The Rub from “The Client List”

Another The Client List location that fellow stalker Owen (aka Jennifer Love Hewitt’s biggest fan), from the When Write Is Wrong blog, tracked down recently was The Rub – the supposed Sugar Land, Texas-area massage parlor where JLove’s character, Riley Parks, works on the series.  Owen had actually been looking for the locale for quite some time and when he finally found it and sent me the address I literally just about fell off my chair!  As it turns out, The Rub is the exterior of Calvert Studios in Van Nuys, the very same studio where Beverly Hills, 90210, my favorite show of all time, was filmed!  How I did not recognize it while watching The Client List is absolutely BEYOND me.  In my defense, though, at the time that Owen gave me the address, I had only seen one episode of the series.  Anyway, once I found out about the location, I added it to my Re-Stalk list and Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I headed right on over there while in the area two months ago.

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The two warehouses pictured below were both formerly a part of the Calvert Studios complex and the interior of each was used in the filming of Beverly Hills, 90210. As you’ll notice, the place does not look anything at all like a typical movie studio.  That is because Calvert Studios was originally a light manufacturing facility located at the end of a cul-de-sac in a small industrial area of Van Nuys.  In 1989, Aaron Spelling purchased the site to film his new television series Beverly Hills, 90210 and transformed the two warehouses, which comprised 45,000 square feet of space, into sound studios and production offices.  And for the next ten years magic happened inside of those walls.  Well, for the next four years – we can all attest to the fact that the show went seriously downhill after Shannen Doherty left.  But I digress.  Anyway, after 90210 went off the air in 2000, Spelling Productions continued to do filming at the site.  Then, when Aaron passed away in 2005, CBS took over the property and used the studio to shoot such shows as Jericho, Heist, Harper’s Island, and the ill-fated 2009 Melrose Place re-boot.

Then, sometime last year, CBS sold off one of the warehouses to Genie Air Conditioning & Heating Inc., cutting Calvert Studios in half.  And sadly, the warehouse sold was the most recognizable one, the one that was used regularly as the back of the Peach Pit and the famous entrance to the Peach Pit After Dark on 90210.

Sadder still is the fact that Genie has since painted over the warehouse’s legendary red brick exterior and the building is now a drab blue and grey color and is virtually unrecognizable. GAH!

Unfortunately, while the After Dark door – which, in reality, is one of the warehouse’s side doors – is typically visible from the street, it was covered over by a huge tower of wooden crates on the day that Mike and I stalked the place.  Its location is denoted with a pink arrow in the photograph below.  You can check out some pictures that I took of that door on my first visit to Calvert Studios – during which Mike and I were invited onto the lot – here.

The side of the Genie warehouse was also used as other locations besides the Peach Pit during 90210’s ten-year run.  Most prominently, it doubled as the rave where Emily Valentine (Christine Elise) slipped Ecstasy into Brandon Walsh’s (Jason Priestley’s) drink in the Season 2 episode titled “U4EA”.  The white door visible in the screen captures pictured below is actually the famous After Dark door.  The camera was just facing the opposite angle from which the After Dark scenes were usually shot.

And the opposite (west) side of the warehouse was used as the bus station where Steve Sanders (Ian Ziering) caught a bus to Albuquerque, New Mexico in the Season 2 episode titled “Chuckie’s Back”.

The bus depot, which was, of course, just a fake, was set up in front of the first window pictured below.

And although they can’t be seen in the episode, when Steve’s bus drives off in the scene, it passes right through the Calvert Studios gates.

Those gates are pictured below.

One of the Genie warehouse employees was nice enough to let us onto the property while we were there, so I, of course, just had to pose for a pic in the spot where the gang was standing in the episode.

While the Genie warehouse is no longer used for production, the other warehouse still is.  And not only does the front exterior of it stand in for the entrance to The Rub on The Client List, but the interior is actually comprised of the soundstages where the series is filmed.

In The Client List, The Rub is the not-so-above-board strip-mall massage parlor where Riley Parks gives massages . . . among other things.  As you can see below, it looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it does onscreen, minus a few potted plants and some retro light fixtures.

As I mentioned in my post about the house where Riley lives on the series, The Client List is actually based upon the true story of The Healing Touch massage parlor, which got raided by the police in a huge prostitution scandal in May 2004.  In real life, The Healing Touch was located at 3631 North Dixie Boulevard in Odessa, Texas.

Ironically enough, in the Season 1 finale of The Client List, which was titled “Past Is Prologue”, the back (north) side of the Genie warehouse was featured in the scene in which The Rub’s owner, Georgia (Loretta Devine), took Riley “next door” to “Bucky’s Appliances” and suggested that she relieve some of her anger at her ex-husband by hitting washing machines with a baseball bat.

It absolutely cracked me up to see those washing machines because, as I mentioned back in December 2009 in my post about the “Keep It Together” park from Season 1 of Beverly Hills, 90210, Calvert Studios is surrounded by appliance warehouses and washing machines were visible in the background of more than a few episodes of the series.

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Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for figuring out Steve’s bus stop location! 

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: The Rub from The Client List is located at 15001 Calvert Street in Van Nuys.  The back of the Peach Pit and the door to the After Dark from Beverly Hills, 90210 is actually the east side of the warehouse located right next door at 15041 Calvert Street.  Steve’s bus stop from the “Chuckie’s Back” episode of 90210 was built on the west side of that same warehouse.