Argo filming locations – IAMNOTASTALKER

January 29, 2013January 29, 2013

Lester Siegel’s House from “Argo”

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

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

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

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

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

the formal living room;

the bar;

and the backyard and pool.

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

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

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

January 22, 2013January 18, 2013

The Canadian Ambassador’s Residence from “Argo”

Last week, while scanning through Argo to make screen captures for my post on the Veterans Affairs Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center in North Hills, which stood in for the Tehran American Embassy in the flick, I got completely sucked in and had to force myself to turn the thing off. Then, the Grim Cheaper and I wound up watching the entire movie over again for the second time just a few nights later. Needless to say, I love, love, LOVE the film and cannot recommend seeing it enough! Argo and Silver Linings Playbook are easily two of the best movies I have ever seen in my entire life, let alone this year. So when Mike, from MovieShotsLA, managed to track down the supposed-Iranian residence where Ken Taylor (Victor Garber), the Canadian Ambassador, lived in the film, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it.

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Surprisingly enough, the Canadian Ambassador’s residence from Argo can actually be found in Los Angeles’ affluent Hancock Park neighborhood – a place I never would have even thought to search. Mike was able to find the site thanks to the Hancock Park Today blog which mentioned in a September 2011 post that the movie was shooting on Rimpau Boulevard “in a house made to look like the Canadian Embassy”. Only the interior of the home was used in the filming, though. The exterior gates and side doorway that were shown in the flick (pictured below) are located elsewhere, in what I am guessing is Istanbul, Turkey, where the cast and crew spent two weeks filming on location.

For those who have yet to see it (and honestly, what are you waiting for??), Argo tells the story of six American diplomatic personnel – Bob Anders (Tate Donovan – who was FABULOUS), Cora Lijek (Clea DuVall – whom I once took an acting class with Smile ), Joe Stafford (Scoot McNairy), Lee Schatz (Rory Cochrane), Mark Lijek (Christopher Denham – who looks exactly like Joel McHale in the movie), and Kathy Stafford (Kerry Bishe) – who hide out in the Canadian Ambassador’s Tehran residence for 79 days during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979. I became just a wee-bit obsessed with stalking the Ambassador’s house thanks to a bit of behind-the-scenes info that was mentioned in this October 2012 Los Angeles Times article about the filming. According to writer Richard Verrier, the shoot at the Hancock Park residence took over a month to complete and, prior to the start, Ben Affleck sequestered the actors playing the Houseguests (as they were called) in the home for seven days so that “they would get used to living in close quarters”. How incredibly cool is that? According to IMDB’s Argo trivia page, Affleck also shot the movie on regular film, later cutting each frame in half and then blowing up the images to two hundred times their normal size in order to match the grainy look of productions shot in the 1970s. How was this guy not nominated for a Best Director Oscar again??? Like really, Academy?

According to fave website Zillow, in real life the one-story property, which was originally built in 1964 and looks quite a bit out of place compared with the stately manors typically found in Hancock Park, boasts five bedrooms, six baths, 5,891 square feet of living space, a 0.46-acre plot of land, an “entertainment pavilion” with a second kitchen, a gym, a two-bedroom guest house, hand-painted ceilings and walls, parking for up to twenty cars (!), crystal chandeliers, a family room with a bar, a library, a breakfast room, and a pool. And while property records state that the abode last sold in 1999 for $1,425,000, I believe it was also put on the market sometime in the last few years, but did not sell. While researching the dwelling, I came across this real estate video on YouTube which shows the house as being vacant. I am fairly certain that the place was also vacant during the Argo shoot, which is most likely how it came to be used in the production.

The Canadian Ambassador’s residence was one of the main locations used in Argo and because the place boasts a very 1970s-style decor, not much of it had to be changed for the shoot. As you can see in the interior photographs of the house below, which I got off of the real estate video, the pad is very recognizable from its onscreen appearance. The areas of the property that were utilized in the filming include the living room (the mirrors that flank the sides of the fireplace were covered over for the shoot);

the dining room;

the game room;

the kitchen (check out that wallpaper!);

one of the bathrooms;

and the pool/backyard area.

Unfortunately, the real estate video does not show the area of the backyard that was featured in Argo, but you can see the columned pavilion that Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) and Ken stood under in a few scenes in the aerial view pictured below.

You can watch the home’s real estate video by clicking below.

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

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Canadian Ambassador’s house from Argo is located at 344 South Rimpau Boulevard in Hancock Park.

January 17, 2013January 17, 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That brick wall is pictured below.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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