Marilyn Monroe Locations – Page 3

March 23, 2010December 6, 2013

Marilyn Monroe’s Childhood Orphanage

It’s shaping up to be Marilyn Monroe week here at iamnotastalker, because here I am yet again blogging about yet another location relating to the late actress. Thanks to the “Movie Star Homes and Notorious Crime Scenes” map that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, purchased for me while the two of us were out and about doing some Oscar Weekend stalking earlier this month, we were able to visit the famous Hollygrove Home for Children, the orphanage where a young girl named Norma Jeane Baker spent twenty-one formative months of her childhood. For some particularly odd reason I had always been under the incorrect assumption that Marilyn’s childhood orphanage was located in the Van Nuys area, so when I found it’s Hollywood address on my new star map, I was absolutely elated and begged Mike to drive right over there so that we could stalk the place. As fate would have it, Marilyn’s former orphanage is located a scant seven blocks away from Tom Kelley’s Photography Studio – the spot where she would later take her now infamous nude calendar photos in 1949 – which I blogged about on Friday.

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In December of 1934, Marilyn’s mother Gladys, who had long suffered from mental illness, had a complete emotional breakdown and was committed to an asylum. Her eight year old daughter, Norma Jeane Baker, was sent to live with Grace McKee, her mother’s best friend, whom Marilyn soon nicknamed “Aunt Grace”. Aunt Grace cared for the young girl for about a year until she lost her job with Columbia Pictures and could no longer afford to do so. On September 13, 1935, she was forced to bring Norma Jeane to the Los Angeles Orphans Home Society – Hollygrove’s original name – where she became the orphanage’s 3,463rd ward. Marilyn stayed at Hollygrove on and off for a period of almost two years, during which time she was also shuttled between no less than nine different foster homes. She left the orphanage for good on June 12, 1937, at which time she moved back in with Grace McKee where she remained for about a year before being shuttled off to yet another family member. And while some Marilyn biographies stipulate that the star played up her sad upbringing as part of her Hollywood persona and did not really live in quite as many foster homes as she led people to believe, spending any part of one’s childhood in an orphanage constitues a “Hard Knock Life” in my eyes. It’s amazing to think of what she was able to do with her life after surviving such a tumultous beginning.

As legend has it, the window of Marilyn’s orphanage dormitory, which she shared with 26 other girls, looked out upon the former RKO Studio’s water tower and led to her dreams of someday becoming a world famous movie star. One of my all-time favorite quotes from the actress reads, “I used to think as I looked at the Hollywood night, ‘There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I’m not going to worry about them. I’m dreaming the hardest.’” Love it!

The Los Angeles Orphans Home Society, which changed its name to the Hollygrove Home For Children in 1957, was originally founded in 1880 in Chinatown and was L.A.’s very first orphanage. It moved to its current location in Hollywood a few years later where it served as a home for displaced children for over 125 years. In 2006, Hollygrove transitioned from a residential center for abandoned children to an “EMQ Families First Agency”, which, as far as I’ve been able to discern, is an outpatient treatment center for young child abuse victims. Sadly, as you can see in the above photographs, the property looks much different today than it did in the ‘30s when Marilyn lived there. You can read a more detailed history of the former orphanage here.

I am very happy to report that the old Hollygrove sign in still in place, though, which was incredibly exciting for me to see in person.

If you look closely in the above photographs, you will see that someone even went so far as to spell out “Norma Jeane” on the bottom part of the Hollygrove letters. So darn cool! 🙂 While we were stalking Marilyn’s former orphanage, Mike rang the front buzzer to see if we might be allowed inside. When I asked him what he was going to say to whomever picked up the phone, he joked, “I’m going to tell them that my name is Mike Monroe and that I’m interested in adopting a little blond girl.” LOL LOVE IT! I swear I was still cracking up over that statement hours later. Sadly, though, Hollygrove’s main office was already closed by the time we got there and no one answered our call, which is especially upsetting being that according to this L.A. Times article there is actually a “hallway museum” inside of the former orphanage which features photographs of a young Marilyn. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see those!

During Marilyn’s stay at Hollygrove, she attended Vine Street Elementary School, which is located just a few blocks away from the former orphanage, so, of course, Mike and I just had to stalk that location as well. Because school was in session at the time, though, we didn’t get to take many photographs of the property while there. 🙁

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Hollygrove, Marilyn Monroe’s former orphanage, is located at 815 North El Centro Avenue in Hollywood. Vine Street Elementary School is located at 955 North Vine Street, also in Hollywood.

March 19, 2010December 6, 2013

Tom Kelley’s Photography Studio – The Site of Marilyn Monroe’s Nude Pictorial

A few weeks ago, while out doing some Oscar stalking with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, the two of us visited a convenience store on Hollywood Boulevard which just so happened to be selling the latest edition of fave star map “Movie Star Homes and Notorious Crime Scenes”. So, I, of course, just had to buy myself a copy (actually, truth be told, Mike purchased it for me – Thank you, Mike!) and was absolutely floored to discover that one of the many new addresses included in the map was that of Tom Kelley’s former photography studio, the very place where a then-unknown wanna-be actress named Norma Jeane Baker posed for her now-infamous series of nude calendar photographs on May 27, 1949. Just twenty-two years old at the time, the blonde ingenue, who would just a short time later come to be known as one of the most famous movie stars in the entire world, posed sans clothing while laying on top of a drape made of red velvet. When later asked about what she was wearing during the controversial photo shoot, Marilyn said, “It’s not true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on.” Love it! Well, once I had the address of the studio, Mike and I headed right over there to stalk the place. Yay!

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Tom Kelley’s former photography studio is currently inhabited by Pictures in a Row, a production company which touts the famous history of their office space right on their website – SO LOVE IT! The studio is unfortunately gated, but, as luck would have it – and I always seem to have the most AMAZING luck when I am out with Mike – one of the Pictures in a Row employees just happened to be standing outside of the gate when we pulled up. So we, of course, got to talking to him and I told him about my blog and my love of Miss Monroe and asked if I could snap a few photographs. Well, not only did he tell me to snap away, but he then asked – are you sitting down for this? – if I wanted to COME INSIDE THE STUDIO TO SEE WHERE THE FAMOUS PHOTOGRAPHS HAD BEEN TAKEN! Well, let me tell you, I just about FAINTED right there on the spot! Did I want to come inside???? Did I want to come inside????? OF COURSE I DID! So, after regaining my composure, he led me past the front gates and INTO TOM KELLEY’S FORMER STUDIO. As you can probably imagine, I was just about DYING the entire time. The interior of the studio is pictured above and while the employee told me that the space has undergone quite a few changes in the sixty some-odd years since Marilyn was photographed there . . .

. . . the ceiling has been left largely untouched. So, what is pictured above is pretty much the exact view Marilyn had as she looked upwards while Tom Kelley photographed her from a ten foot ladder. So darn cool! I really can’t tell you how incredible it was to be able to actually set foot inside of such a historically significant building onto what I very much consider to be hallowed ground.

Because Marilyn’s calendar photographs became so incredibly famous, the legends surrounding them abound. There are even differing reports as to why the struggling starlet posed in the first place, but according to her official statement she was behind on a rent payment and simply needed the $50 paycheck. Apparently, after the two hour session ended, the photographs of Marilyn sat in one of Tom Kelley’s filing cabinets for over a year until Western Lithograph contacted him to see if he had any nudes he’d be willing to sell. Kelley ended up selling the company two of his Marilyn photographs for a mere $200 fee and it was those two prints, which were entitled “Golden Dreams” and “A New Wrinkle”, that wound up in the calendar. The calendars were then sold and hung up in men’s garages all over the U.S., but it wasn’t until March of 1952 that a newspaper journalist named Aline Mosby identified the now-wildly-famous Marilyn as the calendar’s model. What followed was a virtual media firestorm, making Monroe more popular than she already was. But the story doesn’t end there. In 1953, a young entrepreneur named Hugh Hefner purchased one of Kelley’s prints and featured it as the centerfold in the very first issue of his new men’s magazine which he dubbed Playboy. That first issue sold a staggering 54,000 copies and turned the magazine and its creator into household names. The rest, as they say, is history. Marilyn was so significant in building Heff’s empire, in fact, that he wound up purchasing the crypt directly next to hers at Pierce Brothers Westwood Memorial Park Cemetery so that he could lay in eternal rest with the woman who launched his career. The area of the studio where Marilyn posed is denoted with the pink arrow in the above photograph.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Tom Kelley’s former photography studio, where Marilyn posed for her now infamous nude calendar pictures, is located at 736 Seward Street in Hollywood.

November 13, 2009December 6, 2013

The Central Park Boathouse Cafe

One of the locations that I was most excited about stalking while in New York last month was a little restaurant named the Central Park Boathouse Cafe, also known as the Loeb Boathouse. And although I’ve stalked this location once before – and even blogged about it – because the restaurant is not open for business during the winter months when we usually visit New York, I’d never been able to actually eat there. Until my most recent trip to the Big Apple, that is. This year, because my parents had only ever seen Manhattan during the cold winter months, we decided to change things up a bit and schedule our annual NYC vacation in early October. And I couldn’t have been more excited, as that meant that I’d FINALLY be able to grab a bite to eat at the famous Boathouse Cafe! 🙂

The first Central Park Boathouse was originally built in 1873 by park designer Calvert Vaux and cost $2,360 to construct. Vaux’s design consisted of a two-story Gothic inspired structure with open terraces lining the second level. For over eighty years, the Boathouse provided park-dwellers with a place to dock and store their vessels, grab a bite to eat, or just simply people-watch. But, in the 1950s it became clear that the eighty year old structure was in desperate need of a renovation. Thanks to a $305,000 donation from American Metal Company founder Carl M. Loeb and a $100,000 supplement from the Parks foundation, the original Boathouse was torn down and a new building was assembled in its place. The new structure, which was dubbed the Loeb Boathouse and was constructed in the neo-classical style by designer Stuart Constable, opened in March of 1954 and remains standing to this day. Although a bit more upscale than its predecessor, the Loeb Boathouse still provides visitors with a place to grab a bite to eat or an evening cocktail, rent a rowboat, or just simply take in the beautiful park scenery.

Because the Loeb Boathouse is so incredibly picturesque, it has, of course, been featured countless times over the years in various movie and television productions. With its lakeside setting, frequent rowboat passersby, and view of of the park and Manhattan skyscrapers in the distance, it’s really no wonder why producers have returned to film there time and time again.

Just inside the Boathouse’s main entrance is a large display of photographs from the many filmings that have taken place there over the years. So love it!

And, let me tell you, I just about died when I noticed an old picture of my girl Marilyn Monroe on the wall! As it turns out, though, according to the hostess that I talked to, the picture was not actually from a movie that was filmed on the premises, but was a candid that was taken while Marilyn rowed a boat one evening on the nearby Central Park Lake. You can just make out the outline of the Boathouse above her left shoulder in the photograph. So cute!

Ostensibly missing from the Boathouse’s picture wall, though, was a photograph of fave show Sex and the City, which filmed a VERY memorable scene from the Season 3 episode entitled “Cock A Doodle Do” at the restaurant. When I asked the hostess about it she said, “Sex and the City was filmed here? Really?” LOL LOL LOL In the episode, Carrie reluctantly agrees to a lunch date with Mr. Big at the waterside cafe, but, as often happens with those two characters, trouble, of course, ensues. Just before Carries enters the restaurant, she stops outside to make a quick call to Miranda on a nearby payphone. During the course of their conversation, Miranda makes Carrie promise that no matter what happens during the lunch she will NOT let Big kiss her. (On a side note – I tried to stalk Carrie’s payphone, but, unfortunately, it was nowhere to be found, which leads me to believe that it was either a prop that was brought in solely for the filming or it was a real payphone that was removed sometime after the filming took place. Such a bummer!)

Carrie then proceeds to enter the restaurant and spots Big waiting for her in the Bar & Grill area, which is pretty much the exact spot where my family and I sat while dining there. 🙂

Upon Carrie’s arrival, Big immediately goes to kiss her and, in backing away to avoid him, Carrie winds up falling into the water, pulling Big down with her. The two immediately collapse into fits of laughter until Carrie realizes that her Christian Dior purse has gone missing, at which point Big screams out “I’ll get it!” and then proceeds to heroically dive under the water to save the purse . . .

. . . with the whole rest of the restaurant looking on. LOL LOL LOL So love that episode! 🙂

So, of course, when I first visited the Cafe back in 2005, I just had to take a picture reenacting that scene. Too bad I couldn’t also reenact Carrie’s Richard Tyler dress from that scene, too! LOL 🙂

The Boathouse is also the spot where Sally lunched with her friends, one of whom was Carrie Fisher, at the beginning of the 1989 romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally.

In the more recent 27 Dresses, the Boathouse figures prominently as the place where Katherine Heigl’s character’s parents were married and where she also intends to someday hold her own wedding. As fate would have it, though, her younger sister gets engaged first and books the restaurant for her wedding instead. Towards the end of the movie, a scene takes place at the Boathouse in which Katherine attends a food tasting for the upcoming nuptials with her secret crush, who also just so happens to be her sister’s fiancé, Edward Burns.

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The Boathouse also appeared in the 2005 movie Little Manhattan and in an episode of the Showtime series Nurse Jackie. The upcoming Drew Barrymore/Justin Long movie entitled Going the Distance also apparently did some recent filming at the Boathouse and a fake Boathouse set was even built in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park this past summer for the Tina Fey/Steve Carell comedy Date Night.

Besides being a filming location, the boathouse has also long been a favorite dining spot for celebrities. In recent years, stars like Lindsay Lohan, Becky Newton, Orlando Bloom, and Victoria’s Secret model Miranda Kerr have all been spotted eating at the Cafe. The Boathouse has also played host to numerous celebrity events, including the premiere after-parties for the movies Pride and Prejudice, Mamma Mia, and My Sister’s Keeper.

And while the Boathouse was at the very top of my list of locales to stalk during this year’s trip, as fate would have it, we actually got “stuck” there after being caught in a brief rainstorm while walking through Central Park. Because the Cafe was the nearest shelter we came to and because it was on my stalking list, we decided to kill two birds with one stone and ducked inside. 🙂 Thankfully the rainstorm didn’t last more than a few minutes and once it was over we immediately grabbed seats on the patio in the Boathouse’s Bar & Grill area (pictured above) and ordered up a few cocktails. And, I have to say, the place was A-MA-ZING! It is worth a visit just for the setting alone! I honestly can’t recommend stalking the Boathouse Cafe enough! It has to be one of my favorite places in all of New York. It is the absolute PERFECT place to spend a sunny – or even a not so sunny, as was the case for me – Manhattan afternoon.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Central Park Boathouse Cafe is located at East 72nd Street and Park Drive North in Central Park. The restaurant is seasonal and is only open from April through November. You can visit their website here.

October 13, 2009December 6, 2013

The Carlyle Hotel

Yet another of my favorite New York haunts is the ultra-exclusive Carlyle Hotel, located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. I blogged about the Carlyle’s famous Bemelman’s Bar, which was featured in Sex and the City: The Movie, after last year’s trip to the Big Apple, but didn’t include much information on the actual hotel itself. So, here goes. The Carlyle Hotel, which was named after author Thomas Carlyle, was built by Moses Ginsberg and designed in the Art Deco style by architects Sylvan Bien & Harry M. Prince. The thirty-five story building first opened its doors in November of 1930 and was actually a residential hotel at the time, with apartments leasing for approximately $20,000 a year. To show you how times have changed, today there is a room at the Carlyle which rents for approximately $15,000 a night! LOL Due to the Great Depression, the hotel did not fare well during the early years. In 1932, it was sold to new owners who managed to keep it afloat and occupied, but failed to really put the hotel on the map. In 1948, businessman Robert Whittle Downing purchased the building with the intent of transforming it into an exclusive, upscale hotel property. And transform it, he did! Shortly after the change of ownership, then-president Harry S. Truman stayed at the Carlyle, and the rest, as they say is, history. Every president since that time has stayed at the Carlyle at least once during their presidency. In fact, JFK owned an apartment at the hotel from 1953 until the time of his death and was such a frequent visitor that during his tenure the Carlyle earned the nickname “the New York White House”. (By the way, I have absolutely no idea what I was looking at when my dad snapped the above picture, but it’s the only one I have of the front of the hotel. LOL)

JFK’s wife Jackie was also a frequent guest at the Carlyle during her lifetime. The hotel honored her patronage by placing the above framed photograph just inside the main entrance. Ironically enough, rumor has it that Marilyn Monroe was also a frequent visitor to the Carlyle – but only when JFK was in town and only when Jackie wasn’t able to accompany him. According to legend, there is a secret tunnel system located below the hotel which allows the rich and famous to enter and leave the property without being spotted by the masses. Thanks to the discretion and privacy that the Carlyle affords, it has long been a celebrity magnet. In fact, the New York Times just recently dubbed it “a Palace of Secrets”. Just a few of the celebs who have been spotted at the hotel through the years include Elizabeth Taylor, Steve Martin, Debbie Reynolds, Princess Diana, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Christian Slater, France’s First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Scarlett Johansson, Jack Nicholson, Gwen Stefani, Nicole Kidman, Jay Z, Beyonce, Ryan Reynolds, Britney Spears, Swiss tennis star Roger Federer, Kate Bosworth, Victoria Beckham, Kate Hudson, Katie Holmes, and Tom Cruise. And, of course, Sarah Jessica Parker. In fact, SJP and Matthew Broderick are such fans of the Carlyle that they not only honeymooned at the hotel, but hosted an after-after party for the Sex and the City: The Movie premiere there.

The Carlyle is an absolutely beautiful place, with sparkling marble floors, dark wood paneling, crystal chandeliers, and antique elevators complete with real gloved operators. And I highly recommend stalking the place! If you can’t afford to stay there (the average cost of a room is about $525!), you can grab a drink in the hotel’s Bemelman’s Bar or dine in their restaurant, Cafe Carlyle. On our last trip to the Big Apple, we stopped in to the hotel and I asked my dad to snap some photos of of it for me while I went to ask the concierge about the filming that had taken place there over the years. The two pictures shown above were the result of that request. LOL Why he took only two photographs, both of me and not of the hotel, I’ll never know! LOL My apologies! Anyway, to get a better idea of what the Carlyle looks like inside, take a peek at the photo gallery on the hotel’s website. 🙂

The Carlyle is also, of course, a filming location. Woody Allen met ex-wife Tea Leoni at the Carlyle’s Bemelman’s Bar for a drink in the 2002 movie Hollywood Ending. Woody also shot a date scene with Dianne Wiest in the hotel’s restaurant, Cafe Carlyle, for the 1986 movie Hannah and her Sisters.

According to the book New York: A Movie Lover’s Guide, the penthouse where Anthony Hopkins lived in Meet Joe Black was actually one of the Carlyle Hotel’s deluxe suites. The exteriors of his building, however, were filmed elsewhere.

Also according to New York: A Movie Lover’s Guide, the Carlyle stood in for the European hotel where Glenn Close first met Jeremy Irons in the 1990 movie Reversal of Fortune, but I’m not entirely sure that information is correct. As you can see in the above screen captures, the decor just doesn’t seem to match that of the Carlyle.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Carlyle Hotel is located at 25 East 76th Street on New York’s Upper East Side.

October 12, 2009December 6, 2013

The St. Regis Hotel

Last year while visiting Manhattan, I dragged my boyfriend out to the posh St. Regis New York hotel on 55th Street. I had wanted to see the St. Regis not so much because it is an oft-used filming location, but because my girl Marilyn Monroe stayed there back in 1954 while on location in New York filming favorite movie The Seven Year Itch. I found this spot thanks to favorite Manhattan stalking book New York: The Movie Lover’s Guide, which claimed that the hotel was the site of a monumental fight between Marilyn and her then-husband Joe DiMaggio. According to the book, and just about everything else ever written about The Seven Year Itch, Joe and Marilyn’s relationship was not in a good place at the time of the filming. Things came to a head on September 15, 1954 – the night Marilyn filmed the famous subway grate scene. Joe was on hand for the shoot that night and became absolutely irate at the fact that 5,000 spectators had showed up to catch a glimpse of his wife’s unmentionables. Legend has it that the fight between Marilyn and Joe started out on the 52nd street set and continued all the way back to their suite at the St. Regis Hotel, where their screaming awakened the entire floor! Now, I’m not sure if the story about the St. Regis brawl is true or not, but I just had to stalk the hotel regardless. 🙂

The St. Regis New York was built in 1904 by millionaire businessman John Jacob Astor IV and at the time was considered to be the finest hotel in all of Manhattan. Today it is considered to be one of the finest hotels in all of the world. Astor’s goal was to build a hotel where guests would not only experience the utmost in luxurious accommodations, but at the same feel as if they were staying in a private home. To give his hotel that “home away from home” feel, each of the St. Regis’ 229 rooms (164 regular rooms and 65 suites) featured a doorbell. 🙂 At the time of its opening each room also boasted such state-of-the-art amenities as personal thermostats, fire alarms, central air conditioning, telephones, Steinway pianos (yes, each room had its own Steinway piano!!!!), and – my personal favorite – a centralized vacuum system. Rather than lugging around vacuum cleaners all day long to each and every room, the housekeeping staff had only to attach a small hose to sockets that were located in the hotel walls and the dirt would simply be sucked away. My former boss had a centralized vacuum system in his house and, let me tell you, it’s just about the COOLEST THING EVER! The fact that the St. Regis had one back in 1904 is mind-boggling to me! In today’s world, the St. Regis name has become synonymous with luxury, splendor, and the utmost in hospitality. The amenities of 2009 include a spa, a fitness center, a business center, and twenty-four hour butler service!! The St. Regis New York has won countless awards over the years, including most recently “Top 75 Hotels in the United States” by Conde Nast Traveler, “World’s Best” by Travel & Leisure Magazine, the “Five-Star Award” by the Mobil Travel Guide, and – for the past fourteen years in a row – the “Five Diamond Award” by AAA! The above photographs were taken during last year’s New York vacation in a sitting room located just off of the St. Regis lobby. As you can see, the hotel is absolutely BEAUTIFUL inside and I just love visiting it. I would also LOVE to stay there sometime, but being that rates start at around $600 per night, there is no way in heck the Grim Cheaper would ever go for that!

The exclusive St. Regis has long been a celebrity haven. Besides Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, past guests of the hotel include Humphrey Bogart, Salvador Dali, Russian Prince Colonel Serge Obelensky, Marlene Dietrich, Rex Harrison, Alfred Hitchcock, Ernest Hemingway, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, John Huston, Joseph Pulitzer, William Paley, and Gertrude Lawrence, just to name a few. In more recent years Demi Moore, Nathan Lane, Pierce Brosnan, Sean Penn, Victor Garber, Scarlett Johansson, Tara Reid, Thora Birch, Courteney Cox, and Martin Short have all been spotted at the hotel.

And, of course, the St. Regis is also a filming location! 🙂 The hotel’s King Cole Bar showed up in fave movie The First Wives Club, as the location where Goldie Hawn lamented over being asked to play the character of “Monique’s mother” – instead of “Monique” – in her next movie. The King Cole is famous in and of itself thanks to the massive Maxfield Parrish mural of Old King Cole and his knights flanking the bar. In 1906, John Jacob Astor IV paid $5,000 for the commission of the eight foot by thirty foot mural and first hung it in another of his hotel properties, the Knickerbocker. When the Knickerbocker closed its doors in 1932, the mural was brought over to the St. Regis and hung above the bar, where legends about it abound – two in particular. The first story states that the face of King Cole in the painting is actually that of the hotel’s owner, John Jacob Astor IV. Legend also has it that the reason behind the King’s mischievous expression in the mural is that he has just passed gas. I’m not kidding! LOL And yet another legend asserts that the King Cole Bar is where the first ever Bloody Mary was served on U.S. soil. 🙂

The King Cole Bar was also featured very briefly in the movie The Devil Wears Prada as the location where my love Simon Baker gave Anne Hathaway the unpublished manuscript for the 7th “Harry Potter” book. I so LOVED The Devil Wears Prada, by the way. The movie is worth seeing just for Anne Hathaway’s wardrobe alone! 🙂

The St. Regis also popped up in the 1976 movie Taxi Driver as the location where Cybil Shepherd caught a ride with cabbie Robert De Niro.

In 2000’s Miss Congeniality, Michael Caine and Sandra Bullock dined at the St. Regis’ now-defunct Lespinasse Restaurant.

Joe Jackson’s (not MJ’s father) music video for his 1982 song ‘Steppin’ Out’ was also filmed at the hotel. And Woody Allen has shot no less than THREE movies on location at the St. Regis – Anything Else, Hannah and Her Sisters (the hotel was the site of Michael Caine and Barbara Hershey’s illicit affair), and Radio Days (Mia Farrow was a cigarette girl in the King Cole Bar).

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I honestly can’t recommend stalking the St. Regis New York enough. It is a truly beautiful, truly unique hotel. And I’d also recommend stalking the King Cole Bar – if you can get a seat, that is. My fiancé and I have tried to grab a cocktail there countless times on each of our numerous trips to New York, but have never been able to get a seat in the popular bar. 🙁

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The St. Regis New York hotel is located at 2 East 55th Street, at Fifth Avenue, in Manhattan. You can visit their website here.

August 28, 2009December 6, 2013

Marilyn Monroe’s Catalina House

The most important item on my Catalina Island stalking list was the home where a very young Marilyn Monroe lived with her first husband James Dougherty during the years 1943 to 1944. This was long before Miss Monroe became a Hollywood icon and household name, back when she was just a girl who was known simply as Norma Jeane Baker. Norma married James in 1942 at the tender ago of 16. Yes, you read that right – 16!!! The family who was taking care of her at the time was moving out of state and rather than take Norma with them, opted to basically marry her off to one of the neighbor boys. After only one short year of marriage, James was shipped off to Catalina Island to begin his basic training with the Merchant Marines. Marilyn moved to Catalina with him and remained on the island for about a year and a half. So, as you can probably imagine, I was absolutely busting at the seams to find her former home – a task that proved to be much easier than I had anticipated.

While waiting at the Catalina Island taxi station yesterday, I happened to notice a flyer for a movie called Hollywood’s Magical Island: Catalina with a picture of Marilyn on it posted on a wall. So, of course, I just had to ask the taxi operator if he knew anything about the movie, which he, sadly, didn’t. So, I said, “Shoot! I was hoping it might have information about where Marilyn’s Catalina house was located.” Well, lo and behold, the cab operator got this funny look on his face and said “I know where her house is – it’s at 310 Metropole Avenue!” I totally thought the guy was pulling my leg, as what would be the odds that the very first person I ask about her house would know its exact location??? Well, I must have some seriously good stalking karma because the guy really did know the correct address. He told me that just about a year ago a Japanese film crew had descended on the island to make a documentary about the starlet and they actually filmed part of it at her house! Turns out the taxi guy knew the location, because it’s located just three blocks up the street from his little taxi stand and he saw the filming! Honestly, what are the odds????? 🙂

So, of course, I immediately dragged my parents and my fiance right up the street to stalk Marilyn’s former residence. 🙂 Marilyn’s house is an adorable little beach bungalow that looks pretty much exactly like I pictured it would! So darn cute!!!! The home is actually a duplex, I believe, rather than a single family residence, as there seem to be two separate front doors, as you can see in the above photograph.

But, being the overly-anal person that I am, I just had to ask around town for further verification that the house I had just stalked was definitely Marilyn’s former home. I hate putting information on my blog unless I know with absolutely certainty that that information is correct. And all I had to go on for this one was the word of a random cab operator. So, I wanted further verification. Well, as it turns out there are COUNTLESS stories floating around out there as to where the starlet’s former house is located. While most locals I talked to had no idea that Marilyn had even lived on the island LOL LOL LOL, those few that did had differing stories. I heard everything from “She lived somewhere on Whitley Avenue” to “No, no, no, her house is on Descanso Avenue between Beacon and Third Streets” to “Marilyn Monroe lived here? Are you sure?” And that last one came from a guy who WORKS AT THE CATALINA ISLAND MUSEUM! LOL LOL LOL Needless to say I was just a tad bit frustrated over all of the differing theories. I mean, come on people! This is Catalina history! Someone should know where MM lived!!!! Finally, I ended up locating two different books about the history of the island, both of which said Marilyn’s former home was located on Metropole Avenue – just like the cab guy had said! 🙂 So, while I can’t say with absolute certainty that Marilyn Monroe did at one time live at 310 Metropole Avenue on Catalina Island, I am going to go out on a limb here and trust the word of two history books, a local taxi operator, and a Japanese film crew. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Marilyn Monroe’s Catalina house is (most likely) located at 310 Metropole Avenue in Avalon.

July 9, 2009December 6, 2013

The Fairmont Miramar Santa Monica

I don’t know about you all, but for the past few Sunday nights I have been absolutely glued to my television set watching Season 2 of the Ryan Seacrest produced Denise Richards: It’s Complicated. And while I admit that the girl is an absolute train wreck and that her laugh is like fingernails on a chalkboard, for some incredibly odd reason I just can’t stop watching! LOL So, since I was in the area recently, I just had to stalk the hotel Denise moved into at the beginning of this season.

Wanting a “fresh start” after the past “difficult year”, Denise decided to sell her Hidden Hills home and move closer to her daughters’ school and her “work” – whatever that means. I didn’t realize Denise had a full time job. LOL Anyway, until her former home sells, the Richards Family, including Denise, her father Irv (no, that’s not a typo, that’s actually his name!), and daughters Lola and Sam, are calling the Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows in Santa Monica home. The hotel shows up quite often on this season of Denise’s reality show, especially the bungalow area where her family lives . . .

. . . and the hotel’s onsite fitness center, where she works out daily with her trainer/sometimes date Ray.

The Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows was originally the private home of John P. Jones, a former Nevada senator and one of the founders of the City of Santa Monica. John built a mansion on the site in 1889 and dubbed his property “Miramar” which means “view of the sea” in Spanish. In 1912, the Jones Family sold their home to King C. Gillette, founder of the razor company of the same name and the King Gillette Ranch where TV’s The Biggest Loser is filmed. Nine years later, in 1921, Gillette sold the property to hotel entreprenuer Gilbert Stevenson, who turned it into an upscale seaside resort. In 1924, to make room for more guests, Stevenson added a large brick building to the property and also, sadly, had the original Jones’ mansion torn down just a few years later. In 1959, the hotel added yet another tower. Forty years later, the current owner, investment group Maritz, Wolffe & Co. purchased the hotel, started a $16 million renovation process, and brought in the Fairmont Hotels and Resorts company to manage the property. All these years later it is still a truly beautiful place and I highly recommend stalking it! 🙂

Denise Richards is not the first celeb to check into the Miramar. Over the years numermous stars have stayed there, including Cary Grant, Greta Garbo (who lived at the hotel for close to three years), Doris Day, JFK and Jackie O., Eleanor Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh, my girl Marilyn Monroe, Rosa Parks, Denzel Washington, Quincy Jones, Hugh Hefner, Anthony Hopkins, Arnold Schwarznegger, Steven Spielburg, Shaquille O’Neal, and Hilary Swank, just to name a few.

The hotel has been featured in countless movie and television productions over the years. In the Season 5 episode of Entourage entitled “First Class Jerk”, the Miramar stood in for a Hawaiian resort where Vinnie and the boys hung out.

The large Moreton Bay Fig Tree which stands at the entrance to the Miramar and quite closely resembles a banyan tree gives the hotel somewhat of a tropical feel, so it’s no surprise that Entourage producers chose to film there instead of shooting on location in Hawaii. The fig tree was planted way back in 1879 – yes, 1879 – by Senator Jones, the original owner of the propety. It measures a whopping 80 feet high and 120 feet wide!

The hotel also showed up as the location where Anthony Hopkins’ wife carried out her affair in 2007’s Fracture.

It was also the hotel where Helen Mirren and her friends stayed during their L.A. visit in the Disney movie Calendar Girls. Please excuse the horrific YouTube screen captures pictured above! LOL In the 1962 Cary Grant and Doris Day comedy That Touch of Mink, the Miramar was used as a West Indies resort. The hotel has also been featured in Along Came Polly and the television series Simon & Simon.

And last, but definitely not least, the night before her surprise wedding to KFed, Britney Spears threw herself a Bachelorette party in one of the Miramar’s bungalows. KFed partied with his boys, aka “The Pimps” right across the street at Houston’s Restaurant (pictured above). Both, I’m sure, were classy affairs! 😉 At the time, Kevin was living with Britney in her nearby oceanside pad in the 1221 Ocean Avenue condomium complex.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows is located at 101 Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica. You can visit their website here. Houston’s Restaurant, where KFed held his bachelor party, is located across the street at 202 Wilshire Boulevard.

June 16, 2009December 6, 2013

Miceli’s Restaurant

After watching Kyra Sedgwick’s Star Ceremony last week, my friend Blaze and I headed over to Hollywood’s oldest pizzeria, better known as Miceli’s Restaurant, to grab a bite to eat. Miceli’s – pronounced Micheli’s – opened its doors way back in 1949 and has the distinction of being known as Hollywood’s first pizza house. The restaurant was started by an Italian couple named Carmen and Sylvia Miceli, along with four of their siblings, who brought their family recipes all the way from Sicily to Los Angeles. The restaurant is still owned and operated by the Miceli family and apparently, most nights, Carmen, himself, is on hand to great his guests! Because of the restaurants’ storied Hollywood history, I just HAD to stalk the place. 🙂

And I wasn’t disappointed!! The second you walk through Miceli’s front doors you are immediately transported back in time! With its dimly lit interior, red leather booths, and black and white photographs of celebrities of yesteryear lining the entryway, the restaurant definitely gives off an Old Hollywood vibe. It is such a cool place!!!! My favorite part of Miceli’s had to be the intricately carved wood and red leather booths. I’ve never seen booths like that in my entire life! Ironically, the booths originally belonged to the old Pig N’ Whistle restaurant, which I blogged about yesterday. When the Pig N’ Whistle closed its doors in 1949, its gorgeous wooden booths were sold to Miceli’s, where they remain to this day.

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I was also pretty obsessed with the ceilings at Miceli’s. 🙂 I don’t know what it is with me and ceilings lately, but every time I walk into a historic building my eyes always go directly up to the roof. Nine times out of ten, the ceilings of old buildings are like works of art. And Miceli’s ceiling certainly did not disappoint. Intricate wrought iron chandeliers hang from gorgeous carved wooden beams throughout the restaurant. Unfortunately, because Miceli’s is so dimly lit, my photographs of the interior did not come out very well. 🙁

Not surprisingly, Miceli’s Restaurant has always been popular with celebrities. During Hollywood’s Golden Era, stars like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, my girl Marilyn Monroe, and Presidents Nixon and JFK all dined at Miceli’s. In more recent years, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, The Beatles, and Julia Roberts have all been spotted at the eatery.

And, yes, Miceli’s is also a filming location! In 2007’s Knocked Up, Seth Rogan takes his baby momma, Katherine Heigl, to the historic restaurant on a date.

I HIGHLY recommend stalking Miceli’s! The place is worth a trip just for the ambiance alone! But besides the decor, the food at Miceli’s is also EXCELLENT and the portions are ginormous! I just about died over the restaurant’s garlic toast!! Sadly, though, since we ate at Miceli’s during lunchtime, we missed the “singing waiters” which the Italian restaurant is famous for. 🙁 Every night, the Miceli servers step up to the piano to serenade diners with authentic Italian arias, show tunes, and the standards. Sometimes patrons are even invited to get up and sing a note or two themselves. Since karaoke is one of my very favorite past times, I am definitely planning on dragging my fiance there for a nighttime visit! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Miceli’s Restaurant is located at 1646 North Las Palmas in Hollywood.

May 1, 2009December 6, 2013

San Francisco City Hall

I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’ve read just about every biography on my girl Marilyn Monroe that’s ever been published. So, imagine my surprise when I came across an article the other day which stated that the starlet married her second husband, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, at San Francisco City Hall. How in the heck did I not know this before??? I grew up in San Francisco for Pete’s sake! City Hall was pretty much right in my own backyard! In fact, I even stalked the place back in October, during my last trip to the City by the Bay. I had yet to blog about it, though, because it was extremely windy the day I was there and I only got out of the car long enough to take one photograph – the one pictured above. Check out my hair! LOL So, the other day, after reading about Marilyn’s San Francisco wedding, I sent my good friend Nat, who lives in the area, on a stalking mission to take photographs of City Hall for me, so that I could finally blog about it. 🙂 Here goes!

San Francisco City Hall was built in 1915 by architect Arthur Brown, Jr., who also designed Coit Tower, the War Memorial Opera House and Pasadena City Hall. The Beaux-Arts style building that stands today is actually San Francisco’s second City Hall. The first, which was built in 1899 and stood at the corner of Grove and Larkin Streets where the public library is now located, was completely destroyed during the 1906 earthquake. Rescue workers were able to salvage the statue that stood atop of the original City Hall’s dome and planned on placing it on the new building. Unfortunately, the statue fell off the back of a flat bed truck while being transported to its new location and was destroyed. LOL LOL LOL How’s that for irony?? The current City Hall measures over 500,000 square feet, takes up two entire city blocks, and cost over $3.5 million to build! Over ten acres of marble were used in the construction. The building’s dome stands at 307.5 feet tall, trumping Washington D.C.’s Capital Building’s dome by 14 inches.

Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio’s wedding took place on January 14, 1954 in the third floor chambers of Judge Charles S. Perry, who was a close friend of Joe’s. DiMaggio’s other good friend Reno Barsocchini and his former manager Lefty O’Doul were the couple’s only guests. Sadly, the marriage was short-lived. Marilyn filed for divorce only 274 days later. City Hall is also the location where Mayor George Moscone and County Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot to death by Dan White on November 27, 1978.

San Francisco City Hall has been featured in countless movies and television shows over the years. The interior of the building’s rotunda showed up at the very end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where it stood in for the Washington D.C. building where Indiana Jones agreed to let Marion Ravenwood buy him a drink (pictured above). City Hall was also used in Bedazzled, The Rock, A View to a Kill, Dirty Harry, Milk, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, The Towering Inferno, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dharma and Greg (in the “Much Ado During Nothing” episode), Foul Play, and Bicentennial Man, just to name a few!

I highly recommend stalking San Francisco City Hall. It is an absolutely beautiful building and just seeing the dome alone in person is worth a drive by! And, although I didn’t venture inside while I was stalking the place, the first floor area is open to the public. Free tours are also given three times daily, Monday through Friday, at 10 a.m., 12 p.m., and 2 p.m. San Francisco City Guides also offers free interior tours of City Hall every Thursday at 11:00 a.m. You can visit their website for further details.

Big THANK YOU to my surrogate stalker Nat who took all of the above photos. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: San Francisco City Hall is located at 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place in San Francisco.

April 16, 2009December 6, 2013

Paradise Cove

One location I have been wanting to stalk ever since I first moved to L.A. nine years ago – has it really been nine years??? – is Malibu’s Paradise Cove. Countless movies have been filmed at the Cove, but I wanted to stalk it for one reason and one reason only. Back in April of 1999, it was the location where Britney Spears filmed the music video for her hit song “Sometimes”. And I absolutely LOVED that video. I can still remember the first time I watched it on TRL just about ten years ago. And ever since that day I have been dying to see the white pier featured in the video in person. So, this past Saturday, I finally did just that. When I happened to mention to my mom that morning that I was on my way to stalk the Cove and the reason why, she said “Oh Lindsay, when are you going to get over this Britney obsession?” LOL

Paradise Cove, as we know it today, came to be in the early 1950s when a man named Joe Morris purchased two adjacent parcels of land and combined them into 70 beachfront acres complete with a private cove and a beach cafe. In the beginning, the area was a fisherman’s hangout, a place for sea-weary workers to not only launch their boats, but to kick back and grab a drink after a long day on the open water. The Cove gradually turned into a beachfront community, a place for local families, tourists, and celebrities alike to hang out by the sea. In the 70s, Joe sold his land, his beachfront restaurant, and his private cove to the Kissel family, who turned the area into a waterfront mobile home park. Joe’s son Bob was heartbroken over the sale and in 1998, he returned to Paradise Cove and purchased his father’s former restaurant. He renamed it Bob Morris’ Paradise Cove Beach Cafe and remains the owner to this day. The above photograph is of a picture on display at the Beach Cafe of my girl Marilyn Monroe posing on a cliff above the restaurant many moons ago.

Most of the action of Britney’s “Sometimes” video takes place right on the Paradise Cove pier. In the video, while hanging out at her beach house, Britney spies a cute boy playing nearby in the sand. She rushes down to the local pier, where her back-up dancers, dressed all in white, are waiting for her. The group then performs a very “Britney” dance routine (of course, I memorized it!) for the boy. I know, I know, the premise sounds incredibly lame, but – trust me – the video is adorable! You can watch the “Sometimes” video here.

In person, the pier looks exactly the same as how it appeared in Britney’s video. The only difference is that, in real life, there is no “Kenny’s Cove” sign located over the entrance. Apparently the video’s producer, Nigel Dick, thought an entrance sign similar to the one that adorns the Santa Monica pier was needed for decoration. He decided to name the cove after the video’s location scout, Kenny. 🙂 Love it!

Had to do it! 🙂

Paradise Cove has been featured in countless productions over the years. In American Pie 2, the Michigan lake house the boys spend their summer at was actually a facade the producers built on the beach at Paradise Cove just North of Bob Morris’ Paradise Cove Beach Cafe. That’s the Paradise Cove Pier behind the boys in the above screen capture. Producers also built a fake lighthouse on the end of the pier for the production.

In Lethal Weapon 4, Mel Gibson and Rene Russo lived in a trailer/house also located just to the North of the Beach Cafe. Their house was also just a facade built for filming. You can see the Cafe’s exterior just to the right of Mel Gibson in the above screen capture.

The pier is featured twice in Indecent Proposal. It first shows up as the location where Woody Harrelson proposes to Demi Moore in the beginning of the movie. Then, at the very end of the movie, it is where the two reunite.

Other productions filmed at the Cove include Rockford Files (James Garner lived in a trailer on the beach), Gidget, Monster-in-Law (JLo and Michael Vartan explored the Cove’s tide pools in the beginning of the movie), Alias, Charlie’s Angels, X-Men (Spider-Man creator Stan Lee served hot dogs by the sea) and The House of Sand and Fog. The Beach Boys also shot the cover for their Surfin’ Safari album at the Cove (pictured above).

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I HIGHLY recommend stalking the Cove – but be forewarned, it’s not cheap! Parking there costs $25! Yes, you read that right! Which is the very reason it took me nine years to stalk the place. Stealing a term from my friend Mandy, I long ago dubbed my boyfriend the “Grim Cheaper” because the guy just hates spending money. Five years ago, when we went to stalk the Cove for the first time, he took one look at that $25 parking sign and turned the car right around. LOL What we didn’t realize at the time is if you grab a bite to eat at Bob Morris’ Paradise Cove Beach Cafe and spend more than $20, the parking fee drops to $3, which is not bad at all. So, after stalking the Cove this past Saturday we marched right into the cafe and parked ourselves on some bar stools. And while we had a good time and the food was definitely yummy, I think we actually missed the boat on that one. What we didn’t realize is that there is actually a back patio area where you can sip a cocktail while sitting outside under the sun, watching the surf. But the rules for the back patio are pretty confusing because while the cafe provides the outdoor seating, they do not actually own that particular area. So, you can buy a bottle of wine or beer inside the restaurant to take outside, but the bottles have to remain closed until you reach your sandy destination. If you open your beverages before you leave, you will have to finish them inside. Confused? So was I.

Basically, Bob Morris’ Beach Cafe acts as a liquor store and sells full bottles of wine and beer that you can purchase at the bar and then take outside to drink on the back patio area. I SO wish I had known that at the time, as the patio looks like a really fun place to grab a drink, put your toes in the sand, and watch the sun set. Oh well, it looks like I’ll just have to go back to stalk the place again. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Paradise Cove is located at 28128 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. You can visit the Paradise Cove website here.