Category: This and That

Marie McDonald’s Former House

There are strange Hollywood crimes and then there are strange Hollywood crimes. Today’s locale fits into the latter category. Last week, my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, emailed me to let me know about a mystifying case concerning an actress that was detailed in a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly (issue #1485, dated October 6th, 2017). In the article, titled “Hollywood’s Original Gone Girl” (you can check out the online version here), author Joe McGovern chronicles the 1957 kidnapping of starlet Marie McDonald, who was better known to movie audiences as “The Body,” the nickname bestowed upon her after her vivacious curves stole the spotlight in 1942’s Pardon My Sarong. Though the story does not involve death, murder or hauntings, and the whole episode is largely believed to have been a hoax executed by Marie herself, Owen thought it would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme and I wholeheartedly agree. I was immediately transfixed by his Cliffs Notes version of the scandal and ran right out to buy EW and stalk the house where the kidnapping was said to have occurred.

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From start to finish, Marie’s life was the stuff tabloid reporters’ dreams are made of. Born Cora Marie Frye in 1923 to a former Ziegfeld Follies showgirl, McDonald spent her childhood in Kentucky before moving to the Big Apple during her teenage years. She entered the pageant circuit, worked on Broadway, and eventually headed to California where she secured a contact at Universal Pictures. It wasn’t long before the blonde bombshell found success in movies, appearing alongside such actors as Alan Ladd, Fred MacMurray, Gene Kelly and Cesar Romero (in Lucky Jordan, Standing Room Only, Living in a Big Way, and Once a Thief, respectively), to name a few. McDonald became much more well-known for her off-camera antics, though, which included a total of six marriages (she twice wedded – and twice divorced – shoe store magnate Harry Karl), an escape from an Australian psychiatric ward, a tryst with mobster Bugsy Siegel, an arrest for forging prescriptions, a DUI hit-and-run that culminated with the actress kicking one police officer and biting another, and, of course, her abduction, by far her most infamous escapade.

As the story goes, shortly before midnight on January 3rd, 1957, while in the bedroom of the Encino home she shared with her three children, housekeeper, chauffer and large dog (at the time she was estranged from Harry Karl, for the second time, awaiting a divorce), McDonald was startled by a noise outside. That noise, according to Marie, was caused by two men, one carrying a stick, the other a sawed-off shotgun. The men entered the residence, a sprawling one-story ranch house that Entertainment Weekly noted as being located at 17031 West Magnolia Boulevard (thanks, EW!), and told the starlet, “We want your rings, your money, and your body.” After ransacking the pad of valuables, the duo proceeded to spend quite a bit of time cutting mismatched letters out of newspapers to fashion a ransom note. (They must have gone to the JonBenét Ramsey school of ransom-note creation!) The abductors then inexplicably put the note in Marie’s mailbox. (I mean, that would be the first place I’d go looking for a ransom note if I discovered a loved one missing.) McDonald was subsequently blind-folded and forced into the men’s car.

After driving for about an hour, the threesome arrived at a small home where Marie was stashed away in a bedroom (one that strangely had a working telephone) and drugged. The men then made two calls, one to McDonald’s mother, Marie Tuboni (yes, both mother and daughter were named Marie), and one to Harry Karl, informing them of the kidnapping. Though told not to, Tuboni immediately contacted police, who headed to McDonald’s residence, where the gate and front door were found standing open. Detectives also discovered the ransom note in the mailbox (how they thought to look there is beyond me, but maybe mailing ransom notes back in the day was common practice), which oddly read “She won’t be hurt to get money.” A few hours later, back at the kidnappers’ den, Marie awoke and spotted the telephone. She proceeded to call, not the police, not her mother, but gossip columnist Harrison Carroll. (As one does when seeking rescue from a kidnapping.) It did not take long for the story of the actress’ abduction to catch fire with the media from that point. Marie’s second call was to her boyfriend, actor Michael Wilding, and the third, to her manager, Harold Plant. (Again, as one does.) It was at that time that the men discovered Marie had been using the phone (duh!) and roughed her up a bit before blind-folding her once again, leading her outside, and forcing her into their car. The duo then headed east to Coachella where they tossed McDonald down a dike near the side of the road and took off.

Slightly worse for wear, Marie managed to climb 25 feet back up to the road and flag down a passing motorist. It was 11:15 p.m. on January 4th, a little under 24 hours since she’d been taken. The starlet was quite a sight, bruised and bloodied, missing two teeth, and wearing a bathrobe and slippers. She was shuttled to the hospital where she doled out the chaotic tale to police. Though she was adamant in her tellings, the plethora of strange circumstances had detectives, reporters, and fans alike wondering if the whole thing was nothing more than a publicity stunt designed to revive Marie’s lackluster career. The many discrepancies discovered by law enforcement did nothing to help her case. One LAPD officer, Edward Walker, found the ransom note especially puzzling, saying, “It is far-fetched to believe that any kidnappers would take that much time and trouble to make up a note in the home.” (John and Patsy Ramsey apparently didn’t get that memo.) Most damaging of all, though, was the copy of The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown found at her residence. The 1956 novel (later turned into a movie starring Jane Russell), about the abduction of a pajama-clad movie star, bore striking similarities to Marie’s tale. McDonald was definitely the Sherri Papini of yesteryear. And then things got really strange.

On January 9th, five days after she was rescued, LAPD officers staged an elaborate reenactment of Marie’s kidnapping on location at her home, an event described by McGovern in EW as “one of the most spectacular charades in California law enforcement history.” Dozens of reporters were on-hand to witness the spectacle, during which McDonald was front and center- and in full costume (natch!). One reporter, James Bacon, later penned an article in which he said the exploit “had everything any Cecil B. DeMille epic ever had – except camels. There were four scenes requiring six takes; a bedroom shot and an outdoor location; a producer and director (both policemen)!” A photograph of the bizarre affair is pictured below. Owen included the image in his email to me along with the exciting news that the white brick gate posts pictured in it are miraculously still standing, more than 60 years after the fact!

Sadly, aside from said gate posts and the exterior fencing surrounding the property, not much of the 5-bedroom, 5-bath, 4,419-square-foot home is visible from the road. You can check out some images of the 1948 dwelling here, though. The pad, which last sold in 2014 for just over $2 million, also boasts a 3-car garage, a chef’s kitchen, a library, maids’ quarters, a whopping 4 fireplaces, parquet wood flooring, an indoor spa, a pool, a pool house, and a 0.93-acre lot.

Marie’s sordid tale doesn’t end there, though. The actress’ kidnappers were never found and a grand jury eventually determined there was not enough evidence to file John Doe indictments against them. Then, a little over a year after her rescue, McDonald contacted police to let them know that she had tracked down and met with her abductors. In exchange for $5,000, the men told her who was the mastermind behind the crime – her estranged husband, Harry Karl. Harry agreed to a polygraph, though, which he passed, and police cleared him of any involvement. The two finalized their divorce shortly thereafter and most who followed the case went back to believing the whole thing was a poorly-executed hoax. Marie’s career never recovered and on October 21st, 1965, husband number six, Donald Taylor, found her slumped over her dressing table at their home at 5337 Jed Smith Road in Hidden Hills. The actress was dead from a drug overdose at the age of 42. She went to her grave vehemently denying her kidnapping had been faked. Fifty people showed up to her funeral, where, according to my friend Scott Michaels, of the Find a Death website, three of Marie’s divorce attorneys served as pallbearers. There are still more oddities to come, though. Just nine weeks later, Taylor was also found dead. He had swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills and passed away a few feet from the spot where he had discovered his wife’s body. And in one final remarkable twist, after McDonald’s passing, her three children were taken in by their father, Harry, to be raised alongside Carrie Fisher and her brother, Todd. Harry, of course, was married to none other than movie star Debbie Reynolds at the time. Only in Hollywood!

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

Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Marie McDonald’s former home is located at 17031 West Magnolia Boulevard in Encino.

October 16, 2017
Madeline and Ernest’s Mansion from “Death Becomes Her”

It’s Friday the 13th! Friday, October 13th! Could anything be better? This Haunted Hollywood season, the universe has really been pushing me to watch Death Becomes Her. I had never seen the 1992 flick and, while I knew it was about two longtime female rivals obsessed with aging, always assumed it fell into the comedy genre and, for whatever reason, never had much interest. But while researching Lacy Park recently in preparation for this post, I came across a 2016 Outlook Newspapers article that chronicled filming in San Marino. One of the area locales featured in the blurb was a mansion at 1125 Oak Grove Avenue, which author John Gregory mentioned had a cameo in Death Becomes Her. I jotted the address in my stalking notebook and didn’t give it much more thought. A short time later, while perusing Instagram, I happened to glimpse one of Hello Gorgeous blogger Angela Lanter’s stories and just about fell over when she stated that she and husband, Matt Lanter (my fave actor), had been engaging in a scary movie marathon to get into the Halloween spirit and that they were planning to watch Death Becomes Her, one of Matt’s favorites, that night. I was thrilled to learn the flick would fit in with my Haunted Hollywood theme, moved the mansion straight to the top of my To-Stalk List, and sat down with the Grim Cheaper for a Death Becomes Her viewing. The film did, indeed, turn out to be more funny than spooky (although, truth be told, what’s more frightening than getting old?!?), but I figured the estate was still worthy of a post.

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The mansion mentioned in the Outlook Newspapers article was actually the main home featured in Death Becomes Her. In the film, the massive Mediterranean-style estate masked as the supposed Beverly Hills residence of actress Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) and her plastic-surgeon-turned-reconstructive-mortician husband, Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis).

The palatial pad was featured numerous times throughout the movie.

Despite the passage of 25 years and aside from a change in paint color, the sprawling estate looks much the same today as it did onscreen.

While watching, I had a hunch that only the mansion’s exterior was utilized in Death Becomes Her and that the ornate interior of Madeline and Ernest’s home was a set.

With its towering staircase, colossally tall ceilings, and massive fireplaces, the interior just seemed a bit too grand to be real. Then I came across this Entertainment Tonight interview with Death Becomes Her production designer Rick Carter which confirmed my hunch. In it, Carter talks about his creations for the movie and his initial fear that the sets he designed might be too large and monumental for the shoot. He says, “I remember the first day Meryl Streep shot on that set and her first lines were ‘Ernest!’ and the whole place just filled with her ego. And there she was! The set had come alive. ‘Cause I was a little bit concerned, had I made it all too big? Could any personality fill that? And within the first nanosecond of the performance by Meryl Streep, there it was, filled.”

I would love to see what the inside of the San Marino mansion looks like in real life (I imagine it’s far more modest), but unfortunately, I could not find any interior images of it online.

Madeline and Ernest’s backyard was also just a set.

The home’s actual backyard, which you can see in the aerial views below, is quite a bit larger than its onscreen counterpart.

In real life, the 2-story mansion, which was built in 1921, features 9 bedrooms, 7 baths, a 0.98-acre lot, and a pool.

Per Zillow the pad boasts 6,334 square feet, though I would have guessed it to be much, much larger.

Thanks to Chas, from It’s Filmed There, I learned that the estate also appeared in another Bruce Willis movie, 1992’s The Last Boy Scout, in which it portrayed the residence of Sheldon Marcone (Noble Willingham).

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! And Happy Friday the 13th!

Stalk It: Madeline and Ernest’s mansion from Death Becomes Her is located at 1125 Oak Grove Avenue in San Marino.

October 13, 2017
The “Scream” Warehouse

There has been so much tragedy in the world as of late. I’ve always avoided watching the news, but recently I feel like not even turning on my TV at all. Between the heartbreaking massacre in Las Vegas, the multitude of hurricanes plummeting the Eastern seaboard, and the fires ravaging both Orange and Sonoma Counties, devastation seems to be everywhere. My mom and I were actually in Santa Rosa visiting my aunt and uncle last year at this exact time. Hearing reports of the blaze desolating the area has been particularly saddening as I can’t help but think of the incredibly happy time we spent there, traversing pretty much all of Wine Country to stalk film locations, mainly from my favorite scary movie Scream, which was shot in its entirety in the region. (Thankfully, my aunt and uncle are both safe, as is their house.) I have yet to blog about the vast majority of the locales we visited during that fabulous trip and thought covering one today would be especially poignant.

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Scream is a bit of an anomaly in the motion picture world being that it was lensed almost exclusively at actual locations. Very few sets were utilized in the shoot, which took place over the course of eight weeks beginning in April 1996. During my visit to Northern California, I dragged my mom, aunt and uncle (as well as another uncle, my longtime BFF, Nat, and her boyfriend, Tony – there was literally an entire squad of us!) to every single site featured in the flick – every. single. one. I was so fixated on being thorough that we even stalked the warehouse that served as a soundstage during the production. Though the building is completely non-descript with absolutely no recognizable elements tying it to the film – not to mention it was either largely remodeled or demolished with a new structure now standing in its place (I’ll extrapolate on that a bit later in the post) – I was thrilled to be seeing it in person.

As I detailed in last year’s post about the Sonoma Community Center, a portion of Scream was originally set to be shot at Santa Rosa High School. The school board wound up vetoing the plan at the very last minute, though, leaving director Wes Craven and the rest of the production team scrambling to find a suitable replacement to mask as Woodsboro High. Enter the Sonoma Community Center, whose then manager offered up the site for use. Though the center did serve as a school up until 1948, it lacked several spaces detailed in the Scream script. So a couple of sets were built at a Santa Rosa warehouse to accommodate for the missing spots.

I learned of the warehouse’s existence and location thanks to my friend/Drew Barrymore aficionado Ashley, who runs The Drewseum website. As I mentioned in my October 2016 post about the Shadow of a Doubt house (which also appeared in Scream), over the years Ashley has managed to get her hands on a few Scream call sheets and she was kind enough to share them with me. Let me tell you, reading through them is like a dream! I mean, the location information alone is enough to make my head spin! One of the coveted pages details Day 9 of production (April 25th, 1996), during which several scenes taking place in Woodsboro High’s school office were lensed. The sheet lists the location of the shoot as a “warehouse stage” at 2875 Santa Rosa Avenue. Ashley also shared with me the image below (a screen capture from Scream: The Inside Story), which shows the office set as it existed inside of the warehouse.

The Woodsboro High office set – which consisted of Principal Arthur Himbry’s (Henry Winkler) office, a small hallway and an anteroom – as it appeared in Scream can be seen below.

I am fairly certain that the Woodsboro High School girls’ restroom, where Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) encountered the Ghostface killer for the second time, was also a set built at the warehouse. Though I originally assumed the segment was shot at the Sonoma Community Center, when I stalked the building, I could not find a bathroom even remotely similar to the Scream bathroom anywhere. I showed the employee who took us on a tour of the place the screen captures below and he informed me that he was fairly certain a restroom of that size and shape had never existed on the premises. Upon arriving home, I contacted a Scream crew member who got back to me immediately saying that the bathroom was indeed a set. Since crew member recollections are not always reliable, though, I wanted more confirmation. So I reached out to Leonora Scelfo and Nancy Anne Ridder, the two actresses who appeared alongside Neve in the scene. They both could not have been nicer, but had different memories of where filming took place. Leonora recalled shooting the bathroom scene on location at “the school” (I’m assuming she means the community center), while Nancy informed me that the bit was lensed on a set. As I said, cast and crew recollections can’t always be trusted. I am fairly certain, though, that Nancy was correct and that the Woodsboro High girls’ restroom was a set that existed inside of the Santa Rosa warehouse.

Ashley also has a hunch that a very tiny portion of the infamous opening scene was lensed at the warehouse, as well, though she is not certain of that fact. Scream’s opening, which took place at the residence of Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore), was actually the first part of the movie to be shot. At the time, Craven had not yet secured the rights from Fun World for the use of their “Peanut-Eyed Ghost” mask, which executive producer Marianne Maddalena had spotted while scouting the home that was ultimately used as Tatum Riley’s (Rose McGowan) in the flick and which Wes wanted to utilize to shroud Ghostface. Time running out, Craven had KNB EFX Group re-create the mask with just enough subtle changes so as not to infringe upon Fun World’s copyrighted design. KNB’s re-creation was used in the first two segments of Scream that were shot – the opening and the scenes in the Woodsboro High School office. After those bits were lensed, the rights to the Fun World mask were secured and for the rest of the shoot, the Peanut-Eyed Ghost was used. Both masks are pictured below. As you’ll notice, the differences between them are rather inconspicuous. The KNB version has a much sharper triangular nose than its Fun World counterpart. The KNB mouth boasts an upside-down tear-drop shape, while the Fun World mouth is more of an oval. And the eyes of the KNB ghost are thinner and more symmetrical than that of Fun World. Other than those small differences, though, it is pretty hard to tell them apart.

At some point after the rights were secured, Wes decided to reshoot the brief portion of the opening in which Ghostface is seen through Casey’s back window using the Fun World mask. Ashley has an inkling that the reshoot (stills of which are pictured below) was done at the warehouse and I think she’s right. That is just a hunch, though. While it makes sense that filming of the short, tightly-shot segment would have taken place at the warehouse, it is also entirely possibly producers constructed a tiny window set to shoot the bit at one of the other locales utilized in the production.

If you watch the Scream opening carefully, the two different masks are apparent. The sharp nose of the KNB version (which is pictured in the caps below) is the most noticeable giveaway.

I also have a hunch that the window portion of Sidney’s bedroom may have been a set. Though Craven states in Scream’s DVD commentary that filming of the bedroom scenes took place at the actual Santa Rosa residence utilized as Sidney’s in the shoot, as you can see in the image of the warehouse below, some sort of set boasting three single-hung windows is visible to the right of the high school office set.

Those windows are a darn close match to Sidney’s. Even her white lace curtains seem to be visible. In Scream, Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) climbs through Sidney’s window, located on the Prescott home’s second floor, on two different occasions. To quote Bruce Willis, it seems doubtful, due to liability issues, that Wes would have Skeet clambering onto a roof and through a second-story window not once, but twice during production. It is much more likely that a small portion of the bedroom with more accessible windows was re-created at the warehouse for the scenes. Who knows, though?

When I arrived at 2875 Santa Rosa Avenue last October, I was shocked to find a strip mall that looked to be of rather new construction standing on the premises. Walking around the center, which is home to a flooring store, a La-Z-Boy outpost and a sports shop, among others, I started to have doubts that the Scream warehouse was still standing.

Upon arriving home, I looked into the matter further and was dismayed at what I found. In comparing the 1993 overhead view of the site to the 2009 view via Historic Aerials, it is clear that the warehouse was either razed and completely rebuilt at some point during the interim or remodeled and expanded extensively before being transformed into the strip mall it is now. My guess is the former, which would mean that the Scream warehouse is no longer. Try as I might, though, I could not find any confirmation of my hunch or any information on the warehouse or the strip mall whatsoever. Even searching Santa Rosa building permits provided no clarification. Regardless, to me the site will always be hallowed ground and I was thrilled that I got to stalk it.

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

Big THANK YOU to Ashley, from The Drewseum, for telling me about this location and for providing so much of the information included in this post!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Scream warehouse is/was located at 2875 Santa Rosa Avenue in Santa Rosa.

October 12, 2017
The “One Hour Photo” House

Today’s location is not spooky – at all, in fact. It’s actually quite exquisite. But it did figure rather heavily in the creepiest scene from one of the creepiest movies I’ve ever seen, so I thought it would only be fitting to include it in my Haunted Hollywood postings. I am talking about the contemporary residence where the Yorkin family – Will (Michael Vartan), Nina (Connie Nielsen) and Jakob (Dylan Smith) – lived in One Hour Photo. I first got interested in tracking down the ultra-modern pad after coming across this The Straight Dope message board while researching Lacy Park, another of the 2002 thriller’s locations. In the thread, user Ins&Outs&What-have-yous inquired if anyone had any information on the dwelling, though no one seemed to. Shortly thereafter, I found my way to this page on the FilmGrab site in which a commenter named Melissa also inquired about the Yorkin home. Her query did not garner any responses, either. So, since facts about the house seemed to be nil, I decided it was my duty to track the place down and blog about it come October.

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Finding this spot took quite a while, I am loathe to admit. I knew from the movie’s production notes that the Yorkin home was located somewhere in Brentwood. My first stab at tracking down its exact address was to do a Google search for “Brentwood” and “modern house,” which yielded a slew of links to a slew of gorgeous properties, but none of them were the Yorkins’. I then added “filming” to the mix and scoured countless more links and images – so many that I ultimately do not remember the exact details of how I was finally led to the right place. At some point, though, I came across the video below which showed the pad as it appeared in an episode of Californication. The clip’s caption proved especially forthcoming, providing not only the property’s name, Benton House, but its architect, Ray Kappe. From there, Google prompted me to 90210Locations’ Californication page which detailed the residence’s exact address –136 South Canyon View Drive. Thanks, 90210Locations! I ran right out to stalk the place shortly thereafter.

In 1989, psychologist/mom/architecture buff Dr. Esther Benton purchased a large home on a shaded plot of land in Brentwood with the intention of performing a vast remodel. She commissioned Kappe for the job, but the incredibly prolific architect wound up razing the structure and rebuilding in his signature style instead, generating magic out of glass, wood and concrete. His creation, which took three years to complete (from 1991 to 1994), was designed with the working mom in mind. The residence boasts three large rooms, or “suites” as a 1998 New York Times article described them – a master bedroom suite, a suite for Esther’s daughter, and an office suite, which Kappe fashioned with a swiveling wall so that the doctor could “watch over the house without interrupting her time at work.” The property is also fashioned with 20-foot ceilings, a large skylight, Douglas fir embellishments, multiple fireplaces, a sunken bathtub, a frameless glass shower, and a towering glass and steel staircase. Zillow estimates the pad is worth a whopping $8.9 million today! Though absolutely stunning, as you can see in photos here and here, sadly none of it is visible from the street.

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

For those who have not seen One Hour Photo, the movie centers on Seymour Parrish (Robin Williams), aka Sy, a Sav-Mart photo developer who becomes obsessed with the Yorkins, a family whose film he regularly develops. Though things are definitely not perfect in Will, Nina and Jakob’s world, through Sy’s eyes, the family and their home is idyllic, arcadian and devoid of any typical everyday problems. As Williams is quoted as saying in the film’s production notes, “In the outside world Sy stands out, especially when you get near the Yorkins’ house, which is very warm and incredibly beautiful, almost painfully beautiful because it is his idealized home.” Production designer Tom Foden further describes the dwelling as “representing a place of dreams and ideals.”

In the movie’s creepiest scene, Sy ventures into the Yorkins’ residence while they are away and proceeds to look through their things, put on their clothes, use their bathroom, watch their TV, and generally just make himself at home. In the end, it turns out the experience was all just a fantasy taking place in Sy’s mind, but because Williams played the role to such creepy perfection, the segment is seriously disturbing. The real life interior of the Benton House was utilized in the scene . . .

. . . as well as throughout other portions of the film.

When I first started looking into the Yorkin home, I couldn’t help but think about how much it resembles the residence belonging to Sebastian Stark (James Woods) on the television series Shark. So I was not too surprised to discover during the course of my research that the Shark pad was designed by Ray Kappe’s son, Finn Kappe. That property, one of my favorite TV homes ever, can be found at 2315 Live Oaks Meadow Road in Malibu.

What I was absolutely bowled over to learn, though, was that the inside of the Benton House was utilized as the inside of Sebastian’s home in Shark’s pilot episode, which aired in 2006. I had always assumed the Live Oak Meadows residence had been used for both interiors and exteriors! You can check out photos of the inside of that property here. As you can see, it looks nothing like Sebastian’s pad.

The Benton House interior was later re-created on a soundstage for the filming of all of Shark’s subsequent episodes. That set re-creation is pictured below. (And yes, that’s a young Matt Lanter – my favorite actor – in the second screen capture! <3)

In the Season 1 episode of Californication titled “Girls, Interrupted,” which aired in 2007, the Benton House plays itself. Well, sort of. In the episode, Hank Moody (David Duchovny) takes his ex-wife, architecture enthusiast Karen (Natascha McElhone), to see the home of director Todd Carr (Chris Williams). Though said to be in Bel Air and not Brentwood, the pad is described as a Ray Kappe house in the segment.

The residence’s interior also appeared in the episode.

Back in 1999, the Benton House popped up in Cruel Intentions as the supposed Long Island, New York-area home of Blaine Tuttle (Joshua Jackson).

As Geoff from 90210Locations also informed me, the Benton House portrayed the residence of Samantha Winslow (Susan Sarandon) during the fifth season of Ray Donovan.

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

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, of 90210Locations, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Yorkin house from One Hour Photo is located at 136 South Canyon View Drive in Brentwood.

October 9, 2017
The Haunted House from “The Goldbergs”

There’s literally nothing better than being scared at Halloween! In my mind, at least. Terrifying movies? Yes! Spooky decorations? Yes! Haunted houses? Yaaaas! Especially haunted houses! Too bad Adam F. Goldberg (Sean Giambrone) doesn’t share my sentiment. In the Season 3 episode of The Goldbergs titled “Couples Costume,” the teen only begrudgingly visits a haunted house on All Hallows’ Eve in the hopes of impressing his girlfriend, Dana Caldwell (Natalie Alyn Lind), after his sister and brother, Erica (Hayley Orrantia) and Barry (Troy Gentile), tell him he is too old for trick-or-treating. Figuring the pad utilized in the show would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme, I, of course, became obsessed with tracking it down immediately upon seeing it. Fortunately, it was a snap to find.

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While watching “Couples Costume,” I noticed that an address number of 2822 was visible just to the right of the haunted house’s front door. I had a hunch the dwelling was likely located in the same Cheviot Hills neighborhood as the property that portrays that Goldberg family’s home on the series (you can read about that site here), so I started scouring Google Street View for residences in the area numbered 2822. Sure enough, I found the place just a few blocks away at 2822 Forrester Drive.

In the episode, things don’t go well for poor Adam while at the haunted house, which is said to be taking place at a local fraternity on the Villanova University campus in Pennsylvania. Upon entering the tricked-out residence, he gets seriously spooked and uses Dana as a human shield, causing her to drop the promise ring he gave her. Adam then ditches Dana and runs for his life. Later in the evening, he winds up having to return to the haunted house with his sister, brother and mother, Beverly (Wendi McLendon-Covey), and face his fears in order to retrieve the ring.

The Tudor-style home that portrayed the haunted house in the episode looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, minus a few spooky decorations and the Greek Omega Theta Rho lettering over the front door.

In real life, the stately 2-story residence, which was built in 1926, boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 3,241 square feet, and a 0.20-acre lot.

I believe the actual inside of the home was also utilized in “Couples Costume,” but, unfortunately, I could not find any interior photos to verify that hunch.

Interestingly, the property is a virtual twin to the Baxter home from the television series Last Man Standing. I blogged about that pad, which is located at 611 Lorraine Boulevard in Windsor Square, earlier this year. You can read that post here.

In an odd twist, a different residence was used as the Omega Theta Rho fraternity house in the Season 1 episode of The Goldbergs titled “For Your Own Good.” Even more odd, that home is located at 2826 Forrester, right next door to the property that portrayed the haunted house!

You can see that home on the right-hand side of my images below.

Odder still – 2826 Forrester was even utilized in “Couples Costume!” It is outside of the dwelling that Beverly tries to take candy from local trick-or-treaters in order to find the “deadly razor candy bar” she made to teach Adam a lesson about safety that she thinks was accidentally given out. I have no idea why producers pulled the ol’ switcheroo like that, especially since, being that it appeared in the episode, 2826 Forrester was obviously available for filming. My only guess is that Tudor-style properties lend themselves to haunted houses better than more traditional homes, so location managers must have looked for one to appear in the episode and wound up finding a suitable candidate right next door to the original fraternity house.

The residence across the street at 2815 Forrrester was also utilized in “Couples Costume” as the spot where Adam and Dana went trick-or-treating after eventually making up.

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 haunted house from the “Couples Costume” episode of The Goldbergs is located at 2822 Forrester Drive in Cheviot Hills. The residence that portrayed the Omega Theta Rho fraternity house in the “For Your Own Good” episode can be found next door at 2826 Forrester. The property that is used as the Goldberg family’s residence on the series is just a few blocks away at 3071 Earlmar Drive. And Dana’s home from the show is around the corner at 2885 Club Drive.

October 6, 2017
Myra Jones’ Former House

Though I love true crime and pretty much all of its facets, there are some cases that I find too sad and disturbing to read about, research, do any stalking of, or feature on my blog. Today’s locale, the site of the brutal rape and murder of a 71-year-old grandma, is not one I would typically cover. But the victim’s connection to what is arguably Hollywood’s most iconic thriller and the serious mistaken identity that resulted from her killing had me utterly fascinated. I figured my fellow stalkers would be intrigued, as well. I am talking about the 1988 slaying of actress Myra Davis, who worked under the stage name Myra Jones.

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The moniker is likely unfamiliar to most, which is not surprising being that Jones’ IMDB page lists a scant six credits. Her face is also likely unfamiliar. Again, not surprising being that she never actually appeared in the most famous production on which she worked. (That’s her below pictured via an image from the television show North Mission Road, which covered her murder in a 2005 episode.)Though Myra did find a bit of success later in life starring in commercials, it was not until after her death that her name and image found their way into the papers. A full decade after her death, actually, thanks to a bit of misreporting in an Associated Press article. But more on that in a bit. During her early days in Hollywood, Jones worked as a stand-in for Janet Leigh. From November 1959 to February 1960, she served as Leigh’s stand-in the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho – even during the infamous shower scene. But you never saw her onscreen. For those not familiar with Hollywood terminology, a stand-in, which is not to be confused with a body double, literally “stands in” for an actor or actress anytime the camera is not rolling – typically during rehearsals to test camera set-ups, lighting, and blocking. While standing-in during the shower sequence, Myra wore a nude leotard, which mimicked flesh tones, so that various lighting schematics could be evaluated against it. But neither her face nor her body was featured in even one second of footage.

Flash forward to June 28th, 1988. After not hearing from her for several days, Myra’s granddaughter, Sherry Davis, headed to the actress’ West L.A. bungalow, located at 2917 South Beverly Drive in Palms, to check on her. Peering in the bedroom window, she discovered a horrifying site – Jones’ decomposing body splayed across the bed. She had been raped and murdered eight days prior. Though Sherry had suspicions that the crime might have been committed by next-door neighbor Joel Stein, who lived one door south at 2923 South Beverly, detectives zeroed in on Sherry’s brother, who was battling drug addiction at the time. The brother passed a polygraph, though, and police it seems didn’t look further. Myra’s case went cold.

Her 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 1,234-square-foot home, which Myra had lived in for 40 years, was subsequently sold.

Flash forward once again. This time to March 29th, 1998, almost a full decade later, when 60-year-old Jean Orloff was found raped and murdered inside her apartment located at 1810 South Bentley Avenue in West L.A. Though a fire alarm in her bedroom had been dismantled, her dust ruffle burned, and marks on her neck and back were visible, the police detective on the scene ruled that the death resulted from a heart attack. The burned bed skirt he explained away by saying Jean (pictured below via a Cold Case Files episode), who was a known smoker, might have dropped a cigarette during the attack, causing a small fire. No matter that no cigarette was found near her body or on the floor. Because of the ruling, Jean’s apartment was turned over to her family and they began to clean up the scene and pack her belongings. It was not until four days later that the truth was unveiled. While the funeral home was preparing Jean for cremation, a worker noticed that her death certificate had never been signed by the attending coroner. Orloff’s longtime doctor was contacted, but, because he had not seen Jean for over eight months, legally he could not endorse the document. So the coroner’s office sent out investigator Sherwood Dixson to re-examine the body and sign the paperwork. While inspecting her, Dixson noticed that there was significant bruising on Jean’s neck. In the days since her discovery, the ligature marks left by her killer had darkened significantly. Dixson ruled the death a homicide.

By the time of Dixson’s ruling, Jean’s family had already cleaned her apartment (pictured below from the Cold Case Files episode) and packed away most of her belongings, wiping away or tossing out any evidence in the process. The police were in a predicament. So they started reaching out to those close to Orloff in the hopes that someone might be able to shed some light on why she was killed. One of the people contacted was Jean’s longtime manicurist, Adrienne Rosenfeldt. Though Rosenfeldt did not have any relevant information to give police, when she returned home later that night she mentioned Jean’s murder to her son, Joel Stein. Yes, the same Joel Stein who lived next door to Myra Jones. The conversation got Joel thinking about his brother-in-law, Kenneth Dean Hunt, who also inhabited the home next door to Myra. Kenneth had been behaving strangely and binging on cocaine over the few days prior. Joel remembered that ten years earlier, immediately following Jones’ death, Kenneth had acted the exact same way. He called the police, who brought Hunt in for questioning and obtained his DNA. Sure enough, the results showed that he was the killer of both Jean and Myra. Sherry Davis had been right all along. Her grandmother had been murdered by the man next-door – just not the man she was thinking of. Kenneth was arrested, charged and ultimately convicted of both homicides. He was sentenced to life in prison. The story doesn’t end there, though.

When Hunt was arrested, the Associated Press published an article stating that one of his victims was Janet Leigh’s Psycho body double. The press subsequently ran with the story, tantalized by the eerie fact that a woman who appeared in one of the most famous murder scenes of all time wound up dying a brutal death at the hands of a deranged killer. The only trouble was the account wasn’t accurate. Can you say fake news?!? As I mentioned above, Myra was Leigh’s stand-in, not her body double. That job went to a former stripper and one-time Playboy cover model named Marli Renfro (pictured below). It is her body that appears in all portions of the shower scene in which Janet’s face is not visible in the frame. The press’ misreporting is somewhat understandable, I guess, being that the terms “body double” and “stand-in” are often used interchangeably, though they shouldn’t be. Further muddying the waters was the fact that both Leigh and Hitchcock categorically denied the use of a shower scene body double for years. Because Myra used a stage name, after the Associated Press released their initial article, some media sources, confused by Hitchcock and Leigh’s denials, simply assumed that Marli Renfro and Myra Jones were the same person. It was not long before news of the Psycho body double’s murder was everywhere, with some outlets even claiming that Myra had done the voice work of Norman Bates’ mother in the movie, another incorrect factoid.

It took years for the matter to be cleared up. Enter author Robert Graysmith, who had been obsessed with Renfro since his teens. While perusing a December 2007 news article about the murder, he was surprised to see Sherry Davis quoted as saying, “My grandmother would never have done any nude work.” Being that Marli had been featured on the cover of Playboy, the quote confused Graysmith and he began researching the matter further. As he shockingly soon discovered, not only were Marli Renfro and Myra Jones two different people, but Renfro was alive and well and living in the Mojave Desert. Even more shocking, Marli had no idea she had been proclaimed dead by the media or that there was so much confusion surrounding her role in Psycho until Robert contacted her and explained the situation. Graysmith wound up publishing a book on the subject titled “The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock’s Shower” in 2010.

I first learned about Myra’s killing from fellow stalker Alan who posted a comment on my Challenge Lindsay! page back in January alerting me to the addresses of several Haunted Hollywood locales, one of which was Jones’ home. Another fellow stalker named James responded to Alan’s comment, providing a link to a Wikipedia page about Marli Renfro. I was not familiar with either Jones or Renfro at the time, but once I started Googling, I pretty much couldn’t stop. The whole story is almost stranger than fiction!

Myra’s house, which was originally built in 1938, was featured in the Season 3 Cold Case Files episode that covered her murder titled “Before I Do/Hollywood Homicides.”

The residence also appeared in the North Mission Road episode about the case titled “Double Mystery.” You can watch that episode here.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Alan for telling about this location and to fellow stalker James for providing the Wikipedia link that led me to reading more about the case.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Myra Jones’ former house is located at 2917 South Beverly Drive in Palms.

October 4, 2017
The “Lights Out” House

“Lights Out Cast Accidentally Cursed the House Where they Filmed.” So blared a headline from an Entertainment Weekly article about the 2016 horror film. As you can imagine, the words had me drooling. I first learned about the movie back in January from fellow stalker “sparklesnow” who left a comment on one of my Instagram photos asking for some help in tracking down the large Tudor-style estate where virtually all filming took place. When I popped “Lights Out” and “house” in to a Google search, the EW column was the first item kicked back. In it, actor Alexander DiPersia was quoted as saying, “A week after we finished shooting the basement scene [which] is very terrifying, I got a call from friends saying, ‘Turn on the news.’ And the house was on fire, like right after we finished shooting. From the basement, smoke was emanating up. We cursed that place.” A locale that was not only featured in a horror flick, but that also got vexed by the production? Count me in! I couldn’t imagine a place more perfectly suited to my Haunted Hollywood postings. So I set right out to track it down.

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Thankfully, the search was not very hard. Being that Lights Out was released in July 2016, I knew that filming had to have taken place in 2015. So I scoured the internet for reports of any fires at L.A.-area residences that year and came across this Los Angeles Daily News article detailing a blaze that struck a three-story home located at 140 South Avenue 59 in Highland Park on November 7th. One look at Street View images of the dwelling in comparison to the pad shown in the movie’s trailer confirmed it was the right spot. Fortunately, the inferno, which was put out within 43 minutes of the fire department’s arrival, does not appear to have caused much damage to the locale because, as you can see below, the Lights Out house is currently standing and seemingly intact.

In real life, the property is known as the Finis E. Yoakum House, named for the doctor-turned-faith-healer who commissioned it. Following a serious buggy accident in Denver in 1894, Yoakum migrated to Los Angeles, hoping the city’s temperate climate would aid in his recovery from his many injuries. A few months after arriving in La La Land, he attended a Christian Alliance prayer meeting, where he was blessed by a priest and almost immediately healed. The experience inspired Yoakum to assist others who were suffering. In 1900, he opened up his Queen Anne-style residence at 6026 Echo Street in Highland Park to those in need, providing shelter, clothing and food for free. In return, the residents performed charitable acts and helped around the property, which Yoakum dubbed the Pisgah Home, named for the mountain from which Moses first spotted the promised land. It was not long before Finis’ crusade took on momentum, transforming into a religion that became known as the Pisgah Home Movement.

In short time, more space was needed to house Pisgah Home’s growing number of residents. Several cottages were added to the Echo Street property and those that couldn’t fit in the ancillary structures would sleep in tents in the yard. Yoakum and his wife even had to move into a tent themselves at one point so that their residence could be utilized for those in need. In 1915, Pisgah Home members constructed a new, much larger Tudor-style dwelling for Yoakum and his family just up the road at 140 South Avenue 59.

The doctor only lived in the lavish structure for five years before passing away in 1920. After his death, the various properties making up Pisgah Home, most of which still stand today, were divided up amongst his family and the Movement. The Finis E. Yoakum house, which is a Los Angeles Historic Cultural-Monument, was subsequently sold and today is a privately-owned residence.

The 19-room estate, which looks much the same today as it did when it was originally built, features 8 bedrooms, 5 baths, 6,140 square feet of living space, a finished basement, several fireplaces, a 0.41-acre plot of land, a large swimming pool, and a detached 2-car garage.

Sadly, not much of it can be seen from the street.

In Lights Out, the Finis E. Yoakum House served as the residence of Sophie (Maria Bello) and Martin (Gabriel Bateman). I watched the movie shortly before writing this post and, let me tell you, it is absolutely terrifying – in the best way possible. I mean, the trailer alone was enough to make me want to sleep with the lights on for at least a week.

The sprawling property was used extensively throughout the flick.

Even the real life interior (which is exquisite!) was utilized in the filming.

Though undeniably beautiful (that woodwork and detailing!), I can see why the house was chosen for the movie. It definitely has a looming quality to it. Those stairs and doors just look like they give good creak!

As Alexander DiPersia mentioned in the EW article, Lights Out’s basement scene was particularly harrowing. According to IMDB, the mannequins featured in the segment were not props, but actually belong to the Yoakum House owners, who store them in the cellar! Shudder! Whether or not the home was actually cursed during the production, causing the fire that later broke out there, I’ll never know, but one thing’s for sure – I wouldn’t ever want to set foot in that basement to find out!

The Yoakum House is actually a frequent horror film star. In the 2014 thriller Ouija, the property was featured as the home of Debbie Galardi (Shelley Hennig), though only interiors were used.

A residence just a few doors down at 5915 Echo Street was utilized for all exterior shots.

Well, almost all exterior shots. The Yoakum House’s pool did make an appearance in the film.

The dwelling also popped up in interior scenes in Ouija’s 2016 sequel, Ouija: Origin of Evil.

In non-horror-movie-related news, the Yoakum House portrayed the bed and breakfast owned by Heaton (Kevin Pollak) and Rita Upshaw (Illeana Douglas) in the 2013 dramedy Chez Upshaw. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and interior were utilized in the shoot.

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 Finis E. Yoakum House, aka Sophie and Martin’s residence from Lights Out, is located at 140 South Avenue 59 in Highland Park.

October 3, 2017
The “Pacific Heights” House

I have been waiting for this day for months! Yep, that’s right folks – it is finally, finally time for my annual Haunted Hollywood postings and I could not be more excited! In honor of the occasion, I have added a Haunted Hollywood category to my site and while I typically only publish three columns a week during normal months, I am going to attempt to do a write up of a new spooky spot every single day of October. God knows I have enough material! We’ll see how it goes. For my first locale this year, I thought I’d cover the house from Pacific Heights. I stalked the picturesque pad, which can’t actually be found in the tony neighborhood the film was named for but about three miles south in Potrero Hill, last fall while visiting San Francisco. Though I actually find Pacific Heights to be more anger-inducing than scary, I still thought it would be fitting to include the dwelling that served as its focal point in my October postings.

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For those who haven’t seen Pacific Heights, the 1990 thriller – or “horror film for yuppies” as Roger Ebert dubbed it – tells the story of Patty Palmer (Melanie Griffith) and Drake Goodman (Matthew Modine), a young San Francisco couple who use all their savings to purchase a dilapidated, but still rather pricey (try $749,000!) Victorian home with two rental units supposedly located at 170 Pacific Street. Patty and Drake fix up the residence themselves, move into the top floor space and lease out the two rentals, one of them to maniacal con man Carter Hayes (Michael Keaton), who proceeds to terrorize the couple, as well as the occupants of the other unit, without paying so much as a dime of his monthly rent. Due to San Francisco’s pro-tenant property laws, Drake and Patty are powerless to stop Carter, evict him, or do much of anything really. Screenwriter Daniel Pyne was inspired to pen the film’s script after his own experience of trying to evict a deadbeat tenant from an apartment he once owned.

In the film, Patty and Drake’s real estate agent informs them that the turreted home was built around 1886 and “probably remodeled slightly in the ‘40s.”

In reality, the statuesque Queen Anne was constructed in 1895.

The three-story dwelling was made to look significantly run-down for the movie’s early scenes. According to William A. Gordon in his book Shot on This Site, “When the production company discovered it, the house had been recently repainted. To create a ‘distressed’ look, they masked the entire house with sound-blasting frisket, a substance with light adhesive on one side and paper on the other. The painted side was treated with chemicals to make the exterior look cracked and aged. After two days’ filming, the crew removed the frisket.”

After Drake and Patty complete their improvements, the property comes to resemble its actual self.

Only the exterior of the residence was utilized in the filming. Interior scenes were shot on a set built on a soundstage at The Culver Studios in Culver City.

The views shown in the film are real and absolutely breathtaking (though the San Francisco skyline has changed considerably since Pacific Heights was lensed almost 30 years ago).

In fact, in Shot on This Site, Gordon says the home was chosen for the movie because of its stunning panoramic views.

Along with spectacular views, in real life the residence also boasts a corner 0.06-acre lot, 4 bedrooms, a den, 3.5 baths, 3,200 square feet, 2 fireplaces, an eat-in kitchen, bay windows, parquet flooring, vaulted ceilings, separate guest quarters, a finished basement, a 1-car garage, a patio, a BBQ area, an attic, a garden, and a studio in-law apartment, just like in the movie. Per Zillow, the pad is currently worth a whopping $3.27 million.

Zillow also states that the property appeared in several episodes of Nash Bridges, but I am unsure of which episodes in particular. 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.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Drake and Patty’s residence from Pacific Heights is located at 1243 19th Street in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood.

October 2, 2017
New York’s Paley Park

New York has no shortage of “secret” places. I blogged about one – Grand Central’s Whispering Gallery – on Friday. Another that the Grim Cheaper and I are fond of is Paley Park, located in NYC’s Midtown East neighborhood. We happened by the site while wandering along 53rd Street during our very first visit to the Big Apple in 2004 and were so struck by its beauty that we had to pop in for a closer look. We now make it a point to stop by at least once during every trip. Though not a filming location (at least that I know of), Paley Park is such a stunning spot, I decided it was most definitely worthy of a blog post.

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Paley Park is one of many pocket parks or vest-pocket parks, i.e. small landscaped spaces open to the public, located on the island of Manhattan.

The pocket park concept was first proposed by landscape architecture firm Zion & Breen Associates during a 1963 Architectural League of New York exhibition. A couple of years later, broadcast giant William Paley submitted a spot to built the prototype – a 40×100-foot plot of land he owned that formerly housed one of New York’s most preeminent nightclubs. Sherman Billingsley’s Stork Club, as it was known, stood at 3 East 53rd from 1934 to 1966 and, during its heyday, played host to such guests as Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, Lucille Ball, John Barrymore, Charlie Chaplin, Carmen Miranda, Judy Garland, Ernest Hemingway, Tallulah Bankhead, Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, Grace Kelly, Ronald Reagan, Spencer Tracy, and Elizabeth Taylor. The Stork was shuttered in October 1965 due to financial losses from a longtime labor dispute and the building that once housed it was razed the following year after being purchased by Paley. Soon after, plans got underway to construct the park.

Designed by Zion & Breen partner Robert Zion, along with input from Paley, the miniscule park is situated on a scant 1/10 of an acre (only 4,200 square feet!) that is set back from 53rd Street in a tucked away spot surrounded by buildings on three sides. The east and west sides, covered in English Ivy, were dubbed “vertical lawns” by Zion.

At the rear of the park stands a 40-foot-wide, 20-foot-tall waterfall that pumps 1,800 gallons of water per minute. The white noise it creates completely drowns out the din of 53rd Street which sits just steps away. The result is a peaceful oasis – a tiny and unexpected respite from the hustle and bustle of the city. The idyll also features moveable tables and chairs (designed by Eero Saarinen and Harry Bertoia, respectively), 12 honey locust trees, and a small café, all set atop granite paver flooring.

Named in honor of William’s father, Samuel Paley, the park opened to the public on May 23rd, 1967.

Paley Park is easily one of the most beautiful spots on the island of Manhattan. As such, I was certain it had to have been featured onscreen numerous times. Try as I might, though, outside of William H. Whyte’s 1980 documentary The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, I could not find one single instance. The Stork Club did pop up in a couple of movies, however, including 1947’s Daisy Kenyon and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 noir The Wrong Man (pictured below).

Located just a half a mile away, at 217 East 51st Street, is another gorgeous pocket park that the GC and I only discovered on our most recent trip to Manhattan last April. Known as Greenacre Park, the bucolic spot was designed by Sasaki, Dawson, DeMay Associates in 1971.

The 60×120-foot park also boasts a waterfall, this one rising 25 feet. Sadly, no photographs are allowed at the site, so I was only able to snap a few from the street.

On a stalking side note – my good friend Kerry (you may remember her from her fabulous guest post about the farmhouse from All of My Heart) has just started her own filming locations blog, I’ve Scene It On Hallmark. As the name suggests, she will be chronicling locales featured in the popular Hallmark Channel movies and series. Her guest post really resonated with so many of my readers and I know her new blog will, too! So, go check it out! Congratulations, Kerry!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Paley Park is located at 3 East 53rd Street in New York’s Midtown East neighborhood. Greenacre Park can be found at 217 East 51st Street, also in Midtown East.

September 11, 2017
The Southern Hotel from Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” Music Video

The Grim Cheaper often accuses me of beating a dead horse. While I typically don’t agree with him, today’s post is pretty concrete evidence that he’s right, because here I am yet again with yet another article about the diner from Michael Jackson’s 1983 “Beat It” music video. Today actually marks the fourth time I’ve written about this particular locale, making it the most covered spot ever featured on IAMNOTASTALKER. (To be fair, I’ve also written about the Walsh house from Beverly Hills, 90210 – my very favorite filming site – on four occasions, though one of the posts was a mash-up of several places from the Fox series.) This location has also been the most puzzling I’ve ever covered. I am happy to report, though, that the mystery surrounding it has finally, finally been put to rest thanks to a reader named Dave, who sent me an email in early July that just about made me fall off my chair.

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For those who haven’t been following along since the beginning, my coverage of the “Beat It” café started back in March 2010 when I wrote about the Monte Carlo Restaurant located at 109 East Fifth Street in downtown Los Angeles. I first came across the eatery via Google Street View while on a cyber-stalking mission to track down the locale and was struck by its resemblance to what had appeared onscreen. With its half-green/half-cream walls and curved counter, the Monte Carlo, which is still in operation today, looks like it was ripped straight out of the video. It is also located smack dab in the middle of Skid Row, where I knew “Beat It” had been lensed.

Despite those seeming connections, though, upon visiting the restaurant in person, I started to have doubts that it was the spot where MJ filmed. Not only is the Monte Carlo interior much smaller than that of the “Beat It” café, but an address number of 416 could also be seen in the video (it’s denoted with a pink circle below), which does not gibe with the Monte Carlo’s 109 address.

A sign reading “Special Café” was also visible in “Beat It,” as you can see via the pink arrows in both the screen capture and the photograph below, which was taken from Todd Gray’s book Michael Jackson: Before He Was King.   (Please disregard the additional markings on the photo. They were added in reference to a since-solved mystery that my fellow stalkers were discussing in the comments section of my first Monte Carlo post). While it was entirely possibly the eatery’s name had been changed from “Special Café” to “Monte Carlo Restaurant” since filming took place, the discrepancy still gave me pause. So I opened the quest up to my fellow stalkers, asking for their opinions on the matter. Many chimed in, sharing their thoughts, but those thoughts didn’t lead to any sort of definitive conclusion. I re-stalked and re-blogged about the Monte Carlo later that same month in the hopes of clarifying things, but unfortunately, my second visit and post only provided more doubt and confusion – and more conversation amongst readers. Still though, no one was able to say with any sort of certainty whether or not we had found the right spot.

Cut to March 2013. An MJ fan named Justin, who had been following the hunt since the beginning, posted a comment on my original Monte Carlo post in which he shared a link to the 1955 photograph below.   He came across the image via the USC Digital Library archives while searching for historic pictures of Skid Row and East Fifth Street and was floored to happen upon one of a restaurant with signage reading “Special Café,” located next door to a property with a 414 address number – all of which lined up with what was seen in “Beat It.” The windows and doorway of the eatery in the photograph were also a match to what appeared in the video.

Shortly thereafter, I learned how to search through old digitized Los Angeles phone records and found a listing for the Special Café at 416 East Fifth Street, which seemed to cement everything. Justin had solved the mystery! (Or so we thought – but more on that in a bit.)

As Justin informed me (incorrectly, as it turns out, but, again, more on that later), the café had been razed shortly after filming took place, much to my chagrin, and, after being utilized as a parking lot for close to three decades, a building was finally constructed on the site in 2013. I immediately ran out to stalk the locale and did a write-up on it, but, unfortunately, that post led to even more confusion thanks to the Historic Aerials website.

When I pulled up 1972 and 1980 views of the Special Café site while researching for the post, Historic Aerials showed that no building was located there during those years. Since I knew that the eatery was around from at least 1955 (the year the photograph Justin found was taken) to 1983 (the year “Beat It” was filmed), the building’s absence on Historic Aerials was absolutely mind-boggling! As my friend/fellow stalker David from Spain stated in the comments section of that post, “Oh my god, that’s a case for Mulder and Scully.”

Thankfully, Dave, an eagle-eyed fellow stalker from across the pond, figured things out. In his July email, he said, “Check out the attached image of the Southern Hotel, captured from the 1982 Charles Bronson movie Death Wish II. Compare it with your recent-ish photo of the site, paying particular attention to the red panels on the right hand side, i.e. the lower left of the Southern building. Everything should be clear! Do you see it?” Yes, I did see it – and just about fell out of my chair upon doing so!

As Dave’s email went on to explain, “The Special Café was never demolished as such – it’s still standing, and forms part of the main Southern building (which it always did). The storefront windows have been replaced with the red paneling and the door (or at least, a door) is still there, although it’s walled off with railings now.”

To say that I was in utter shock over Dave’s revelation would be an understatement. The Special Café site still stands? Say whaaa?

He broke things down further, pointing out, “As per the Death Wish II screencap: the doorway/entrance to the Southern Hotel was originally on the right-hand side of the building and classed as No. 412, the Café – on the left hand side of the building – was No. 416, the storefront in the middle – aka the ‘Church on Wheels Heartreach Mission’ – which has now been remodeled into the main entrance to the Southern, would have originally been No. 414.”

In researching the Southern Hotel, I learned that it had been completely gutted in 2000 – taken down to the studs, “its bones on display like a clanky skeleton,” according to a Los Angeles Times article – before being transformed into a 55-room apartment complex for homeless veterans. Despite that remodel, though, the building, which was originally constructed in 1920, is surprisingly still recognizable from Death Wish II.

In the movie, architect Paul Kersey (Bronson) books a room at the Southern while on the hunt for the five men who killed his daughter and housekeeper.

As Dave informed me, Death Wish II isn’t the first Charles Bronson movie to feature the hotel.   Ten years earlier, the actor, playing the role of Arthur Bishop, walked on Fifth Street just west of the Southern in the 1972 thriller The Mechanic.

Dave also filled me in on, sent me links to, and provided screen captures of a myriad of the hotel’s other onscreen appearances and pop culture connections. As he informed me, photographer Sam Cherry snapped a picture of famed author Charles Bukowski on Skid Row standing across the street from the Southern in 1970. You can see the hotel, as well as the Special Café, on the right-hand side of the image below.

Chester (Harvey Gold) and Cooper (Jason Miller) walk by the Southern at the beginning of the 1974 drama The Nickel Ride. The Special Café exterior can even be seen in the second screen capture below.

In the Season 3 episode of Starsky & Hutch titled “The Heroes,” which aired in 1977, Det. Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson (David Soul) and Det. Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) drive by the Special Café.

The eatery and hotel were also briefly seen in the Season 4 episode of Starsky & Hutch titled “Starsky vs. Hutch,” which aired in 1979.

When Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) and Adrian (Talia Shire) arrive at the Hotel Lorane (which, as Dave pointed out, is still intact!) in 1982’s Rocky III, the Southern is visible in the background.

The hotel is seen, briefly once again, in the opening montage of the Season 1 episode of Miami Vice titled “Glades,” which aired in 1984.

And in 1984’s Repo Man, the Southern and the Special Café are just barely visible from the window of Otto’s (Emilio Estevez) car during a driving scene.

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

Big, huge THANK YOU to fellow stalker Dave for finally putting an end to the “Beat It” café mystery, for doing all of the research for this post, and for providing the many screen captures!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Southern Hotel is located at 412 East Fifth Street in downtown Los Angeles. Special Café, aka the diner from Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” music video, was formerly situated in the eastern portion of the building’s ground floor, but is no longer there. This locale is not in the best of areas, so if you visit, please exercise caution.

September 6, 2017