I would like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a very merry Christmas filled with family, friends, food, and joyous festivities. I will be taking the next week off to spend with the Grim Cheaper and my family and will resume regular posting starting Wednesday, January 3. See you then!
Some might not consider the subject of today’s post a Christmas location. It’s certainly not from a holiday flick, that’s for sure. But the scene that was shot there took place on Christmas Eve, so I figured it was fair game. For those who do not recognize the pad pictured above, it was at the two-story Craftsman that the infamous “movie premiere pot bust” – or as I always refer to it, the “Christmas Eve pot bust” – from L.A. Confidential was lensed. If you’ve never seen the 1997 film (and I just learned that the Grim Cheaper counts himself in that category, which absolutely flabbergasted me!), I’ll fill you in.
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At the beginning of the 1950s-set drama, Hush-Hush tabloid reporter Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito) convinces LAPD sergeant Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) to arrest two Metro Studio contract players, Matt Reynolds (Simon Baker) and Tammy Jordan (Shawnee Free Jones), whom he has set up for pot possession, so that he can document the whole thing for his magazine. When they arrive at Reynolds’ home, Vincennes, ever the media opportunist, immediately notices that a Hollywood premiere is taking place at the theatre down the street and instructs Sid, “Put your camera right there. When I walk out, I’ll stop right here, you get the movie premiere in the background.” To which Sid says, “I like it! I like it! The movie premiere pot bust!” (Why a film premiere would be taking place on Christmas Eve night is beyond me, but I guess that is a question for director/screenwriter Curtis Hanson.) As Sid later spins the story, “It’s Christmas Eve in the City of Angels and while decent citizens sleep the sleep of the righteous, hopheads prowl for marijuana, not knowing that a man is coming to stop them – celebrity crime stopper Jack Vincennes, scourge of grasshoppers and dope fiends everywhere.”
Because of the tight angle from which the scene was shot, as well as the low lighting (not to mention a change in paint color in the ensuing years), the movie premiere pot bust house looks quite a bit different in person than it did onscreen.
While it deceivingly looks like a single-family residence from the street, as was depicted in L.A. Confidential the 1914 property is actually a multi-occupancy dwelling. Per Zillow, the structure boasts a total of 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, 3,304 square feet, and a 0.23-acre parcel of land.
Though they are now largely obscured by a screened-in porch, you can just make out the property’s two front doors in my photograph below.
The home’s actual interior was also utilized in the movie. It is there that Vincennes (does L.A. Confidential have great character names, or what?) first learns about Fleur-de-Lis thanks to a mysterious black business card he finds tucked away in a notebook.
Though the scene taking place there is rather brief, the pot bust house was one of the tougher locales for the L.A. Confidential production team to nail down. According to an interview with location manager John Panzarella and key assistant Leslie Thorson that ran in L.A. Weekly this past September, early versions of the script called for a residence within view of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Panzarella says, “Our directive always was to have a theater that was in a sightline to a house, like half a block away. We did go look at the Chinese Theatre, we went down Sycamore, we went down Orange, we went down all the adjacent streets and there was no house there that was within sightlines.” So they started seeking out other venues – in Leimert Park, Westwood, and additional areas of L.A. But they came up with zilch. That’s when production designer Jeannine Oppewall stepped in and saved the day by proposing that an old Art Deco bank building at 5620 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood could possibly mask as a theatre in the scene. Her idea was right on the money and Panzarella and Thorson soon zeroed in on a home with period-perfect architecture located just down the street from the structure at 1714 North Gramercy Place to portray Reynolds’ residence.
Transforming the bank building into the fictional “El Cortez” theatre for the shoot did prove a bit challenging, as the owners of the structure would not allow anything to be attached to the façade. So Oppewall had to think outside the box. As she explained to Curbed L.A. in a recent interview, “What I ended up doing was designing the movie marquee as a freestanding triangle. We shoved it up against the building, and then we built two pilasters on the back two legs that disappeared directly into the background of the building . . . And we had to have a supporting pillar in the front, which we painted black. I specified that we had to always have some extras standing directly in front of it so you wouldn’t see that it was actually standing on three legs.”
Known as the California Bank/Precision Auto Building in real life (per this Historic Resources Survey Report), the structure was designed by John Parkinson of Parkinson & Parkinson, the father-and-son architecture team who also gave us Union Station, Bullocks Wilshire and both Security Trust & Savings Bank’s Highland Park Branch and North Hollywood Branch. According to the Los Angeles Times, the site, which boasts a 95-foot-tall pyramid-topped tower, was built in 1920 (though many others report the year of construction as 1929). Said tower was badly damaged during the Northridge earthquake in 1994. Though it has, thankfully, since been repaired, you can check out some eerie photographs of its toppled spire here and here.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Christmas Eve pot bust, aka the movie premiere pot bust, from L.A. Confidential took place at 1714 North Gramercy Place in Hollywood. The California Bank/Precision Auto Building, aka the fictional “El Cortez” theatre seen in the background of the scene, can be found just down the street at 5620 Hollywood Boulevard.
I have made no secret of the fact that I majorly ration Christmas locations from year to year. The sad truth is that few holiday flicks are lensed in the L.A. area (the city’s constant sunshine and lack of snow doesn’t exactly scream “Noel!”), which translates to a very minimal amount of holiday locales. So I tend to dole out my Yuletide-themed blog posts slowly for fear of exhausting the limited supply. Today’s location is a major throwback, though, even for me – one I stalked way back in 2014 with my friends Lavonna, Kim, Melissa and Maria, who were in town visiting from the Midwest. I’m talking about Cindy’s Restaurant, which made an appearance in Surviving Christmas. While I wrote a brief Scene It Before post on the Eagle Rock eatery for Los Angeles magazine later that same year, considering the place is a virtual onscreen juggernaut I figured it was high time I penned a proper write-up on it.
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Though there seem to be some discrepancies regarding the diner’s history floating around online – this Los Angeles Historic Resources Survey contends that the eatery was built as an “L.H. Boody Restaurant” in 1940 and has been in continuous operation as Cindy’s Restaurant since 1963, while the Los Angeles Times asserts that the café first opened its doors in 1948 – I can safely say that the Googie-style property, which is situated on historic Route 66, has been attracting hungry patrons for at least six decades. Sadly, I was unable to dig up anything else about the place’s history – no mention of the site on newspapers.com, no blurbs on the café in my many books about L.A.-area restaurants, not even a reference to the Cindy for whom the eatery was named.
The diner’s recent years were far easier to chronicle. In January 2014, Cindy’s was purchased by Monique King and Paul Rosenbluh, the husband-and-wife-team behind South Pasadena’s popular Firefly Bistro, which sadly shuttered that same December after 12 years in business.
Monique and Paul immediately set about revitalizing the historic site’s interior and exterior, which required shutting the place down for several months. During the renovation, the couple brought new life to the café, which had grown somewhat tired over the years. Thankfully though, the original countertops, booths and wallpaper were left intact, as was the vintage signage, which was refurbished via a Kickstarter campaign. The restaurant re-opened, fresh from its facelift, in April 2014.
Cindy’s menu was given a reboot, as well. Typical diner fare like meat loaf and fried chicken are still offered, but patrons can also nosh on more high-brow items like chicken-fried mushrooms, falafels, and crab hash. While some local denizens were not fans of the changes, most took to the new Cindy’s like moths to a flame. As Paul said to the West Coast Prime Meats website, “There’s a certain amount of people who hate us. We’re not the old Cindy’s. We’re ‘hipsters.’ There are other people who love us for it and tell us, ‘We’ve been coming here for 30 years and this is the first time we’ve had good food.’ You get a little bit of everything.”
In a sad twist, a drunk driver crashed a truck through Cindy’s front windows in June 2016, just two short years after its re-opening, and the restaurant was subsequently shuttered for months while Paul and Monique rebuilt. (Oddly, that was not the first time a car plowed through the eatery – it suffered the same fate in July 2007.) The damage, which you can see photos of here, was extensive, though quite a bit of the décor was able to be salvaged. Cindy’s finally re-opened to much fanfare on December 9th of that same year and has been going strong ever since.
The restaurant boasts an extremely nostalgic palette, one that can be tweaked to represent an Americana diner from pretty much any era, so it is no surprise that studios have flocked to the place to shoot a slew of productions over the years.
Cindy’s portrays the supposed Chicago-area diner where the Valcos – Tom (James Gandolfini), Christine (Catherine O’Hara), Alicia (Christina Applegate), and Brian (Josh Zuckerman) – and Drew Latham (Ben Affleck), the millionaire advertising executive who hired them to pose as his family for the holidays, enjoy Christmas dinner at the end of 2004’s Surviving Christmas.
In the Season 6 episode of Sons of Anarchy titled “Poenitentia,” which aired in 2013, Cindy’s masks as the Reno café where Robert ‘Bobby Elvis’ Munson (Mark Boone Junior) meets up with several Men of Mayhem members.
The restaurant pops up a few times in the 2014 horror flick Ouija as the diner where Isabelle (Bianca Santos) works.
In the Season 5 episode of Parenthood titled “Promises,” which aired in 2015, Zeek Braverman (Craig T. Nelson) takes to eating at Cindy’s while his wife, Camille (Bonnie Bedalia), is out of town and soon befriends a fellow patron named Rocky (Paul Dooley).
Marc Maron, Dave Anthony, and Andy Kindler (all of whom play themselves) grab a couple of meals at Cindy’s in the Season 3 episode of Maron titled “Ex-Pod,” which aired in 2015.
Cindy’s masquerades as a Sunset Strip café named “Gladner’s Coffee Hut” on three episodes of the short-lived television series Aquarius. It first pops up in the 2015 pilot, titled “Everybody’s Been Burned,” in the scene in which undercover detective Brian Shafe (Grey Damon) busts Mike Vickery (Jason Ralph) for drugs and then subsequently gets arrested himself amidst a massive protest.
Shafe returns to Gladner’s Coffee Hut with his partner, Sam Hodiak (David Duchovny), to confront owner Art Gladner (Shaun Duke) in the episode that follows, titled “The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game.”
Art eventually winds up dead in a back area of the restaurant in Aquarius’ third episode, “Never Say Never to Always.”
A subject interview is conducted in one of Cindy’s iconic orange booths in David Farrier’s 2016 documentary Tickled (which looks super interesting).
That same year, Cindy’s popped up in the Season 2 episode of Secrets and Lies titled “The Parent” as the spot where Kate Warner (Jordana Brewster) meets with her son’s adoptive mother, Belinda Peterson (Romy Rosemont).
The diner’s most famous onscreen appearance, though, is in Justin Timberlake’s 2016 “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” music video, which you can watch here.
As was noted on Cindy’s Facebook page shortly after the car crashed into the restaurant that same year, the booth where Justin sat in the video remains unscathed from the accident. Love it!
Most recently, Jen Harding (Christina Applegate) and Judy Hale (Linda Cardellini) popped by Cindy’s Restaurant on their way home from Los Angeles National Forest in the Season 2 episode of Dead to Me titled “Between You and Me,” which just hit Netflix.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Cindy’s Restaurant, from Surviving Christmas, is located at 1500 Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.
I can hardly believe it, but the Christmas season is upon us again! It seems like just yesterday I was hanging out in a pool celebrating my 40th birthday in June! I hate how fast time seems to pass, but I do love the holidays and am thrilled to finally be covering a Yuletide-themed locale. Today’s post comes courtesy of my good friend Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who a few years back worked for a production company with offices all over the L.A. area, including the building at 1161 Vine Street in Hollywood. One fateful day, Mike was tasked with setting up some new film and video equipment at the Vine Street space and happened to cue up Four Christmases on his laptop to play in the background while he toiled away (slightly random, being that this was in the summer!). He just about fell over when the dance studio scene came on because, as he looked around the room, he realized he was sitting in the exact spot where the segment had been lensed! Talk about synchronicity! He promptly snapped a bunch of photographs of the place and recently sent them to me, thinking the site would make for a good holiday post. Thank you, Mike!
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Situated on the corner of Lexington Avenue right in the heart of Hollywood, 1161 Vine boasts quite a Tinseltown pedigree, having served as the headquarters of not one, but two sound industry titans. During the ‘40s, the handsome 1928 building acted as the main office of Altec Lansing, an audio electronics company best-known for developing horn-based loudspeaker systems for movie theatres, concert venues, and home entertainment centers. You can see a photograph of what the property looked like during the Altec Lansing days here. Amazingly, aside from the addition of quite a bit of foliage, not much of its exterior has changed since that time. In 1951, Ryder Sound Services moved into the 5,758-square-foot site, utilizing it as a recording and post production studio. The company, which pioneered magnetic audio recording for the motion picture industry, was founded by Loren L. Ryder, a 5-time-Academy-Award-winning sound engineer.
At the time that Four Christmases was filmed in 2008, the modern office space, which boasts exposed brickwork, a 24-foot-high bow truss ceiling, concrete and wood floors, a fireplace, a full kitchen, and a large loft area, served as a photography studio. Today it is home to digital media firm Beautycon. I wonder if the people who work there have any idea of the place’s cinematic history. I am guessing most don’t and can totally picture a not-in-the-know employee putting on the flick during the holiday season and, upon seeing the dance scene and realization dawning, screaming out, “Oh my God! I work there!” No? That’s just me? And Mike? 
You can check out some additional interior photographs of the property here.
Toward the beginning of Four Christmases, Kate (Reese Witherspoon) and Brad (Vince Vaughn) attend a ballroom dance class at 1161 Vine. While there, they get into a rather humorous exchange with two newly-engaged couples who are taking dance lessons for their upcoming weddings, about why they have no desire to get married or have kids. After denouncing expressions like “tying the knot” and “ball and chain,” Brad tells the betrotheds, “I mean I’d rather be, like, stuck on an island with some weird millionaire hunting me trying to kill me and me trying to escape than to be involved in something with those kind of slogans, ‘cause that’s like a time bomb waiting to explode.” Upon seeing their rather shell-shocked reactions to his diatribe, he closes off with, “But anyway, congratulations on getting married. That sounds like a really cool thing. And to each their own. Merry Christmas.” You can watch the hilarious scene here.
The segment is one of my favorite bits of the whole movie, mainly because Kate and Brad dance to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” a holiday song I adore.
As you can see in the photos and screen captures above and below, 1161 Vine looks much the same in person as it does onscreen, minus the slew of festive Christmas decorations.
The property’s loft area was utilized for another Four Christmases scene in which Kate and Brad are shown calling their respective parents to inform them that they won’t be making it home for the holiday. Though the segment wound up on the cutting room floor, eagle-eyed viewers might remember a portion of it popping up in the movie’s trailer. As I mentioned in this 2012 post, I originally thought the phone call bit was supposed to have occurred at Kate and Brad’s house, which confused me to no end as the space looks nothing like the residence that appeared in the other scenes set at the couple’s home. But I was lucky enough to get in touch with production designer Shepherd Frankel who set me straight. He explained that Kate and Brad were purportedly phoning their parents from a break area of the dance studio. Why the two would be making such personal calls from a public place, I have no idea, but perhaps that is why the scene, which you can watch in its entirety here, was scrapped.
While researching this post, I was absolutely bowled over to discover that 1161 Vine boasts another holiday movie connection! According to the Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol blog, all of the dialogue for the 1962 film, which was the first ever animated Christmas special, was recorded at the building! At the time, the property was home to Ryder Sound Services.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for not only stalking this location, but also providing all of the photos that appear in the post! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Four Christmases dance studio is located at 1161 Vine Street in Hollywood.
There’s pretty much nothing I relish more than diving into the nitty-gritty when proving or disproving a location – especially if that location is from an old production and/or is no longer in existence. I love the challenge of it. I recently had the pleasure of delving into one such case thanks to a fellow stalker named Dale who emailed me in October to ask if I had any information on Sanford and Son Salvage from Sanford and Son. I never watched the hit series, which ran on NBC from 1972 to 1977 (it was a bit before my time), but started looking into things and quickly came upon this thread about the locale on the Sitcoms Online Message Boards website. User shakespeares_bust started off the thread in August 2003 with the query, “Does anyone know the actual address of the exterior shot used for the opening of Sanford and Son?” It was not until eight years later that he finally got a definitive answer thanks to user Shady Grady who in November 2011 stated that the storefront was located at 10659 West Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood. When I inputted that address into Google Street View, though, it became apparent that the locale had either been greatly altered or demolished altogether and replaced with a new structure in the four-plus decades since filming took place. Thankfully, Shady Grady had pointed out some neighboring landmarks still currently standing to prove he had uncovered the right spot. I figured it was my duty to further his pursuit in a blog post, as well as dig into the history of the property. So here goes.
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For those who, like me, aren’t especially familiar with the series, Sanford and Son revolves around the curmudgeonly Fred G. Sanford (Redd Foxx) and his longsuffering son, Lamont (Demond Wilson), who run Sanford and Son Salvage, an extremely cluttered junkyard said to be located at 9114 South Central Avenue in Watts. The duo’s equally-cluttered home is situated directly behind the shop. Interestingly, though it is the sitcom’s main location, the exterior of Sanford and Son Salvage does not ever appear in establishing shots or in the midst of any of the show’s 136 episodes. The storefront only pops up in the opening credits (which you can watch here) . . .
. . . and the closing credits (which you can watch here).
The junkyard where each episode’s action takes place . . .
. . . and the adjacent exterior of the Sanfords’ home . . .
. . . as well as the ramshackle interior were nothing more than parts of an elaborate set built inside of a soundstage at NBC Studios (now The Burbank Studios) in Burbank where the series was lensed.
The storefront’s rather limited screen time did not provide many clues as to its whereabouts, making the job of tracking it down a laborious and lengthy one. Doing so was certainly a group effort on the part of the Sitcoms Online Message Boards users. Clarity on the subject started to take form in September 2003 when member pawson wrote in to say that the junkyard exteriors were shot on Magnolia Boulevard near Cartwright and Denny Avenues, though no proof or further information was given. It was not until user Retrotek posted a comment in April 2011 stating that the Sanford and Son Salvage location had also been featured in the Season 3 episode of Emergency! titled “Alley Cat” that some headway was made. Using pawson and Retrotek’s intel, Shady Grady began lining up elements of the Sanford and Son exterior with the “Alley Cat” junkyard and then matching those elements to current Street View images of the stretch of Magnolia between Denny and Cartwright. It wasn’t long before he landed on 10659 West Magnolia as the right spot.
Though the building at that address, which currently houses a plumbing service named Power Plumbing, is one story and rather small, it otherwise bears no resemblance to Sanford and Son Salvage. Enter Shady Grady once again. As I mentioned earlier, he graciously pointed out several landmarks seen in Sanford and Son and Emergency! to verify his find. I thought I’d take things one step further by providing some graphics to go along with his comments. I must apologize beforehand, though, as I did not snap any photos of the neighboring structures while I was stalking the place, so Google Street View imagery will have to suffice for this endeavor. I also have to take a moment to say a big thank you to fellow stalker Richard Yokley for the Emergency! screen captures that appear in this post. “Alley Cat,” which originally aired in 1973, is not available for streaming anywhere, so I called upon Richard, who is a huge fan of the series – he even penned the book Emergency!: Behind the Scene – to make some grabs of the episode for me and he happily obliged. Thank you, Richard!
In “Alley Cat,” the Squad 51 paramedics are called to a scrapyard to help a junk dealer who has gotten his foot stuck in a bear trap. Shady Grady explains that as the firefighters head to the scene “they pass an intersection, and a streetlight next to a power pole, then a vacant lot, then the store.” As the street sign visible in the background of the segment (denoted with blue arrows below) shows us, the intersection the rescuers drive through is that of Magnolia and Cahuenga. Amazingly, the 7-Eleven they pass (marked with pink arrows) is still there today, though its signage no longer looks as it did at the time of the filming.
When the paramedics exit their vehicle, a portion of the junkyard’s green, yellow and white awning is visible. That awning should be familiar to Sanford and Son fans. As Shady Grady notes, it is a perfect match to the S&S Salvage awning – even down to the bent grim trim!
Shady Grady goes on to say, “Pay attention to the buildings in the background and then go to the address above [10659 West Magnolia Boulevard] in Google Earth. As you look around in street view, you’ll see the stores across the street are still the same.” Though the corner building (denoted with pink arrows below) at 10626 West Magnolia looks a bit different today, it still bears the rounded shape it did on Emergency! The billboard seen in the episode (blue arrows), as well as the scaffold holding it (purple arrows) and the vacant area where it is situated are all direct matches to what appeared on “Alley Cat.” The overhang and door and window configuration of the building just east of the billboard (green arrows) at 10644 West Magnolia also remain frozen in time to when Emergency! was filmed.
When “Alley Cat” was shot, the junkyard was located next to an empty lot. That is now where the Actors Forum Theatre (10655 West Magnolia) stands. Adjacent to that was a thin one-story building (denoted with pink arrows below). That site now houses a Poquito Más outpost (10651 West Magnolia) and still looks much the same as it did onscreen in 1973. Across the street from that structure was some sort of auto supply store (blue arrows). Little of that spot has changed in the ensuing years. In fact, it is still home to an automotive store – San Fernando Tires & Wheels (10637 West Magnolia).
Shady Grady finishes up by saying, “Compare that to the opening credits of Sanford and Son and it falls into place. As Lamont pulls in the driveway, you can see a sign in front of the house, to the right of the driveway [pink arrow] and a power pole to the left of the driveway [blue arrow]. Both are in the Google earth photo.” The building with the angled overhang [purple arrow] seen in the background of the opening credits also remains the same today.
Being that the locale portrayed a junkyard in two different productions, I figured it was likely one in real life, too – at least at the time each was lensed. User waterguybob had written in to the message board in September 2014 to say that he had grown up three blocks away from 10659 West Magnolia and that it was indeed the site of Sanford and Son Salvage (he had even witnessed the filming!). While he said that the property housed a junkyard known as “Joe’s Junk Shop” during the shoot, I could not find any mentions of that name online or any definitive proof of his assertion – until I registered with newspapers.com, that is. Thanks to the incredible (albeit pricey!) stalking tool, I was able to uncover quite a bit of the locale’s history. Via the advertisement pictured below, which ran in the September 21st, 1967 issue of The Los Angeles Times, we know that 10659 Magnolia was the site of an actual junkyard at least as far back as that date, though it appears to have had no name at the time.
I hit pay dirt thanks to the October 8th, 1977 Valley News article below, which detailed the locale’s transition from a junkyard named “The Select Shoppe” into a theatre. Yep, you read that right. According to author Bobbi Zane, somewhere around late 1975, proprietor Joe Lawler turned his long-running scrapyard into a live performance venue known as the Junk Yard Theater. As Zane states, “He’d been donating props occasionally for various productions and his shop was well known to many actors. One day an actor strode into the shop and suggested, ‘Why don’t you make a theatre out of the junk yard?’ The idea struck home, and in short order Lawler had cleared the yard and had his first production underway. It was ‘Everybody Loves Opa [sic],’ appropriately concerning a man who runs a junk store.” Though the place still had the feel of a wrecking yard, with Zane stating “old furniture, bicycle parts, kitchen utensils, tools line the path every patron has to make his way through to get to the theater,” Lawler did add Astroturf, two fish ponds, and plenty of foliage, transforming the site into a “lovely” space.
I am unsure of what year the Junk Yard Theater shuttered, but per various newspapers ads and blurbs plays were running on the premises through October 1978.
I could not find any articles detailing the razing or remodeling of the site, so I next headed over to the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety website to search building records and quickly discovered that the Sanford and Son Salvage storefront, along with the property next to it at 10661 West Magnolia, were demolished in March 1989. New structures were subsequently built in their place that same year. So while some have surmised that the locale might have merely been altered in the years since filming took place, I can safely – and sadly – say that is not the case. Sanford and Son Salvage no longer exists.
During my research, I came across the Sanford and Son publicity shot pictured below. (You can see similar images here, here, here, and here.) Interestingly, though a sign reading “Sanford and Son Salvage” is positioned on the fence, the photo was obviously not lensed at the Magnolia Boulevard location, being that no house was ever situated there. I am unsure of where exactly the picture was taken or why a different locale was used for it, but if anyone happens to know, please fill me in.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Dale for asking me to look into this location and to fellow stalker Richard for providing the Emergency! screen captures.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The former site of the Sanford and Son house and junkyard can be found at 10659 West Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood. Sadly, the building was razed in 1989 and a new structure now stands in its place.
I have never been a big Barbra Streisand fan. Sure, she’s an undeniably talented singer – and actress and director, for that matter – but I’m just not that into music. And that whole Rosie-O’Donnell-having-to-rearrange-her-stage-to-showcase-Barbra’s-better-side thing really turned me off. I won’t even get in to her absolutely cringe-worthy Inside the Actors Studio interview. Nevertheless, when I came upon this 2016 Outlook Newspapers article which mentioned that the movie Funny Girl had done some filming at a house located at 1155 Oak Grove Avenue in San Marino, I took note – and was utterly shocked. Though I had never seen the 1968 musical biopic, I knew it was a tremendous hit, one that put Babs on the map. I have no idea how I lived in Pasadena for over 15 years – and spent pretty much all of my waking moments traversing the area stalking, no less – yet failed to realize it had been lensed nearby! So I immediately added the address to my To-Stalk List and headed right on over to see the place in person a few weeks later.
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Prior to stalking the locale, I had not done any research on it. I hadn’t even so much as looked at an aerial view. Because the Outlook article described the site as a “house,” I assumed it was just that – a regular single-family residence. So I was shocked upon arriving to discover an absolutely massive front gate – easily the largest gate I’ve ever encountered – with no sign of a house anywhere.
As it turns out, the “house” mentioned in the article is actually a mansion – an enormous 2-story, 11,700-square-foot, Tudor Revival-style structure that boasts 7 bedrooms, 8 baths, and a whopping 9 acres of land. Sadly, outside of the impressive gate, none of it is visible from the road. But you can catch a glimpse of it in the aerial view below. Known as Thornton Gardens, the massive residence is named for its current owner Charles Thornton Jr., who bought the pad in 1989. For years though, it was known as the Katherine Sinclair Emery Estate, in honor of the woman who commissioned it in 1927.
After her husband, tobacco heir Frank Whitney Emery, passed away in 1920, Katherine decided to “downsize” from the sprawling 24-room mansion at 1400 Hillcrest Avenue in Pasadena that she had called home since 1914. (That pad has, sadly, since been demolished with several residences built in its place.) She hired renowned architect Myron Hunt to design a new estate for her on a large plot of land in nearby San Marino. His creation, which boasted a grand entry hall with a massive staircase, oak walls, leaded-glass windows, and a conservatory, was completed in 1928. The grounds were designed by landscape architects Florence Yoch, Lucille Council and Katherine Bashford and included a motor court, manicured gardens, and a reflecting pool. At various points during her tenure, Katherine, I guess hoping to downsize even further, subdivided her land. When she passed away in 1939, the residence was sold first to a wealthy couple who used it as a winter home and then, in 1945, to Colonel J.G. Boswell and his wife, Ruth Chandler Williamson, daughter of Harry Chandler. Though Boswell re-purchased some of the estate’s lost land, when he passed away in 1952, Ruth sold it off once again. Upon her death in 1987, the manse was acquired by Thornton and his wife, who painstakingly revitalized it and bought back much of the subdivided parcels. Doing so made the couple San Marino’s second largest landowners, the largest being The Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens! You can see some interior and exterior photographs of the spectacular property, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011, here.
In Funny Girl, Thornton Gardens masquerades as the supposed Long Island mansion that Nick Arnstein (Omar Sharif) and Fannie Brice (Streisand) purchase after getting married.
Both the exterior . . .
. . . and interior of the property were utilized in the movie.
Though the Barbra Streisand Archives website mentions that Thornton Gardens belonged to producer Ray Stark at the time that Funny Girl was lensed, that information is incorrect. Per the California Office of Historic Preservation, the property was owned by Ruth Chandler and her third husband Sir William Charles Crocker when filming took place in 1967.
Thanks to IMDB, I learned that Thornton Gardens also pops up in 1950’s The Big Hangover as the home of John and Martha Belney (Percy Waram and Fay Holden, respectively) and their daughter, Mary (Elizabeth Taylor).
The front gate even makes an appearance in the flick.
The interior shown in the movie was just a set, though, and not Thornton Gardens’ actual interior.
As you can see in these photographs as compared to the screen captures above and below, the inside of the Belney home does not look at all like Thornton Gardens.
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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Thornton Gardens, aka Nick and Fannie’s “Long Island” mansion from Funny Girl, is located at 1155 Oak Grove Avenue in San Marino.
I often find myself thinking about how fabulous it would be if Instagram had existed back when Beverly Hills, 90210 was still on the air. One of my most-loved down-time activities is perusing the feed of actors currently starring on shows I watch to see the various behind-the-scenes stories and photos they post. Not only do the images provide a rare peek at the intimate goings-on of the production of a television series, but they’re an incredible source of filming location information. Like I said, I can only imagine if the app was in existence during the 90210 days. Perhaps then the world would know the location of Tal Weaver’s (Gabriel Macht) house, as well as the mansion where the infamous red dress photo shoot took place (two of my most-wanted yet-to-be-found spots). But I digress. One of the best IG accounts for production info is Julia Louis-Dreyfus’. The Veep star regularly posts photos of the behind-the-scenes happenings of her hit HBO series – like this 2016 image showing the cast and crew during the filming of Season 5’s “Camp David,” which Julia states in the caption took place in Lake Arrowhead. I was more than a little perturbed when I came across the pic one day this past March being that I had literally just returned home from a trip to the mountain town days prior. Regardless, I quickly got to Googling to figure out exactly where filming had occurred and was thrilled to head back to Lake Arrowhead in September so that I could finally stalk it.
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A Google search of the words “Veep,” “filming,” and “Lake Arrowhead” led me to this 2016 Yelp review posted by user Stephanie B. in which she mentioned that the show had used Arrowhead Pine Rose Cabins, located at 25994 California 189 in Twin Peaks, to mimic Camp David shortly before her stay. One look at images of the hotel online confirmed Stephanie’s assertion. From there, I just had to figure out exactly which of the property’s 20 cabins were utilized in the episode. Thankfully, the resort boasts quite an extensive website with numerous photographs of each bungalow, so that wasn’t hard to do. But more on that in a bit.
Arrowhead Pine Rose Cabins was initially built in the early 1900s as housing for U.S. Forest Service rangers and staff. It was not until Helen and Fred Dowd saw the site’s potential as a vacation destination in the 1950s that the property was transformed into a sprawling hotel. The couple first leased the location, which they named “Arrowhead Road Resort,” from the Forest Service before eventually buying it outright in the ‘60s. More cabins were added to the premises during their tenure, but sadly, many of the original cottages from the early 1900s no longer stand thanks to several fires that hit the area over the years.
Fred’s passing in 1989 caused Helen to consider retirement and she put Arrowhead Road Resort on the market shortly thereafter. Four years later, Twin Peaks locals David and Tricia Dufour happened to visit some friends staying at the hotel and were given a tour of the vast property by Helen. It was love at first sight. The couple quickly snatched up the resort and re-named it Arrowhead Pine Rose Cabins.
David, a general contractor, and Tricia, an interior designer, still own and manage the site to this day and have used their vocational talents to expand upon and improve the grounds and cabins, with David adding meandering streams and two large koi ponds to the premises and Tricia re-imagining the décor.
Today, the sprawling resort features 6 forested acres of land, a swimming pool, a Jacuzzi, volleyball courts, ping pong tables, hammocks, log swings, a myriad of outdoor seating areas, a jungle gym, a fire pit (perfect for s’mores!), and, as I mentioned earlier, 20 individual cabins ranging in size from studios that sleep 2 to a 7-bedroom lodge that can accommodate 21 guests.
During the month of December, each of those cabins is decorated for Christmas, which I think has to be about the coolest thing ever!
Arrowhead Pine Rose Cabins truly is gorgeous in person. It is not hard to see why David and Tricia fell in love with the place or how it came to be used on Veep. Bonus – the employees are super friendly, as well! When I first arrived at the hotel, I popped in to the front office to explain why I was there and make sure it would be OK to take photos. The woman working at the desk told me to feel free to walk around and explore the grounds. While she was unsure of exactly where filming had taken place, thankfully I had already hatched all of that out beforehand, so she kindly handed me a map of the resort to help me find my way to the appropriate spots!
In “Camp David,” President Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), her bagman Gary Walsh (Tony Hale), her ex-husband Andrew Meyer (David Pasquesi), his girlfriend Monica (Lauren Bowles), Selina’s daughter Catherine (Sarah Sutherland), and Catherine’s girlfriend Marjorie Palmiotti (Clea DuVall) head to Camp David for a “pre-Christmas Christmas celebration.” Though the trip is supposed to be an outing solely for family, unbeknownst to the rest of the group Selina has invited her entire team along, as well as Chinese President Lu Chi-Jang (Tzi Ma), his aides, and Finnish stateswoman Minna Häkkinen (Sally Phillips) – or as Selina refers to her “that a**-burger salad” – in order to discuss the building of manufacturing plants in key states where Selina needs votes. While three supposed Camp David cabins are shown in the episode, only two of the resort’s lodgings were utilized, with Fisherman’s Hideaway, aka Cabin #12 (pictured below), doing double duty portraying two different spots.
The front of Fisherman’s Hideaway first pops up as Camp David’s Aspen Lodge, where President Meyer and her family stay in the episode. In real life, the two-bedroom structure, which is Pine Rose Cabins’ most secluded unit, features a wooden deck with a BBQ, a full kitchen, a queen bed, a double bed, a foldout sofa, and a fireplace.
Only the exterior of the cottage was used in the filming. The interior of Selina’s cabin, which is much larger than Fisherman’s Hideaway’s interior, was a set built at Paramount Studios where the series is lensed. As you can see in these images of the inside of the actual Aspen Lodge, the Veep set was designed to closely resemble the president’s real life country retreat.
The north side of Fisherman’s Hideaway later pops up in “Camp David” as the cabin where Selina meets with President Lu Chi-Jang and the rest of the Chinese diplomats.
As you can see below, some changes were made to the structure for the shoot. Not only were the picnic table, bench swing, plastic storage compartment, utility box, and metal piping removed from the cabin, but a large pile of wood was added next to the door and the front porch area was digitally covered over with siding and a window to make it appear enclosed.
It is in front of the Fisherman’s Hideaway’s north side door that Lu Chi-Jang learns that President Eisenhower is no longer alive . . .
. . . and that Mike McLintock (Matt Walsh) inadvertently takes up chewing nicotine gum.
The supposed interior of that cabin was also a studio-built set.
Finally, Pine Rose’s Wild Bill’s cabin, aka Cabin #15, is where Selina’s team holes up in the episode.
In real life, the one-bedroom Western-themed lodging boasts a fireplace, a full kitchen, a deck, a BBQ, a queen bed, and a day bed.
Unlike Fisherman’s Hideaway, the interior of Wild Bill’s was utilized in “Camp David.” You can see images of it here.
The episode also made extensive use of Pine Rose Cabins’ beautiful grounds.
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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Arrowhead Pine Rose Cabins, from the “Camp David” episode of Veep, is located at 25994 California 189 in Twin Peaks. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. The cabins that appeared in the episode are Fisherman’s Hideaway and Wild Bill’s, both of which are denoted in pink in the aerial view below.
My knowledge of the Golden Age of Television doesn’t extend much beyond I Love Lucy, which I watched regularly with my grandma as a child. I am so out of the loop when it comes to entertainment of that era, in fact, that up until recently coming across a blurb in my friend E.J.’s book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites, I did not realize that The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was based upon the exploits of the real life Nelson family – patriarch Ozzie, his wife, Harriet, and their two sons, David and Ricky – all of whom played semi-fictionalized versions of themselves on the ABC series, which aired from 1952 through 1966. (The show has the distinction of being the longest-running live action comedy in TV history, though It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia will tie that record when its fourteenth season finishes airing in 2019.) Not only that, but, as I also learned from E.J.’s book, the family’s actual Hollywood Hills West home was used in establishing shots of the clan’s residence in each week’s opening credits! I had never before heard of such a case of art imitating life via a location like that and was immediately intrigued. So I added the dwelling to my To-Stalk List and headed on over to see it in person shortly thereafter.
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Ozzie and Harriet purchased their picturesque 1916 Cape Cod Colonial-style pad, designed by Frank T. Kegley and H. Scott Gerity, in November 1941, shortly after relocating from New Jersey to California upon landing stints on Red Skelton’s radio show The Raleigh Cigarette Program. The couple parlayed that gig into another radio show, this one based upon their lives, titled The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, which premiered on October 8th, 1944. While the duo played themselves on the weekly series, child actors were hired to perform as their two young sons. It was not until the show’s fifth season in 1949 that David and Ricky began portraying themselves. The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet proved immensely popular with radio audiences and in February 1952, a 75-minute feature based upon it titled Here Come the Nelsons was produced to serve as a sort of test pilot for a television show. The movie was a hit and the family’s TV series began airing in October of that same year. The rest, as they say, is history.
In a rather unprecedented move, Ozzie and Harriet decided to utilize their own home in the opening credits of the series’ early seasons, which you can take a look at here. Miraculously, despite the passage of more than six decades, the pad still looks very much the same today as it did when the show originally debuted.
Sadly though, a large fence was built around the exterior of the property at some point which largely blocks it from view.
During my research for this post, I came across quite a few media reports (including this 2007 Los Angeles Times article) stating that a replica of the exterior of the Nelsons’ home was built by ABC for the series and that no filming of the real life residence ever actually took place. I am 99.9% certain, though, that the Hollywood Hills West house did, indeed, appear in the early seasons’ credits and that the re-creation was built at some point after the initial seasons aired and was utilized for both the various openings from the series’ later years (one of those openings is pictured below) . . .
. . . as well as in episodes which required the outside of the family’s house to be shown, such as Season 8’s “The Nelsons Decide to Move” (pictured below).
The interior of the Nelsons’ home on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was, of course, just a studio-built set, but, from everything I’ve read, it was very closely modeled after the actual inside of the Hollywood Hills West house.
Though the television series turned the entire family into icons, the Nelsons remained living in their rather approachable digs until 1975 when Ozzie passed away. Harriet did hold on to the property through 1981, but resided mainly at a modest weekend home in Laguna Beach the couple had owned for years. (That pad has since been torn down, unfortunately.)
The residence’s Tinseltown connections doesn’t end there, though. The property also served as the home of another famous small-screen family – that of Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) and his clan during the first few seasons of Entourage.
The real life interior of the dwelling was also utilized on the popular HBO series. (That interior has since been drastically remodeled, but more on that in a bit. You can see what it looked like pre-remodel here and here.)
Amazingly, the pad has yet another small-screen connection! In 2013, it was put on the market (for a cool $3,295,000) and the listing agent was none other than The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Mauricio Umansky. The property, which boasts 5 bedrooms (all of them en-suite), 6 baths, 5,283 square feet of living space, a 0.49-acre lot, a pool complete with a pool house, a 3-car garage, a whopping 3 fireplaces, a media room, a chef’s kitchen, and a master suite with his and her walk-in closets, was purchased by a development company that same year for $3,025,000. The group completely renovated the place with interior designer Kishani Perera (you can see photos of what it looks like currently here and here) and sold it in October 2014 for $5,250,000 to Law & Order: SVU’s Christopher Meloni. He still owns it today. Talk about a house with a Hollywood pedigree!
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: The Nelson family home (both in real life and from The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet) is located at 1822 Camino Palmero Street in Hollywood Hills West.
The December 2017 issue of Los Angeles magazine hit newsstands last week, featuring an article by yours truly. The blurb, which can be found on page 93, is a detailed itinerary for a tour of twenty L.A.-area film locales. If you can’t get your hands on a copy, don’t worry – the article can also be found online here. Enjoy!
I, along with the rest of the world, became absolutely transfixed by the first season of Serial, the 2014 podcast hosted by Sarah Koenig which detailed the murder of Baltimore teenager Hae Min Lee and the subsequent conviction of her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed for the killing. Not only did the Grim Cheaper and I listen to the entire thing three times through, but we also voraciously devoured Truth and Justice (née Serial Dynasty) and Undisclosed, two of Serial’s unaffiliated offshoots that further investigated the crime. Since then, I have constantly been on the lookout for other engrossing podcasts, but finding ones that fit the bill has proved difficult. Some, like In the Dark and Accused, definitely hit the mark. Others like Someone Knows Something and My Favorite Murder were horribly disappointing (though to be fair I only listened the first season of the former). Then in February of this year, Missing Richard Simmons dropped and I felt as if my prayers had been answered! The GC and I couldn’t get enough! Created by director/producer Dan Taberski, a close friend of the eccentric fitness guru, the series is extremely well-executed, intelligently written, and absolutely gripping. Prior to the podcast, I knew very little about Simmons and never would have thought he’d be someone I’d be interested in listening to 3.5 hours worth of dialog on, but thanks to Taberski’s engaging narrative, I was hooked right from the start. At the forefront of the story is Richard’s palatial Hollywood Hills West mansion. So I, of course, just had to stalk the place.
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For those who haven’t listened to Finding Richard Simmons (and if not, you really should!) and don’t know much about the mystery shrouding the icon’s life as of late, I’ll break it down for you. On February 15th, 2014, Richard did not show up for the exercise class he had been teaching thrice weekly at Slimmons, his Beverly Hills studio, since 1974. No explanation was given – nor was one given when he failed to show up the following week. At the same time, Simmons also cut off ties to his legions of regulars and, from what it seems, all of his close friends, including Taberski. His calls, emails, and texts just ceased. He also stopped talking to the media, stopped giving interviews, and stopped doing promotions. Richard Simmons hasn’t been seen in public since (unless you count his blanket-covered homecoming after a four-day visit to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in April 2017). Reportedly holing up in his Colonial-style mansion, rarely (if ever) venturing past the fence line, the star pulled a gone guy – with his longtime housekeeper, Teresa Reveles, acting as a gatekeeper. Friends, colleagues, and fans were understandably concerned and attempted to get in touch. Richard wasn’t talking, though. According to the podcast, outside of his brother, manager, publicist, a friend in Minnesota, and Teresa, Simmons went radio silent on the world.
Why the silence? Why the hiding? Why the mystery? That is what Taberski sought to find out. And he left no stone unturned in his quest for the truth – contacting countless friends and associates of Richard’s, traveling to New Orleans to interview his brother, and showing up at Simmons’ house (where he used to be a frequent guest) a couple of times unannounced. All of it is recorded, documented, and broadcast to tantalizing effect in the podcast. On his trek to the massive dwelling during the taping of episode 1, titled “Where’s Richard?”, Dan is shocked to discover that a 6-foot wall has been erected around the residence since the last time he visited. As you can see in the Google Street View images below from June 2011 and May 2014, while there has always been a fence surrounding Simmons’ home, since his self-imposed exile, a secondary barricade, one built of concrete, has replaced the white picket enclosure that once ran along the property line. The result is a house that is much less accessible and welcoming, which I’m sure is the point.
A funny side-note – Teresa, Richard’s housekeeper who I mentioned earlier and who figures prominently in Missing Richard Simmons, is visible moving Simmons’ trash cans (just as she did during Taberski’s second visit to the house in episode 2, “Stakeout”) in Google’s Street View imagery from November 2015.
According to the Mary Cummins website, Richard purchased the two-story residence in 1982 for $670,000.
Per Zillow, the 1937 pad, which features 4 bedrooms, 5 baths, 4,119 square feet of living space, a 0.56-acre lot, and a 2-car detached garage, is worth a whopping $5.2 million today.
The property also boasts a massive black-bottom swimming pool, as you can see in the aerial view below.
Though definitely ornate, the house is not nearly as over-the-top and ostentatious as one would expect considering its owner.
Simmons has been known to give the place its own grandiose spin, though. As Taberski says in episode 1, “He loves to tell people his house was featured as a plantation house stand-in in the opening credits of Gone with the Wind, but I’m gonna call bullshit on that one.” Dan was probably smart to do so. I did the legwork and watched the GWTW credits and while Richard’s residence does bear a striking resemblance to a property featured in it (pictured below), I do not believe the two are one and the same.
I was most excited to check out the home’s mailbox, which, as noted in the podcast, boasts a touch of the star’s ostentatious flair and is, thankfully, still visible from the street despite the new fencing. As you can see below, the letter drop is a miniature replica of Simmons’ antebellum mansion.
So what is the outcome of Taberski’s quest, you ask? Does he get to the bottom of the icon’s disappearance? How does Missing Richard Simmons end? Sadly, Dan does not really uncover any definitive answers. All he hears over and over again is that Richard is tired and wants to retreat from public life – which he is perfectly entitled to do. But to do so by cutting off ties to virtually everyone he has ever been close with and essentially becoming a recluse overnight? Well, that smacks of something problematic (in my opinion, at least). What that something is, I have no idea. But I don’t begrudge Dan – or the rest of Richard’s friends – for wanting to find out. And though the podcast was met with quite a bit of controversy, I believe Taberski’s intentions were pure. He just wanted to make sure that Simmons, someone he cares a lot about, is OK. In doing so, he created a podcast that showcases the amazing person that Richard is. Prior to listening, I had no idea of Simmons’ incredible generosity and kindness, nor his astute business sense. All I really knew of the guru centered around his eccentricity, his love of costumes, and the fortune he made sweatin’ to the oldies. Dan taught me – and legions of other listeners – that Richard is so much more. I hope that whatever he is currently doing and for whatever reasons he is doing it, that he is happy.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Richard Simmons’ house is located at 1350 Belfast Drive in Hollywood Hills West.