Location intel
In the film-friendly city of Altadena, where pretty much every other house has been featured in a movie or television show, it seems that even the gas stations are famous! 🙂 Last week, while doing some Altadena stalking with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, he drove me by Ronnie’s Automotive, a gas and service station that has been used in countless movies and television shows. Mike had stalked the location a while back after recognizing it while watching Transformers where it was used as Bernie Mac’s car lot (pictured above and below).
While we were there snapping photographs, the owner of the garage happened to step outside. He really could not have been nicer and ended up chatting with us for a good 15 minutes. He told us all sorts of stories about different productions that had filmed there over the years. He said that Clint Eastwood, who directed Million Dollar Baby which was also filmed at the station, was by far the nicest and most professional director he had ever seen. Apparently Clint is so prepared and focused that he is able to complete each shot in just a few takes and his days are usually wrapped very quickly. He also told us that Clint is extremely nice and does not tolertate any sort of yelling on his sets.
All in all Ronnie’s Automotive has been featured in over 200 productions – so many, in fact, that the owner George could not remember most of them! Besides Transformers and Million Dollar Baby and countless commercials, it was also used in the Vince Vaughn flick Dodgeball and in Pamela Anderson‘s July 1992 Playboy pictorial. I was also convinced that Ronnie’s was used as Dan Akroyd’s garage in the Britney Spears‘ movie Crossroads. Back when I was an extra in Crossroads, one of the crew members told me that the garage used in the movie was located in Altadena, so I just assumed that it was Ronnie’s. However, when I recently re-watched the movie, I could see that the two stations didn’t match up. So it looks like Mike and I have a new location to find! 🙂
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: Ronnie’s Automotive Service is located at 2012 Lake Avenue in Altadena. You can visit their website here.