IAMNOTASTALKER

Category: Movie Locations

  • Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

    I have been an SJP fan since looooooooong before Sex and the City premiered. Back in grade school, my friend Nat introduced me to a little 80s flick starring Sarah Jessica Parker called Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and from that moment on I have been absolutely obsessed. Along with my other fave 80s movie, License to Drive, I literally think I watched Girls Just Wanna Have Fun at least once a week throughout my childhood. For those who have never seen it, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is a little bit Dirty Dancing, a little bit So You Think You Can Dance, with a little bit of The Cutting Edge mixed in – what more could you ask for? 🙂 The movie is also CHOCK full of stars. Besides SJP, GJWHF co-starred Jonathan Silverman, Helen Hunt and my all time fave, Brenda Walsh herself, Shannen Doherty! So can’t wait for 90210 2.0 to premiere, but I digress. Anyway, I grew up believing that all of GJWHF was filmed in and around the Chicago area. So last week when I discovered that some filming took place at John Marshall High School, I decided to dig a little further to see if I could find some other LA locations from the movie. And I am happy to report that I was successful! 🙂

    In the very beginning of the movie, Helen Hunt takes SJP with her on a babysitting job so that the two of them can watch “DanceTV” together. While watching the scene where the girls walk to the house where they are to babysit, I noticed a street sign in the background which said “200 S. Plymouth Blvd”. So I did a little Zillow stalking and it turns out that there IS a South Plymouth Boulevard in Los Angeles. In that scene, the girls walk past a HUGE brick house on a large corner lot before making their way to their babysitting job at the house next door. When I zoomed in on Zillow to see a larger view of the homes on Plymouth Boulevard, I spotted the large brick house the girls walk past! So I immediately hopped in my car and set out to stalk the place in person. 🙂

    Pulling up to the house, I could not have been more excited. It’s pretty silly actually, as only one very brief scene took place at this location, but I was floored just the same! I felt like I was one step closer to finding the brick apartment building SJP’s character lived at in the movie – a location I have always wanted to stalk!

    I am happy to report that the large brick house looked exactly the same as it did 23 years ago when filming took place. The home is very beautiful in person and it’s easy to see why filmmakers chose to use it in GJWHF as it definitely looks like it would be located in a midwest suburb.

    The Plymouth Boulevard street sign that gave me my big stalking clue as to the home’s location is also still in the same exact spot it was during filming. 🙂

    After stalking the brick home, I made my way next door to stalk the house where HH and SJP babysat. Although only the front porch area of the home was shown during filming, it was easy to see that it was the same house used in GJWHF. You will notice the house number “217” in the background of the above screen capture. Those same gold house numbers are still there in real life. 🙂

    My next stalking mission is to find SJP’s apartment from the movie (pictured in above screen capture). Does it look familiar to anyone?? I have a feeling that this location is going to keep me up at night for the next few weeks. 🙂

    For those who have not seen Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, I highly recommend renting it. It is a GREAT 80s movie and just as much fun to watch today as it was in 1985. 🙂

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: The house SJP and HH walk by in the movie is located at 201 S. Plymouth Blvd. in Los Angeles. The house where the girls babysit is located next door at 217 S. Plymouth Blvd.

  • Lynn Bracken’s House

    Thanks to E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, I was able to do a bit more LA Confidential stalking this weekend. As I mentioned in a previous post, LA Confidential is one of my mom’s favorite movies of all time. She has always been in love with the houses and bungalows used in the movie and has requested several times that I stalk them for her. In fact, when my family first moved to LA she told our real estate agent that she wanted an “LA Confidential house” and that’s pretty much exactly the type of house we moved into. 🙂

    So when E.J. gave me the address to Kim Basinger’s character’s house from the movie, I of course had to run right out and stalk it. Lynn Bracken’s house shows up several times in the film, especially the front door and front porch area, and from what I can tell from watching the movie, it appears that both the interior and the exterior of the home were used for filming. The house is a very cute little 1950’s style Spanish bungalow and it’s pretty easy to see why producers chose to use it in the movie as it looks like it came straight out of the 1950’s.

    I must admit that when we first arrived at the house, I didn’t immediately recognize it. The way the movie was filmed was somewhat deceiving and the layout of the house appears much different in person than I’d remembered it looking onscreen. In the movie, Russell Crowe spends many hours in his car staked out in front of Lynn’s home watching her greet and say goodbye to her many “houseguests”. But in real life the front door is located on the side of the home and is not immediately visible from the street which made me not entirely sure I was stalking the correct house. But when I got home and popped in my LA Confidential DVD it was easy to see that the two houses matched perfectly! 🙂 Thanks, EJ!

    I highly recommend stalking Lynn’s house if you are at all a fan of LA Confidential or 1950’s California architecture.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: Lynn Bracken’s house is located at 501 Wilcox Avenue, right where Wilcox meets Rossmore, in Los Angeles. It is just around the corner from the American Idol and SYTYCD apartment which is located at 445 N. Rossmore.

  • John Marshall High School

    Last week, Mike (from MovieShotsLA) and I hit up John Marshall High School in Los Feliz for a little stalking of one of Los Angeles’ most oft filmed high schools. Mike had made an appointment to tour the school with Marshall’s resident historian, Joanna, who has been teaching at Marshall for over 30 years. Not only is Joanna a seasoned Marshall High teacher, but she also attended the school as a teenager and has a vast wealth of information about the school and its prestigious filming history.

    Upon our arrival, Joanna provided us with a spreadsheet of productions filmed on campus detailing what specific areas of the school were used for each film and what each particular scene entailed. She rocks! I was most excited to find out that Marshall stood in for the Chicago Catholic all girls high school from one of my FAVE movies of all time- Girls Just Wanna Have Fun ! According to Joanna, three large white crosses were added to the roof of the high school during the filming of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, causing parents and local residents (who didn’t realize a movie was being filmed on campus) to call in and inquire about the religious symbols. The screen capture above, taken from GJWHF, didn’t come out very well as the only scene that shows the crosses on top of the school is actually a very brief scene which fades in from another causing the picture to be a bit transparent.

    Girls Just Wanna Have Fun filmed extensively at the school and if you watch the movie you will see it popping up quite a few times – including the scene where one of the nuns (donning a full robe and habit) performs a gymnastics routine on an outdoor vault. LOL According to Joanna, the front of the school is a very popular place for filming due to it’s gorgeous “collegiate gothic” architecture. Even though the school is actually located in Los Angeles, it has the look and feel of a Midwest or East Coast school, leading to its popularity with location scouts and producers. The school’s unique doors (pictured above in GJWHF) are usually a dead giveaway that a movie was filmed at John Marshall.

    The school has been featured in literally countless movies, TV shows, and music videos. Just to name a few – Tom Hanks drove a bus for John Marshall students in Bachelor Party, Luke Perry and Kristie Swanson attended school there in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, it stood in for Dewey High on Growing Pains and John Adams High on Boy Meets World, Garth Brooks filmed a music video in the school’s auditorium, it was John Cusak’s alma mater in Grosse Pointe Blank, and the site of the therapy session between Dr. Evil and his son in Austin Powers 2. John Marshall was also featured as the high school in Can’t Hardly Wait, Pretty in Pink, Zapped!, Like Father, Like Son, True Crime, Splendor in the Grass, Rebel Without a Cause, Boston Public, Uncle Buck, Mr. Novak, and Nightmare on Elm Street. Van Halen’s music video Hot for a Teacher was filmed in the school’s former library. And the final scene from Grease – the famous carnival scene – was filmed on the school’s football field (pictured above). According to Joanna, in one of the carnival scenes you can actually see a large “M” (for Marshall) in the background on one of the school buildings. 🙂 Whew – that’s a lot of filming! I would kill for that resume! 🙂

    John Marshall, named for the former Chief Justice of the United States, opened up on January 26, 1931. The school currently has 4000 students and a faculty of 200. Famous alumni include Julie Newmar aka Catwoman, Judge Lance Ito, Heidi Fleiss, countless sports heroes and my personal fave, Leonardo DiCaprio. Leo attended the school for only one semester before landing his role on Growing Pains, which ironically filmed at John Marshall High. 🙂 Joanna said that she has been interviewed dozens of times about Mr. DiCaprio, even though his stint at Marshall was so brief. She said that most interviews were quite ridiculous as Leo only attended Marshall for a few months and therefore there just wasn’t that much to talk about. She did tell me that Leo’s counselor really liked him though. 🙂 She also said most interviewers wanted to see the auditorium where Leo would have performed had he ever acted in any Marshall High plays (which he never did). She said countless interviewers walked around the high school’s main stage saying “So he would have stood right here!” LOL

    Marshall is a truly beautiful and unique school and I highly recommend stalking it. After all, chances are it has appeared in one of your favorite movies or TV shows. 🙂

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: John Marshall High School is located at 3939 Tracey Avenue in Los Feliz.

  • LA Not So Confidential

    For years my mom has been begging me to do some stalking of one of her favorite movies, LA Confidential. Ever since the movie came out back in 1997 she has been obsessed with finding the various houses used during filming, but none more so than David Strathiarn’s character’s beautiful, ultra modern hillside abode. Luckily, the house was a snap for me to find as the address was given right on imdb’s LA Confidential filming locations page. 🙂 In the movie David Strathiarn plays Pierce Patchett, a very wealthy businessman who runs a high class prostitution ring, where all of the prostitutes are made up to look like famous actresses. Supposedly, the ring was based on a real brothel that truly did exist back in the hey dey of Tinseltown. In the movie, Pierce lives in an amazing modern looking manse built right into the side of a hill. In real life that house is called the Lovell Health House and it is just as breathtaking in person as it appears onscreen. The Lovell Health House, or Lovell House, was commissioned by doctor Philip Lovell and built by architect Richard Neutra. Construction began in 1927 and was completed in 1929. Health-nut Lovell was completely obsessed with diet and exercise and he wanted the house to be built in such a way as to benefit the health of its occupants, which is how the house came to be called the “Lovell Health House”. Included in the home was a swimming pool, an exercise room, an eight foot tall food cooler, a water purification system, juicing equipment and plenty of windows to allow the occupants to be close to nature. The unique home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. Amazingly the Lowell family only lived in the house for one year before selling it to a different family.

    Both the interior and the exterior of the house show up several times in LA Confidential and the home looks much the same in person as it did on the big screen. Unfortunately you can’t see a whole lot of the home from the street. If you want a more in depth view, I recommend renting the movie for your very own up close and personal private tour of the home.Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂 Stalk It: Pierce Patchett’s house can be found at 4616 Dundee Drive in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. To see the garage area, where filming also took place, just drive a bit south of the house to the large concrete driveway and you’ll see the garage.

  • If You Two Ever Have Kids and One of Them Accidentally Sets Fire to the Living Room Rug . . .

    My family and I were supposed to take the red eye home from Hawaii on Wednesday night, but en route to the airport we decided to turn in our tickets and stay a few more days. LOL It was a totally spur of the moment thing and SO MUCH FUN! I can’t even believe we’re still here. Anyway – I didn’t do any Kona stalking today, so thank goodness I have some locations in my stalking reserves that I can blog about. 🙂

    Two weeks ago when I dragged my mom out for some Hollywood stalking, we hit up the Hollywood United Methodist Church. I had just discovered this fab website on Back to the Future filming locations and was floored to find out that the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance scenes were filmed at the church, so I just had to stalk it. Hollywood Methodist is pretty much closed to the public on weekdays, but we knocked on the office doors and the facility manager, Stephen, was nice enough to take us on a little filming tour.

    The first place we stalked was the church gym, where the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance was filmed and where Marty’s parents finally get together and Marty rocks out to Johnny B. Goode onstage. Currently the gym is being used for rehearsals of Les Miserables, which is playing at the Hollywood Bowl this upcoming weekend.

    The same gym was also used for the talent competition scene in That Thing You Do. It’s the location where the One-ders play their hit song “That Thing You Do” for the very first time. It’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use the United Methodist gym for both of these movies, as when you step inside the gym you definitely feel like you are stepping back in time to the 50s.

    The scene from Back to the Future when Marty says goodbye to his parents and the year 1955 and says the famous line “If you two ever have kids, and one of the accidentally sets fire to the living room rug, go easy on him” also takes place at the church, in a stairwell leading off from the gym. When BTTF was filmed, the doors leading to the outside were double doors, whereas now there is just a single door. Otherwise the stairway looks exactly the same as it did during filming and I absolutely LOVED being there. 🙂

    Besides Back to the Future and That Thing You Do, the church has also been featured in Jarhead, Domino, Anger Management, Big Mama’s House, Beautiful, A Civil Action, Super Mario Bros., Star 80, Imitation of Life, General Hospital, Murder She Wrote, Golden Girls, Jake and the Fatman, and The A-Team, among many others. The church kitchen and an anteroom were used extensively in the movie Sister Act, but the exterior of Whoopi’s church was not United Methodist. That church is actually in San Francisco. The Season 7 episode of CSI entitled “Double Cross”, where a woman is found dead inside a church in a false crucifixion pose was filmed inside of Hollywood Methodist.

    Hollywood United Methodist Church, which was modeled loosely after Westminster Abbey in England, opened its doors on March 16, 1930. The church was made a historic-cultural monument in 1981 by the City of Los Angeles. United Methodist has long been supportive of those afflicted with the AIDS disease. While other churches turned their backs on those living with the disease, Hollywood Methodist became a safe haven to those afflicted. In 1993, on World AIDS Day, congregation members placed two large AIDS ribbons on the church tower, where they still stand today. The exterior of Hollywood Methodist often appears in television and film establishing shots of the Los Angeles area and no doubt you will notice it popping up time and time again on your favorite shows. The church is absolutely beautiful and the facilities manager Stephen could not have been nicer to us. I highly recommend stalking there if you find yourself in the area. 🙂

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: The Hollywood United Methodist Church is located at 6817 Franklin Avenue in Hollywood, about half a block away from the Hollywood & Highland Center.

  • Aloha Waterworld!

    My family and I arrived in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii yesterday afternoon for a little summer vacation. YAY! I keep pinching myself as I can’t even believe I am really here!!! Anyway, during the flight I made a list of a few places to stalk while in Hawaii. But today I thought I’d do a post on one of the most famous movies ever filmed on the Big Island – Waterworld. When I was a little girl my family spent every summer vacationing in Kona and I was actually here in the summer of 1994, the year Waterworld was filmed. I was quite the little stalker even back then and I dragged both of my parents down to Kawaihae Harbor during filming to see the Waterworld set in person. 🙂 The atoll set was extremely odd looking and I remember thinking “What the heck is this movie going to be about??” Weird as the set was, it was still very cool to see be there to see it in person. And since Hawaii is such a laid back place, even when a movie is being filmed, pretty much anyone could walk right up to the set and snap some pictures. The pic above is one my dad took that summer in 1994.

    The town of Kona was pretty much all abuzz with excitement over the filming that summer. The producers of Waterworld even chose to use numerous locals both behind the scenes and in front of the camera during filming. One of our family friends, Harry, portrayed one of the “Smokers” in the movie, and, knowing what a little stalker I was, snapped some pics of himself on the set to give to me. 🙂 Harry also gave me one of the bullets from the inside of the bullet belt he wore around his neck during filming.

    Because Waterworld was filmed over 14 years ago, the set is, of course, long gone. Rumor has it that part of the atoll was actually sunk during the filming of the movie, and that producers simply left it at the bottom of the ocean despite demands from the city to retrieve it. Perhaps I need to do some underwater stalking this summer and take a little scuba diving recognisance mission to see if the sunken set is still there. 🙂 While you can no longer see the set above sea level, you can still visit the harbor where the movie was filmed. It is not too far from downtown Kailua Kona.

    Remnants of the filming can still be found around Kona, though, even 14 years later. There is a picture of Kevin Costner prominently displayed to this day on the wall at Drysdale’s Two Restaurant in Kona. Apparently several Drysdale waitresses were slightly obsessed with Mr. Costner and would go down to the Harbor to watch filming every day dressed in their Drysdale’s uniforms. One day they were lucky enough to get a picture with Kevin, which they later had him autograph, and then displayed on the wall. Drysdale’s restaurant used to be owned by baseball great Don Drysdale. Rumor has it his wife got the restaurant in their divorce settlement, though, and I believe she still owns it to this day. Drysdale’s is defintely a Kona staple and I highly recommend stalking it, even if you are not a Kevin Costner or a Don Drysdale fan.

    Until next time, Aloha and Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: To reach Kawaihae Harbor from Kailua-Kona, take Highway 19 north until it turns into Highway 270, past Puukohola Heiau National Historic Site. The Harbor will be on the left hand side. Drysdale’s Two Restaurant is located at 78-6831 Alii Drive in Kailua Kona. Be sure to order their saimen and the Fowl Ball sandwich – two of my favorites!!! 🙂

  • That Thing You Stalk!

    That Thing You Do has always been one of my very favorite movies. Liv Tyler could not have been more adorable in that movie! The scene where she is running down the street screaming with joy while listening to the Oneders song on the radio for the first time is one of my favorite scenes in all of moviedom! And I do love me some Tom Everett Scott, too. 🙂 So when I read on Pasadena’s Filming Website that a house on Prospect Boulevard in Pasadena was used in That Thing You Do, I, of course, ran right out to stalk it.

    I must say that working backwards, or stalking backwards I should say, ie. trying to find the scene in a movie where a certain home or place was featured, proved to be almost as difficult as normal stalking. I had to fast-forward through That Thing You Do twice before I spotted the house in a scene. In actuality only the garage of the home was used, and it was only used briefly in the very beginning of the movie. The home was featured in the scene when Guy Patterson practices with the rest of the band for the first time. It is in this scene that Liv Tyler comes up with the name for the band – “The Oneders”.

    I actually had to go back and stalk this house a second time, as the first time I stalked it I didn’t get a photo of the garage, which was the only part of the house used in the movie. The front of the home is never actually shown. The clapboard-style residence is super cute in person and was very reminiscent of the Father of the Bride house, but on a slightly smaller scale. I am actually very surprised the front of the house was not shown in the movie. You’d think that since they were already there filming in the garage, they would have taken some stock footage of the front of the house to use in the movie.

    The Prospect Historic District of Pasadena, where the That Thing You Do home is located, is a beautiful neighborhood with absolutely gorgeous homes on tree covered streets. The neighborhood, which was started in the year 1906, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. One of the homes on Prospect, number 657, is known as the Bentz House and was built by the famous architects Greene & Greene, with whom Craftsman style architecture is most commonly associated. Greene & Greene built the Bentz House in 1906 and it still stands today. Jennifer Lopez’ dream house from the movie Enough can also be found in the Prospect Historic District. It is pictured to the left. According to Pasadena’s Filming Website the Enough house was also used in That Thing You Do, but I never saw it. Quite possibly only the interior of the house was used, and therefore I didn’t recognize it, or, also quite possible, the Pasadena website just got it wrong.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: The That Thing You Do house is located at 490 Prospect Boulevard. The garage that was used in the movie is to the left rear of the house and is very visible from the street. JLo’s house from Enough is located right around the corner at 445 Prospect Square. The most famous Greene & Greene home, the Gamble House, is located just off of Prospect Square at 4 Westmoreland Place. The Gamble House was used as Doc Brown’s home in the movie Back to the Future, but I’ll save that one for a future post. 🙂

  • A Joint Stalking Adventure

    This past weekend, I finally had the pleasure of meeting Mike from MovieShotsLA in person! Mike and I decided to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, by getting some stalking in during our meeting. 🙂 So we met up on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica to grab some coffee and to stalk the Owen Wilson movie Drillbit Taylor. Drillbit Taylor was filmed all over Santa Monica, and the Third Street Promenade, an outdoor shopping district, was featured frequently in the movie, so it was the perfect place to meet. My boyfriend and I had a great time hanging out with Mike and his fiance and as Bogart once said, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. 🙂

    About two years ago, I actually saw Drillbit Taylor being filmed inside the Johnny Rockets on the Promenade. Johnny Rockets was used for the scene where Drillbit meets the boys for lunch and makes them pick up the tab. They sit at the table near the door in front of the window. Besides Johnny Rockets, the outside of the Promenade’s Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf was used several times in the movie, although producers added a lot of foliage to the exterior so it looks quite different in person. For interior shots of the coffee house, I believe they used a different Santa Monica Coffee Bean location – the one located on Ocean Park Boulevard.

    On a side note, Adam Ho who played the “Hendrix Kid”, the guitar playing boy in Drillbit Taylor, actually grew up playing guitar on the Third Street Promenade. For those who have never been there, the Promenade has long been a haven for street performers. My boyfriend, who used to work nearby, often saw Adam as a young child playing the guitar on the Promenade. How ironic that he’d one day end up in a movie which was filmed in the very spot where he got his start. You can see pictures of Adam performing on the Promenade here.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: The Johnny Rockets from Drillbit Taylor is located on the Third Street Promenade, at 1322 Third Street, in Santa Monica. The Coffee Bean that was used for exterior shots can be found just down the block from Johnny Rockets at 1312 Third Street. The Third Street Promenade was also featured in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure as the location where Pee Wee’s beloved bike was stolen and in the movie Freaky Friday as the street where Jamie Lee Curtis goes shopping. The Coffee Bean used for interior shots in Drillbit Taylor can be found at 3150 Ocean Park Boulevard in Santa Monica, right near 31st Street.

  • The Millennium Biltmore Hotel

    One of my favorite places to visit in all of LA is the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, located in Downtown Los Angeles. The hotel is also a favorite of film producers and it has been used in more productions than I can blog about. The hotel was built in 1923 and at the time was simply called The Biltmore. The building is absolutely gorgeous inside and out and definitely looks like it came out of a different era. Besides being a popular filming location, the hotel has played host to the Academy Awards on eight separate occasions between the years of 1931 and 1942. The hallway on the way to the hotel pool has many framed photographs of old time Hollywood celebrities who stayed at the Biltmore.

    Movie buffs will probably most easily recognize the Biltmore from the first Beverly Hills Cop movie where it was used as the hotel where Eddie Murphy sets up camp during his stay in Beverly Hills. Molly Ringwald’s prom from Pretty in Pink was held in the hotel’s Crystal Ballroom, a room which was also used in Rocky III, The Sting, Ghostbusters, Alien Nation and The Fabulous Baker Boys. The Biltmore’s indoor art deco style pool was the pool where Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon take a midnight dip in the movie Cruel Intentions. The pool was also used in Bugsy and The Fan.

    The movie Bachelor Party also filmed extensively at the Biltmore where it was used as the location of Tom Hanks’ wild bachelor party. And yes, they really did put a live donkey in the hotel’s elevator during the filming! Both Bachelor Party and Beverly Hills Cop were filmed in the Biltmore’s former lobby. Currently that room is a part of the hotel’s Smeraldi’s restaurant and is used for high tea and dinner. Today, the lobby is located in the hotel’s former Music Room, which was used in 1960 by JFK as the location of his official campaign headquarters. The Music Room’s ornate glass and wrought-iron ceiling (pictured below next to the “Stalk It” paragraph) was the model for the dining room ceiling of the ship in The Poseidon Adventure.

    Alfred Hitchcock used the Biltmore’s 11 story high back staircase for the vertigo sequences in his 1958 movie of the same name. Hang over the ledge of the staircase on the 11th floor and you might catch a bit of vertigo yourself! In all, over 300 productions have been filmed at the hotel, including Species, The Nutty Professor, Independence Day, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, True Lies, The American President, In the Line of Fire, Mother, and the short lived TV show Vanished. Britney Spear’s Overprotected video was filmed in a large hallway just off the lobby of the hotel. You can watch that video here. Once you’ve visited the Biltmore, you will recognize it popping up all over the big and small screens.

    The Gallery Bar is one of my favorite spots at the Biltmore. It is dark and quiet and definitely evokes an aura of Old Time Hollywood. The Bar was most recently used in National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets as the location of Abigal’s date at the beginning of the movie. But the Gallery Bar’s main claim to fame is its signature drink – the Black Dhalia Martini, named for one of LA’s most famous unsolved murder cases. Actress Elizabeth Short, whose nickname was the Black Dhalia, walked out the Biltmore Hotel doors on January 9, 1947 at approximately 6:30pm. She was never seen again. Her mutilated body was found six days later in an abandoned field. The last person to ever see the Black Dhalia alive was the Biltmore doorman who tipped his hat to her as she walked south down Olive Avenue. Although garnering widespread media attention and public fascination that exists even to this day, the case has yet to be solved.

    The last time I stayed at the Biltmore, there were FIVE separate productions being filmed in and around the hotel – a car commercial, a fitness water commercial, the TV shows Alias and Standoff, and the pilot episode of Capitol Law with Joshua Jackson. I was especially excited to see Josh because Pacey was always my favorite Dawson’s Creek character. I so heart Josh! The grainy photo to the left is one I snapped of him during filming. 🙂

    Until next time, Happy Stalking!

    Stalk It: The Millennium Biltmore Hotel is located in Downtown Los Angeles at 506 South Grand Avenue. I highly recommend staying there if you find yourself in the LA area. The rooms are exquisite and extremely reasonable. Be sure to ask the hotel’s concierge about the Biltmore’s filming history – they usually have some great stories to share and they will also give you a print out of every single production ever filmed at the hotel.

  • Westin Bonaventure Hotel

    Chances are, if you’ve ever taken the 110 Freeway through Downtown Los Angeles, you’ve noticed the futuristic, space-age style structure located on the west side of the freeway. That building is the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, and it has been featured in countless movie and TV productions. The hotel, which is just as futuristic and space-age looking on the inside as it is on the outside, was most prominently featured in the Johnny Depp movie Nick of Time.

    The ultra-modern cement and glass hotel was built in 1974 by architect John Portman and is the largest hotel in Los Angeles. The hotel stands 367 feet tall and has 35 floors. The top floor of one of the hotel’s towers is actually a revolving cocktail lounge and observation tower with INCREDIBLE views of Los Angeles. Step inside the Bonaventure and you’ll have no doubt as to why producers have returned to the hotel over the years for filming. The building is one hundred percent unique with tall glass towers and elevators, large cement pillars, beams and floors, and countless fountains and ponds located throughout the lobby area.

    Besides Nick of Time, the hotel has also starred in countless other movie and TV productions including Forget Paris, Mission Impossible III, Hard to Kill, Escape From LA, Epicenter, This is Spinal Tap, CSI and In the Line of Fire. Arnold Schwarzenegger rode a horse into one of the glass elevators in the movieTrue Lies and the waitresses from the 80s TV show It’s A Living worked in the hotel’s revolving BonaVista Lounge located on the 34th floor. If you walk through the hallway leading from the parking garage to the hotel lobby, you will see the movie posters from each of the productions filmed at the Bonaventure. Each elevator also has a plaque notating which feature film was filmed there.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It:The Westin Bonaventure Hotel is located at 6th Street in Downtown Los Angeles. Be sure to hit up the BonaVista Lounge while you are there – the views alone are worth the trip! 🙂