Year: 2015

Groman Eden Mortuary from “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead”

Never in a million years did I think that the 1991 comedy Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, one of my all-time favorite movies, would provide me with a Haunted Hollywood posting, but it did! In July 2014, a reader named Frank Vollhardt wrote a comment on my post about the DTMTBD house alerting me to the location of the mortuary featured in the flick. Because the morgue scene was rather brief, until reading his comment, I had completely forgotten about it. So thank you, Frank! I immediately added the place, Groman Eden Mortuary in Mission Hills, to my To-Stalk list, but somehow did not make it out there until just recently.

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Groman Eden Mortuary, or Eden Memorial Park as it is also known, was originally established in 1954. The 67-acre site is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the U.S.

Though the setting is quite beautiful (as far as cemeteries go), Groman Eden has reportedly been the site of some very dark deeds.

Quite a few famous souls are buried or entombed at Eden Memorial Park, including comedian Lenny Bruce, The Three Stooges’ Phil Arnold, Laverne & Shirley’s Phil Foster, Howard Caine and Jon Cedar from Hogan’s Heroes, The Knack’s Bruce Gary, and musician Fred Katz.

Legendary funnyman Groucho Marx has been entombed there since his death in 1977 – well, sort of. In a rather chilling (and absolutely bizarre) turn of events, the comedian’s ashes were stolen from the cemetery on May 12th, 1982 and then found later that same night about twelve miles away on the steps of the administration building of Mount Sinai Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills. The ashes were quickly returned to Eden Memorial, where they remain today, but the culprit was never found. According to lore, scrape marks from the screw driver used to remove the ashes are still visible on the exterior of Groucho’s niche, which you can see a photograph of here. While there are noticeable marks in the lower portion of the placard bearing his name, whether they are actually from the 1982 robbery is anyone’s guess.

The columbarium where Groucho is entombed, which is pictured below, is located in the southern portion of the cemetery. You can find more precise information on where to find his niche here.

When Sue Ellen Crandell (Christina Applegate), Kenny Crandell (Keith Coogan), and their siblings discover that their babysitter, Mrs. Sturak (Eda Reiss Merin), has passed away in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, they decide to place her in a chest and drop her off at a local mortuary with a note saying, “Nice old lady inside. Died of natural causes.” As you can see below, Groman Eden Mortuary’s real name was shown in the scene.

Aside from the entrance changing from a double to a single door, the building featured in the scene looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did when Don’t Tell Mom was shot over 24 years ago.

The gate shown in the movie is not the cemetery’s main gate on Rinaldi Street, but the side gate located on Sepulveda Boulevard, which is pictured below.

I failed to snap a photo of the gate taken from the same angle that appeared in Don’t Tell Mom, but you can see a matching Google Street View image below.

While I would have guessed that Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead’s closing scene, in which the mortuary workers (played by Robert F. Newmyer and Brian Reilly, both of whom served as producers on the movie and both of whom have, sadly, since passed away) pay their respects to the “Nice Old Lady,” also took place at Eden Memorial Park, I have it on good authority that that is not the case. According to Keith Coogan, who just so happens to be married to my friend Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, that segment was shot at a park on Temescal Canyon Road, in between Sunset Boulevard and the Pacific Coast Highway, in Pacific Palisades. I have not tried to pinpoint the exact spot where the scene was lensed yet, but will do so in the near future.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Frank Vollhardt for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Groman Eden Mortuary, from Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, is located at 11500 Sepulveda Boulevard in Mission Hills. The gate and building used in the filming are denoted with orange arrows in the aerial view pictured below.

October 9, 2015
New “L.A.” Mag Post – About The Coffee Roaster from “The Simpsons”

Be sure to check out my latest Los Angeles magazine article, about The Coffee Roaster from The Simpsons’ very first animated sequence!

October 8, 2015
The World’s Most Haunted House

I’ve mentioned before that my good friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, and I have an almost eerie synchronicity. So what happened this past Monday shouldn’t have surprised me. Last October, he informed me that there is a pad that has been dubbed “the world’s most haunted house” located in the next town over from him. I started salivating upon hearing those words and asked if he would write a guest post about the dwelling for my blog. It was too late in the game by that point for him to get it to press in time for last year’s Haunted Hollywood postings, but he promised to pen it for me in 2015. Flash forward to Monday. My mom found out that she was going to have to have emergency surgery on Tuesday due to complications from last week’s foot operation. Because I would be spending all day with her at the hospital, I would not be able to write a post for today. So imagine my shock when I received an email from Owen that afternoon saying that his guest post was ready to go! Not only was I already so looking forward to having an Owen article on my site, but he saved my butt with his timing! I will forever be grateful. So without further ado . . .

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Lindsay, friend, Starbucks addict and blogger extraordinaire, asked me to guest-write a post. Being the gentleman I am, I harrumphed and unequivocally turned her down. She cackled and said she’d force me to do it. “Over my dead body!” I screamed gutturally. Long story short, she killed me. Now I’m her, ahem, ghostwriter, a one-man skeleton crew patella-deep in haunted IAMNOTASTALKER posts.

Whatever. Lindsay’s favorite month has just become her worst nightmare. She got an Owen, and it turns out that’s scarier than The Omen. Now I am the puppet master, and her blog is under my control. Mwa-ha-ha!

Today we travel far from California, but we’re still in a liberal, coastal C-state. East Coast, represent!

I live in Fairfield, Connecticut, and recently I ventured, for Lindsay, to Lindley Street in neighboring Bridgeport. The state’s most-populated city, Bridgeport is where I was born, raised and electrocuted, though the latter is a frightening tale for another time. Today we’re headed to 966 Lindley Street. The modest home at this address was, in the mid-1970s, ground zero for poltergeist activity.

Gerard Goodin, a factory worker at Harvey Hubbell Inc., purchased the four-room bungalow in the northern section of the city in 1960. He and his wife, Laura, were new parents at the time; their son, Gerard Jr., suffered from cerebral palsy. Gerard Jr. died in the fall of 1967. He was only 6. Less than a year later the family adopted a 4-year-old Canadian girl named Marcia.

Five years after their son died, as Bridgeport native William J. Hall notes in his 2014 book The World’s Most Haunted House: The True Story of the Bridgeport Poltergeist on Lindley Street, the Goodins called the police to report strange noises. Gerard was more annoyed than frightened by the rhythmic, nighttime knocking; he suspected pranks by neighborhood kids. The fire department inspected the foundation of the single-family home. Gas lines and plumbing were checked as well. The source of the noise, however, was never discovered. Gerard wondered if the mysterious sounds had something to do with the proposal to build condominiums next door — a proposal he had vocally opposed. Were developers making noises to force people to sell their homes? Were they making noises to get back at Gerard?

Unlikely.

The noises, you see, appeared to originate from inside the home. Officials checked piping and ductwork in the basement. The Goodins even replaced the furnace. The old furnace was gone, but the noises remained and, during the last weekend of November 1974, they would attract worldwide attention.

In the fall of 1974, Marcia was in fifth grade, and she was bullied more frequently — and more severely — than your average fifth-grader. Marcia’s classmates picked on her because of her heritage. (She was a member of the Iroquois Indian tribe.) Marcia was injured in October when a boy in her class kicked her in the back. Gerard and Lydia removed their daughter from school, and Marcia, forced to wear a back brace, received in-home tutoring.

The Goodins were having dinner in their living room with a neighbor on Nov. 21 when they heard the sound of breaking glass. A lower pane of the master bedroom window had shattered — from the inside. A day later the family was watching TV in the living room when they heard sounds coming from the master bedroom. The curtains of a closed window had fallen to the floor. They put the curtains back, but before they could leave the room, it happened again. They left the curtains down and returned to the living room. Thirty minutes later, the curtains were lying on the kitchen floor. The mystery and unease grew when a knocking sound, gentle and slow at first, built to a rapid pounding. It stopped after a few minutes, and the family went to bed.

When the Goodins returned home the following evening after a day trip to see relatives in Dover Plains, New York, Gerard saw Marcia’s TV on her bed, screen down. In the kitchen he found “dishes rising out of the sink and flying across the room,” according to The World’s Most Haunted House. The knife block, screwed to the wall, freed itself. The kitchen table flipped over, spilling groceries all over the floor. The refrigerator started to slide and rise, hovering six inches off the ground. A 23-inch TV near the sink fell on Laura’s foot, bloodying her toes.

Things quieted down — but not for long. After dinner, Gerard felt a presence in the kitchen, and towels and toiletries flew around the bathroom while Marcia was in there. Despite the strange happenings, the Goodins managed to get to bed around 3 a.m. They would be w-i-d-e awake the next day…

When he went to make breakfast on Nov. 24, Gerard found the kitchen table flipped over, even though he hadn’t heard any noises at night. The refrigerator was inexplicably blocking the kitchen door that led to the outside. Gerard went to the bedroom to tell Laura, at which point a crucifix and picture of Jesus pulled from the wall and crashed to the floor. Another crucifix, this one above the door in Marcia’s bedroom, fell, breaking into pieces. Living room chairs tipped back and forth — while the rest of the room remained still. The frequency and intensity of the events were increasing, and the Goodins were beginning to feel threatened. They went outside the house and spotted the teen daughter of John Holsworth, a cop who lived across the street, walking her dog. They asked her to summon her father.

Holsworth arrived a few minutes later. “Help us!” Gerard said. “Something evil is wrecking our house!” Holsworth ventured inside and saw a house that looked like it had been robbed. While he was there, the living room TV rotated 35 degrees, recliners shook and the fridge slid across the floor, making no sound and leaving no marks. He searched for a reasonable explanation for what he was witnessing but couldn’t find one. Holsworth, who later reported “he felt sure he was witnessing something supernatural,” called for backup.

Two officers on patrol nearby arrived first, followed by a second patrol car. When four policemen were in the kitchen, the fridge floated about six inches off the floor without making a sound. All this time, Marcia watched cartoons in the living room, showing no fright, no hysterics. Was she accustomed to the commotion? Was she the mastermind behind a hoax, a frustrated, lonely girl seeking attention?

Evidence didn’t support the latter hypothesis, because things happened in one room while the parents and Marcia were with an officer in a different room. A bureau fell in Marcia’s room even though nobody was in the room at the time. A wooden cross on the wall began swinging like a pendulum — slowly at first, then faster — before pulling away from the wall, nail and all, and hitting one of the officers in the chest.

When 10 firemen, traveling in three units, arrived, along with the firehouse chaplain, the 738-square-foot house was brimming with people — and chaos. Chairs moved. Dishes rattled. Shelves shook. An officer swore he heard the Goodin’s cat, Sam, talk. The priest reported a heaviness overtaking him. He attempted to perform a house blessing, but a vial of holy water tipped over when he reached for it — twice.

A neighbor with knowledge of poltergeists knew of a theory in which children served as unconscious “agents” for the activity. Could Marcia, a shy girl overprotected by her mother and picked on by her peers, be acting as a gateway for a poltergeist?

The same neighbor phoned famous paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who arrived with a priest and a 21-year-old seminary student. (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga portrayed the Warrens in The Conjuring, a 2013 movie based on a true story about a haunted house in Rhode Island.) The Warrens were present when the recliner in the living room started to rise — with Marcia in it — and flipped in midair, dropping the young girl to the floor.

By 4 a.m. reporters from New Haven and New York stations began to arrive. The events at the humble home built in 1923 were soon nationwide, courtesy of the Associated Press. Perhaps piqued by the demonic movie The Exorcist, which had come out less than a year before, a crowd on the relatively quiet two-lane street swelled to more than 2,000. Some people hurled questions at the police. An enterprising few sold snacks. Others threw garlic toward the front steps. Many in the crowd said they saw a pair of concrete swan planters on the front stoop slowly turn toward each other. [Editor’s note – the photograph below, from a 1974 edition of The Bridgeport Post, shows the swarms of people gathered outside the Goodin home.]

Later that day, with the crowd growing even larger, the Warrens returned, making their way through the police barricades. Lorraine became nauseous, especially in Marcia’s room, and got a burn on her left hand that formed a blister. People in the house noticed a sulfur smell coming from Marcia’s room, though no one could explain it. Ed was convinced the events were caused by “poltergeist activity” through Marcia. The Warrens felt an exorcism was necessary, and they headed home to arrange it.

According to The World’s Most Haunted House, the air in the tiny home became “heavy” before a force revealed itself. It “resembled a large, cohesive assemblage of smoky yellowish-white ‘gauzy’ mist” and separated into four entities. One entity picked up Marcia and threw her. Everyone in the house went onto the front lawn in a cold, November rain. The Warrens returned around 9 p.m.

Back inside, tables moved and chairs reclined. Marcia was pulled through the air in the kitchen and slammed into the wall. Occupants felt a cold sensation, though there were no drafts in the house. Coats moved. Desk drawers opened. The TV pivoted. Marcia … confessed?

One of the officers claimed that during questioning Marcia had admitted to banging on walls and floors, pushing the TV with her feet, knocking a crucifix to the floor, throwing pictures, making Sam talk and causing other unusual things to happen. Still, some people who had witnessed the strange events firsthand refused to believe that a 10-year-old girl could pull off such a hoax. Some suspected that the Warrens played a part, as a means to build their reputation, and may have even paid the Goodins to play along. (Lorraine, they surmised, put her hand under hot water to get the blister.) The Goodins, appalled at the notion that the Warrens may have exaggerated the incident to bolster their career, told the paranormal investigators to leave and never return.

Police superintendent Joseph A. Walsh told the press that “the incidents have been officially classified as a hoax and the case has been closed.” He added that Marcia was being referred for psychiatric help, and that everything that occurred in the house had a rational explanation. Witnesses “were victims of the power of suggestion,” Walsh said.

The Goodins denied perpetrating a hoax. How could their 10-year-old girl, who a month earlier had been injured, budge heavy furniture or move objects nowhere near her? They claimed the occurrences were classified as a hoax to abate hysteria and disperse crowds.

Closing the case failed to diminish the crowds; curious onlookers continued to gather outside 966 Lindley Street, hoping to catch a glimpse of something from another realm. Gerard smelled smoke after returning from his brother’s house on Thanksgiving. An officer working crowd control found a small fire that had been started near the foundation. That night, two men seen running through woods behind the house were charged with arson. They claimed they were trying to rid the home of evil.

Police continued to patrol outside the house into December, though by that time crowds had dwindled. Despite the ongoing police presence, the Goodins couldn’t escape the disruptive notoriety. Their home was egged and their windows were broken. Their car tires were slashed, too. The Goodins wanted to get away, so on Jan. 10, 1975, they put the house up for sale for $21,500. Unable to sell the small bungalow after a year on the market, Gerard painted it white and removed the recognizable swan planters. [Editor’s note – Owen found the below image online. It was taken in 1974 by Boyce Batey, who was part of a scientific team that investigated the house at the time. Notice the infamous swan planters flanking the front door.]

The house never sold. Gerard and Laura remained on Lindley Street — and remained mum on the events that transpired in the mid-’70s — for the rest of their lives. They were still living there in 1987, when the condos that Gerard opposed in 1972 were built. Laura died at 68 in a 1993 car crash. Gerard died of natural causes four years later. He was 78.

Marcia was not mentioned in either obituary.

For more stalking fun, follow Lindsay on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

For some grammar fun (is that an oxymoron?), check out my blog, When Write Is Wrong.

Big THANK YOU to Lindsay for allowing me to partake in her annual Haunted Hollywood postings. [Editor’s note – You’re welcome! And a big THANK YOU to you for the riveting article! I’m heading to Amazon right now to order The World’s Most Haunted House!]

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: “The world’s most haunted house” is located at 966 Lindley Street in Bridgeport, Connecticut. If you stalk this location and see anything otherworldly, run!

October 7, 2015
Julian Café & Bakery from “Phantasm”

I am not at all a fan of the 1979 movie Phantasm, though you’d never guess it judging by the amount of posts I’ve done on its locations (you can read them here, here, here, here and here). What can I say? Crappy film, fabulous locales! Ever since I first saw the flick last year, I had been itching to visit Julian, a small census designated place located about thirty miles east of Escondido in San Diego County. Several areas of the town, namely Julian Café & Bakery, were featured in the horror classic. I had fallen in love with the charming images of the region I found online while researching Phantasm’s filming locations and was dying to see it in person. When I found out that Julian would be hosting its annual Apple Days Festival at the end of September, I knew there would be no better way to kick of the fall season than by attending – and doing a little Haunted Hollywood stalking at the same time.

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Gold was discovered in what is now Julian in the winter of 1870. A mining camp quickly grew in the region following the discovery, established on farmland belonging to a former Confederate soldier named Drury D. Bailey, and in less than a month the area boasted several tented stores and watering holes and a population numbering in the hundreds. Bailey named the site in honor of his cousin, Michael S. Julian. By 1872, the burg had become a boom town and several wooden edifices had popped up on either side of the main drag.

Those wooden structures are still there to this day and make up downtown Julian.

One such building houses Julian Café & Bakery. The edifice was originally constructed as a general store in 1872 and continued to operate as such for over fifty years.

It was transformed into a pool hall in the 1920s and then later operated as a photography studio, until 1957 when the café next door caught fire and half of the structure burned to the ground. The following year, Joe and Emma Edwards, a Julian couple, purchased the property, re-constructed it to its original form and opened it as a restaurant named The Ranchero.

In the 1970s, The Ranchero was sold to a religious restaurateur named Ron Stock who did a massive renovation of the building’s interior and re-opened it as a high-end steakhouse named His Boarding House. A stained glass window with the word “HIS” is still situated above the restaurant’s front door. You can see it in the second image below (it is meant to be read from the inside of the restaurant and is therefore backwards in my picture). His Boarding House did not last long, though, and, after closing its doors, Stock left the site vacant and moved to Montana. The property did not see life again until the early ‘80s when Mr. and Mrs. Kjell Kristiansen, who were looking for a venue change for their popular Julian Café & Bakery which was located across the street, purchased the space. Though the eatery has since been sold twice, it is still going strong today and is known for its award-winning apple pie. Sadly, the place was jam-packed when we showed up to stalk it so we did not end up eating there. I am really regretting not braving the wait now that I have seen the menu, though. Gold Rush Chicken? Yes, please!

The Grim Cheaper and I absolutely fell in love with Julian. Being there is like stepping back in time to the early 1900s. With its quaint wood-frame buildings and small-town feel, the area reminds me a lot of Reno’s Virginia City, which I blogged about here and here.

Though extremely small, there is plenty to do in Julian. The town boasts working gold mines that visitors can tour, countless wineries, apple farms galore (all of which are famous for their U-Pick orchards where guests can pluck their own apples), a myriad of annual festivals, boutiques, restaurants, galleries, a fishing lake, and hiking trails.

Julian also lays claim to Southern California’s oldest continuously operating hotel, the Julian Gold Rush Hotel Bed & Breakfast, which was originally established in the 1890s.

The town also boasts a really spooky-looking historic cemetery . . .

. . . and its original 1914 jail.

Julian is absolutely adorable and the four or five hours we spent there did not provide nearly enough time to really explore it. I am itching to go back for a full weekend. The nearby town of Wynola also looks like it begs a visit.

In Phantasm, Julian was featured as the small town where Jody (Bill Thornbury) and Mike (A. Michael Baldwin) lived. The exterior of Julian Café & Bakery masked as the exterior of Reggie’s Ice Cream, the soda shop owned by Jody’s friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister), in the film.

The building now boasts a covered overhang which obscures the front of it from view, but it is still very recognizable from its appearance in Phantasm over 35 years ago.

For the interior of Reggie’s Ice Cream, which was only seen in a deleted scene, producers used Fosselman’s Ice Cream in Alhambra, which I blogged about here.

Other areas of Julian made appearances in the film, as well. In one particularly infamous scene, Jody is shown wandering around the downtown area, in front of what is now Jack’s Grocery at 2117 Main Street, which I unfortunately did not snap any photos of.

During his meandering, he spots The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) walking across the street from him in front of two shops – the Julian Trading Company at 2104 Main Street. . .

. . . and Julian Imports at 2106 Main Street.

As The Tall Man passes in front of Reggie’s Ice Cream, he stops and, very oddly, smells the fumes coming from Reggie’s ice cream truck.

Had to do it!

In a different deleted scene, Jody is shown driving southeast on Main Street on his way to work.

He then heads into the building located at 2033 Main Street. That spot, which I also failed to take photos of, is the former site of Rabobank, Julian’s only bank, which closed its doors in May 2015.

I would have bet money on Dunes Cantina, the bar where Jody hung out in Phantasm, also being located in Julian, but that does not appear to be the case. While some online sources say that the watering hole could formerly be found at 16232 Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach, I am unsure if that information is correct. Today, a stuccoed building that looks nothing like the structure featured in Phantasm stands at that site. And while I learned via some online research that an eatery named Dunes Café was formerly located at that address, the only photograph I could find of the site was taken in the 1930s and, at that time at least, it did not resemble the bar from the movie.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Julian Café & Bakery, aka the exterior of Reggie’s Ice Cream from Phantasm, is located at 2112 Main Street in Julian. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. Fosselman’s Ice Cream, which was used as the interior of Reggie’s Ice Cream, can be found at 1824 West Main Street in Alhambra. You can visit the parlor’s official website here. The other Julian buildings that appeared in Phantasm are located at 2033 Main Street, 2104 Main Street, 2106 Main Street and 2117 Main Street.

October 6, 2015
The “Teen Witch” “Top That” Street Rap

There is no more iconic moment in the 1989 classic Teen Witch than the epic “Top That” street rap scene. Stalking the location where it was filmed was pretty high up on my list of things to do while I was in L.A. recently (after stalking the main house featured in the movie first, of course!), so I was floored to find the address listed on the 80s Film Locations and The Location Scout websites.

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Those who have yet to see Teen Witch (and what’s stopping you, it’s SO good), will not be familiar with the “Top That” rap off, so I highly suggest that you watch the clip below before continuing on with this post. Heck, even those who have seen Teen Witch should watch it. It’s that epic. “I’m king! And they know it! When I snap my fingers, everybody says ‘show it.’ I’m hot. And you’re not. But if you want to hang with me, I’ll give it one shot. Top that!”

In the scene, Polly (Mandy Ingber) informs her best friend, teen witch Louise Miller (Robyn Lively), that she has a crush on school clown/wannabe rapper Rhet (Noah Blake, who I just figured out played Frank “The Stank” Stanavukovic in my favorite episode of The Wonders Years, Season 5’s “Frank and Denise.”), but that she will never be hip enough to date him. Polly and Louise then randomly happen upon Rhet standing in the street rapping with two friends, causing Polly to say, “Look at how funky he is!” What’s a teen witch to do in a situation like this? Why, use her newly found magic powers to turn her BFF hip, of course, which Louise does. Polly then walks right up to Rhet and proceeds to have a legendary rap off with him.

The “Top That” scene was lensed on a tree-lined block of Virginia Avenue in Glendale. In the segment, Rhet and his friends dance in front of a car that is parked in front of the driveway of the home at 1404 Virginia Ave. As you can see in the below image as compared to the screen capture, the brick walkway of the 1404 house, as well as its windows and the windows of the neighboring property all match what appeared onscreen.

The house that Polly and Louise stop in front of to watch Rhet in the scene is located at 1400 Virginia Avenue. My photograph below was taken from the opposite angle that the camera faced in Teen Witch, but you can see that the walkway still looks very much the same today as it did 26 years ago when the movie was filmed.

Of the scene, Robyn Lively said in a 2014 BuzzFeed Entertainment interview, “I do remember that Mandy and Noah were dreading the infamous “Top That” song. They thought it was the stupidest thing ever. They hated it. In the end, they just decided to have fun with it, and, in retrospect, it’s awesome. But they were not into it, which is so funny because it turned out to be one of the most amazing and popular scenes in the whole movie.”

Had to do it!

Herbert Hoover High School, which was featured quite extensively as Louise and Polly’s high school in Teen Witch, is located just a few blocks away. We ventured by there while we were in the area, but school was getting out at the time and the place was an absolute madhouse so we didn’t stop to take any photos.

For those who missed the segment I taped about Beverly Hills, 90210 filming locations for The Daily Share on HLN yesterday, you can watch it online here.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to the 80s Film Locations and The Location Scout websites for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Teen Witch “Top That” street rap took place in front of the house at 1404 Virginia Avenue in Glendale. Herbert Hoover High School from the movie is located just a few blocks away at 651 Glenwood Road.

October 5, 2015
Louise’s House from “Teen Witch”

It is finally that time of year again, my favorite time of year – October! And you know what that means – it is the start of my annual Haunted Hollywood postings! What better way to kick things off than with a location from the much-loved movie Teen Witch? Somehow I only just discovered the 1989 flick, which is shocking being that I am nothing if not an ‘80s child. I wound up absolutely LOVING it, though. I mean, what’s not to love? Teen Witch, which centers around teenager Louise Miller (Robyn Lively, older sister of Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively) who finds out she has magical powers on her 16th birthday, has all of the elements that make ‘80s movies so great – just the right amount of cheesiness, a love story in which the underdog lands the cute guy, epically loud clothing, and several kickin’ musical montages. It also boasts some rad (see what I did there?) locations. After finally watching it for the first time last month, I became a bit obsessed with tracking down the large colonial-style house where Louise lived and was floored to discover the address on the the 80s Film Locations website.

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Louise’s picturesque house was used extensively throughout Teen Witch.

As you can see below, though the shutters and front door have since been painted a different color and a fence has been added to the perimeter, the residence still looks very much the same today as it did in when the movie was filmed 26 years ago.

In real life, the 1921 pad boasts 3,821 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, and a 0.23-acre plot of land. You can check out some interior photographs of the place from a 2011 real estate listing here. According to the description that runs along with the images, the home has appeared in several movies, though I am unsure of which movies in particular.

I was floored to discover upon looking at the real estate photographs that the interior of the property had been used in Teen Witch. As you can see in the screen capture as compared to the MLS image below, though the kitchen has since been updated, it is still laid out in the exact same way that it was in the movie.

Another view of the kitchen.

And another.

The ornate stone fireplace in Louise’s living room also matches the home’s real life fireplace.

The built-in bookcases visible in the background of the screen capture below match the family room’s actual built-ins.

And the stairs, though now lacking paint, also match what appeared onscreen.

Popular girl Randa (Lisa Fuller) lived directly across the street from Louise in the movie, though very little of her house was ever shown.

I absolutely love that the “244” address number painted on the steps leading up to Randa’s house is still in the same spot today!

Interesting tidbit about Lisa Fuller – she wound up marrying Dan Gauthier, who played her onscreen boyfriend, Brad Powell, in Teen Witch. They met during the filming of the movie, tied the knot shortly thereafter and remain married to this day. Robyn Lively talks about the couple in an interview she did with BuzzFeed Entertainment in honor of the film’s 25th anniversary last year.

Don’t forget to tune into The Daily Share on HLN today between 10 and 10:30 a.m. PST to watch the segment I recently taped about Beverly Hills, 90210 filming locations. For those who don’t get HLN, you can also watch it here.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to the 80s Film Locations website for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Louise’s house from Teen Witch is located at 245 South Irving Boulevard in Windsor Square. Randa’s house is located across the street at 244 South Irving Boulevard.

October 2, 2015
New “L.A.” Mag Post and BIG NEWS!

Don’t forget to read my latest Los Angeles magazine article! It’s my first Haunted Hollywood post of the season, about the Hanging Tree from Phantasm – one of the prettiest locations I have ever stalked!

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And BIG NEWS that I have been waiting to share. I recently taped a segment about Beverly Hills, 90210 filming locations for HLN. It is going to be airing tomorrow, Friday, October 2nd, between 10 and 10:30 a.m. on The Daily Share. Be sure to tune in! For those who don’t get HLN, the segment will also be available to watch online. I’ll post a link to it as soon as it is published. 🙂

October 1, 2015
Taking a Couple of Days Off

My mom is having surgery in L.A. today and I am heading out there to be with her, so I will be taking the next couple of days off. Be sure not to miss my L.A. mag post on Thursday, though, which is the start of my Haunted Hollywood postings! I will also have a Haunted Hollywood post up on the blog on Friday. I could NOT be more excited that it is finally that time of year again!

September 29, 2015
L’Opera Restaurant from “Charmed”

I rarely find myself in the LBC (that’s Long Beach, California, for those not in the know), so when I was out there a couple of months ago snapping photos for The Ultimate Guide to Clueless Movie Locations in Los Angeles Part I and Part II (which, if you haven’t checked out yet, you really should!), I made a quick detour to L’Opera Restaurant on Pine Avenue. The upscale Italian eatery was featured in the pilot episode of Charmed and had remained unchecked on my To-Stalk List for literally years, so I was thrilled to finally see the place in person.

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L’Opera Restaurant was originally established by restaurateurs Terry Antonelli and Enzo DeMuro. For their culinary endeavor, the duo chose a large corner unit of a 1906 building that formerly housed the First National Bank of Long Beach. When they initially leased the space in 1988, it was an empty shell and Terry and Enzo spent two years and $2.4 million renovating it. The eatery finally opened its doors on April 19th, 1990.

L’Opera was an immediate hit and has gone on to win countless awards throughout its 25-year history, including “Best Award of Excellence” from Wine Spectator magazine, which should come as no surprise being that the place offers 600 different wine selections and stocks more than 18,000 bottles in its cellar. The eatery has also won the Southern California Restaurant Writers’ two highest awards, the “5-Star Award” and “Golden Bacchus,” for the past 23 years running.

Celebrities have long flocked to L’Opera. Just a few of the stars who have dined there include Paul Newman, Jimmy Vasser, Roger Penske, Mario Andretti, Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman, George Clooney, John Travolta, and Pete Sampras.

Sadly, L’Opera was closed when we showed up to stalk it, so we were not able to venture inside and grab a bite to eat, but I did manage to snap a photograph of the interior through the front window. You can check out some more interior photos of the place here.

L’Opera Restaurant was only featured once on Charmed, in the pilot episode which was titled “Something Wicca This Way Comes.” In it, Piper Halliwell (Holly Marie Combs) gets a job as a chef at the supposed San Francisco-area eatery. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and kitchen area appeared in the episode.

By the second episode, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” filming had moved to a different location – the Pasadena Livery Building, where producers set up a fake restaurant entrance. The name of Piper’s workplace was also changed to “Quake” at that time. In reality, there is no eatery located in that spot. As you can see below, what appeared as Quake is actually just an exterior walkway that leads to the Livery Building’s front doors.

Producers must have really liked the Quake exterior, because they sure got a lot of mileage out of it. During Season 6 it showed up as two different restaurants – first as Café Le Blue in the episode titled “Spin City” . . .

. . . and then as Anthony’s Restaurant in “Love’s a Witch.”

Quake’s interior, which I believe was just a set, very closely resembles L’Opera’s interior.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: L’Opera Restaurant, from Charmed, is located at 101 Pine Avenue in Long Beach. You can visit the eatery’s official website here. The exterior of the fictional Quake restaurant is really the entrance to the Pasadena Livery Building located at 101 East Green Street in Pasadena.

September 28, 2015
Lake View Medical Center from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

In researching today’s post, I put in several hours scanning through countless Season 1 and Season 2 episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210. Time well spent as far as I’m concerned! This was all due to a comment left on my blog last October by a reader named Vanessa Laine who said that the now defunct Lake View Medical Center in Lakeview Terrace was the hospital that appeared in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. I immediately got to perusing the internet for more information on the site and came across this 1991 Los Angeles Times article which mentioned that 90210 was doing some filming on the premises at the time. A location that had been used in both fave show 90210 AND fave movie Don’t Tell Mom? It was like a dream come true! So I ran right out to stalk the place. It wasn’t until yesterday, though, that I was able to figure out (with some help from my buddy Mike, from MovieShotsLA) which 90210 episode the former hospital had appeared in.

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Lake View Medical Center was originally built in 1960 and served as a working hospital until it went bankrupt in 1986. Shortly thereafter, the Phoenix House organization made plans to purchase the 14.5-acre property and turn it into a drug rehabilitation facility for teens, but opposition from local residents thwarted those plans. The location remained vacant for the next several years while lengthy negotiations took place between Phoenix House and the city. During that time, it was used regularly for filming. Negotiations over the site finally ended in December 1992 and the Phoenix House Academy in Los Angeles opened its doors in 1994.

Virtually none of the property can currently be seen from the street, which is not surprising considering its function as a drug rehabilitation center.

According to the Los Angeles Times article, Beverly Hills, 90210 had filmed on the premises in late November 1991. Because he is such an expert on the show, I sent Mike a text asking if he could recall any episodes from around that time period that involved a hospital. He responded seconds later saying, “Yeah, there are two hospital scenes in ‘A Walsh Family Christmas.’” As it turns out, he was right on the money! What can I say? When it comes to 90210, he is the man! In the episode, Lake View Medical Center first stood in for the Albuquerque, New Mexico hospital where Steve Sanders (Ian Ziering) went to retrieve his birth certificate.

Only the interior of Lake View appeared in the scene. The establishing shot of the hospital is of a different location (one that looks so familiar to me, but that I just cannot place). UPDATE – The Grim Cheaper just read this post and said, “Isn’t that building at Warner Bros. Studio?” He was right! He has only been on the tour twice, while I have been a good 25 times, yet he was the one to recognize it! As it turns out, the exterior of the Steve’s hospital is Warner Bros. Building 136.

The same building was also used as John Connor’s (Thomas Dekker) high school in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Later in “A Walsh Family Christmas,” Lake View masked as the mental hospital where Emily Valentine (Christine Elise) had been placed a few episodes prior after trying to light the gang’s homecoming parade float on fire. In the spirit of Christmas (and completing ignoring the fact that she spiked his drink with U4EA), Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) visits Emily in the episode and gifts her with his Minnesota Twins jersey.

As you can see below, the tall wooden doors that appeared in each scene are a match to each other.

West Hills Hospital and Medical Center, located at 7300 Medical Center Drive in West Hills, was used for the exterior of Emily’s hospital in the episode.

Once I had pinpointed Lake View’s appearance in “A Walsh Family Christmas,” I searched through numerous other early episodes that involved hospitals thinking it might have been featured in those, as well, but no such luck. As far as I can tell, Lake View only appeared on 90210 once.

In Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, Lake View stood in for River Ridge Hospital, where Kenny Crandell (Keith Coogan) took his little brother, Walter (Robert Hy Gorman), after he fell off the roof. I had quite a bit of trouble pinpointing the area of Lake View that was used as the exterior of the hospital in the scene – so much so that I started to doubt Vanessa’s tip. As it turns out, the building featured in the movie is not part of the Phoenix House complex, but is the neighboring Community Charter Middle School. From what I have been able to gather, the structure did originally belong to Lake View Medical Center, but was sold off at some point after the site was shuttered.

Though the front overhang has since been removed, the building is still very recognizable from its Don’t Tell Mom appearance.

The interior of Lake View was also featured in the movie.

As you can see below, once again the tall wooden doors seen in Don’t Tell Mom are a match to what was shown on 90210.

Lake View also popped up in Beverly Hills Cop III as the spot where Det. Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) took Uncle Dave Thornton (Alan Young) after he had been shot.

As you can see below, Don’t Tell Mom and Beverly Hills Cop III utilized the exact same area of the hospital.

Lake View Medical Center was featured extensively in the 1993 drama Mr. Jones as the place where Mr. Jones (Richard Gere) was institutionalized after having several manic episodes.

There are those tall wooden doors again!

Lake View was also where Abby Quinn’s (Demi Moore) doctor worked in the 1988 thriller The Seventh Sign.

You can see the Don’t Tell Mom building through the window in the screen capture below.

The complex was perhaps most famously used in 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, in which it masked as the Pescadero State Hospital of California where Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) was institutionalized.

At the time, it looked a bit different than it does today due to the fact that the parking lot was then located in the area just south of the hospital.

Today, the parking lot is situated just west of the hospital building and there is currently grass covering the former parking area.

On a Beverly Hills, 90210 side-note – I just came across this amazing blog that recaps the show and its fashion, and it had me in absolute hysterics! You’ve gotta check it out. Best part? The author is 100% Team Brenda. A woman after my own heart!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Vanessa for finding this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for helping me to identify its appearance in Beverly Hills, 90210.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Phoenix House Academy in Los Angeles, aka the former Lake View Medical Center from Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 11600 Eldridge Avenue in Lakeview Terrace. Please keep in mind that the complex is a working drug rehabilitation facility. The building used as the exterior of River Ridge Hospital in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead is the Community Charter Middle School located next door at 11500 Eldridge Avenue.

September 25, 2015