Category: TV Locations

The “Punky Brewster” Grocery Store

As I mentioned in my August 18th post about the buildings used in the opening credits of fave ‘80s television show Punky Brewster (which you can read here), one spot that remained a mystery was the grocery store where Punky Brewster (Soleil Moon Frye) offered to help patrons carry their bags in exchange for money. I wondered in the post if the market might be located in Chicago, but fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, sent me an email that same day letting me know that he had tracked the site down – just around the corner from Shatto Place, where the majority of the Punky Brewster opening was filmed. Sadly, he also informed me the grocery store was no longer standing. I decided the location was still blog-worthy, though, and ran right out to stalk it two weekends ago while the Grim Cheaper and I were in L.A.

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The grocery store actually only appeared in the opening credits of Punky Brewster’s pilot episode, which was titled “Punky Finds a Home: Part I.” All subsequent episodes featured a shortened version of the pilot’s credits.

In one portion of the grocery store segment, several buildings are visible in the background. It was those buildings that led Owen to the market’s location. In his email, which included the mocked-up screen capture pictured below, he wrote, “In the attached image from the opening credits, the camera is looking east. The building circled in red is 630 Shatto Place (the building is labeled “Retail Clerks Union” on Google Maps). The white building circled in blue (the one with many windows) is 3075 Wilshire Blvd., at S. Westmoreland Ave.”

He also included the east-facing, present-day, bird’s-eye view of those same buildings pictured below.

And a 1980 aerial view from the Historic Aerials website, in which he circled the Punky Brewster market and its parking lot in green. Owen said, “To the south of the grocery store you can see the slanted parking spaces along a wall, just like in the opening credits.” He provided a corresponding present-day aerial view of the area, as well.

He also dug up the 1968 image of the store pictured below on the USC Archives. As you can see, he literally did all of my work for me on this one, so thank you, Owen!

Because he did not know the market’s exact address, Owen suggested I check back-dated Los Angeles phone listings, saying, “Assuming the store was on the SE corner of W. 6th St. and S. Vermont Ave., I’m guessing you should look at addresses ~3190 W. 6th St. and 606 S. Vermont Ave.” So, for my first attempt I searched the 1987 phone directory for 606 South Vermont and, lo and behold, there was a listing for a Kal’s Supermarket at that address, as you can see below! Owen hit the nail right on the head!

Today, 606 South Vermont Avenue is the site of the Wilshire/Vermont Station for the Los Angeles Metro, which, according to Gazette.net, boasts the longest escalators this side of the Mississippi.

The $136-million mixed-use station, which was designed by the architecture firm Arquitectonica, opened in 2007.

The “transit village” consists of an upscale 449-unit apartment building and a whopping 36,000 square feet of retail space. Such restaurants as Chipotle, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Subway, as well as several boutiques, are located on the premises.

The two-panel mural that flanks the station’s southwest entrance was hand-painted by transmedia artist April Greiman and is titled “Hand Holding a Bowl of Rice.” Greiman initially took the image with a video camera and then converted it into an oil painting.

Because of the way the Wilshire/Vermont Station is situated, I could not get a perfect photograph of the two buildings that Owen spotted in the Punky Brewster opening credits. As you can see below, though, the picture that I was able to snap does match pretty closely what appeared onscreen in 1984.

You can watch the opening credits from Punky Brewster’s pilot episode 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 Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Kal’s Supermarket, the grocery store from the Punky Brewster opening credits, was formerly located at 606 South Vermont Avenue in Koreatown. That site is now the Wilshire/Vermont Metro station. The buildings that were featured in the Punky Brewster opening credits are located right around the corner on the 600 block of Shatto Place. The brick building that Henry Warnimont (George Gaynes) first walked by was the Pierre Crest Apartments at 673 Shatto Place; the alleyway where Henry stepped over the sleeping homeless man is just north of 688 Shatto Place; the building that Punky skipped by was the Modena Apartments at 661 Shatto Place; and the site of Henry’s photography studio, which has since been torn down, can be found at 651 Shatto Place.

September 19, 2013
Pharaoh’s Lost Kingdom from “CSI”

While watching the Season 4 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Turn of the Screws” way back in May 2004, I became just a wee-bit obsessed with tracking down the theme park that stood in for the supposed Las Vegas-area Sphinx Amusement Park. My mom was the one who ended up locating it for me, thanks to this March 2004 AP news article that she found online. As she discovered, Sphinx Amusement Park was none other than Pharaoh’s Lost Kingdom located at 1101 North California Street in Redlands. And while I proceeded to pass by the property countless times on my way to and from Palm Springs over the years following, for whatever reason, I never stopped to stalk it. Then, two Sundays ago, while driving back to the desert, I convinced the Grim Cheaper to make a quick pit stop there. Sadly though, the site has since been transformed into Splash Kingdom water park and looks quite a bit different than it did nine years ago when CSI was filmed.

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In “Turn of the Screws,” Gil Grissom (William Petersen), Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox), Nick Stokes (George Eads), and Greg Sanders (Eric Szmanda) of the Las Vegas CSI team investigate a roller coaster that has run off its tracks, killing six people, at Sphinx Amusement Park.

The midway area of Pharaoh’s Lost Kingdom was utilized extensively in the episode. Sadly, all of the park’s rides were shut down in 2006 and later removed to make room for a state-of-the-art, 18,000-square-foot wave pool.

The Lost Kingdom’s Screaming Mummy stood in for Pharaoh’s Fever, the derailed roller coaster, in “Turn of the Screws.” The coaster was originally constructed in 1976 as part of Altoona, Iowa’s Adventureland and, at the time, was known as the Super Screamer. In 2000, the 45-foot tall steel ride was sold and transported to Pharaoh’s Lost Kingdom, where it remained in operation until mid-2006. I am unsure of its current whereabouts. You can check out some photographs of the Screaming Mummy from its Redlands days here.

Thankfully, the roller coaster and midway area are still visible via Bing Maps, as you can see below.

Pharaoh’s Lost Kingdom was originally opened in June 1996. The 17-acre Egyptian-themed park boasted four nine-hole miniature golf courses, three race car tracks, water slides, a laser tag arena, an outdoor 2,550-seat amphitheater, an arcade, banquet facilities, a sand beach, and midway rides. In April 2006, the site underwent an operational change and was re-christened Pharaoh’s Theme and Water Park. It was then that the ride portion of the property was closed. Shortly thereafter, Pharaoh’s became the site of all-night raves, infuriating local residents and setting off a messy legal battle between the park’s owner and management that lasted through October 2009. A judge ultimately granted the city of Redland’s request for an injunction against dance parties taking place on the premises and, in 2010, the location re-opened under new management as Pharaoh’s Adventure Park.

In 2012, the theme park was sold to new owners who performed an extensive renovation project which phased out much of the Egyptian theme. The site was re-christened Splash Kingdom and the Sphinx who stands guard at the front entrance given a pair of Ray-Bans to don.

The site still boasts most of its former amenities, such as the miniature golf courses and race car tracks, but has been revamped to include over twenty water slides (one of which, The Anileator, at 90 feet is the world’s tallest enclosed water slide), an upscale sports lounge, a quarter-mile long floating river, a 12,000-square-foot wall-to-wall indoor trampoline park, bumper boats, two activity pools, and the tallest freestanding water attraction tower in the U.S. Because we were on our way back to Palm Springs, we did not actually partake of any of the water slides, but they sure looked fun! I’m sensing a re-stalk in the near future.

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: Pharaoh’s Lost Kingdom, now Splash Kingdom, from the “Turn of the Screws” episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, is located at 1101 North California Street in Redlands. You can visit the Splash Kingdom website here.

September 17, 2013
The “ALF” House

One location that I have been asked about repeatedly over the years is the Tudor-style home where the Tanner family – Willie (Max Wright), Kate (Anne Schedeen), Lynn (Andrea Elson), Brian (Benji Gregory), and their Melmacian house guest, ALF (who was voiced by series creator Paul Fusco) – lived in the 1986 television series ALF. And while I had never watched the show growing up, I became quite intrigued by the house and the fact that, in the 27 years since the comedy originally aired, it had never been found. I would sporadically look for the locale whenever I had a free moment, yet it remained a mystery – until last month, that is, when a dogged fellow stalker named Rafal managed to track the place down. In a heartbreaking twist, Rafal also discovered that the property had been demolished sometime in 2012 and a large Mediterranean-style dwelling built in its place. As sad as I was to learn that the residence was no longer, I was also glad that its former location had, at least, been found and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it this past weekend while the two of us were in L.A.

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On ALF, the Tanner family lived in an absolutely adorable cottage said to be at 167 Hemdale Street in Los Angeles. When I first saw images of the residence years ago, I was convinced that it was located somewhere in Pasadena. I was so sure, in fact, that I would have bet money on it. Then, in July, a fellow stalker named Mick led me to an ALF TV Fan Forum message board on which ALF-aficionados were discussing the property. One poster named Tedm mentioned that Paul Fusco had stated in an interview that the Tanner house was located in the Pacific Palisades area. So I did a bit of searching there, but came up empty-handed. Then, on August 12th, Rafal visited the site and announced to all that after a grueling ten-hour search, he had found the residence. Apparently, while watching an ALF episode the previous day, he started to wonder about the home’s location. A Google search led him to the ALF TV Fan Forum where he came across Tedm’s comment about Pacific Palisades. He spent the next ten hours searching the Palisades and its environs for an L-shaped property with a steep slanted roof, and finally found the right spot – at 708 Moreno Avenue in Brentwood.

While looking at the site on Google Earth, though, Rafal noticed that some sort of construction seemed to be taking place and surmised that the residence had been completely leveled at some point in 2012 and a new, much larger home built in its place.

He was right. As you can see below, aside from the tall hedge running along the western side of the property, not one shred of the ALF home remains. What is most heartbreaking about this whole thing, to me at least, is that if the residence had been found just one year sooner, I would have been able to stalk it.

I did manage to dig up some photographs of the former residence on fave website Zillow. As you can see, prior to its 2012 tear down, the Tanner house looked exactly the same as it did in 1986 when ALF was filmed!

The charming two-bedroom, two-bath, 1,474-square-foot abode, which was originally built in 1926, was sold in February 2012 for $2.05 million. I guess it should not come as a surprise that the place was torn down being that, according to Zillow, it was marketed as a “fixer” whose sole value was its location and 9,000-square-foot lot.

The Tanner residence is currently still visible via Google Street View and Bing maps. While stalking the place, I asked the GC (who was flabbergasted that I would stalk a property no longer in existence) where I should stand for the first photograph that appears in this post. His response, “How about at home in front of your computer screen with a Google Street View image of the house pulled up!” LOL

The interior of the Tanner house was, of course, just a set built at the studio where ALF was lensed. According to Wikipedia, the set was an intricate one constructed on a platform raised four feet off the ground which enabled Paul Fusco and second puppeteer Lisa Buckley to operate the ALF puppet from underneath the stage. Numerous trap doors were installed in the flooring that allowed for ALF to pop up unexpectedly in various places. Manning the puppet was such a grueling task that it often took 25 hours to film a 22-minute episode! Of the process, Anne Schedeen said in the June 19th, 2000 issue of People magazine, “There was no joy on the set. It was a technical nightmare – extremely slow, hot and tedious. If you had a scene with ALF, it took centuries to shoot.” Tensions ran so high, apparently, that on the night that the series finale was filmed in 1990, Max Wright walked off the set immediately after shooting wrapped without so much as a goodbye to any of his fellow cast members. Yowza! Today, Wright looks back fondly on the show and says, “It doesn’t matter what I felt or what the days were like. ALF brought people a lot of joy. They adored it.” The countless fellow stalkers who have emailed me over the years inquiring about the Tanner house are a testament to that fact. I am sorry that I did not have better news to share about its current state.

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 Rafal, from the ALF TV Fan Forum, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Tanner house from ALF was formerly located at 708 Moreno Avenue in Brentwood. It was bulldozed in 2012 and a much larger home now stands in its place.

September 10, 2013
Mitch’s House from “Baywatch”

A couple of weeks ago, a fellow stalker named Michelle posted a comment on my site asking me to track down the house where lifeguard Mitch Buchannon (David Hasselhoff) lived with his son, Hobie Buchannon (first played by Brandon Call and then later by Jeremy Jackson), on the immensely popular 1989 television series Baywatch. Ironically enough, I had already stalked the residence about a year prior, but had yet to blog about it. Back in July 2012, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I had embarked upon a Venice Canal stalking adventure, during which he pointed out countless waterfront homes that had been immortalized onscreen – so many, in fact, that I had to grab my iPhone and start taking notes! One of the dwellings that he showed me just so happened to be Mitch’s house. Because we stalked over fifty different locales on that particular day, though, I had completely forgotten about it until I received Michelle’s query. So thank you, Michelle!

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As I mentioned in my October 22nd, 2012 post about Lana Clarkson’s former home, the Venice Canal area is an absolutely gorgeous little waterfront idyll that was founded by real estate developer Abbot Kinney in the early 1900s. (You can read a more in depth history on the Canals here.) What better place for the world’s most iconic fictional lifeguard to live? In real life, Mitch’s house boasts three bedrooms, three baths, 1,665 square feet of living space, 0.06 acres of land, and it’s own private dock. The property, which was originally built in 1980, last sold in May 2001 for a whopping $900,000.

As you can see below, the dwelling is quite picturesque. I mean, it looks like it belongs on a postcard or something, especially with the two small boats docked in front!

I have never actually seen an entire episode of Baywatch (which is shocking being that, according to IMDB, the show aired in 148 different countries and on every single continent excluding Antarctica during the height of its popularity!), so I had to rely on Michelle for information about Mitch’s home. According to her, the Venice-area residence was used in establishing shots throughout the series’ first nine seasons, at which point Mitch (and the production) moved to Hawaii.

Unfortunately, quite a few changes have been made to the exterior of the property since filming took place back in 1989, the most odd of which being the removal of the rather large rear chimney. Why on earth someone would remove a chimney is absolutely beyond me.

Thanks to fellow stalker Richard, author of Emergency!: Behind the Scene, I learned that the interior of Mitch’s house was a set. Said set first existed at Culver Studios, where the series’ inaugural season was lensed. When production moved to a former-McCulloch-Chain-Saw-warehouse-turned-studio located at 5433 Beethoven Street in Playa Vista during Season 2, Mitch’s house set went with it.

Richard also alerted me to the fact that images of the home’s real life interior are posted on Zillow. Two are pictured below. As you can see, the actual inside of the residence is vastly different from Mitch’s house. You can check out some more images of the property 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 fellow stalker Michelle for challenging me to find this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for tracking it down!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Mitch Buchannon’s house from Baywatch is located at 469 Sherman Canal, on the Venice Canals, in Venice.

September 3, 2013
The "Punky Brewster" Opening Credits Locations

After tracking down the apartment building where Punky Brewster (Soleil Moon Frye) and her adoptive father, Henry Warnimont (George Gaynes), lived in the 1984 television series Punky Brewster (which I blogged about here), I became completely obsessed with finding the locations that appeared in the opening credits of the show’s pilot episode, which was titled “Punky Finds a Home, Part I.” (Subsequent episodes featured a shortened version of the pilot’s opening, with only a few locations featured.) Thankfully, John, from the Silent Locations blog, was up to the task of helping me with this query and wound up tracking down almost all of the sites in one single day. Yay! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk them this past Saturday afternoon. (For those who have asked, the skirt I am wearing in the picture above is Humble Chic’s Carrie Skirt – LOVE the name!!! – which I paired with a shell from Zara.)

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Come to find out, the opening credits of Punky Brewster were shot almost in their entirety on the 600 block of Shatto Place, just west of MacArthur Park, near downtown Los Angeles, but it took a while before we realized that fact. John first figured out that the brick building that Henry walked by towards the beginning of the opening credits was the Pierre Crest Apartments at 673 Shatto Place, which he had recognized from their appearance in the 1926 silent film For Heaven’s Sake.

The Pierre Crest Apartments, which were once quite attractive, look a bit different – and a bit more run-down – today than they did in 1984 when the Punky Brewster opening credits were filmed.

After Henry walks by the Pierre Crest, he is shown crossing the street and then passing by an alleyway where a man is asleep on the sidewalk. On a hunch, I used Google Street View to see if that alleyway was actually located across the street from the Pierre Crest and, sure enough, it was – just north of the York Apartments at 688 Shatto Place.

Sadly, a fence has since been installed in front of the alley that partially blocks the view of it from the street and the building that was once located just north of it has also since been torn down. Otherwise though, the spot still looks pretty much exactly the same as it did in 1984. Even the cement curb that appeared in the Punky Brewster opening credits is still intact! Love it!

Had to do it! (For some odd reason, I thought that Henry had his hands behind his back in the scene.)

John next figured out that the red and white brick building that Punky was shown skipping in front of with her dog, Brandon, in the opening credits was actually the Modena Apartments at 661 Shatto Place.

That building, too, looks quite a bit different today. Such a shame that the gorgeous red brick was painted over!

Again, had to do it! (Notice in the screen capture and photograph pictured below that the sidewalk grate next to the tree still looks exactly as it did in 1984! Love it!)

I am pretty sure that the doorway/stairwell that Punky stopped in front of in the opening credits was the entrance to the Modena Apartments. As you can see below, the stair railing seems to match up, as does the brick outline of the entryway.

In a heartbreaking twist, Warnimont Studio, Henry’s photography studio – the locale that I most wanted to find – is no longer standing. The site was once located at 651 Shatto Place, on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard, but was torn down sometime in the early 2000s. Boo!

The credit for this find goes to John. While watching the Punky Brewster opening credits, I had spotted an address number of “651” painted on the door behind Henry. I emailed that information over to John, along with a screen capture, and he wrote back almost immediately with an address.

Because all of the other sites from the Punky Brewster opening credits were located on Shatto Place, John was fairly certain that Henry’s photo lab had to be there, as well. When he looked at a Google map of 651 Shatto Place, though, all that was visible was a vacant lot. Then, on a hunch, he searched through a Los Angeles phone directory from 1987 and saw that an actual photography studio named Haines Studio & Lab was listed as being located at 651 Shatto Place at the time. That listing is highlighted in pink below.

He also noticed that the phone number for the studio was listed as 383-1473. As you can see below, that very same number is visible – behind a fake phone number of 555-3709 that was installed for the filming – in the window of Henry’s store.

Further proving that Warnimont Studio was once located at 651 Shatto Place is the fact that listed next door to Haines Studio & Lab in the 1987 phone directory is Glenda’s Beauty Salon at 653 Shatto Place.

In Punky Brewster, a salon named Consuelo’s was shown to be located right next to Henry’s Studio. And listed next door to Glenda’s at 655 Shatto Place is Mini Market Deli, which seems to match the name on the awning of the store that appears next to Consuelo’s in the screen capture below.

A full view of the building that once housed Henry’s studio is pictured below, via the USC Digital Library. As you can see, it was quite a beautiful structure and I cannot for the life of me figure out why it would have been torn down.

Today, the site is a construction zone where I believe a condominium complex is being built.

Thanks to Robby Cress of the Dear Old Hollywood blog, we learned that the Warnimont Studio building was also featured in the 1978 comedy The Big Fix as the campaign headquarters of California gubernatorial candidate Miles Hawthorne (John Cunningham). In one scene, Henry’s studio site is clearly visible in the background behind private detective Moses Wine (Richard Dreyfuss) and his girlfriend, Lila Shay (Susan Anspach).

As you can see below, the arched doorway between storefronts also matches what appeared in Punky Brewster.

A fuller view of the building from The Big Fix is pictured below.

As is a view looking in the opposite direction, towards Wilshire Boulevard.

You can watch the opening credits from Punky Brewster’s pilot episode by clicking below.

In an odd twist, I just discovered today that one brief scene from the opening credits was, in fact, filmed in Chicago, where Punky Brewster was said to have taken place. As you can see below, in the scene in which Punky and Henry are shown entering (what I thought was a fake) Wrigley Field, a brick building is visible behind them. That same building (which houses a Starbucks!) is actually located across the street from the real Wrigley Field on West Addison Street in the Windy City.

John and I have yet to track down the grocery store that appeared in the opening credits and I am now wondering if it, too, is located in Chicago.

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 John, from the Silent Locations blog, for tracking down the majority of these locations. You can read his blog post on the Punky Brewster locales here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The opening credits from the pilot episode of Punky Brewster were filmed almost entirely on the 600 block of Shatto Place in Los Angeles. The brick building that Henry first walked by was the Pierre Crest Apartments at 673 Shatto Place; the alleyway where Henry stepped over the sleeping homeless man is just north of 688 Shatto Place; the building that Punky skipped by was the Modena Apartments at 661 Shatto Place; and the site of Henry’s photography studio, which has since been torn down, can be found at 651 Shatto Place.

August 13, 2013
Mr. Y’s Apartment from "Behind the Candelabra"

Back in June, while doing research on the house where Liberace (Michael Douglas) lived in Behind the Candelabra (which I blogged about here), I came across a fabulous production slideshow about the movie on HBO.com. The slideshow featured behind-the-scenes images of several of the locations used in the biopic and one – the mid-century modern-style apartment where drug dealer Mr. Y (Nicky Katt) lived – had me absolutely drooling.

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The caption included with the image of the apartment (which is pictured below) stated, “Shot on location in Burbank, this penthouse was owned by Elvis Presley’s hairdresser and had been abandoned for years. Biomorphic plaster wall treatment was original to the unit.” Well, believe you me, I could NOT take my eyes off of that unique “biomorphic plaster wall treatment” and became bound and determined to track the place down and stalk it.

So I did a Google search for “penthouse” and “Burbank” and the first result to come back was a January 2013 Los Angeles Times article about a 1970s-era building with a penthouse located at 600 East Olive Avenue that had just been sold for $15.6 million to the Champion Real Estate Company. Unfortunately though, no photographs of the actual penthouse unit were posted online, so I was unable to verify if it was right location. Then, on a hunch, I did a Google search for “Behind the Candelabra” and “600 East Olive Avenue” and, sure enough, found this July 2012 posting on fave website OnLocationVacations in which a commenter named Steve shared that the flick was filming at that address. Thank you, Steve! So I ran right out to stalk the building while I was in L.A. two weekends ago.

The 62-unit building, which was formerly named “Villa 600”, but is now known as “Villa Olivia Apartments”, was originally constructed in 1973 by Burbank-area architect August Bacchetta and was still owned by the Bacchetta family up until the recent sale.

According to the L.A. Times article, the penthouse (pictured below in a real estate listing photo) boasts a whopping 8,000 square feet of living space, as well as a rooftop patio and pool. It was originally constructed to be used as an owner’s unit and, as stated in this article, was lived in by members of the Bacchetta family up until two years prior to the sale – which leads me to believe that it was never actually occupied by Elvis’ hairdresser (a man named Larry Geller) unless the family leased it out to him at some point in time. (It was most definitely never owned by Geller, though, as was stated in the Behind the Candelabra production notes.) Of the complex, real estate agent Tyler Stevens says, “It reflects an era gone by when builders constructed apartment buildings with an owner unit, and this particular owner unit was highly unusual.” Um, you can say that again!

The penthouse’s rooftop patio, which is absolutely massive, is semi-visible in the photographs below.

Sadly, the Champion Real Estate Company began renovating the building immediately upon purchasing it and plans are currently in the works to subdivide the penthouse (which is denoted with a pink arrow below) into two apartment units, as well as a common-area screening room and gym. Boo! You can see a rendering of what the site is going to look like post-remodel here.

Mr. Y’s apartment only appeared twice in Behind the Candelabra, in two very brief scenes. It first showed up in the scene in which Scott Thorson (Matt Damon) dropped by Mr. Y’s to score drugs after realizing that his longtime lover, Liberace, was most likely going to break up with him in the very near future.

It next popped up in the scene in which Scott, who has just been unceremoniously dumped by Liberace, is shown watching the pianist’s performance at the 54th Annual Academy Awards on TV. Unbelievably, very little of that amazing biomorphic plaster wall was shown in either scene. (According to a 2013 The New York Times article, the Mr. Y character was based on Scott Thorson’s real life drug dealer Eddie Nash, a nightclub owner who is said to have ordered the so-called Wonderland Murders.)

According to a super-nice construction worker that we happened to speak with while we were stalking the place, the penthouse (pictured below in an aerial view) is actually in fabulous condition, despite being vacant for several years. So I am guessing that the stained rug that appeared in Behind the Candelabra was set decoration and not the unit’s actual carpeting. Don’t quote me on that, though.

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: Mr. Y’s apartment building from Behind the Candelabra is actually the Villa Olivia Apartments which are located at 600 East Olive Avenue in Burbank. You can visit the complex’s official website here.

August 9, 2013
Hotel Shangri-La from “The Bachelor”

This past Sunday morning (which was particularly cloudy, as you can see above), the Grim Cheaper and I headed out to Santa Monica to run a couple of errands and while there we happened to walk by the Hotel Shangri-La – a historic Art Deco masterpiece that I have wanted to stalk ever since early 2010 when it was featured in an episode of fave reality series The Bachelor. So the two of us decided to pop in to take some quick pictures – and we were not disappointed. Hotel Shangri-La is quite spectacular.

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The seven-story, reinforced concrete property, which was originally named the Shangri-La Apartment Hotel, was constructed beginning in 1939 at a cost of $400,000. The L-shaped site was designed by Beverly Hills-based architect William E. Foster and was owned by oilman Frank A. Gillespie. The structure, which at the time housed 61 individual apartment units, was the first Class A apartment building built in Los Angeles County following the stock market crash of 1929. Its doors were opened to the public on May 1, 1940. You can see a great photograph of the location from that time period here.

During World War II, the building, which is a Santa Monica Historic Landmark, was used as a rehabilitation center by the United States Army Air Forces.

In 1983, Hotel Shangri-La, which is of no relation to the Asian Shangri-La hotel chain, was purchased by an India-born real estate maven named Ahmad Adaya. The property is still owned by his family to this day.

According to the book Hollywood & the Best of Los Angeles Alive!, in 2002 the site was seriously lacking in amenities and, for whatever reason, did not feature a pool, a restaurant, a bar, room service, or valet parking. All of that has since changed, though, thanks to a $35 million renovation in 2008.

Today the Streamline Moderne-style property, which is currently owned and operated by Ahmad’s daughter, Tehmina Adaya, boasts 71 rooms and suites (almost all of which have views of the Pacific Ocean), an upscale restaurant named the Dining Room (where each entrée features ingredients from the famous Santa Monica Farmers Market), an open-air rooftop bar and lounge known as Suite 700 (which was voted one of L.A.’s top 5 rooftop bars in a 2013 The New Zealand Herald article), a pop-up spa known as the Sybaris Rejuvenation Lounge, custom-designed furniture, a solar-powered pool, valet parking, 24-hour in-room dining, and an indoor gym.

Hotel Shangri-La has been popular with the Hollywood set ever since its inception. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there over the years include Drew Barrymore, Cyndi Lauper, Diane Keaton, Bill Murray, Matthew Broderick, Bill Clinton, Madonna, Tom Cruise, John F. Kennedy, Jr., the Dalai Lama, Sean Penn, Rashida Jones, and Andy Samberg. Supposedly, even my girl Marilyn Monroe once spent some time there.

Thanks to its striking architecture, Hotel Shangri-La has been featured in numerous productions over the years. In the Season 14 episode of The Bachelor titled “Week 2”, Jake Pavelka hosted a group date at the Shangri-La where the female contestants took part in a rooftop photo shoot for InStyle magazine.

After the shoot, the group headed down to the pool area for the remainder of the date, during which Rozlyn Papa was given the coveted rose.

The Hotel Shangri-La rooftop was also featured in the music video for Randy Newman’s 1983 song “I Love L.A.”

You can watch that video by clicking below.

In 1992’s White Men Can’t Jump, Hotel Shangri-La was where Gloria Clemente (Rosie Perez) celebrated her Jeopardy! win with boyfriend Billy Hoyle (Woody Harrelson).

The interior of one of the suites was also featured in the movie.

In 1995’s The Net, the Shangri-La was where Dr. Alan Champion (Dennis Miller) got his former patient Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) a hotel room shortly after her identity was stolen.

I am fairly certain that one of the hotel’s actual rooms was used in the filming, although the Shangri-La rooms look significantly different since the remodel, as you can see here.

An exterior view of the hotel’s central stairwell was also shown.

Thanks to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, I learned that the hotel was where Valerie Malone (Tiffani Amber Thiessen) stayed in the Season 7 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Graduation Day: Part II”, which aired in 1997.

The interior of the Shangri-La was also shown in the episode. (Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for making the 90210 screen captures that appear here.)

Ella Simms (Katie Cassidy) and Jonah Miller (Michael Rady) walked by the Hotel Shangri-La after a business lunch with famed German film director Franz Keppler (Craig Robert Young) in the Season 1 episode of the new Melrose Place titled “Ocean.”

Channing Tatum did a photo shoot with Mario Testino at the hotel for the August 2009 issue of GQ Magazine, which you can see photographs of here. According to the book Hollywood & the Best of Los Angeles Alive!, the hotel was also featured in an episode of the 1992 television series Bodies of Evidence and the 1988 Bruce Weber documentary Let’s Get Lost, but I was unable to verify that information. And while Wikipedia states that the Shangri-La appeared in the 2004 rockumentary DiG!, I was unable to verify that information, either.

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: Hotel Shangri-La, from Jake Pavelka’s season of The Bachelor, is located at 1301 Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

August 7, 2013
The “Punky Brewster” Building

Back in early July, a fellow stalker named Charles posted a comment on my Challenge Lindsay page asking me to track down the building where Punky Brewster (Soleil Moon Frye) lived with her adoptive father, curmudgeon Henry Warnimont (George Gaynes), in the 1980s television series Punky Brewster. Now this stalker absolutely LOVED herself some Punky B! Like loved, loved, loved it! Yes, I wore different colored high-tops in the third and fourth grade. Yes, I donned a skate key around my neck. And yes, I had a Punky Brewster doll. Still do, in fact. It was one of my most prized possessions! So when I received Charles’ challenge I couldn’t help but wonder why I had never thought to track the place down myself! I immediately got on the case, though, and, thankfully, found the building quite quickly. Once I had the address, I was absolutely chomping at the bit to stalk it, but, unfortunately, had to wait until the Grim Cheaper and I were in L.A. this past weekend. Good things come to those who wait, though.

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I found this locale thanks to the fact that in the Season 1 opening credits of Punky Brewster an address number of 2520 was visible on the front door of the apartment building, as you can see below. And while the series was set in Chicago and Henry and Punky were said to live at 2520 Pierce Street in the Windy City (a location which doesn’t actually exist), I had a feeling that their building was actually located somewhere in Los Angeles, most likely in the downtown area. So I did a Google search for “2520”, “Los Angeles” and “apartments” and, sure enough, one of the results turned out to be Henry and Punky’s building! Yay!

I literally could NOT have been more excited to see the building in person, especially being that it still looks EXACTLY the same as it did in 1984 when it first appeared on Punky Brewster – in the pilot episode which was titled “Punky Finds a Home: Part 1.”

Even the “2520” address marker has not been altered since filming took place. LOVE IT!

As soon as we pulled up to the building, I couldn’t help but belt out the Punky Brewster theme song, much to the GC’s chagrin. (Actually he’s lucky I didn’t make him lie down in the street so that I could walk over him a la Henry in the opening credits. ;)) And yes, I still know the whole thing by heart. “Maybe the world is blind . . . or just a little unkind. Don’t know. Seems you can’t be sure . . . of anything anymore . . . although, you may be lonely and then, one day you’re smiling again. Every time I turn around . . . I see the girl who turns my world around, standing there . . . every time I turn around . . . her spirit’s lifting me right off the ground. What’s gonna be? Guess we’ll just wait and see.”

In real life, the building is named the Trebor Apartments and it was originally built in 1909.

In the opening scene of “Punky Finds a Home: Part 1”, Punky is shown putting her dog, Brandon, in a bag and pulling him up onto the apartment’s fire escape using a rope pulley.

And while I had assumed that the scene was most likely shot elsewhere – quite possibly on a studio lot – as it turns out, I was wrong. While I was stalking the place, I decided to venture around to the side of the building to see if there was a fire escape there. Sure enough, there was – and it still bears the same ornate ironwork that appeared in the episode, which I could NOT have been happier to see! (And believe me, if I could have figured out a way to get up on that fire escape to pose for a picture, I so would have! ;))

The interior of Henry and Punky’s building was, of course, just a set built on a soundstage – first at NBC Studios (now The Burbank Studios) in Burbank and then later at the now defunct Metromedia Square in Hollywood. (Metromedia Square, which later became Fox Television Center, was demolished in 2003 and is now the site of Helen Bernstein High School, aka William McKinley High School from Glee, which I blogged about here.)

The interior of Henry and Punky’s apartment was also just a set. LOVE the Michael Jackson poster in the second screen capture below. 🙂

You can watch the Punky Brewster opening theme, in which the Trebor Apartments are featured quite extensively, by clicking below.

Thanks to the Silent Locations blog, I also learned that the Trebor Apartments appeared briefly in the 1926 silent film The Strong Man, as the spot where ‘Lily’ of Broadway (Gertrude Astor) hailed a cab with Paul Bergot (Harry Langdon).

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 Charles for challenging me to find this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Punky Brewster apartment building is located at 2520 West 7th Street, just west of MacArthur Park, in Los Angeles.

July 30, 2013
Izzy’s Deli from “Curb Your Enthusiasm”

Because our flight home from Switzerland landed smack dab in the middle of rush hour on a Friday evening, the Grim Cheaper and I decided to book a hotel and spend the night near the airport rather than make what probably would have been a four-plus hour drive to Palm Springs. It turned out to be quite the fortuitous decision, too, because the following morning, on our way back to the desert, we randomly stopped for breakfast (after first grabbing a Starbucks, of course!) at a Santa Monica delicatessen named Izzy’s Deli. While I had passed by Izzy’s countless times over the years, for whatever reason, I had never ventured inside, so I just about fell over when I spotted the above sign while walking through the front doors. Um, Deli to the Stars? Count me in! I was even further surprised when, upon sitting down, I pulled out my trusty iPhone to do some research on the place and discovered that it is also a filming location! Score!

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Izzy’s Deli was originally founded in August 1973 (almost four full decades ago!) by two Brooklyn-ites, Izzy Freeman and Ernie Auerbach. Freeman first moved to Los Angeles in 1953 and had dreams of opening a New York-style delicatessen, like the ones he had dined at as a boy, in the area. While volunteering at City of Hope National Medical Center in 1972, Freeman met Auerbach, who by that time was a successful Santa Monica-based developer. Auerbach decided to help Freeman on his quest and Izzy’s Deli became a reality the following year.

Izzy’s Deli became an almost immediate hit, with lines of hungry patrons often stretching around the block. The eatery, which has won such awards as “Best Designed Restaurant” and “Best All Night Restaurant”, is, amazingly enough, still owned and operated by Freeman (who calls himself “the Deli Lama” – LOVE IT) and his family to this day.

Stars have long been drawn to Izzy’s and the restaurant even boasts a Celebrity Wall of Fame consisting of autographed headshots to prove it. Just a few of the luminaries who have been spotted there include Eugene Levy, Walter Matthau, Florence Henderson, Hal Linden, Rod Steiger, Shaquille O’Neal, and Bill Clinton.

And while our breakfast was great, it is really hard for me to judge a restaurant based on breakfast alone. (It is pretty difficult to mess up eggs!) I am jonesing to return for lunch, though, because the lunch menu looks uh-ma-zing! Fried chicken sliders? Yes, please!

Thanks to the Complex City Guide, I learned that Izzy’s Deli has appeared in no less than three episodes of the television series Curb Your Enthusiasm. In the Season 5 episode titled “The Ski Lift”, Izzy’s was where Larry David (who plays himself) met Ben Heineman (Stuart Pankin) for lunch after hitting – and denting – his car. As you can see below, the restaurant was dressed quite a bit for the filming and all of the celebrity headshots were removed from the walls for the shoot. Boo!

In the following episode, which was titled “The Korean Bookie”, Larry once again met Ben at Izzy’s, this time to confront him over the fact that Ben has failed to fix his car with the $1,500 Larry had given him.

In Season 7 episode titled “The Bare Midriff”, Izzy’s popped up once again as the restaurant where Larry ate lunch with Jerry Seinfeld (who also played himself).

For the filming of this episode, the restaurant’s décor – including the Celebrity Wall of Fame – was left intact.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Izzy’s Deli, from Curb Your Enthusiasm, is located at 1433 Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. The eatery is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

July 9, 2013
Frances’ House from “Behind the Candelabra”

One Behind the Candelabra location that I was not able to stalk two weekends ago was the palatial Palm Springs abode belonging to Frances Liberace (Debbie Reynolds), the flamboyant pianist’s overbearing mother, in the 2013 HBO biopic. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to do so this past Saturday morning. And, as it turns out, the residence has quite a fascinating history.

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The ornate Hollywood Regency-style dwelling was originally designed in 1962 by James McNaughton, a Palm Springs-area architect who initially got his start in set decoration. In fact, he has the distinction of being television’s first set designer. McNaughton won numerous awards during his stint in show business, including a Look Award, a Christopher Award, and a Peabody award, and he also received quite a few Emmy nominations. I am fairly certain that the residence was commissioned by George Randolph Hearst, Sr. (the eldest son of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst) and his wife, Rosalie. If the couple did not actually commission the property, they were at least its first owners.

After George’s passing in 1972, Rosalie held onto the residence. It was there that Patty Hearst, George and Rosalie’s niece, hid out in 1977 while on probation awaiting an appeal for her bank robbery conviction. In May 1991, Rosalie sold the house to Harvey and Lori Sarner for a whopping $1,650,000. The Sarners still own the property to this day.

The 7-bedroom, 4.75-bath, 7,557-square-foot house, which sits on a 0.62-acre plot of land, is quite eccentric. According to an August 2012 MyDesert.com article, the dwelling was so lavishly appointed in George and Rosalie’s day that it was known as “Little Hearst’s Castle.” From the looks of things, not much has changed since that time. The place actually has a very Liberace feel to it, ironically enough, and reminds me quite a bit of the pianist’s third desert home, which I blogged about here.

As you can see below, the entire property is surrounded by double-sided Greek goddess statues, which, according to the Radiant Writing blog, are holdouts from the George and Rosalie days. The Radiant Writing author describes the property, which she remembers from her childhood, as such, “This home was gaudy on a small scale and no doubt a son’s attempt at mimicking his father’s extravagant San Simeon Castle. All it looked like to me was a morgue. The home had lion statues guarding both sides of the front door and was surrounded by a wrought iron fence, reminiscent of the Haunted House at Disneyland. The most haunting thing about the always dark house was the presence of the Romanesque goddess bust type statues placed within 3 feet of each other along the scary fence. The goddess busts had 70’s style light globes on their heads.”

The Hearst house appeared once in Behind the Candelabra, in the scene in which Liberace (Michael Douglas) and his boyfriend, Scott Thorson (Matt Damon), visited Frances in Palm Springs and listened to her complain about being lonely. Only the property’s backyard was featured in the flick. As you can see in the screen capture below, the home’s pool area is very reminiscent of the iconic Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle in San Simeon.

Amazingly enough, Behind the Candelabra filming in Palm Springs took place in August, the city’s hottest month of the year, during which high temperatures average 107 degrees! Being that a one-minute segment can take hours upon hours to shoot, the cast and crew must have been absolutely miserable filming the scene in Frances’ backyard! I mean look at the clothes they are wearing! Ugh!

While stalking the house, I was floored to discover that the backyard is partially visible from a neighboring street.

On a Behind the Candelabra side-note – I did not even recognize Debbie Reynolds in the role of Frances Liberace and, in fact, had no idea it was her until after I had finished watching the movie and was researching its locations online. Talk about a fantastic make-up job!

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Frances’ house from Behind the Candelabra is located at 701 West Panorama Road in the Little Tuscany Estates area of Palm Springs. The backyard portion of the residence can be partially viewed from the intersection of West Vista Chino and North Via Monte Vista. The world famous Kauffman House (which I blogged about here) is located right around the corner at 470 West Vista Chino.

June 13, 2013