lucifer titled “Anything Pierce Can Do I Can Do Better,” which aired in 2018.

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: Bridges Auditorium, from the “Noël” episode of The West Wing, is located at 450 North College Way, on the Pomona College campus, in Claremont.

April 1, 2019March 30, 2019

Zipper Concert Hall from “The West Wing”

Most actors will tell you that extra work is the worst. But when I first landed in L.A. back in 2000, I did quite a bit of it and couldn’t have enjoyed myself more. Just being on a movie or television set was surreal and provided an indelible opportunity to observe the inner workings of a production, watch my favorite actors live and in person (and sometimes even interact with them), and be truly immersed in the filmmaking process. I ate it all up with a spoon. One of my more memorable experiences took place on April 24th, 2000 (yes, I remember the date) when I sat in the audience of a supposed live town hall meeting with President Josiah ‘Jed’ Bartlett (Martin Sheen) for the Season 1 finale of The West Wing titled “What Kind of Day Has It Been.” I was not a viewer of the hit NBC series at the time and, despite my extraordinary experience on set, did not watch the episode when it aired and, shockingly, did not end up seeing it until last month when the Grim Cheaper and I went on a West Wing binge. Even though 19 years had passed, I was immediately brought right back to the day of the shoot and decided that I had to write a post on the auditorium where filming took place. While I did not remember its exact location, I did recall that it was in downtown L.A. near the U.S. Bank Tower. So I got to Googling and amazingly the first result kicked back when I inputted “auditorium” and “downtown Los Angeles” was a link to Zipper Concert Hall which turned out to be the right spot!

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Zipper Concert Hall is located on the campus of The Colburn School, a performing arts institution originally founded in 1950 as part of the USC School of Music. Initially housed in a warehouse across from the Shrine Auditorium in University Park, the facility offered piano lessons to young children. At some point, the curriculum was expanded to include college-level courses and the place re-branded as the Community School of Performing Arts. The academy broke away from USC in 1980 thanks to a sizeable donation from philanthropist/music enthusiast Richard D. Colburn and six years later it was renamed in his honor. Twelve years after that, The Colburn School was relocated to a new, larger custom-built campus at the corner of South Grand Avenue and East 2nd Street in downtown L.A., where it remains today.

Designed by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, at its inception the modern complex boasted a library, a rehearsal hall, two dance studios, a piano lab, 28 teaching spaces, and the 415-seat Zipper Concert Hall. The auditorium (it’s the sloped structure with the sheet metal roof below) was named after Vienna-born musician Herbert Zipper who served as The Colburn School’s artistic advisor from 1980 until his death in 1997.

Interestingly, the Lloyd Wright-designed former studio of violinist Jascha Heifetz was also incorporated into the layout of the campus. Initially situated on the grounds of Heifetz’s Beverly Hills estate (at 1520 Gilcrest Drive), the standalone structure, which was connected to the main residence via a breezeway, was saved from demolition by a very unlikely source. Upon Heifetz’s passing in 1987, his home was sold to none other than James Woods, who set about tearing the place down. The actor recognized the significance of the studio, though, and offered it up to anyone who was willing to pay to have it relocated. The Colburn School’s then dean, Joseph Thayer, jumped at the chance. The small edifice was subsequently deconstructed and transported to a storage facility where it sat until the new campus was completed. It was then reassembled on the third floor of the Grand Building. You can check out some images of it in its original form and its current state here and here.

In 2007, the Colburn campus was expanded by the Pfeiffer Partners architecture firm at which time a 384,000-square-foot, 12-story building was added, as were a 3,900-square-foot rehearsal hall, residential housing for 147 students, a cafeteria, offices, an art park, and numerous practice and performance spaces. And the school is still growing. Just last year, prolific architect Frank Gehry was tapped to design yet another addition, this one bringing in 200,000 square feet, an additional concert hall, and a theatre. You can check out some images of what the school currently looks like here and here.

In the “What Kind of Day Has It Been” episode of The West Wing, Zipper Concert Hall masks as Virginia’s Newseum. Though exteriors were filmed at the museum’s former location at 1101 Wilson Boulevard in Rosslyn . . .

. . . all interiors were shot at Zipper. It is there that President Bartlett speaks to a large audience about the apathy of America’s youth when it comes to government and politics.

The hall appears prominently at both the beginning and end of the episode. Sadly, Zipper was closed when we showed up to stalk it so I did not get to revisit the inside, but you can check out some photographs of it here.

The Colburn School’s Grand Foyer (which you can see images of here) was also featured in “What Kind of Day Has It Been” . . .

. . . as was its Mayman Recital Hall (photos here and here).

I can still remember the filming of the episode as if it was yesterday. I even recall exactly where I was sitting – fourth row, right. (That’s me below!) During the shoot, I became completely enamored with Martin Sheen, who is very much like his presidential character in real life – gregarious, warm, witty, chatty, and a wealth of random knowledge that he loves to share. Throughout breaks in filming, he actively engaged the extras, both individually and as a group, and discussed everything from how he spent the day prior, Easter Sunday, memorizing the speech we were now listening to him perform to behind-the-scenes tidbits (like the fact that Dr. Josiah Bartlett, Jed’s supposed great-grandfather’s great-grandfather and the New Hampshire delegate to the second Continental Congress in 1776, whom he mentions in the speech, was, in fact, a real person) to Elián González, the young Cuban boy who had been seized by federal agents and returned to his father just a few days prior. To see him seamlessly transition between his character and his actual self, turning Jed Bartlett on and off like a switch, was incredible. The president’s speech in the scene was long (much longer than what was actually shown in the episode), detailed, wordy, and full of facts and figures. Martin knew it inside and out, though, and nailed it on every.single. take. The fact that he could be jovial and joking with us one minute and then, as soon as “action” was called, be immediately in character and 100% on-point the next was thrilling and fascinating to watch. It was a long day, too, but Martin was just as fresh on his first take as he was on his last, a good ten to twelve hours later. Witnessing his creative process was an incredible experience – truly a once-in-a-lifetime. I’ll never forget coming home that night and telling my parents that I had learned more about acting (not to mention the way an actor should behave on set) from one day of observing Martin Sheen than I had in my four years of college as a theatre major. They were not pleased by the news considering they footed the bill for the latter. Winking smile

The West Wing is not the only production to feature The Colburn School. In the 2002 drama Adaptation, Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) attends Robert McKee’s (Brian Cox) Story Seminar at Zipper Concert Hall.

The school masks as the Museum of Design, where Milly Wilder (Mandy Moore) and Jason (Tom Everett Scott) go to see an art exhibit, in the 2007 romcom Because I Said So.

And in the Season 7 episode of Castle titled “Castle, P.I.,” which aired in 2015, Colburn portrays The Eastbourne School, where Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) investigate the murder of admissions director Shana Baker (Gia Mora). (Note – the exterior seen in the episode is the school’s Olive Street entrance.)

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: Zipper Concert Hall, from the “What Kind of Day Has It Been” episode of The West Wing, is located on the campus of The Colburn School at 200 South Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. You can check out the hall’s upcoming events on the school’s official website here.

February 11, 2019November 5, 2019

The Millennium Biltmore Hotel from “A Star Is Born”

It’s not everyday you’ll find photos of a public restroom on my site. It’s not everyday you’ll find me stalking one either. But a couple of years ago, the Grim Cheaper and I were granted an extensive private tour of the Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles that included a visit to the hotel’s Regency Room men’s lavatory. Our guide thought we would want to see the space thanks to a bit of cinema history that exists there. (More on that in a bit.) Flash forward to last week – while scanning through the 2018 A Star Is Born prior to writing my recent post on East Hollywood bar The Virgil, I was shocked to see the very same bathroom (well, the women’s version, at least) pop up in an opening scene and decided I just had to chronicle it here. When I sat down to write the post, though, I discovered that the entire Biltmore property – not just its bathroom – has ties to three of the A Star Is Born movies. So I figured a more all-encompassing article about the hotel was in order.

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The Biltmore’s Regency Room was originally part of the Sala De Oro ballroom, which was constructed during the hotel’s 1928 expansion. You can see what the stunning venue looked like in its early days here and in its current state below.

The grand space, surprisingly located on a sublevel of the hotel, ran 140 feet long and 107 feet wide and boasted three open stories, an insane vaulted ceiling, a large mezzanine, box seating for 46 groups, a stage (built on hydraulics that allowed it to be raised and lowered), a dance floor, a check room with a capacity for 100 guests, and its own kitchen. So stunning was the massive hall that it was chosen as the site of eight different Academy Awards ceremonies.

In 1934, management decided to change things up by turning the ballroom into a hopping nightclub named the “Biltmore Bowl.” Architect Wayne McAllister, who also gave us Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank, was brought in to revamp the room. And revamp it he did. He moved the stage, making it the central focal point, and also, oddly, split the venue into two levels, a two-story upper floor and a single-story lower floor. You can see what the upper level looked like during its heyday here and here.

Sadly, the nightclub was gutted by a fire in the 1950s and subsequently renovated, at which time the grand ceiling and elegant stage were removed. But the split levels remained, with the top floor becoming a ballroom that retained the Biltmore Bowl name and the sub-level becoming an exhibit hall initially dubbed the “Rex Room” and later the “Regency Room.” The gilded, gated entrance to both spaces is pictured below.

The Biltmore Bowl underwent a re-do again in 2001, during which the venue’s tiered seating was removed and its decorative aesthetic shifted to match that of the rest of the hotel.

The Regency Room, which is largely unchanged from its 1950’s post-fire state, is much less opulent than its upstairs neighbor, as you can see below.

In fact, the only ornamentation the space really has is some decorative grillwork, which is leftover from its days as part of the Sala De Oro ballroom.

The ornate ceiling in the Regency Room’s foyer is also original to the Sala De Oro.

Today, the Regency Room boasts 17,000 square feet of space – and a set of famous bathrooms.

At the beginning of A Star Is Born, Ally (Lady Gaga) breaks up with her boyfriend via phone from a stall in the Regency Room women’s bathroom, which is said to be the restroom of the hotel kitchen where she works.

Though I did not see the women’s bathroom during my tour, I was shown the very similar-looking men’s room.

It was there that Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) and his pals tied up and threatened Police Commissioner Jacobs (Pat McNamara) in the 1999 drama Fight Club.

Our tour guide highlighted the space not only because of its onscreen cameo, but also because of some damage that occurred during the shoot, which she figured I would be fascinated by. And I was! Apparently, while Pitt and McNamara were filming the fight scene, the base of one of the pedestal sinks was splintered. For whatever reason, the chip was never filled in and the sink currently remains in its post-Fight-Club state, a little piece of filming ephemera left behind for the ages.

You can see said chip in the images above and below, as well as what an intact sink base looks like directly next to it.

The Biltmore’s 25,000-square-foot basement kitchen, which I did not get to stalk during my tour, makes a couple of appearances as Ally’s workplace in A Star Is Born, as well.

That very same kitchen also appeared as the kitchen of a Radisson hotel in East Lansing, Michigan in the Season 4 episode of The West Wing titled “College Kids,” which aired in 2002.

It can also be seen in the Season 4 episode of Bosch titled “Rojo Profundo,” which aired in 2018. As I said in my recent post on the hotel’s South Galleria, every single area of the Biltmore has been utilized in multiple major productions!

The hotel’s loading dock, which leads directly down to the Biltmore Bowl and Regency Room, also pops up a couple of times in A Star Is Born – first in the scene in which Ally leaves work to head to her gig at Bleu Bleu and then later when she and Ramon (Anthony Ramos) get picked up by Jackson Maine’s (Bradley Cooper) driver to go to one of his shows.

The loading dock pops up in the “College Kids” episode of The West Wing, as well.

As I mentioned earlier, the Biltmore had ties to A Star Is Born long before the latest version was filmed. In the 1937 original, Vicki Lester (Janet Gaynor) and Norman Maine (Fredric March) attend an Academy Awards ceremony at what is said to be the Biltmore Bowl.

I am unsure if filming actually took place in the ballroom or on a studio-built set, though.

My hunch is that a set was utilized being that not much of what was shown onscreen matches early photographs of the Bowl. The wide shot of the room featured in the movie (pictured below) also looks to me like a matte painting of some sort.

I can say with certainty that the Biltmore Bowl was the site of the Grammy Awards in the 1976 version of A Star Is Born. You can see some behind-the-scenes photos of the segment being shot here.

Esther Hoffman (Barbra Streisand) and John Norman Howard (Kris Kristofferson) even head up the escalators situated adjacent to the South Galleria in the scene. It is on the escalator landing that Howard punches a paparazzi.

The Biltmore Bowl is also the site of the Leadership in Journalism Awards gala in the Season 1 episode of The Morning Show titled “A Seat at the Table,” which aired in November 2019.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles, from A Star Is Born, is located at 506 South Grand Avenue in downtown L.A. You can visit the property’s official website here. The Regency Room and its bathrooms are situated underneath the Biltmore Bowl on the south side of the hotel and can be reached via the South Galleria. The kitchen from the film is also located in the basement of the hotel. Unfortunately, neither area is open to the public. The loading dock can be found just south of Coffee on Grand at 530 South Grand Avenue.

January 28, 2019November 5, 2019

The Millennium Biltmore Hotel’s South Galleria from “The West Wing”

The Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles is a rare bird when it comes to filming locations in that virtually every square inch of it has appeared onscreen – and I’m talking in multiple major productions! This factoid fascinates me and I thought it would be fun to cover in an in-depth article, so a few years back I pitched the idea to my editor at Discover L.A. who told me to run with it. Though I chronicled ten areas of the vast hotel in the column, which was published in 2016, due to length concerns there were a few spots I had to leave out including the South Galleria, an ornate hallway that was most famously featured in Pretty in Pink. I had planned on writing about the beautiful space on my own site as a follow-up to the article shortly thereafter, but never got around to it. Then, last week, while watching an early episode of The West Wing (which the Grim Cheaper and I just started binging and are absolutely obsessed with!), I spotted the Galleria and decided it was high time I finally dedicate a post to it.

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The South Galleria, which is situated along the southwest edge of the Biltmore, connects the hotel’s South Grand Street entrance to its Main Galleria and provides access to the Heinsbergen Room, the Regency Room, and the Biltmore Bowl.

The gilded hallway, inspired by the opulent Roman villas of ancient Pompeii, boasts an intricate Beaux Arts-style vaulted ceiling featuring bucolic frescoes hand-painted by muralist Giovanni Smeraldi.

The dramatic space is also flanked by elaborate friezes, carved columns, and sweeping archways.

The gilded gates situated on its south side . . .

. . . lead to an equally grand stairwell that heads down to the Biltmore Bowl and the Regency Room.

Being that the South Galleria is situated in a tucked away area on the side of the hotel, it would, sadly, be quite easy for visitors and guests to spend ample time at the Biltmore and not even realize the impressive space exists. If you happen to find yourself on the premises, do not make that mistake. The striking hallway is not to be missed!

In the Season 1 episode of The West Wing titled “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet,” which aired in 2000, the South Galleria portrays Washington D.C.’s Old Executive Office Building (now known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building), where President Jed Bartlet’s (Martin Sheen) speech to the United Organization of Trout Fishermen is moved at the last minute due to some unforeseen rain.

Producers cheated a bit with the locale in the scene by shooting from both ends of the Galleria in order to make it appear as two different hallways that the President has to walk down on the way to deliver his speech. The West Wing does love a good lengthy walk-and-talk segment!

John Norman Howard (Kris Kristofferson) gets into a fight with the paparazzi during the Grammy Awards at the top of the staircase/escalator leading down to the Biltmore Bowl in the 1976 version of A Star Is Born.

In the 1986 classic Pretty in Pink, Andie (Molly Ringwald) trepidatiously ventures alone down the South Galleria on her way to her Senior Prom (which was held in the Biltmore’s famed Crystal Ballroom) . . .

. . . only to find her BFF Duckie (Jon Cryer) waiting for her at the other end.

Though Richard Alleman asserts in his book New York: The Movie Lover’s Guide that “James Caan, as the novelist in Steven King’s Misery (1990), celebrated his latest best seller” at Tavern on the Green, I discovered that information was incorrect while doing research for my June 2018 post about the famed NYC eatery. In actuality, at the end of the film, Caan’s character, Paul Sheldon, shares a celebratory lunch with his agent, Marcia Sindell (Lauren Bacall), at none other than the South Galleria, which was dressed to look like an upscale Big Apple restaurant.

The South Galleria also posed as a restaurant in Atlas Shrugged: Part I. In the 2011 drama, it served as the spot where Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling) confronted Francisco D’Anconia (Jsu Garcia) about his shady copper mine investments.

But the South Galleria’s noted onscreen appearances don’t end there! The space also pops up as a Beirut hotel hallway in the Season 7 episode of The Mentalist titled “Orange Blossom Ice Cream,” which aired in 2014.

And Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) and Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) have a terse conversation in the South Galleria during an awards ceremony in the Season 1 episode of The Morning Show titled “A Seat at the Table,” which aired in November 2019.

Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) is also shown walking down the Biltmore Bowl staircase on her way to the ceremony in that same episode.

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 Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles is located at 506 South Grand Avenue in downtown L.A. You can visit the property’s official website here. The South Galleria, from the “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet” episode of The West Wing, can be reached via the hotel entrance situated just north of and adjacent to Coffee on Grand at 530 South Grand Avenue.