Year: 2012

Katie’s House from “The Ring”

While doing research on the Malibou Lake residence that stood in for the office of Doctor Grasnik (Jane Alexander) in the thriller The Ring, I came across a page on fave website Washington State Film Locations which stated that the supposed Seattle-area house where Katie (Amber Tamblyn) lived – and died – in the 2002 flick was actually located in Hancock Park. Well, believe you me, I just about fell off my chair upon learning the information as I had always thought that particular abode was located in the Pacific Northwest, where the majority of The Ring was lensed. So I immediately added the residence to my Haunted-Hollywood-To-Stalk list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there just a few days later.

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Sadly, thanks to some very dense foliage, not much of Katie’s house is visible from the street, as you can see below. In real life, the Tudor-style abode, which was originally built in 1924, boasts 5 bedrooms, 3 baths, 3,610 square feet of living space, and a 0.28-acre plot of land.

The exterior of the stately residence was featured several times in The Ring. It first popped up in the movie’s opening scene in which Katie was tormented and then killed by Samara (Daveigh Chase), seven days after viewing a cursed video tape. As you can see below, while recognizable, the house looks quite a bit different today than it did in 2002 when The Ring was filmed, mostly due to the addition of a front gate, walkway and massive amounts of foliage.

The property next popped up in the scene in which Katie’s friends and family gather for her memorial. In that scene, the driveway area of the home is visible and, as you can see below, at the time of the filming, the hedges surrounding the front yard were much lower than they are now. Boo!

The house lastly shows up – through a rainy windshield – in the scene in which Rachel (Naomi Watts) drops her son, Aidan (David Dorfman), off at her sister’s place for the week.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was also used in the flick, but I was unable to find any interior photographs of the residence with which to verify that hunch.

Thanks to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, I learned that the very same residence was also used as the home where Buster (Bernie Mac) lived, with his cheating wife, Robin (Beverly Johnson), in 1997’s How to Be a Player, although very little of the house can actually be seen in the flick.

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 Charles, from the In Twin Peaks website, for finding this location and to Marc, from the Washington State Film Locations website, for posting it!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Katie’s house from The Ring is located at 413 South McCadden Place in Hancock Park.

October 9, 2012
“The Vanishing” Apartment Building

Today’s location is an oldie, but goodie. Waaaaaaaaaaay back in May 2010, the Grim Cheaper and I took a little pre-wedding stalking vacation to the Pacific Northwest to visit our good friends fellow stalker Kerry and her husband, Jim – and to see the grocery store where Michael Buble’s “Haven’t Met You Yet” music video was filmed, which I blogged about here. Before heading up there, Kerry suggested that I check out the 1993 thriller The Vanishing as she had tracked down all of its locales and thought I might be interested in stalking them. Well, I ended up watching the flick just a few days prior to our trip and absolutely loved it – and the uniquely tiered apartment building that appeared extensively throughout it. So Kerry took us right on over there to stalk the place during the second day of our vacay. And, let me tell you, the building is just as cool in person as it appeared to be onscreen. (Please excuse my appearance in the photograph above – the Seattle weather was not very kind to my naturally curly hair and I wound up having to either pull it back or hide it under a cap during most of our stay.)

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In The Vanishing, the apartment building is where Jeff Harriman (Kiefer Sutherland) lives with his new girlfriend, Rita Baker (Nancy Travis), after suffering through the unsolved disappearance of his previous girlfriend, Diane Shaver (a pre-Speed Sandra Bullock), three years prior. The building pops up countless times in the movie.

As you can see below, it looks pretty much EXACTLY the same today as it did nineteen years ago when The Vanishing was filmed. Even the paint color is still the same (at least it was in May 2010 when I stalked the place). LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT!

In The Vanishing, Jeff and Rita lived in Apartment #20, which is the real life address number of the unit where filming took place, as well. So incredibly cool!

While watching The Vanishing, I had been convinced that the view from the apartment building was fake as it seemed just a bit too spectacular. So I was floored when it turned out to be the building’s actual view! Jaw-dropping!

As luck would have it, while we were stalking the place we happened to meet one of the building’s super-nice residents who invited us to step onto the property to get a closer look. And while I was seriously tempted to pose for a picture next to Jeff and Rita’s front door, I restrained myself as I was afraid that might be overstaying my welcome just a bit.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of Apartment #20 was also used in the filming, although I could not find interior pictures of any of the units with which to verify that hunch.

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 fellow stalker Kerry for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Vanishing apartment building is located at 200 Aloha Street in Seattle. In the movie, Jeff and Rita lived in Apartment #20.

October 8, 2012
Alfred Hitchcock’s Second L.A. Home

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post (which you can read here), in the Spring of 1942, Alfred Hitchcock, his wife, Alma, and their daughter, Pat, moved out of their first Los Angeles-area home (a Bel Air rental that was previously lived in by Carole Lombard) and into a new one, which they purchased, that was located just a few miles away at 10957 Bellagio Road. I learned of this location, once again, thanks to the book Dial H for Hitchcock, the fifth installment of author Susan Kandel’s Cece Caruso mystery series, which I am a HUGE fan of.

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Hitch’s new story-and-a-half Colonial-style residence, which was originally constructed in 1942 (I am guessing that he was the home’s first owner), boasts 7 bedrooms, 5 baths, and 7,258 square feet of living space. It sits on a well-hidden 0.64-acre plot of land that backs directly up to the golf course of the Bel Air Country Club, near the fifteenth hole. According to the 1999 book Hitchcock & Selznick, the Master of Suspense would snatch up any errant golf balls that made their way into his yard and give them to his dogs. LOL The legendary director lived on the premises from 1942 until his death, which took place inside of the home, on April 29th, 1980. Alma passed away two years later on July 6, 1982. And it appears as though whomever purchased the residence from the Hitchcock estate still owns it to this day.

The Hitchcock & Selznick book also states that, while he was searching for his new home, Hitch told a reporter, “All I need is a snug little house with a kitchen, and the devil with a swimming pool.” Alfred, an avid cook, failed to mention that it would have to be a spectacular kitchen. According to Dial H for Hitchcock, the director apparently spent a whopping TWENTY YEARS redesigning the kitchen of the Bellagio road home. As Kandel states, “For Hitchcock, eating was serious business. His father, a grocer in London’s East End, insisted on potatoes at every meal. The habit stuck. Hitch wolfed them whole, halved, diced, sliced, boiled, baked, fried, sautéed, cottage-fried, double-baked, and, in his waning years, mashed. At age twenty-seven, he weighed two hundred pounds; at forty, he weighed close to four hundred. At forty-four, by his own admission, his ankles hung over his socks and his belt reached up to his necktie. Not that he particularly minded. His weight was his armor, his insulation. Which makes it doubly odd that in his work food is so unfailingly gruesome: the milk poisoned, the eggs scrambled to resemble brains, the ketchup explosive. Murder victims are baked into pies, then devoured. Corpses are concealed in sacks of potatoes. Chickens have necks meant to be strangled.” See why I love Kandel’s books so much? Each provides a plethora of fascinating historical information. I always prefer my mystery novels with a side of history.

Besides a great kitchen, Hitch also sought privacy and, as you can see below, his former Bellagio Road home is extremely well-covered with lush foliage and, unfortunately, not at all visible from the road.

But as I’ve said before, that’s why God created aerial views.

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: Alfred Hitchcock’s second L.A. home is located at 10957 Bellagio Road in Bel Air.

October 5, 2012
Alfred Hitchcock’s Former Home

I tend to get a bit overexuberant when it comes to stalking Haunted Hollywood sites each year and typically wind up with more locations in my stockpile (or should I say stalkpile? ) than there are days in October to blog about them. In fact, it would be safe to say that I have enough spooky locales left over from years past to cover all of this October’s posts, not that that will prevent me from stalking new ones, of course. Anyway, one location that I have had waiting in the wings for quite some time now is the first house that Alfred Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense himself, lived in upon moving to Los Angeles in 1939. I learned of the locale thanks to the 2009 book Dial H for Hitchcock, the fifth in Susan Kandel’s fabulous Cece Caruso mystery series. I absolutely love Kandel’s novels because, not only are they fun and suspenseful, but they always feature numerous real and historic locations – one of which, Thelma Todd’s Roadside Café, I blogged about during my Haunted Hollywood postings back in 2008. In Dial H for Hitchcock, biographer/part-time detective/heroine Cece Caruso, who has been commissioned by her publisher to pen a book on the Master of Suspense, heads out to several of his former residences in order to “commune with Hitch’s spirit”. Kandel provided the addresses of the homes in the novel, so I, of course, immediately added them to my To-Stalk list and ran right out to stalk them shortly thereafter.

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According to Kandel, in 1939 producer David O. Selznick convinced Alfred, who was by that time already a successful director, to migrate with his wife, Alma, and daughter, Pat, from their native England to Southern California. Selznick first rented the family a three-bedroom apartment in the Wilshire Palms building (which was once located at 10331 Wilshire Boulevard, but has since, I believe, been torn down). Shortly thereafter, the Hitchcocks learned that their good friend Carole Lombard was moving out of a French Country-style manse she was renting in Bel Air, so Hitch decided to take over her lease and relocated his family there that October.

Carole Lombard had first moved into the abode in 1936, after realizing that her home at 7953 Hollywood Boulevard was not conducive to the affair she had just begun with a married Clark Gable. So she leased a much more secluded residence at 609 St. Cloud Road in Bel Air. You can check out a photograph of Lombard and Gable that was supposedly taken inside of the home here. After finally marrying Gable on March 29th, 1939, the two purchased a ranch in Encino, began renovating it and finally moved in that October, at which point Hitch took over the lease. The Hitchcocks remained in the home until the Spring of 1942, when they purchased a larger Colonial-style manse located two miles away. (And don’t worry, I also stalked that abode and will be blogging about it tomorrow. ) According to this website, Shelley Long also lived in the St. Cloud Road residence at one point in time, although I have been unable to verify that.

The property, which was originally built in 1926 and boasts 5 bedrooms, 6 baths, 4,357 square feet, a 0.76-acre plot of land, a swimming pool, a fish pond, parking for over 20 cars, a chef’s kitchen, and a private guest house, last sold in December 2007 for a cool $7.85 million. It appears to have been remodeled at some point thereafter and, from the description of the place in Dial H for Hitchcock, was quite possibly in a state of disrepair for a brief period of time, as well. The book reads, “Considering the neighborhood, 609 was a dump. I wasn’t sure anybody was even living there anymore. The driveway was strewn with leaves and yellowed newspapers. The gate stretching across it was covered with brown canvas so you couldn’t see in. However somebody had cut a little hole at the bottom. Someone with an avid interest in the former residents, perhaps.” (A stalker, maybe? ) And while that description may have been conjured up for story purposes and not the actual state of the house at the time of the writing, Google aerial views do show that the yard was torn up at some recent date. I am very happy to report that the home was in nice shape when I stalked it earlier this year, although, sadly, not much of it is visible from the road.

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: Alfred Hitchcock’s former home is located at 609 St. Cloud Road in Bel Air. After finishing his second presidential term in January 1989, Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, moved into a house located just up the street at 668 St. Cloud Road.

October 4, 2012
Leigh Ann’s House from “Teaching Mrs. Tingle”

The final Teaching Mrs. Tingle location that I was absolutely desperate to find was the home where Leigh Ann Watson (Katie Holmes) lived in the 1999 thriller. Because the other two properties featured in the movie are located in Pasadena (you can read my post on the house belonging to Mrs. Tingle (Helen Mirren) here and Coach Wenchell (Jeffrey Tambor) here), I was positively convinced that Leigh Ann’s residence was, as well, and spent countless hours scouring aerial views of the city. After repeatedly coming up empty-handed, though, I decided it was time to call in the big guns – fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog – for some back-up. And, amazingly enough, Owen found the dwelling fairly quickly – in Culver City of all places, an area which I never would have searched in a million years. Thank you, Owen! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the abode just a few days later.

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In the screen capture I had sent him, Owen had noticed that the faint outline of a 4 was visible in front of the 110 address number posted above Leigh Ann’s front door. Because of the picturesque trees visible on Leigh Ann’s street, Owen was also at first convinced that her house was located in Pasadena and spent quite a bit of time searching 4100 blocks in the area. When those efforts proved fruitless, he decided to take a look at IMDB’s Teaching Mrs. Tingle filming locations page to see if it would provide any insight. And, sure enough, it did! After noticing that both Culver City High School and Culver Studios were mentioned as being used in the flick, he shifted his hunt there and eventually found the house at 4110 Lincoln Avenue, just a few blocks north of the high school (which I believe was only used for a few interior shots). Yay!

Leigh Ann’s house is only featured twice, and very briefly at that, in Teaching Mrs. Tingle – first in an opening scene in which Jo Lynn Jordan (Marisa Coughlan) picks Leigh Ann up for school. In the scene, only the residence across the street from Leigh Ann’s is actually shown, though.

The abode next pops up in the scene in which Leigh Ann returns home for the night after she and her friends have taken Mrs. Tingle hostage. As you can see below, the residence looks quite a bit different now than it did during the filming. A white picket fence has since been constructed around the perimeter of the property, the paint color has since been changed and quite a bit of foliage has since been added to the front yard. I was absolutely floored to see that the moon-shaped cut-outs were still present in the window shutters, though. Love it!

In real life, the residence was originally built in 1934 and boasts 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1,472 square feet of living space, and a 0.15-acre plot of land. As luck would have it, the homeowners happened to be outside when we showed up to stalk the place and they truly could NOT have been nicer. And while they did not own the bungalow at the time of the filming, the previous resident had informed them of the property’s cinematic history. For some inexplicable reason, though, they have yet to rent the movie to see the house onscreen for themselves. Sheesh! Some people! If I owned that house, I’d be watching Teaching Mrs. Tingle pretty much nightly!

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the dwelling was also used in the flick, but, unfortunately, I could not find any interior photographs of the residence with which to verify that hunch, nor did the homeowners know if any filming took place inside

I was absolutely shocked at how much Leigh Ann’s neighborhood resembled Pasadena in person. In fact, if someone had shown me the photograph below prior to me stalking Leigh Ann’s house, I would have bet money on the fact that it was a photograph of a Pasadena street. Who knew Culver City had trees like that?

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 Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Leigh Ann’s house from Teaching Mrs. Tingle is located at 4110 Lincoln Avenue in Culver City.

October 3, 2012
The Blankenhorn Lamphear House from “Teaching Mrs. Tingle”

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post (which you can read here), I recently went on a trek to find all of the locations used in the 1999 thriller Teaching Mrs. Tingle. The locale I was most interested in tracking down, of course, was the huge Victorian manse belonging to the movie’s titular character, who was played by Helen Mirren. Once I learned from the flick’s production notes that the residence was located in the Pasadena area, I figured that, thanks to its fabulous façade, it would most likely be chronicled in the architectural section of Hometown Pasadena. So I immediately started scanning through the tome and fairly quickly came across a blurb about a property named the Blankenhorn Lamphear house which said, “This house is one of Pasadena’s finest examples of the Queen Anne style, the most romantic and fanciful of the Victorian era’s architectural idioms.” I quickly punched the address provided into Google Street View and, sure enough, the Blankenhorn Lamphear house and Mrs. Tingle’s abode were one and the same! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place just a few minutes later.

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The Blankenhorn Lamphear house was originally constructed in 1893 by the Bradbeer and Ferris architecture firm. It was commissioned by a wealthy railroad executive named David F. Blankenhorn. David’s son, David F. Blankenhorn Jr., who was born on the premises, grew up to become a very successful real estate mogul – it was he who handled William Wrigley Jr.’s purchase of Catalina Island in 1919. The Blankenhorns later sold the property to a Mr. and Mrs. John Lamphear, who lived there for many years with their three children. The property changed hands once again in 1994 when the Lamphear estate sold it to its current owner for $425,000.

As you can see below, the 6-bedroom, 2-bath, 3,017-square-foot home, which sits on 0.31 acres, is absolutely spectacular in person.

In Teaching Mrs. Tingle, high school students Leigh Ann Watson (Katie Holmes), Luke Churner (Barry Watson) and Jo Lynn Jordan (Marisa Coughlan – in an AMAZING performance) pay a late night visit to the home of their mean-spirited English teacher, Mrs. Tingle, in order to clear up a misunderstanding. Things don’t go quite according to plan, though, and the three wind up holding Mrs. Tingle hostage inside of the abode for a few days.

A large gate and a massive amount of foliage were added to the residence for the filming, so it looks quite a bit different (and a lot less spooky) in person than it did onscreen.

And while the Teaching Mrs. Tingle production notes state, “The filmmakers chose for Mrs. Tingle an elegant Victorian house in Pasadena, split by a mysterious spiral staircase – a layout that matches the constant shifts and turns of plot and ups and downs of the fate of Leigh Ann Watson and Mrs. Tingle”, because the majority of the movie’s action took place inside of the home, I do not believe that the real life interior was used in the flick. Unfortunately, I was not able to find any interior photographs of the property with which to verify that hunch, though.

Fellow stalker Anthony informed me that the very same house was also used as the residence where Helen North Beardsley (Lucille Ball) and Frank Beardsley (Henry Fonda) lived with their eighteen (!) children in the 1968 flick Yours, Mine and Ours. As you can see below, the façade of the house has not changed much since that time.

The home’s real life address number of “346” was even visible in the background of a few scenes. Love it!

According to a 1974 Pasadena Star News article, only the exterior of the Blankenhorn Lamphear house was used in the flick. The interior of the Beardsley home was a set built inside of a soundstage somewhere in Hollywood. As you can see below, it does not match the interior of Mrs. Tingle’s house in the slightest.

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: The Blankenhorn Lamphear house, aka Mrs. Tingle’s home from Teaching Mrs. Tingle, is located at 346 Markham Place in Pasadena. The Daddy Day Care house is located right around the corner at 351 Congress Place.

October 2, 2012
Coach Wenchell’s House from “Teaching Mrs. Tingle”

It’s that time again, my fellow stalkers! October 1st – the beginning of my Haunted Hollywood postings. And I could not be more excited! So without further ado . . . let’s get started! A couple of months ago, I stopped by my good friend Marci’s boyfriend’s house to pick up something she had left for me there. (Marci just so happens to be the owner of one of my favorite places in the entire world – Lula Mae gift shop at 100 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena. If you are in the area, I cannot more highly recommend stopping by. I love the place so much, I practically hang out there. It’s where I go whenever I need a gift, or am in a bad mood, or am suffering from writer’s block. The store manages to cure all of my ails! But I digress.) While I was there, Marci’s bf and I got to talking about filming locations (imagine that!) and he mentioned that the 1999 thriller Teaching Mrs. Tingle had been filmed at a residence near where he used to live on Atchison Street in Pasadena. Well, let me tell you, I just about fell over upon hearing the news as I had long been under the assumption that the flick had been lensed in North Carolina. So I ran right out to purchase the DVD and immediately started trying to track down all of its locales. Thanks to some big help from the usual suspects (fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog), I managed to find quite a few of them. So I figured what better way to kick off my Haunted Hollywood month than by posting about the house that started my Teaching Mrs. Tingle obsession.

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As it turns out, the house on Atchison Street stood in for the residence where Coach Wenchell (Jeffrey Tambor) lived in Teaching Mrs. Tingle. It popped up only once in the movie, in the scene in which Leigh Ann Watson (Katie Holmes) and Luke Churner (Barry Watson) drove the passed-out (and married!) Coach back to his home after he stopped by Mrs. Tingle’s (Helen Mirren) pad for a booty call. And I should mention here that while I was not really a fan of Teaching Mrs. Tingle, this stalker absolutely LOVES LOVES LOVES herself some Katie Holmes, which is why I became so obsessed with tracking down locales from the flick.

After they arrive at his house, Leigh Ann and Luke dump the Coach onto his front porch and then Leigh Ann, sadly, spots the Coach’s wife sitting inside reading by herself. Only a very tight shot of the home and its front porch area was shown in the flick.

It was such a tight shot, in fact, that I had a hard time pinpointing the exact house that appeared in the movie. (Marci’s boyfriend had only told me that the residence was located on the 1100 block of Atchison). It was not until I spotted two very distinct trees in the background, located in front of a neighboring residence, that I was able to figure it out.

In real life, Coach Wenchell’s house, which was originally built in 1926, boasts two bedrooms, two baths, 2,112 square feet of living space, and a 0.33-acre plot of land. As you can see below, it is an absolutely adorable little house and I am really surprised that more of it was not shown onscreen.

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. (I made the photograph below using some SERIOUSLY COOL Halloween filters, fonts and graphics that were just added to my favorite photo editing program PicMonkey.)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Coach Wenchell’s house from Teaching Mrs. Tingle is located at 1101 Atchison Street in Pasadena. Westminster Presbyterian Church, where Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag got married, is located just around the corner at 1757 North Lake Avenue.

October 1, 2012
Halloween Countdown!

I had a bit of car trouble yesterday and, in dealing with that, did not have time to write a new post. But I will be back on Monday . . . with the start of my Haunted Hollywood locales! Yay! I hope all of my fellow stalkers have a fabulous weekend and that all of my fellow Angelinos survive Carmageddon: Part Deux.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

September 28, 2012
Grand Central Air Terminal from “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure”

While doing research for yesterday’s post (which you can read here), I came across a page on IMDB that stated that the bus station scene from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure was filmed at the Glendale Amtrak Station. I knew from previous cyber-stalking, though, that the Pee-wee bus station scene was actually filmed a few miles north of the Amtrak depot at the now-defunct Grand Central Air Terminal (a location that I first learned about way back in March 2011 while writing my post on the nearby former bowling alley that stood in for the exterior of Jack Rabbit Slim’s in Pulp Fiction). Ironically enough, I had actually stalked both the Glendale Amtrak Station and Grand Central Air Terminal on the same day in early May. So to clear up the confusion about the Pee-wee bus station, I thought now would be as good a time as any to blog about the place.

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Grand Central Air Terminal was designed by Henry L. Gogerty in the Spanish Colonial Revival/Art Deco-style on the site of what was formerly a private airport for millionaire Leslie C. Brand. The property was officially opened to the public on February 22, 1929 and featured the first paved runway west of the Rocky Mountains. The airport was also the first to offer transcontinental passenger air service from Los Angeles to the East Coast and the premiere flight took place in 1929 with none other than Charles Lindbergh at the helm. Hollywood luminaries Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were also onboard. Other stars who took flights to or from Grand Central over the years include Shirley Temple, Gary Cooper, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer, Carole Lombard, and Jean Harlow. Such aviation pioneers as Howard Hughes, Glenn L. Martin, Eddie Rickenbacker, Amelia Earhart, and Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan are all counted as having piloted flights from the airport.

In 1947, following World War II, Grand Central’s runway was cut down to 3,400 feet to make room for a road. When the runway was later deemed too short for jet planes to use in 1959, the 125-acre property was closed and most of its hangars and runways demolished or removed. All that remains of the original airport is the actual terminal building and its three-story Zigzag Moderne-tower. The site was subsequently purchased by Prudential Insurance, who transformed it into an industrial park named Grand Central Business Park. In 1961, The Walt Disney Company leased the vast majority of the property and subsequently purchased it in 1997. The Park is currently used as Disney corporate offices and as the headquarters of Walt Disney Imagineering. And while the Walt Disney Company has an agreement with the city of Glendale to restore the air terminal building, which suffered damage in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, back to its original grandeur by the year 2015, it has, sadly, been left to deteriorate in the meantime.

In Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Grand Central Terminal stood in for the supposed San Antonio bus station where Pee-wee Herman (Paul Reubens) ran into Simone (my former acting teacher Diane Salinger).

You can even see a portion of a sign reading “Grand Central Building” in the background of the scene.

Thanks to its proximity to several different Hollywood studios, Grand Central Air Terminal has been the site of countless filmings over the years. In the beginning of 1933’s Air Hostess, it was the Los Angeles airport where the TWA flight from Albuquerque landed.

Grand Central was also the airport where saxophonist Ronny Bowers (Dick Powell) landed upon first coming to Southern California in 1937’s Hollywood Hotel.

In 1943, Grand Central stood in for Transatlantic Airways’ London Terminal in the movie Sherlock Holmes in Washington, although it only appeared very briefly.

The north side of Grand Central Terminal stood in for the Carson Police Department in 1985’s My Science Project, although such a small portion of the building was shown that it is virtually unrecognizable.

You can see below, though, that the front of the police station matches the area where Pee-wee sat in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.

Grand Central Air Terminal also looks to have been the inspiration for the painted backdrop that was used to portray Genovia International Airport in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. While the layout of the terminal was, for whatever reason, flipped in the movie, the resemblance is undeniable. You can check out a historic photograph of Grand Central, in which its similarities to the Genovia airport are obvious, here. Being that the movie was produced by The Walt Disney Company, it makes sense that the former terminal served as the model for Genovia International.

Grand Central Terminal was also supposedly used in 1923’s Going Up, 1930’s Hell’s Angels, 1933’s Lady Killer, Captured and Central Airport, 1934’s Bright Eyes, 1936’s Hats Off, 1938’s Sky Giant, and 1941’s Sky Raiders, but, unfortunately, I could not find copies of any of those productions 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!

Stalk It: Grand Central Air Terminal, from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, is located at 1310 Air Way in Glendale. The former bowling alley that was used as the exterior of Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant in Pulp Fiction is located right around the corner at 1435 Flower Street.

September 27, 2012
The Glendale Amtrak Station from “Bulletproof”

I don’t know about y’all, but this stalker is so darn excited for Halloween that I am practically bursting at the seams! I have already decorated my apartment with all things orange and black (much to the Grim Cheaper’s chagrin) and can hardly wait for Monday when I can begin my Haunted Hollywood postings. Only three more days to go! Yay! Anyway, while going through some stalking photographs from earlier this year, I came across pictures of the Glendale Amtrak Station that the GC had taken way back in May and I decided that it was about time I do a blog post on the place. So here goes.

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The Glendale Amtrak Station was originally constructed in 1924 on the site of the former 1883 Atwater Track Office. The Mission Revival-style structure was commissioned by the Southern Pacific Railroad line and was designed by architect Kenneth MacDonald Jr. (who also designed Villa de Leon in Pacific Palisades and the Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation in North Hollywood) and structural engineer/architect Maurice Couchot (who also designed The Bellevue Club in Oakland and the 1917 warehouse that later became the Gift Center in San Francisco). The site was originally named the Glendale Southern Pacific Railroad Depot and then was later known as the Tropico Station.

In 1989, Southern Pacific sold the depot to the city of Glendale for $3.5 million, at which time the name was changed to the Glendale Amtrak Station (or the Glendale Amtrak/Metrolink Station or the Glendale Transportation Center, as the site is also sometimes called). A $6 million renovation and extension project was begun shortly thereafter, during which the building was restored to its original 1923 grandeur. As you can see below, the result is nothing short of spectacular! The dazzling exterior of the Glendale Amtrak Station, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, features elaborately sculpted terra cotta;

a faux second story;

ornamental wrought-iron detailing;

and ornately carved wooden doors.

The small, one-room interior boasts a terra-cotta tiled floor,

intricately painted exposed wooden beams;

checkered tile baseboards;

and old-school wooden benches. (I love the arty photograph that the GC took below. I think it’s a framer! )

The second I walked inside the historic depot, I was instantly taken back to the famous train station scene from the Season 4 episode of Family Ties titled “The Real Thing: Part 2”, during which Alex P. Keaton (Michael J. Fox) finally professed his love to Ellen Reed (Tracy Pollan). While the train station featured in that scene was just a set, it was very reminiscent (to me, at least) of the Glendale Amtrak Station. When I mentioned this to the GC, he said, “I don’t remember a train station scene from Family Ties.” I swear, how did the two of us end up married???

You can watch the Family Ties train station scene by clicking below. “Now, what did you think I would say at this moment . . . ” Sigh! Has to be one of the best scenes in television history.

“Family Ties” Train Station Scene

In 1996’s Bulletproof, the Glendale Amtrak Station stood in for the supposed Pasadena bus station where Keats (Damon Wayans) and Moses (Adam Sandler) met up with special agents Gentry (Xander Berkeley) and Cole (Sal Landi).

Bulletproof was hardly the first production to film on the premises, though. In 1931’s Big Business Girl, the station was where Johnny Saunders (Frank Albertson) bid adieu to his lady love, Claire ‘Mac’ McIntyre (Loretta Young). Although, not much of the station is visible in the scene.

The Glendale Amtrak Station also stood in for the depot where Kay Curtis (Glenda Farrell) and June Dale (Mary Brian) missed their train in 1933’s Girl Missing. Not much of the station can be seen in that movie, either, though.

The only recognizable detail from the station that is visible in the movie is the ornate light fixture pictured below.

Thanks to the stalking tome Location Filming in Los Angeles by Harry Medved, Marc Wanamaker and Karie Bible, I learned that 1927’s Horse Shoes, 1931’s One More Chance and 1934’s Here Comes the Groom were also shot at the Glendale Amtrak Station, but, unfortunately, I could not find copies of any of the productions with which to make screen captures for this post. The Glendale Amtrak Station was also featured in 1927’s College and 1948’s Act of Violence, which you can see screen captures of on the Silent Locations blog here. And True Blood apparently did some filming on the premises a couple of weeks ago, as well. The station also had a brush with history when, on September 20th, 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev stopped there for about six minutes. You can see a photograph of his visit here.

And while IMDB states that 1966’s The Trouble with Angels was filmed at the Glendale Amtrak Station, when I scanned through the movie yesterday, I found that the two depots did not match. Upon digging further, I came across this article which stated that the station used in the opening and closing scenes of the flick was actually the Monrovia Santa Fe train station located at 101 West Duarte Road. Sure enough, as you can see in this historic photograph, the two depots are indeed one and the same.

And while countless websites state that the Glendale Amtrak Station was where Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) dropped off Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) in the thriller Double Indemnity, that information is actually incorrect. In reality, the station used in the 1944 flick was the old Burbank Southern Pacific Station, which once stood at 201 North Front Street, but was sadly partially burned down in 1991 and then completely demolished a few years later. The Burbank Metrolink Station was subsequently built on that site. You can check out some historic photographs of the former Burbank Southern Pacific Station here and here. As you can see, there is no denying that it matches the station that appeared in Double Indemnity (pictured below) perfectly.

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: The Glendale Amtrak Station, from Bulletproof, is located at 400 West Cerritos Avenue in Glendale.

September 26, 2012