Year: 2012

The “You, Me and Dupree” House – Revisited

Today’s location is one that I have actually already once blogged about – way back in April of 2008 – but because it was a fairly short write-up and because I somehow missed one very pertinent detail when reporting on the place, I decided that it was most-definitely worthy of a re-post. The location? The adorable Craftsman-style bungalow where newlyweds Carl (Matt Dillon) and Molly (Kate Hudson) lived in the 2006 romantic comedy You, Me and Dupree. Fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, took me by the property and pointed out the detail that I had inadvertently missed while the two of us were out doing some stalking in the West Adams district a couple of weeks ago and, let me tell you, I just about fell over from shock. I could hardly believe my eyes when he pointed it out! What is this detail, you ask?

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As you can see in the screen captures pictured above, in You, Me and Dupree Carl and Molly’s residence appears to be two stories tall.

In reality, though, and as you can see above, the home, which was built in 1923, is a ONE-story dwelling! How I missed that fact the first time around is absolutely beyond me, especially being that I usually consider myself to be quite an observant little stalker. I must have been in the midst of a severe blonde moment when I originally stalked the property! I am not sure if a fake second level was built on top of the bungalow during the filming or if one was digitally added during post-production, but, either way, I was absolutely gobsmacked (LOVE that word!) when Mike pointed out the discrepancy!

According to Zillow, in real life the 1,726-square-foot house boasts 2 bedrooms and 2 baths, but Property Shark tracks the place at 4 bedrooms and 3 baths, so someone seems to have gotten their wires crossed with the measurements at some point.

Being that Carl and Molly’s living room was dominated by a set of stairs that led up to the home’s fake second level, the real life interior of the property was, obviously, not used in the filming. The inside of their house was, in actuality, just a set that was built on a soundstage at Universal Studios Hollywood. According to fave website Hooked on Houses, of the set, directors Joe and Anthony Russo said in the movie’s DVD commentary, “We tried to make Carl and Molly’s world sort of warm and accessible and you’ll see that in the choice of their house. It’s an older home, modest in scale, and the neighborhood feels like it’s been there awhile.”

Also according to Hooked on Houses, the scene pictured above, in which Carl watches Dupree (Owen Wilson) play baseball with some neighborhood kids, was actually filmed from inside of the real life home, because the directors wanted to “capture the look you can only get through old glass.” It has been said that “God is in the details” and it is the little details like this that I absolutely LOVE hearing about.

According to IMDB’s You, Me and Dupree trivia page, the set used for the interior of Molly and Carl’s house was the same one used for the residence of Hope (Mel Harris) and Michael Steadman (Ken Olin) on the 1980s television series thirtysomething. But, as you can see above, while slightly similar, the two are most definitely not one in the same.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for pointing out the discrepancy in the number of stories of the You, Me and Dupree house.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The You, Me and Dupree house is located at 2406 Gramercy Park in the West Adams District of Los Angeles.

February 21, 2012
Happy Presidents’ Day!

I will be taking today off in honor of Presidents’ Day, but will be back tomorrow with a whole new post. I hope all of my fellow stalkers had a fabulous three-day weekend!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

February 20, 2012
The Alleyway and The Blue Banana Club from “Pretty Woman”

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in my post about the Pretty Woman party house, fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I have recently been on the hunt for a few of the flick’s more elusive locations – the two most important of which being the alleyway where the body of “Skinny Marie” was found and, across the street from it, The Blue Banana Club where Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) and Kit De Luca (Laura San Giacomo) hung out in the film. And, amazingly enough, Mike was able to track down both locales in a relatively short period of time – as were fellow stalkers E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, and Scott Michaels, from the Findadeath website, whom I also enlisted in the hunt. So, while out doing some stalking in the Hollywood area three weekends ago, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over to stalk both spots.

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In one of Pretty Woman’s opening scenes, Vivian is shown walking through an alleyway where the dead body of a fellow prostitute named Skinny Marie has just been pulled out of a garbage dumpster.

While watching the scene, Mike happened to recognize the unique roofline of the historic Miceli’s Restaurant in the background behind a very young Hank Azaria, who played the role of a nameless homicide detective who laments about tourists taking photographs of Skinny Marie’s body in the flick. From there, Mike simply used Google Street View to look for an alley in the area half a block west and on the opposite side of the street from Miceli’s. And voila, it was not long before he found the right spot! Yay!

As it turns out, though, the Pretty Woman alleyway is not actually an alleyway at all, as we had originally thought, but the main lobby of The Outpost Building – a Spanish-Colonial-style structure that was commissioned by a Mr. and Mrs. B.C. Donnelly and designed by architect B.B. Horner in 1927. The historic property, which was fashioned after stores in Madrid, Spain, was originally comprised of apartment units that became home to countless aspiring starlets during the Hollywood heyday, but today is made up solely of offices and retail space.

Sadly, the building was closed when we showed up to stalk it, but I did manage to snap the above photographs through the glass front doors. As you can see, the “alley” still looks exactly the same today as it did in Pretty Woman, despite the fact that over twenty-two years have since passed! Even the shoe shine stand that Vivian walked by is still there! LOVE IT!

Amazingly enough, when I showed Mike the photographs I had taken of the lobby of The Outpost Building, he immediately recognized the place as the “Celebrity Apartments” where Tom Turner (Greg Kinnear) lived in the 1996 comedy Dear God. Both the exterior of the property . . .

. . . and the lobby area were used in the flick. In an interesting twist, Dear God was directed by none other than Garry Marshall, the very same man who also directed Pretty Woman. I guess the guy just has a thing for The Outpost Building!

Thanks to the Lenrek website, I also discovered that in the 1984 cult classic Angel, high school student/prostitute Molly “Angel” Stewart (Donna Wilkes) walked from the rear entrance of The Outpost Building, through the lobby and out the front door while on the search for a serial killer.

Interestingly enough, according to the GPSMyCity website, The Outpost Building also has a connection to novelist Raymond Chandler. In his 1939 mystery The Big Sleep, Chandler describes Geiger’s Rare Books and Deluxe Editions as follows: “A. G. Geiger’s place was a store frontage on the north side of the boulevard near Las Palmas. The entrance door was set far back in the middle and there was a copper trim on the windows, which were backed with Chinese screens, so I couldn’t see into the store. There was a lot of oriental junk in the windows. I don’t know whether it was any good, not being a collector of antiques, except unpaid bills. The entrance door was plate glass, but I couldn’t see much through that either, because the store was very dim. A building entrance adjoined it on one side and on the other was a glittering credit jewelry establishment.” Apparently, numerous Chandler aficionados believe that that description was inspired by none other than The Outpost Building. So incredibly cool!

Once Mike had located The Outpost Building, tracking down The Blue Banana Club was a snap, since in the movie it was shown to be situated directly across the street from the alleyway where Skinny Marie’s body was found.

Shockingly enough, The Blue Banana Club was actually a part of the historic Egyptian Theatre! At the time that the movie was filmed, the property belonged to the United Artists Corporation and it looked considerably different than it does today, but you can see pictures of the place in its Pretty Woman state on The Bruce Torrence Hollywood Photograph Collection website here and here, and on the Gorillas Don’t Blog website here. Ironically enough, a few minutes after Mike had texted me to let me know that The Blue Banana was actually the Egyptian Theatre, I received an email from both E.J. and Scott telling me the exact same thing. Great minds . . .

Today, the storefront that stood in for The Blue Banana houses the newly-opened Maui and Sons Bar & Grill. I am, unfortunately, unsure of what was in that location at the time of the filming, but back in the 1930s through the 1950s it housed the Larry Dine men’s clothing store and, in more recent years, it was the site of a Lickity Split ice cream shop.

In his commentary on the Pretty Woman 15th Anniversary Special Edition DVD, Garry Marshall states that, while set dressers had created a fake exterior for the outside of The Blue Banana Club, the interior scenes were filmed at an actual club located somewhere in Hollywood. Sadly though, as of yet, we have been unable to track down that location.

The interior looks like it might have been some sort of historic building, though, as it features some fairly ornate detailing, as you can see in the above screen capture.

On a side-note – My good friend Katie, from the Matthew Lillard Online website, is hosting a contest today to win two tickets to the Hollywood Rush show, in which the cutie actor will be directing a ten-minute play, taking place this Sunday night at 7 p.m. at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in L.A. You can enter the contest on Matthew Lillard Online or on twitter at @mattlillardfans.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, E.J., from The Movieland Directory, and Scott, from Findadeath, for finding these locations!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Pretty Woman alleyway is actually the lobby of The Outpost Building, which is located at 6715 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. You can visit the property’s official website here. Maui and Sons Bar & Grill, aka the exterior of The Blue Banana Club from Pretty Woman, is located across the street at 6708 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

February 17, 2012
The Redbury Hotel from “Entourage”

Last July, while doing some cyber-stalking, I came across an article on the USA TODAY Travel website about the numerous Southern California hotels and restaurants featured in the eighth and final season of the hit television series Entourage. One of the spots mentioned in the blurb was Tinseltown’s newly-opened The Redbury Hotel, which appeared in the episode titled “The Big Bang”, and, thanks to its dark crimson walls, unique architecture and old Hollywood vibe, I immediately became enamored of the place. I, of course, added the locale to my “To-Stalk” list right then and there, but, for whatever reason, did not make it out there to actually do so until three weekends ago.

And I am very happy to report that the place did not disappoint! To say that I am in love with The Redbury would be a gross understatement. The 57-room boutique hotel, which first opened in November of 2010, was the brainchild of sbe Entertainment Group founder/CEO Sam Nazarian and photographer/music video director Matthew Rolston. The 5-story structure was originally conceived as a high-end, $50 million condominium project by the Palisades Development company, but that venture was forced to be scrapped during the real estate downturn. In February of 2010, at which time the building was about 80-percent complete, it was purchased by the CIM Group, who re-envisioned the locale as an upscale hotel and hired Nazarian and Rolston to manage and design it, respectively.

The name Redbury comes from a combination of “red”, the hue that Palisades Development had already painted the building, and “bury”, in honor of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. According to an August 2010 Los Angeles Times article, the hotel’s eclectic style is a mix of “bohemian, 1960s flower power and old Hollywood”. Apparently, Rolston wanted the locale to feel “’theatrical’, a little bit like actually being in one of my photographs or music videos”. And, as you can see above, he succeeded with that vision – in spades! The Redbury is honestly like nothing I have ever seen before and absolutely does feel like a movie set come to life. I so loved it that I was even tempted to book a room while we were there for a spontaneous little stay-cation, but the Grim Cheaper was, of course, having none of that.

The Redbury staff was BEYOND friendly and, even though none of the hotel’s restaurants were open while we were stalking the place, I was allowed to go inside to take a peek at each of them and told that I could snap “all of the photographs you want” – six little words that I absolutely LOVE to hear. The areas of the hotel that we visited included the Library Bar – which honestly feels more like the ultra-cozy living room of a very stylish friend’s house than a public bar;

The Glade courtyard lounge – a huge terrace garden complete with teak decking, Moorish-style lanterns and outdoor couches and daybeds;

and Cleo – an ultra-hip Middle-Eastern-style restaurant that is dominated by a large 1917 movie poster of actress Theda Bara dressed as Cleopatra. The Library Bar, Glade and Cleo are all major celebrity hotspots. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted at the one of the three watering holes include my girl Kristin Cavallari, my man Matt Lanter (sigh!), Drew Barrymore, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Foxx, Hilary Duff, Joe Jonas, Ashley Greene, Audrina Patridge, Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere, Sam Trammell, the entire Kardashian/Jenner family, Courteney Cox, Josh Hopkins, Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Adam Brody, Neve Campbell, Carla Gugino, Nia Vardalos, Jesse Williams, Lauren Conrad, Lo Bosworth, Whitney Port, Busy Phillips, Stacey Keibler, David Beckham, Kirstie Alley, Cheryl Burke, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Jessica Lowndes, Gillian Zinser, Sarah Hyland, Salma Hayek, Mila Kunis, and Ali Fedotowsky.

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In “The Big Bang” episode of Entourage, Cleo restaurant was where Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) ambushed Vanity Fair reporter Sophia Lear (Alice Eve) and tried to convince her that he was not a womanizer. And while the USA TODAY Travel article stated that the series had filmed scenes “throughout the hotel, including its Library lounge”, I did not spot any other areas of the property in “The Big Bang” or in other episodes from Season 8, so I believe that information is incorrect.

The yet-to-be released movie Between Us, which stars Julia Stiles, Melissa George and Taye Diggs, also did some filming at The Redbury.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Redbury Hotel, from “The Big Bang” episode of Entourage, is located at 1717 Vine Street in Hollywood. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

February 16, 2012
Oliver’s Palm Springs House from “The O.C.”

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the Grim Cheaper and I have just recently started watching fave series The O.C. over again from the beginning and one location that popped up during the first season that I have been absolutely dying to find and stalk was the supposed-Palm-Springs-area house that belonged to troublemaker Oliver Trask (Taylor Handley) in the episode titled “The Links”. So imagine my surprise when fellow stalker Geoff, of the 90210Locations website, randomly emailed me last week, after seeing my post on Café-Club Fais Do-Do (which stood in for a Tijuana nightclub in one of The O.C.’s early episodes), to let me know that he had tracked down a few of the show’s more elusive locales, one of which was Oliver’s Palm Springs residence! I kid you not! As you can imagine, I was absolutely bowled over by this information and, as I told Geoff, would have run out to stalk the place right then and there had it not been pouring at the time. When the rain finally did subside the following morning, I, of course, rushed right on over to the house to finally stalk it. Yay!

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In “The Links” episode of The O.C., Oliver invites the Newport gang – Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie), Seth Cohen (Adam Brody), Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton), Luke Ward (Chris Carmack), Summer Roberts (Rachel Bilson), and Anna Stern (Samaire Armstrong) – to spend the weekend with him at his parents’ mid-century-modern-style home in Palm Springs, which he states is located “right on PGA West”. And while Geoff originally thought that the property was in Huntington Beach, near the Seacliff Country Club where the group played golf in the episode, he came up completely empty-handed after searching the area. Then, a few months later, while trying to track down a different locale in South Pasadena, he spotted a house on Arroyo Drive that looked vaguely familiar. He was unsure of where he had seen the residence before, but made a note of the address. It was not until a couple of weeks afterwards that he happened to re-watch “The Links” episode of The O.C. and realized that the house that had looked so familiar was Oliver’s. Nicely done, Geoff!

In real life, the 3-bedroom, 3-bath, 3,032-square-foot home, which was originally built in 1959 and sits on almost half an acre of land, is pretty darn spectacular! In fact, the main reason that I wanted to stalk the property so badly, besides the fact that it appeared on The O.C. of course, was that I had fallen in love with its mid-century-style architecture pretty much as soon as it had appeared on my TV screen. And I am very happy to report that, in person, the place did not disappoint.

As you can see above, the residence most definitely does look like a Palm-Springs-area home, so it is not very hard to see why producers chose to use it in “The Links” episode.

The real-life interior of the property, and even some of the real-life furniture – both of which you can see photographs of here – were also used in the episode.

I am fairly certain, though, that the bedrooms where Ryan, Marissa, Seth, and Anna stayed were just sets that were built inside of a soundstage at Raleigh Studios Manhattan Beach where the series was lensed, as they do not seem to match the real-life interior of the house.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Oliver’s Palm Springs house from “The Links” episode of The O.C. is located at 534 Arroyo Drive in South Pasadena.

February 15, 2012
Robert Reed’s Former Home

I (along with cutie Matt Lanter – sigh!) would like to start out today by wishing all of my fellow stalkers a very happy Valentine’s Day! And now, on with the post!

A couple of weeks ago, while doing research on the Nanny and the Professor house, I happened to stumble upon an article on my friend Scott Michaels’ FindADeath website about Robert Reed, the Shakespearian-trained actor who is most famous for having portrayed architect/patriarch Mike Brady on the 1970s television sitcom The Brady Bunch. And, let me tell you, I almost fell right out of my chair when I read the portion of the article which stated that the star had lived the majority of his later years right here in Pasadena. Come again, now? How in the world had I not previously known this information?? Especially considering that The Brady Bunch is one of my favorite shows of all time! I mean, why on earth is this data not posted right there on the homepage of the official City of Pasadena website, or on a plaque on the walls of City Hall itself?? It is a pretty major claim to fame – in my eyes at least! Sheesh! Do I have to think of everything? Anyway, I was so excited about the news that I ran right out to stalk the place later that same week.

According to Zillow, Robert Reed’s former home, which was originally built in 1947 and sits on almost half an acre of land, boasts 3 bedrooms, 4 baths, and 4,400 square feet of living space. There seems to be a bit of a discrepancy somewhere, though, because the Property Shark website has a differing set of statistics which state that the abode measures 4 bedrooms, 5 baths, and 4,010 square feet of living space. And, unfortunately, I am unsure of which information is correct. Either way, I cannot express how incredibly cool I think it is that Robert Reed, who was a household name and an instantly recognizable star at the time, lived in a dwelling that was largely visible from the street. Love it!

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According to his death certificate, which can be viewed on the FindADeath website, Robert Reed passed away at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena on Tuesday, May 12th, 1992, and not at his home as several websites have stated. The actor was 59 years old at the time. His funeral was held at All Saints Church in Pasadena, an oft-filmed-at location that I have yet to blog about, and he is buried at Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie, Illinois. According to a commenter named Rita on the FindADeath site, the home pictured above was not Robert Reed’s first Pasadena-area residence. The star, who was born John Robert Rietz, originally purchased a property located at 1210 South Arroyo Boulevard sometime during the mid-sixties. That gargantuan abode, which boasts 3 bedrooms, 5 baths, a whopping 9,218 square feet, and 0.84 acres of land, is, sadly, not at all visible from the street, though, so I did not attempt to stalk it. Reed sold his original Pasadena residence sometime around 1985, at which point he moved about a half a mile east, into the sprawling Spanish-style home where he would live out the remainder of his years.

Big THANK YOU to Scott Michaels, from the FindADeath website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Robert Reed’s former house is located at 980 Stoneridge Drive in Pasadena. The Cravens Estate, from Commander in Chief and JAG, is located right around the corner at 430 Madeline Drive in Pasadena.

February 14, 2012
Taking a Day Off!

The Grim Cheaper and I spent the past weekend visiting my parents in Palm Springs, so I, unfortunately, did not have time to write a new blog post for today. But I did run into actor Jeremy London while at The Living Desert on Sunday, which was a total thrill! He was incredibly nice and not only took off his sunglasses so that my pic with him would turn out better, but even suggested we move our position so that the sun would not shadow our faces. Um, LOVE IT! 🙂 Anyway, I promise to be back tomorrow with a whole new location.

So until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

February 13, 2012
The “TimesTalks” Interview with George Clooney & Alexander Payne

This past Wednesday afternoon, the fabulous Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, informed me that she had just scored two tickets to The New York Times “TimesTalks in L.A.” interview with actor George Clooney and his The Descendants director Alexander Payne. Pinky wanted me to be her plus-one for the event, which was taking place that evening at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, and, even though I have never been a huge George Clooney fan, I immediately accepted. Now don’t get me wrong, I loved Ocean’s Eleven and think GC (yes, there’s another one!) is a great actor, but, unlike most females on the planet, he has never been my end-all, be-all. I have always just kind of felt fair-to-middling about the guy. Oh, how that was all about to change! Pinky and I showed up to the event about an hour early and there were already a good 100 people in line. Thankfully though, we were able to snag some second row seats and Pinky was literally on the edge of hers the entire time waiting for the interview to begin. You see, George Clooney has long been Pinky’s “unicorn”. While almost all of her other stalker friends had managed to snag pics with him over the years, she had somehow missed him at countless events and was beginning to think the guy didn’t exist. So to make sure that this would not turn out to be yet another failed opportunity, she knitted George a scarf and wrote him a card, hoping that he would take pity on us and, in turn, pose for a couple of photos.

The interview got started right on time and when George Clooney walked onto the stage, I am pretty sure my mouth fell open about a foot . . . and I might have even drooled a little. In person, without the aid of professional make-up, lighting, and Photoshop, the guy still looked movie-star-perfect! Like WOW!

Unfortunately, the moderator for the event, who shall remain nameless, was beyond-words horrible! How he managed to make an interview with George Clooney and Alexander Payne boring is absolutely beyond me, but he did! About thirty minutes into it, I turned to Pinky and said, “I would rather stab a pen through my eye than have to sit here and listen to this guy any longer!” I swear, if Joel McHale and The Soup writers got hold of the video of the event, they would have a field day! At one point, when an audience member asked George and Alexander what movies had inspired them over the years, the moderator opted to also give an answer himself. Like, really?? I don’t think anyone was asking you! And while Alexander seemed annoyed with the guy (and rightfully so!), George (gotta love him!) was repeatedly trying to help him out. He continually attempted to lead the conversation in a much more interesting direction and gave beautifully-crafted answers to the many inanely-crafted questions. All I could think while watching him was, George Clooney is not just nice, he’s kind. I honestly do not think I would have been nearly as gracious in the same situation.

George was also EXTREMELY funny, witty, and quick to laugh, as you can see above. I can only imagine how dreadfully boring the whole interview would have been had he not been carrying it.

George also seemed incredibly down-to-earth. When the moderator opened up the interview to questions from the audience at the end of the evening and then realized there were no microphones set up in the auditorium, George immediately jumped out of his chair to help find one. Um, LOVE IT! And the tipping point for me was when a much older, slightly clueless, gentleman got up to ask a question, during which he told George that he had once submitted a script to George’s uncle, movie director Jose Ferrer, and that, in response, Jose had written him the kindest rejection letter he had ever received. He happened to have the letter with him and George immediately jumped off of the stage to accept it, then gave the guy a hug, and posed for a photograph with him for the press in attendance. The gentleman, who by that time was no longer near the audience microphone, then asked George if he wouldn’t mind moving a bit closer to him so that he could use the microphone affixed to George’s lapel to continue to tell his story (not kidding!), which went on . . . and on . . . and on. The whole thing was absolutely unbelievable, but George, once again, was beyond kind about it and never rushed the man or acted in any way uninterested in hearing what he had to say.

As soon as the interview was over, Pinky ran up to the stage and called George over to give him the scarf and card she had made. George honestly could NOT have been nicer, thanked her, and happily agreed to pose for a pic . . .

. . . which turned out ADORABLE! <3

Then I asked for a pic and George, once again, happily obliged. Pinky often says about the friendlier stars she has met over the years, “That celeb was so nice, he/she would have braided my hair if I had I asked!” Well, I am very happy to report that George Clooney was braid-your-hair nice.

Alexander Payne was also incredibly nice and down-to-earth and actually kneeled down on the stage next to me so that my picture with him would come out better. LOVE IT!

Pinky and I took the above photo as we were walking to our car after the interview, squealing like little schoolgirls the entire way! She captioned the pic on Facebook, “This is our ‘We just met George Clooney’ face!”

Watch live streaming video from nytimes at livestream.com

You can watch a video of the entire “TimesTalks in LA” interview with George Clooney and Alexander Payne by clicking above.

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Upon leaving the event, Pinky, ever the stalker, decided to search the WireImage website to see which stars were in attendance at the This Means War premiere that was taking place over in Hollywood that same night. And she just about flipped when she saw that Kristin Cavallari was there, because it just so happens that KCav is my unicorn! I absolutely LOVE the reality star and have not only missed her at several appearances, but when I did end up meeting her a few years back, the Grim Cheaper had a massive fail with our photo op. So Pinky and I immediately headed right on over to Hollywood to try to catch my unicorn! And while we didn’t end up seeing Kristin, we did get some pics with some other celebs including Holly Marie Combs (don’t we look like besties in the above photo? );

Perrey Reeves, aka Mrs. Ari on Entourage;

Melanie Lynskey – aka Rose, Charlie’s stalker on Two and a Half Men;

Ashley Jones, from The Bold and the Beautiful and True Blood;

and Francois Arnaud from The Borgias. All in all it was a FABULOUS night that I am still on a complete and total high from over 24 hours later! You can read Miss Pinky Lovejoy’s write-up of the evening on her blog here.

Big THANK YOU to Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, for inviting me to this event and for turning me into a huge George Clooney fan in the process!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Unfortunately, there is no stalking location for this one, but you can catch The Descendants in theatres now.

February 10, 2012
Charlie Babbitt’s Apartment from “Rain Man”

A couple of weeks ago, I read on fellow stalker Lisa’s Finding the Famous blog that the apartment building where Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) lived in the 1988 movie Rain Man was located somewhere in the Hollywood Hills. I, of course, immediately started trying to track down the building’s exact location and fairly quickly found the information I was seeking thanks to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory. E.J.’s website has actually been on a “hiatus” since January 8th of this year, while it is being updated from its previous database of 20,000 movie locales and celebrity addresses to one of over 90,000. And while that all sounds well and good, this stalker has been simply lost without the website, as I use it almost daily as a resource. When I emailed E.J. to tell him of my plight, he immediately sent over an extremely large Excel spreadsheet containing all 90,000 of his extensively-researched addresses for me to refer to at will. Um, how do I even begin to say thank you for that??? Needless to say, the gesture was GREATLY appreciated. And while I have to admit that I am, for whatever reason, supremely Excel-challenged, I have been using his database regularly and was able to find the location of the Rain Man apartment building with sufficient ease. Thank you, “Ctrl-F” and thank you, E.J.! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place this past weekend.

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Charlie Babbitt’s apartment building shows up only once, and very briefly, towards they end of Rain Man, in the scene in which Charlie brings his newly-found autistic brother, Raymond Babbitt (Dustin Hoffman), home to Los Angeles after a long road trip across America. It is at the building that Raymond freaks out after setting off the fire alarm while attempting to cook Eggo Waffles in a convection oven.

The area of the apartment building shown in Rain Man is not the front exterior, but the west side, which, thankfully, still looks much the same today as it did when the movie was filmed in 1988, despite the fact that almost two and a half decades have since passed. The only difference I could spot is that the chain link fence which once surrounded the pool has since been replaced with a wooden fence. But otherwise, the place looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen. So incredibly cool!

The front exterior of the building is pictured above. According to fave website Zillow, the dwelling was originally constructed in 1926 and measures 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 2,201 square feet. And while I could not find much information about the place online, I am guessing that it is comprised of 3 separate apartment units. I also learned from E.J.’s extensive files that actor Brad Pitt once lived on the premises sometime during the ‘90s, so the property has quite an extensive claim to fame!

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the building was also used in the filming of Rain Man, although I, unfortunately, could not find any interior photographs of the place online with which to verify that hunch. And, legend has it that a lithograph of Tom Cruise, that was given to him during the production, still hangs in the property’s laundry room to this day. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to get in there to see that!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lisa, from the Finding the Famous blog, for informing me of this location and to my friend E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, for tracking it down.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Charlie Babbitt’s apartment building from Rain Man is located at 8800 Evanview Drive/1599 Sunset Plaza Drive in the Hollywood Hills. The area of the building that was shown in the movie can be seen from Evanview Drive, just west of where it intersects with Sunset Plaza Drive.

February 9, 2012
Pomona College’s Harwood Court – aka Eastland School from “The Facts of Life”

Well over six months ago, my good friend Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, asked if I would like to do some stalking with him of Harwood Court, the Pomona College dormitory which stood in for the fictional Eastland School, attended by Blair Warner (Lisa Whelchel), Dorothy ‘Tootie’ Ramsey (Kim Fields), Natalie Green (Mindy Cohn), and Joanne ‘Jo” Polniaczek (Nancy McKeon), in the 1980’s television series The Facts of Life. My answer, of course, was a resounding “YES!” Because both of our schedules have been a bit hectic as of late, though, we were not able to make it out there until this past Sunday afternoon. Needless to say, we were both pretty excited about the whole adventure when it finally came to pass and, a few days before we headed to Claremont, Mikey sent me an email which stated, “Wow, this is just like going scuba diving with Jacques Cousteau, or playing football with Tim Tebow, or getting a pants-dropping lesson from Marky Mark! Well, maybe not that last one!” Um, my stalking skills being compared to the scuba skills of Jacques Cousteau?!?! LOVE IT!

This location was actually found by Robert, of the Movie Locations and More website, way back in the Summer of 2010. Earlier that year, Robert had read online that the exterior of Eastland School was a building on the Pomona College campus in Claremont, but because Google Street View of that area is not particularly clear, he was unable to track down the exact structure used via the internet. So when he came to Los Angeles for a stalking visit a few months later, he drove around the 140-acre campus, screen shot in hand, and, amazingly enough, was able to track down the building fairly quickly. Thank you, Robert! In reality, Eastland School is the Harwood Court residential hall – a 68,000-square-foot unisex dormitory that was built in 1921 and currently houses 170 students. The structure, which was originally an all-female dorm, was completely renovated by the Wheeler & Wheeler architectural firm in 1990. Thankfully though, it still looks much the same as it did onscreen in The Facts of Life.

A few years ago, Mikey had actually purchased one of Molly Ringwald’s costumes from the first season of The Facts of Life, as well as a promotional lunch box from the series that he had signed by none other than Mrs. Edna Garrett (Charlotte Rae) herself, and he brought both items with him on our stalk to add to the fun. On our way there, he mentioned that he thought I might be able to fit into the track jacket portion of Molly’s former costume and, shockingly, he was right! I cannot tell you how nervous I was to be wearing such an amazing piece of television history, while drinking a Starbucks, no less, so I only kept it on long enough to snap a couple of pics.

Molly is pictured wearing one of the track jackets above. So incredibly cool!!

While we were there, a resident happened to walk out of Harwood Court and we stopped her to ask if she would take a photograph of Mikey and me. She obliged and afterwards I inquired if she was aware that her dorm was, in fact, The Facts of Life school. Shockingly, she had not actually been aware, and, even more shockingly, she did not seem to be too impressed by the news. Ah well, I guess not everyone is a stalker.

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Harwood Court showed up as the fictional Peekskill, New York-area Eastland School during the opening credits of The Facts of Life’s entire nine-season run.

“The Facts of Life” Filmed at Harwood Court Residence Hall at Pomona College

You can watch the series’ opening credits by clicking above. On an interesting side-note – the show’s insanely-catchy theme song was co-composed by Alan Thicke, aka Jason Seaver, the patriarch of the Seaver family on Growing Pains, and real-life father of R&B singer Robin Thicke.

While doing research before heading out to Pomona College with Mikey on Sunday, I discovered that Harwood Court had also appeared in several other productions. In 1985’s Real Genius, it was featured as the dormitory where Chris Knight (Val Kilmer), Mitch Taylor (Gabriel Jarret), and Jordan (Michelle Meyrink) lived.

And while some of the real-life interior of the building was actually used in the movie . . .

. . . I am fairly certain that the hallway and dorm rooms were sets.

In 1987’s Teen Wolf Too, Harwood Court stood in for the Hamilton College dormitory where Todd Howard (Jason Bateman) lived with his roommate, Stiles (Stuart Franklin).

The back side of the building appeared in the movie’s beyond-words-awful “Do You Love Me” dance sequence.

I believe that the interior scenes were all filmed on a set, though.

In the Season 1 episode of the reality series Top Chef Masters titled “Masters Get Schooled”, the Elimination Challenge, in which professional chefs Michael Schlow, Hubert Keller, Tim Love, and Christopher Lee were required to cook a gourmet meal in a dorm room, was held at Harwood Court.

You can read Mikey’s fab write-up of our The Facts of Life stalk on the Mike the Fanboy website here and you can watch a video Mikey put together of our adventure by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Robert, from the Movie Locations and More website, for finding this location and to Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, for inviting me to stalk it with him.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Harwood Court residence hall, aka Eastland School from The Facts of Life, is located on the campus of Pomona College at 170 East Bonita Avenue in Claremont.

February 8, 2012