Category: This and That

Aldo’s Coffee Shop – Where Sonny Met Cher

On the November 4th episode of Dancing with the Stars, which featured singer Cher as a guest judge, contestants Leah Remini and Tony Dovolani danced a Viennese Waltz that adorably reenacted Cher’s first encounter with Sonny Bono to the 1965 hit “I Got You Babe.” In the segment showing Leah and Tony prepping for the performance, Leah mentioned that Sonny and Cher first met at a coffee shop in L.A. Well, believe you me, those words were hardly out of her mouth before I had my phone in hand to try to track down the location of that coffee shop. Through a simple Google search, I quickly learned that the name of the shop was Aldo’s, but I could not seem to find an address for it anywhere. So the following morning I emailed fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory, to see if he might be able to help and he responded just a few minutes later with two possible addresses. From there it was not too hard to figure out the right one. Sadly, the building that once housed Aldo’s was demolished around 1991 and the site today is just a vacant lot (I think – but more on that later). I still ran right out to stalk it, though, this past week while the Grim Cheaper and I were in L.A.

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To find the address for Aldo’s Coffee Shop, E.J. scanned through old Los Angeles phone directories and came up with two results – 6413 Hollywood Boulevard and 6721 Hollywood Boulevard, as you can see below. Cher mentioned in her autobiography, The First Time (which I checked out from the library the day after the Dancing with the Stars episode aired), that the Aldo’s where she met Sonny was located next door to the KFWB radio station studio. From there, I tracked down the station’s location in 1962, the year Sonny and Cher met, which turned out to be 6419 Hollywood Boulevard, meaning that the correct Aldo’s was the one at 6413. Eureka!

Cher, who was 16 at the time, met Sonny thanks to her then-boyfriend, record-promoter Red Baldwin. Of their first encounter, Cher writes, “One day Red told me, ‘I have a great friend who just split up with his wife. He’s a weird guy, but he’s a lot of fun, and everyone loves him. Maybe you could introduce him to your roommate, and we could double-date.’ So we all decided to meet. One afternoon at Aldo’s Coffee Shop, a hangout for radio people and disc jockeys who worked next door at KFWB, Red and I sat down at a table with Melissa, my roommate. Then someone came in, and everybody turned around. The room started buzzing – ‘Sonny’s here! ‘Hey, Son!’ – and that’s when I got my first look at Salvatore Phillip Bono. I will never forget it, because everyone else in the room disappeared, just washed away into some fuzzy soft focus, like when Maria saw Tony at the dance in West Side Story.” She later states, “And I actually thought to myself, Something is different now. You’re never going to be the same.” And while she broke up with Red the following morning, it took a bit more time for Sonny to feel the fireworks, initially telling Cher, “I don’t find you terribly attractive.” LOL

Sadly, I cannot find any photographs of Aldo’s online. You can check out a picture of what the KFWB building, which was demolished in 1991, looked like in 1972 here, though. The photo below was taken from virtually the same angle. While comparing the storefronts that appear in the 1972 image to the listings in the 1973 Los Angeles phone directory, I noticed that some things did not seem to add up and have come to the conclusion that Aldo’s was most likely located in the western-most space of the building denoted with a pink arrow below, which is currently addressed 6411 Hollywood Boulevard. I believe that structure was also torn down at some point and rebuilt (and its address subsequently changed from 6413 to 6411), as it does not match the building that stands in that spot in the 1972 photo. Without seeing actual images of Aldo’s, though, I cannot be certain.

The site does boast a fabulous view of the Hollywood Sign, so at least there’s that.

You can watch Leah and Tony’s adorably sweet “I Got You Babe” dance by clicking below.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory , for helping me to find this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Aldo’s Coffee Shop, where Cher and Sonny Bono first met, was formerly located at 6413 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.

November 20, 2013
The “That Thing You Do!” Mailbox Scene

Well folks, this post sadly marks the end to my 2013 Haunted Hollywood locales, which is especially depressing because this year was easily the Best. Halloween. Ever. Once again, the GC and I (dressed up as The Bachelorette’s Emily Maynard and Jef Holm) headed out to our friends’ house in Malibu. (And yes, I am aware that Emily and Jef are no longer together, but neither are Brenda and Dylan and we dressed up like them, too, one Halloween. 😉 ) Dick Van Dyke ended up not hosting his usual Halloween shindig this year (you can read about his 2011 fest here and his 2012 fest here), so we went instead to a party that our friends’ friends were having in a different gated community nearby. And let me tell you, it was UH-MA-ZING.

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Not only was every single house in the neighborhood dressed to the nines (I swear, nobody does Halloween like the ‘Bu) . . .

. . . but there were celebrities galore, including none other than Gwyneth Paltrow! The GC actually spotted Gwyneth first and, while I just about died of excitement on the spot, because she was with her children, I restrained myself from asking for a photo. I obsessed about it, though, for the next thirty minutes or so and eventually, without me knowing, the GC went up to her and said, “Gwyneth, could you please take a picture with my wife before her head explodes?” Next thing I knew, there was a tap on my shoulder and GP was standing in front of me, saying “I heard you wanted a photo.” Yeah, I was DYING. And absolutely falling in love with the GC all over again. Gwyneth truly could NOT have been nicer (easily one of the sweetest celebs that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting) and I adore her even more now than I did before. So suck it, Vanity Fair!

Also in attendance were Cindy Crawford . . .

. . . and Neil Patrick Harris. Like I said, Best. Halloween. Ever. Not sure how I’m ever going to recover from this one! Here’s hoping next year is just as good.

In the meantime, though, it is back to regular, non-haunted postings here at IAMNOTASTALKER. So here goes! As I mentioned in my post about the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, in early October Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, hosted her bachelorette party at my favorite place in the entire world, Disneyland. Because we did not want to make the long drive back to Palm Springs that night, the GC and I got a hotel room in the area, which turned out to be a fateful decision. The following morning, on our way out of town, I did a GPS search for a nearby Starbucks and when I saw that the closest outpost was located in the city of Orange, I just about had a heart attack as my very favorite movie scene EVER had been filmed in Orange – the mailbox scene from 1996’s That Thing You Do! So I immediately braced the GC for the fact that we would be making a little unexpected stalking detour.

In the scene, Faye Dolan (Liv Tyler) is listening to a portable radio and mailing letters in what is supposedly 1960s downtown Eerie, Pennsylvania, when she hears “That Thing You Do!”, her boyfriend’s band’s song, playing on the radio for the very first time. She starts screaming and runs down the street towards an Army/Navy store where she finds fellow band member T.B. Player (Ethan Embry). The two then race to Patterson’s Appliances, where another band member, Guy Patterson (cutie Tom Everett Scott), works. (I will be blogging about the location of Patterson’s Appliances tomorrow.) Guy turns all the radios in the store to the station playing the song and, shortly thereafter, the other two members of the group, Jimmy Mattingly (Johnathon Schaech) and Lenny Haise (Steve Zahn), show up and proceed to dance around manically. Liv Tyler is sheer perfection in the scene and it is physically impossible not to be happy while watching it.

You can take a look at the That Thing You Do! mailbox scene by clicking below. Go ahead, try not to smile while watching – I dare you.

In the scene, the mailbox was set up in front of an empty storefront located at 173 North Glassell Street, in pretty much the exact spot where the red sandwich board sign is situated in the photograph below.

I found this locale thanks to the Seeing Stars website and my trusty iPhone. As soon as the GC and I arrived in Orange, I watched the scene on YouTube and saw that the mailbox was located across the street from a Woolworth store. Seeing Stars listed the address of the store that masqueraded as Woolworths as 160 North Glassell Street, so from there it was simply a matter of matching up the angles of what appeared onscreen to the real life buildings. You can check out some images of the Woolworths building and the rest of the downtown area dressed for the filming on the City of Orange website here.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The mailbox scene from That Thing You Do! was filmed in front of what is now a vacant storefront located at 173 North Glassell Street in Orange. The building that was dressed to look like a Woolworths in the flick can be found across the street at 160/162 North Glassell.

November 5, 2013
“The Seventh Sign” House

NOTE – This blog was supposed to post yesterday, but somehow did not, so it looks like I am a day late and a dollar short. Sorry about that! I would like to start off by wishing my fellow stalkers a very HAPPY HALLOWEEN! I hope all of you have a fabulously spook-filled day. And now, on with the post! Way back in July 2012, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I embarked upon a stalking adventure in and around the Venice Beach area. While there, he took me by an adorable little dwelling that was the main location used in the 1988 horror film The Seventh Sign. I had never actually heard of the flick at the time, but Mike figured that the residence would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme. And, as luck would have it, we happened to meet the longtime homeowner while we were stalking the place and he not only told us all sorts of behind-the-scenes information about the shoot, but invited us into the backyard where quite a bit of the filming took place!

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The Grim Cheaper and I ended up watching The Seventh Sign shortly after I returned home and I can’t say that I was a big fan. As I mentioned in my post about the residence belonging to Heather Langenkamp (who played herself) in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, I am not especially fond of sci-fi-style horror flicks. It was very cool to see the house that I had just stalked a few days prior featured so prominently onscreen, though. In The Seventh Sign, the two-story bungalow is where Abby Quinn (Demi Moore) lives with her husband, Russell Quinn (Michael Biehn), and their demonic unborn child.

According to the homeowner, whose parents owned the pad back in 1988 when The Seventh Sign was filmed, the property was chosen for the shoot because producers liked the fact that it was located on a corner, that it had an apartment above the garage, and that the main house and garage could both be captured onscreen in a single shot. Due to a massive amount of foliage that has since grown, that is no longer the case, though, as you can see below. Otherwise, the abode looks very much the same as it did onscreen, despite the passage of over 25 years.

In The Seventh Sign, Abby and Russell rent out that garage apartment to a rather mysterious individual named David Bannon (Jürgen Prochnow) in order to make some extra income before their baby arrives. Things don’t quite go as planned, though.

Amazingly enough, while the landing is now different, the stairs leading up to the garage apartment look very much the same today as they did back in 1988.

I was floored when the owner allowed me to pose for a photograph on the stairs, which Mike had told me played a significant role in the filming.

The homeowner also informed us that an incredibly difficult-to-shoot scene was filmed in which Abby walked across a beam of light (in actuality it was a wooden bridge) from the main house to the garage apartment. The scene was very labor-intensive, expensive, required countless retakes, took several nights to complete, and in the end wound up on the cutting room floor! Ya gotta love Hollywood!

Several areas of the residence’s real life interior were also used in the filming, including the living room;

the kitchen;

and the front room. You can check out some more interior photographs of the property on an old rental listing here.

In real life, the charming little cottage, which was originally built in 1916, is not a single-family dwelling. It actually consists of three units – the main home, which features two separate apartments, one on each floor, and a third apartment located above the property’s detached garage, as was depicted in the movie.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Seventh Sign house is located at 902 Palms Boulevard in Venice.

November 1, 2013
The Cobb Estate from “Phantasm”

One locale that I came across (thanks to an article on Amoeblog) while doing research for my 2012 Haunted Hollywood posts was the former Cobb Estate in Altadena, the gates of which appeared in the 1979 cult horror film Phantasm. And while I stalked the location shortly thereafter, for whatever reason I never got around to blogging about it last October. I actually completely forgot about the site, in fact, until I sat down to write my recent post on Angeles Abbey Memorial Park, which was used in two installments of the Phantasm series – Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead and Phantasm IV: Oblivion. Well, it is better to be late than never, as they say, right?

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The Cobb Estate is named after lumber magnate Charles H. Cobb, who, along with his wife, Carrie, purchased the then vacant 107-acre site in 1916. Two years later, the couple commissioned a rambling Spanish-style mansion to be built on the premises. When Charles, who was a Freemason, passed away in 1939, he willed the massive estate and its acreage to the Pasadena Scottish Rite Temple. The brotherhood sold the site just a few years later and it subsequently went through a succession of different owners, including the Sisters of Saint Joseph. Then, in 1956, the Marx Brothers (yes, those Marx Brothers) purchased the property as an investment. It was left vacant while they debated what to do with it and became a popular hangout for miscreants who vandalized the once elegant grounds and mansion. Sadly, in 1959, the Brothers decided to demolish the majority of the Cobbs’ former home. Today, all that survives is the foundation, a few rock walls, some exterior stairwells, a long, twisting driveway, and the front gates.

In 1971, after their plans to turn to site into a cemetery were thwarted, the Marx Brothers put the land up for auction. Bob Barnes, a social studies teacher at nearby John Muir High School in Pasadena, caught wind of the sale and, fearing that it would be acquired and pillaged by developers, rallied his students to raise funds to save the property. Miraculously, they did. In nine days time – and thanks to a generous donation from art collector Virginia Steele Scott – the group garnered over $150,000. According to this 2011 Pasadena Star-News article, when the auction was held, Barnes was outbid by $25,000, but he made a last-minute plea to auctioneer Milton Wershaw saying his was the “people’s bid.” Wershaw halted the auction for five minutes so that the group could raise the extra funds and even chipped in $1,000 himself. The money was gathered, at which point, in a heart-warming twist, one of the land developers stepped down, announcing, “I am with the people, I shall bid no more!” Barnes wound up donating the 107 acres to the Angeles National Forest and, in my favorite part of the story, headed out to Hollywood the following day, purchased a map of the stars’ homes, rang Groucho Marx’s doorbell, and thanked him. So incredibly cool!

Today, the Cobb Estate is, as the sign on the gate will tell you, “A quiet refuge for people and wild life forever.” The popular hiking area is apparently open 24 hours a day and after-dark walks are allowed. Um, no thanks.

At some point in time (and for reasons unknown to this stalker – and seemingly everyone else on the internet, although there have been some reported unexplained occurrences), the property gained the nickname the “Haunted Forest.” (It is also known as the “Enchanted Forest.”)

In Phantasm, the gates of the Cobb Estate masqueraded as the entrance to Morningside Cemetery, lair of The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm).

Oddly enough, though, all of the scenes that supposedly took place behind the gates were actually shot about 400 miles away at the Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate in Oakland.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for making the Phantasm screen captures that appear in this post!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The gates to the Cobb Estate, from Phantasm, are located at the intersection of North Lake Avenue and East Loma Alta Drive in Altadena.

October 30, 2013
George Nader’s Former Home

Earlier this year, while doing research on the various Coachella Valley-area houses formerly owned by pianist Liberace, I came across a blurb in fave book Palm Springs Confidential about the city’s first ever triple homicide, which took place in a Las Palmas Estates residence that once belonged to actor George Nader. After wiping the drool from my chin , I added the site to my Haunted Hollywood To-Stalk list and finally managed to drag the Grim Cheaper out there a couple of weekends ago.

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The 3-bedroom, 3.25-bath, 3,608-square-foot home, which was originally built in 1961, has quite a distinguished Hollywood pedigree. Upon its completion, the dwelling was first inhabited by George Arnold, the longtime producer of Las Vegas’ popular Rhythm on Ice show. When he moved out in the mid-60s, the pad was purchased by The Merry Widow actress Gregg Sherwood, who continued to own the place until 1976, when she sold it to a race track executive named Ed Friendly and his wife, San Francisco socialite Sophia. The couple did not live there long. At around 7:30 p.m. on the evening of Thursday, October 12th, 1978, Sophia, who was then 71, and Ed, who was 74, were just preparing to eat a fish dinner that had been prepared by their housekeeper, 67-year-old Frances Williams, when the doorbell rang. The visitor was granted access to the home and proceeded to have a brief conversation with Sophia, during which he pulled out a .45-caliber handgun. Sophia tried to flee down a hallway, but was shot in the back of the head and died instantly. The killer then entered the kitchen and shot Frances, who had just placed the Friendlys’ dinner in a warming oven. Ed, who was hard of hearing and likely unaware of the carnage taking place just a few feet away, was shot last, in the bedroom where he was watching TV. Before leaving, the killer grabbed a fedora from the hallway and placed it over Sophia’s face. None of the neighbors saw or heard a thing.

At 7:30 the following morning, the pool man showed up at the property and spotted Frances’ corpse through the window. When police arrived later, they discovered the bodies of Ed and Sophia, as well as spent shell casings in the den, kitchen and hallway. The warming oven, with the Friendlys’ dinner inside, was still turned on. The house was in disarray, but nothing appeared to have been stolen. And while the case led investigators all over the globe, it was eventually dropped due to a shortage of funds, the death of two key witnesses, and a lack of evidence, and remains open and unsolved to this day. Police do have a theory, though, and, boy, is it tawdry!

Prior to meeting Ed, Sophia was married for 24 years to Curtis Wood Hutton, who just so happened to be the first cousin of Woolworth heir Barbara Hutton. Curtis and Sophia had two children, Edward and Sophia (yes, she apparently named her daughter after herself). At some point during the early years of the marriage, Barbara gifted Curtis, who was said to be one of her favorite relatives, a $1 million trust fund. When he joined the Navy during World War II, Sophia, nervous that her husband might be killed in the line of duty, leaving her penniless, had the trust amended so that it would be payable to her upon Curtis’ death. If she happened to precede her husband in death, the two Hutton children would inherit the money. The amendment turned out to be irrevocable, so even after Curtis and Sophia divorced in 1951, she still stood to inherit the $1 million if he passed away before her. Then, in 1977, the sh*t hit the proverbial fan. Not only did Sophia amend her will, disinheriting her son and daughter, but Curtis also became terminally ill. Edward, who was destitute at the time, realized he had to act fast if he ever wanted to see a dime of his father’s trust fund. Police speculate that he paid Andreas Christensen, a London-based friend of his who was no stranger to crime, to commit the murders. Things went according to plan, too, because Curtis died on October 28th, just two weeks after Ed and Sophia, and the Barbara Hutton trust, which then amounted to $1.3 million, was divided between Edward and his sister. As I said, tawdry stuff! You can read two fabulous, more in-depth articles about the murders on the DuJour magazine website and on the SFGate website.

Actor George Nader and his life partner, Mark Miller, purchased the property in 1991. They owned the place until George’s death in 2002. According to Palm Springs Confidential, at the time that they purchased it, the couple had no idea that a triple homicide had taken place on the premises. Miller said, “We were never told about the murders. We found out two years later.” Nice disclosure job from the real estate agent.

Sadly, the residence was sold in August 2011 and the new owners have since completely remodeled the place. You can see what the home used to look like via Google Street View below and in these photographs from the 2011 real estate listing. I personally prefer the pre-remodel design. So Old Hollywood!

On a side-note – I would like to wish a big CONGRATULATIONS to my dear friend Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, and her new husband, Keith Coogan. The two tied the knot this past Saturday in Malibu and a fabulously pink time was had by all. (Can you tell that I was just a little excited to be partnered up with none other than Jeremy Miller during the ceremony?? ) You can read a great write-up on the festivities, which included the bride and groom driving off in a DeLorean, on the Mike the Fanboy website here.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: George Nader’s former house, where Ed and Sophia Friendly were murdered in 1978, is located at 893 Camino Sur in Palm Springs’ Las Palmas Estates neighborhood.

October 29, 2013
Live Oak Canyon Pumpkin Patch

I thought I would break away from tradition today by blogging about a place that has no celebrity or film connection – Live Oak Canyon Pumpkin Patch, which is without a doubt the BEST pumpkin patch I have ever been to in my life! I may be breaking from the norm more often in the coming months actually, by turning my site into more of a guide to L.A. than strictly to filming locations. The focus will, of course, always be movie, TV and pop culture locales, but I have come across so many cool spots over the years with no celebrity connection (like Lula Mae, one of my favorite places in the world) that I wanted to feature, but didn’t feel like I could. Because I get countless emails from fellow stalkers asking for restaurant/hotel/things-to-do recommendations on an almost daily basis, though, I figured it was time that I started. Today’s post is about one of those types of spots. And while Live Oak Canyon Pumpkin Patch is located in Redlands and, therefore, a bit out of the way, it is worth every minute of the drive. If you live in the area or are visiting L.A. during the month of October, you should definitely make the trip!

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Live Oak Canyon Pumpkin Patch was originally founded in 1980 by a man named Gregg Palmer. Back in the 1950s, Gregg’s grandfather, Lowell S. Palmer, was driving towards Los Angeles from the Palm Springs area and during the journey happened to turn his head to watch cattle grazing in a pasture near the freeway. Fate intervened when the wind blew Lowell’s hat off and into the pasture. He pulled over to recover it and, while doing so, struck up a conversation with the landowner and wound up purchasing the 450-acre site that same day. Lowell named his new farm Live Oak Canyon Ranch.

In 1980, Gregg decided to plant Christmas trees, pumpkins and gourds in a 45-acre section of the property that was then vacant. The Live Oak Canyon Christmas Tree Farm started selling trees in 1983. A few years later, the Live Oak Canyon Pumpkin Patch, or The Pumpkin Patch, as it is also known, opened on the site. It has been going strong ever since.

The Grim Cheaper and I discovered the location last year while driving back to Pasadena from my parents’ house in the desert thanks to a huge pumpkin displayed on a mountaintop overlooking the freeway. I was immediately in awe of the patch due to its size and the fact that we could actually cut the pumpkins off the vine ourselves. I had never known places like that even existed! We ended up spending about five hours at the patch that day and this year Live Oak Canyon was at the top of my list of Halloween-related locales to visit.

Live Oak Canyon Pumpkin Patch, where one can easily spend an entire day, boasts an amazeballs gift shop filled with all sorts of Halloween paraphernalia (none of which the GC would let me buy ), a picnic area, a snack tent, pony rides, a petting zoo, a quad race, a hay castle, several bounce houses, slides, games, an aviary, a huge food court with over a dozen specialty vendors, live entertainment, a tractor-pulled hayride, acres and acres of sunflowers, and a corn maze.

This year, the GC and I decided to buy tickets for said corn maze, which I mistakenly thought would be a snap to get through.

The labyrinth, which is comprised of 12,000 feet of twists, turns and dead-ends, wound up taking us a good two hours to complete and was beyond challenging – and beyond fun!

The two-part maze works as follows – upon entering, one is given a card with sketchings of eight different “Photo Op” spots that can be found hidden inside the cornfield, four in each section.

Each Photo Op spot has a corresponding number on it that is part of two different four-digit codes.

One code is required to unlock the lockbox on the doors leading from Part I to Part II of the maze and the second code is needed to exit the door located at the very end of the challenge. As you can see we had a blast – and got our exercise for the day. I seriously wish I had been wearing my pedometer because I think we walked over ten miles getting through that thing! The patch also offers a special nighttime corn maze for those who are so inclined to complete in the dark. Yeah, no thank you.

After the maze, the GC and I headed over to the U-Pick pumpkin patch.

The 12-acre area features over 15 different varieties of orange pumpkins and over 15 specialty pumpkin varieties . . .

. . . all of which you actually pull of the vine yourself! I mean, how incredibly cool is that? LOVE IT!

Pictured below is the pumpkin the GC and I picked. I adore the stem!

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Live Oak Canyon Pumpkin Patch is located at 32335 Live Oak Canyon Road in Redlands. You can visit the patch’s official website here. The property is open 7 days a week through November 2nd. Admission on weekends is $2 per person and weekdays are free.

October 25, 2013
Dan Aykroyd’s Former Haunted House

Another spooky locale that I learned about thanks to fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory, and his fabulous book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites was the longtime home of Ghostbuster Dan Aykroyd and his wife, actress Donna Dixon. The residence piqued my interest due to Aykroyd’s claim of numerous hauntings taking place there over the years. So I, of course, immediately added it to my Haunted Hollywood To-Stalk list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there back in early May.

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Dan Aykroyd is not the first celebrity to live in the two-story, country-style abode. In fact, the property’s tenancy records read like a Who’s Who of Hollywood and include such luminaries as Natalie Wood, Ringo Starr, Alfre Woodard, (possibly) Renee Zellweger, and “Mama” Cass Elliot. According to the book Swans and Pistols, during Cass’ tenure there, the singer encouraged famous guests like Eric Clapton, Ryan O’Neal, David Crosby, and Don Johnson to write notes on a “graffiti” wall in the living room. (How cool would that have been to see?) Dan and Donna purchased the site sometime during the 1980s and it was not long before strange occurrences started taking place.

A 2003 iVillage article quoted Dan as saying, “A ghost certainly haunts my house. It once even crawled into bed with me. I rolled over and just nuzzled up to whatever it was and went back to sleep. The ghost also turns on the Stairmaster and moves jewelry across the dresser. I’m sure it’s Mama Cass because you get the feeling it’s a big ghost.” Dan’s bed must have been a pretty busy place because in 2005 he told ContactMusic.com that the spirit of a man who died at the home in the 1960s bunked with him, as well. That same year he also spoke of the specter in a Huffington Post interview, saying, “Have I personally ever seen a ghost? Not one. Have I ever felt an unseen presence near me? Damn right. In my bed no less when we lived in Mama Cass’s Hollywood estate.” You can watch a video below of Aykroyd talking about selling the Cass residence and the fact that he had to disclose that there had been some “unusual activity” on the premises “that could not be explained rationally or physically.”

And after going through my photographs of the property yesterday, I tend to believe him. The picture below, which gave me the chills when I saw it, has not been altered in any way. Creeeeeeepy!

Aykroyd apparently put the house on the market several times while owning it, but the place never sold. I guess not many people are willing to cuddle up to ghosts. According to The Real Estalker, in 2006, the actor tried to lease it out at the whopping rate of $30,000 a month. It remained on the market for over 450 days, though, until he decided to offer it for sale in November 2007 for $4.2 million.

According to Berg Properties, the estate was finally sold one month later to none other than actress Beverly D’Angelo (of the Vacation movies) for $3.8 million. She, too, has been visited by Mama Cass’ apparition, as she talks about in the below (overly dramatic) clip from a Season 3 episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories.

Sadly, not much of the 4,828-square-foot residence is visible from the street. According to The Real Estalker, the estate, which was originally built in 1951, boasts 5 bedrooms, 5.5 baths, a master bedroom with an attached office and weight room, a library, 6 fireplaces, over one acre of land, a pool, and a motor court. There also seems to be some sort of tree house on the premises, as you can see below. You can check out some interior photographs of the pad – wallpapered kitchen ceiling and all – here.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., of The Movieland Directory, for writing about this location in his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Dan Aykroyd’s former haunted house is located at 7708 Woodrow Wilson Drive in the Hollywood Hills.

October 24, 2013
Heather’s House from “New Nightmare”

Way back in April, after stalking the talking road condition sign location from L.A. Story (which I blogged about here) and Malibu Hindu Temple from Beverly Hills Ninja (which I blogged about here), Mike, from MovieShotsLA, took me to the Tarzana-area house where Heather Langenkamp (who played herself) lived with her husband, Chase Porter (David Newsom), and son, Dylan (Miko Hughes), in the 1994 horror flick Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. And while I had not yet seen New Nightmare at the time, Mike thought the residence would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme – and he was right. I’m not typically a huge fan of sci-fi-style horror flicks (I much prefer the Scream/I Know What You Did Last Summer/more realistic brand of scary movies), but I just watched New Nightmare and have to say that I actually enjoyed it. That most likely has to do with the fact that the flick centers around the filming of a new installment of the Nightmare series, during which a grown-up Heather Langenkamp, the actress who starred as Nancy Thompson in the first and third A Nightmare on Elm Streets, has to deal with the fact that the character of Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) has come to life and is stalking her son. Y’all know me – anything having to do with the production of a movie and I’m in!

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Heather’s house was one of the main locations used in New Nightmare and the property shows up repeatedly throughout the movie – usually in nighttime scenes.

Despite the fact that almost twenty years have passed since filming took place (How can that be, by the way??? That means that it’s practically time for my twenty-year high school reunion!!!), the residence still looks almost exactly the same today as it did then.

Even the mailbox has been left unchanged!

Had to do it!

In real life, the five-bedroom, five-bath residence, which was originally built in 1952, measures 4,512 square feet and sits on a 0.43-acre plot of land. It last sold in November 1996 for $741,000.

As you can see, the dwelling is really quite idyllic and picturesque and not the type of place where one would expect a horror film to be shot, but perhaps that was the point – that nightmares can happen anywhere.

The real life interior of the home . . .

. . . as well as the backyard, both of which you can see photographs of here, were also used in the filming.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Heather’s house from Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is located at 5132 Calvin Avenue in Tarzana.

October 23, 2013
Henry Kyle’s Former House

Many, many months back, my mom texted me to ask if I had ever stalked the Bel-Air mansion where Texas tycoon Henry Harrison Kyle was murdered on July 22nd, 1983. Because the property had also once been the residence of filmdom’s first “It Girl,” Clara Bow, my mom thought it would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood posts. That was the first that I had ever heard of the place and, of course, started chomping at the bit to stalk it, so I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to do just that a short time later.

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According to a June 1996 The New York Times article, legend has it that the 1923 manse was originally built for the then King of Spain. Sometime during the early 1930s, the pad was purchased by film producer Louis Lewyn and his wife, Marion Mack. The couple loaned the residence to actress Clara Bow to live in shortly thereafter and the starlet remained there for the next couple of years.

For those not familiar with Old Hollywood lore, the Brooklyn-born Bow became a silver screen phenomenon thanks to a starring role in the 1927 silent film It. The flick was based upon a magazine article penned by British novelist Elinor Glyn, who explained the elusive trait as such, “’It’ is that quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force. With ‘It’ you win all men if you are a woman and all women if you are a man.” From 1927 on, Clara, who starred in over 58 films during her lifetime, would forever be known as “The It Girl.” The phrase caught on and is still used regularly in Hollywood to this day. Sadly, Bow’s heavy Brooklyn accent interfered with her career during the advance of “talkies” in the mid 1930s. The beauty retired from acting in 1935 at the age of 28 and moved to Nevada. She spent the remainder of her years hidden from the public eye and passed away from a heart attack at the age of 60 on September 27th, 1965.

Multimillionaire Henry Kyle, who amassed his fortune via extensive real estate, coal mine, bank, and oil-drilling equipment firm holdings, relocated from Dallas to Bel-Air in the Spring of 1983, along with his two sons, 20-year-old Henry Harrison Kyle II, aka “Ricky,” and 19-year-old Scott, in order to begin a new job as the head of Four Star International Inc. television production company. At the time of his arrival, he purchased Bow’s former Mediterranean-style manse. He did not live there long. In the pre-dawn hours of July 22nd, 1983, Ricky woke his father up and informed him that there was a prowler in the house. Henry grabbed a gun and walked downstairs to the dining room, where Ricky, who also had a gun, subsequently shot him in the back at point-blank range. Henry returned fire, hitting his son in the arm. It was too late, though. When police arrived later that morning, they discovered Henry’s 6’4” nude body sprawled on the dining room floor. The Texan, who was often described as a real-life J.R. Ewing, was dead at the age of 60. (Ironically enough, according to a 1983 The Pittsburg Press article, upon moving, Kyle rented out his Texas residence to none other than Larry Hagman, who was in the Lone Star State to film Dallas. Hagman subsequently vacated the property shortly after Henry was killed.)

Ricky was arrested five weeks later. Foreshadowing the eerily similar Menendez murders in 1989, Ricky originally said that an intruder had killed the senior Kyle and that he had been shot in the crossfire, but then later copped to the crime saying that his father, who had supposedly been abusing him both physically and emotionally for years, had fired at him and that Ricky had fired back strictly in self defense. Prosecutors contended that Ricky, who was a frequent drug abuser, killed his father to gain access to his vast inheritance. The first trial resulted in a hung jury. In the second trial, Ricky was convicted of involuntary manslaughter (huh?), sentenced to five years in prison, and subsequently served three. Who says our justice system doesn’t work?

Kyle’s former manse was last sold in August 2011 for $6.375 million. According to the real estate listing, the abode boasts 6 bedrooms, 7.5 baths, 8,900 square feet of living space, a chef’s kitchen, a formal dining room, a master suite with two bathrooms, an enclosed sleeping porch, a ballroom, a rooftop deck, a 0.70-acre plot of land, a pool, a sundeck, a motor court, a 3-car garage, and a newly-built detached guest house. The entire property encompasses a total of 9,450 square feet. Unfortunately, as you can see below, virtually none of it is visible from the street.

But, as I’ve said before, that’s why God created real estate listings, which is where I got the photographs pictured below.

As you can see, the interior of the residence is really quite spectacular. You can check out some more interior pics of the pad here.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Henry Kyle’s former house is located at 110 Stone Canyon Road in Bel-Air.

October 22, 2013
Angeles Abbey Memorial Park from “Alias”

Today’s locale is one of my favorite Haunted Hollywood locations ever! Way back in January 2012, fellow stalker Gilles from France sent me an email asking for some help in tracking down a mosque-like structure that stood in for a Moroccan airport in the Season 1 episode of Alias titled “A Broken Heart.” Gilles included some screen captures in his email and, upon first glance, I guessed that the place was most likely a cemetery. So I did a quick Google search for a mosque-like graveyard in Los Angeles and the first result to be kicked back was Angeles Abbey Memorial Park in Compton. Sure enough, it was the right place. And while I was pretty much drooling upon looking at pictures of the site, because of its location, I avoided stalking it. Then, feeling brave this summer after finally visiting the spot where the Black Dahlia’s body was found, I bit the bullet and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there. And I am very happy to report that it is not located in a dangerous area at all.

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Angeles Abbey Memorial Park was originally established in 1923 by a shipbuilder named George Clegg. The Long Beach native reportedly sent two architects to India for inspiration and, upon their return, had them build a 1,000-crypt mausoleum resembling the Taj Mahal. The Moorish-style structure featured imported Italian marble, intricate tile work, and stained-glass windows and ceilings. Sadly though, as you can see below, the building’s façade is currently blocked by large trees and most of its beauty hidden.

The rear of the structure is visible to passersby, though, and pretty darn amazing in and of itself. And don’t even get me started on the interior! We, unfortunately, did not venture inside any of the mausoleums while stalking Angeles Abbey, but I came upon these stunning photographs while doing research for this post and am now absolutely kicking myself! The interiors are nothing short of stunning! Uh-ma-zing!

Other equally-impressive mausoleums were built in the late 1920s and today, Angeles Abbey Memorial Park is the final resting place for over 35,000 souls.

Sadly though, as Compton began to change in the 1960s, the cemetery fell into disrepair. In 2001, the site was grappling with graffiti, vandalism and gang activity. It appears to be in a bit better shape today, though, thankfully, aside from the acres of dead grass.

Stepping onto the grounds of Angeles Abbey is like stepping into another world. Standing there, I had to remind myself that I was still in L.A. and not in some exotic, far-off locale. It is no wonder the place has so often graced movie and television screens.

Ironically enough, though, Angeles Abbey has rarely appeared onscreen as a cemetery. For having such decidedly unique and ornate architecture, the place is truly a blank canvass – one that production designers have turned into everything from a jail to a palace to a courthouse to an airport. As I mentioned above, the exterior of Abbey Memorial stood in for an airport in Morocco in the Season 1 episode of Alias titled “A Broken Heart.”

In that same episode, the interior of the main mausoleum masqueraded as a a bustling Moroccan marketplace.

It is absolutely amazing to me that production designers were able to so completely transform a freaking mausoleum into a Middle Eastern bazaar! That speaks to both their talent and the beauty of the site.

The cemetery popped up again in the Season 4 episode of Alias titled “Ice.” In the episode, the exteriors . . .

. . . and interiors of Angeles Abbey stood in for the Arabian souk where Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) tried to purchase a deadly bio-weapon.

Angeles Abbey was used extensively in the Season 1 episode of JAG titled “Scimitar,” which originally aired in 1995. In the episode, one of the mausoleums masqueraded as Al Mataha Prison in Basra, Iraq where Corporal David Anderson (Ron Livingston – aka Sex and the City’s Berger!) was held.

The interior of one of the mausoleums was also used as the interior of the prison courthouse in “Scimitar.”

In that same episode, Angeles Abbey’s main mausoleum stood in for Al Ba’Ran, one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces.

The interior of the main mausoleum was also utilized as the interior of the palace in the episode.

Thanks to the Phantasm Archives website, I learned that Abbey Memorial Park appeared in Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead. Unfortunately, I could not find a copy of the 1994 horror flick anywhere, but I did manage to make the screen captures pictured below from the trailer, which I found on YouTube.

Thanks again to the Phantasm Archives website, I also learned that the cemetery was used briefly for the mausoleum scenes in Phantasm IV: Oblivion.

In the 2005 movie Constantine, the interior of Abbey Memorial Park’s main mausoleum masqueraded as the underground storage room belonging to Midnite (Djimon Hounsou), where John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) revisited Hell by electrocuting himself in an electric chair from Sing Sing.

And while a 2001 Los Angeles Times article states that the cemetery appeared in 1987’s The Untouchables, I scanned through the movie and did not see it pop up anywhere.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Gilles for challenging me to find this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Angeles Abbey Memorial Park, from the “A Broken Heart” episode of Alias, is located at 1515 East Compton Boulevard in Compton.

October 21, 2013