Blog

Salvation Mountain from “Into the Wild”

Desert X 2019 is finally up and running! For those who missed the 2017 iteration, the large-scale biennial exhibition features temporary art installations dotted throughout the Coachella Valley. This year even boasts a few works at the Salton Sea! Since the Grim Cheaper and I never miss an opportunity to visit the area, we headed right on out there with some friends last weekend to check the pieces out. And they did not disappoint! (You can see some photos of them here and here, as well as pics of those located in other parts of the desert here, here, here and here.) During our journey, we also made our regular pilgrimages to the North Shore Yacht Club, Bombay Beach, and Salvation Mountain. The latter, a colorful manmade bluff located in the CDP of Niland, I have visited copious times over the years (including in April 2015, when the above photo of my mom, my grandma and me was taken), but somehow failed to ever blog about it. And the time to change that is now!

[ad]

Salvation Mountain was the creation of Vermont native Leonard Knight who found his way to the desert in 1984 with the intention of constructing a monument to God’s love. He first settled in Arizona and got to work building a hot air balloon stitched with the words of the Sinner’s Prayer and a simple message spelled out in large red letters: God Is Love. But every attempt at flying it failed. Then, one fateful weekend, he headed to the Salton Sea with a friend. Immediately taken with the area, he soon returned, hot air balloon in hand, and settled upon a desolate 5-acre patch of dusty land to try to pilot it again. It was a lost cause, though. Leonard’s balloon would never take flight. Defeated, he switched gears and decided to instead erect a small temporary monument at the site before leaving town for good.

Leonard never left, though, and that small temporary tribute soon became a large mountain fashioned out of cement, sand, and discarded trash he acquired from the local dump. The mound was then painted over with colorful designs and the same messages and prayer that had been stitched onto the balloon. Unfortunately, the building materials proved too heavy, though, and within four years, the original Salvation Mountain toppled. You can see what it looked like before the collapse here and after here.

The failure did not deter Leonard and he soon began construction on another mountain, this one built of adobe and straw, as well as local junkyard trash, which proved much more sustainable. The mountain was then covered over, once again, in gallons upon gallons of paint, much of it donated. Knight constantly added to the structure, growing it and enhancing it and adding paint as needed. Maintaining the site became his full-time job.

During his almost thirty-year tenure, he lived in a small truck on the premises, sans running water, electricity or air conditioning, and used nearby hot springs to bathe. (I believe Leonard’s truck is the one pictured farthest away with the word “Bible” on the side in the photo below, though I haven’t been able to confirm that.)

As a plaque placed by the E Clampus Vitus organization at the base of the mountain explains, “Leonard found ‘religion’ mid-life; he found frustration as well. All religions were too complicated for Leonard. He saw it all very simply: repent to Jesus Christ and be forgiven of your sins. His struggle for a simple faith took him across the United States to end up here in Niland; he never left. For just under 30 years, without the benefits of electricity or running water, Leonard passionately labored daily to create a message for the world to hopefully see: “God Is Love.” Embarrassed to call himself an artist, Leonard perfected his artistic technique using only what was at hand, what he could scrounge at the local dump and what was donated by the faithful or the curious.” Salvation Mountain was definitely a labor of love.

In the late ’90s, Leonard built an annex to the mountain in the style of a traditional Navajo hut, aka a “Hogan,” using 9,000 bales of hay, more acquired trash, and tree limbs.

The exterior of the Hogan is unique in and of itself . . .

. . . but the cave-like interior is downright fascinating . . .

. . . especially the tree branch ceiling

I mean, come on!

And it is even more spellbinding from above!

Leonard also constructed “The Museum,” a small two-room alcove built into the side of Salvation Mountain, at around the same time,

Serving as an altar of sorts, visitors place notes, gifts and offerings in the tiny domed space.

Sadly, after years of suffering from dementia and diabetes complications, among other health issues, Leonard was moved into an assisted living facility in December 2011. He passed away there on February 10th, 2014.

His message lives on, though, thanks to legions of devotees who have taken on the job of maintaining and preserving Salvation Mountain.

Due to their efforts, the place is still welcoming visitors today – and is more popular than ever, largely thanks to Instagram.

Slightly reminiscent of Whoville, Salvation Mountain is a true work of art that has to be seen to be believed.

Though entirely over the top, at its core is a very simple message of love.

The Salvation Mountain experience is an interactive one – visitors are encouraged to explore, touch, and photograph.

There is even a pathway to climb to the top . . .

. . . as my mom, who is extremely afraid of heights, is pictured doing below.

Along with the colorful mountain, there is other unique scenery to enjoy.

Not surprisingly, Salvation Mountain has found its way to the screen, most notably in the 2007 biopic Into the Wild.

In the film, Tracy Tatro (Kristen Stewart) and Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch) get a tour of Salvation Mountain from none other than Leonard Knight himself.

In 1997, Huell Howser interviewed Leonard and toured the mountain in the Season 7 episode of California’s Gold titled “Slab City,” which you can watch here.

Howell returned in 2009 to interview Leonard for another episode of California’s Gold, Season 11’s “Desert Adventures,” which you can check out here.

Heidi Klum hosted a challenge at Salvation Mountain in 2013 for a Season 8 episode of Germany’s Next Topmodel.

That same year, the site popped up in Hurt’s “Somebody to Die For” music video.

Coldplay’s 2015 “Birds” video was partially shot at Salvation Mountain.

As was Kesha’s 2017 video for “Praying.”

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Salvation Mountain, from Into the Wild, is located at 603 Beal Road in Niland. You can visit the mountain’s official website here.

February 13, 2019
The Millennium Biltmore Hotel from “A Star Is Born”

It’s not everyday you’ll find photos of a public restroom on my site. It’s not everyday you’ll find me stalking one either. But a couple of years ago, the Grim Cheaper and I were granted an extensive private tour of the Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles that included a visit to the hotel’s Regency Room men’s lavatory. Our guide thought we would want to see the space thanks to a bit of cinema history that exists there. (More on that in a bit.) Flash forward to last week – while scanning through the 2018 A Star Is Born prior to writing my recent post on East Hollywood bar The Virgil, I was shocked to see the very same bathroom (well, the women’s version, at least) pop up in an opening scene and decided I just had to chronicle it here. When I sat down to write the post, though, I discovered that the entire Biltmore property – not just its bathroom – has ties to three of the A Star Is Born movies. So I figured a more all-encompassing article about the hotel was in order.

[ad]

The Biltmore’s Regency Room was originally part of the Sala De Oro ballroom, which was constructed during the hotel’s 1928 expansion. You can see what the stunning venue looked like in its early days here and in its current state below.

The grand space, surprisingly located on a sublevel of the hotel, ran 140 feet long and 107 feet wide and boasted three open stories, an insane vaulted ceiling, a large mezzanine, box seating for 46 groups, a stage (built on hydraulics that allowed it to be raised and lowered), a dance floor, a check room with a capacity for 100 guests, and its own kitchen. So stunning was the massive hall that it was chosen as the site of eight different Academy Awards ceremonies.

In 1934, management decided to change things up by turning the ballroom into a hopping nightclub named the “Biltmore Bowl.” Architect Wayne McAllister, who also gave us Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank, was brought in to revamp the room. And revamp it he did. He moved the stage, making it the central focal point, and also, oddly, split the venue into two levels, a two-story upper floor and a single-story lower floor. You can see what the upper level looked like during its heyday here and here.

Sadly, the nightclub was gutted by a fire in the 1950s and subsequently renovated, at which time the grand ceiling and elegant stage were removed. But the split levels remained, with the top floor becoming a ballroom that retained the Biltmore Bowl name and the sub-level becoming an exhibit hall initially dubbed the “Rex Room” and later the “Regency Room.” The gilded, gated entrance to both spaces is pictured below.

The Biltmore Bowl underwent a re-do again in 2001, during which the venue’s tiered seating was removed and its decorative aesthetic shifted to match that of the rest of the hotel.

The Regency Room, which is largely unchanged from its 1950’s post-fire state, is much less opulent than its upstairs neighbor, as you can see below.

In fact, the only ornamentation the space really has is some decorative grillwork, which is leftover from its days as part of the Sala De Oro ballroom.

The ornate ceiling in the Regency Room’s foyer is also original to the Sala De Oro.

Today, the Regency Room boasts 17,000 square feet of space – and a set of famous bathrooms.

At the beginning of A Star Is Born, Ally (Lady Gaga) breaks up with her boyfriend via phone from a stall in the Regency Room women’s bathroom, which is said to be the restroom of the hotel kitchen where she works.

Though I did not see the women’s bathroom during my tour, I was shown the very similar-looking men’s room.

It was there that Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) and his pals tied up and threatened Police Commissioner Jacobs (Pat McNamara) in the 1999 drama Fight Club.

Our tour guide highlighted the space not only because of its onscreen cameo, but also because of some damage that occurred during the shoot, which she figured I would be fascinated by. And I was! Apparently, while Pitt and McNamara were filming the fight scene, the base of one of the pedestal sinks was splintered. For whatever reason, the chip was never filled in and the sink currently remains in its post-Fight-Club state, a little piece of filming ephemera left behind for the ages.

You can see said chip in the images above and below, as well as what an intact sink base looks like directly next to it.

The Biltmore’s 25,000-square-foot basement kitchen, which I did not get to stalk during my tour, makes a couple of appearances as Ally’s workplace in A Star Is Born, as well.

That very same kitchen also appeared as the kitchen of a Radisson hotel in East Lansing, Michigan in the Season 4 episode of The West Wing titled “College Kids,” which aired in 2002.

It can also be seen in the Season 4 episode of Bosch titled “Rojo Profundo,” which aired in 2018. As I said in my recent post on the hotel’s South Galleria, every single area of the Biltmore has been utilized in multiple major productions!

The hotel’s loading dock, which leads directly down to the Biltmore Bowl and Regency Room, also pops up a couple of times in A Star Is Born – first in the scene in which Ally leaves work to head to her gig at Bleu Bleu and then later when she and Ramon (Anthony Ramos) get picked up by Jackson Maine’s (Bradley Cooper) driver to go to one of his shows.

The loading dock pops up in the “College Kids” episode of The West Wing, as well.

As I mentioned earlier, the Biltmore had ties to A Star Is Born long before the latest version was filmed. In the 1937 original, Vicki Lester (Janet Gaynor) and Norman Maine (Fredric March) attend an Academy Awards ceremony at what is said to be the Biltmore Bowl.

I am unsure if filming actually took place in the ballroom or on a studio-built set, though.

My hunch is that a set was utilized being that not much of what was shown onscreen matches early photographs of the Bowl. The wide shot of the room featured in the movie (pictured below) also looks to me like a matte painting of some sort.

I can say with certainty that the Biltmore Bowl was the site of the Grammy Awards in the 1976 version of A Star Is Born. You can see some behind-the-scenes photos of the segment being shot here.

Esther Hoffman (Barbra Streisand) and John Norman Howard (Kris Kristofferson) even head up the escalators situated adjacent to the South Galleria in the scene. It is on the escalator landing that Howard punches a paparazzi.

The Biltmore Bowl is also the site of the Leadership in Journalism Awards gala in the Season 1 episode of The Morning Show titled “A Seat at the Table,” which aired in November 2019.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles, from A Star Is Born, is located at 506 South Grand Avenue in downtown L.A. You can visit the property’s official website here. The Regency Room and its bathrooms are situated underneath the Biltmore Bowl on the south side of the hotel and can be reached via the South Galleria. The kitchen from the film is also located in the basement of the hotel. Unfortunately, neither area is open to the public. The loading dock can be found just south of Coffee on Grand at 530 South Grand Avenue.

February 11, 2019
The Virgil from “A Star Is Born”

I got a text from my friend Liz the other day saying, “Don’t see A Star Is Born . . . OMG!” followed by a bunch of crying face emojis. As Liz and most of my fellow stalkers are well aware, I do not like sad or depressing movies – at all. Liz needn’t have worried. While I have never watched any of the A Star Is Born iterations, I am familiar enough with the storyline to know that they are just not my cup of tea. My friend Lavonna is on the other end of the spectrum, though. She saw the latest installment as soon as it came out, became absolutely obsessed, and, during a recent visit to L.A., stalked a bunch of its locations, including The Virgil, which masked as Bleu Bleu in an opening scene. As fate would have it, upon arriving at the East Hollywood bar, she stumbled upon some crew members from Glow striking set pieces from a shoot that had been done on the premises the day prior. Lavonna struck up a conversation with one them who invited her inside to take a closer look and snap pictures. Figuring it would make for a good blog post, she forwarded the photos on to me. And while I still have yet to see A Star Is Born, thanks to Vudu, where it is available for streaming, I was able to scan through the beginning to familiarize myself with it a bit in preparation for this write-up.

[ad]

The Virgil was originally established in June 2012 by nightlife impresarios Louie and Netty Ryan, of Temple Bar Concepts, who also founded Townhouse/The Del Monte in Venice and Santa Monica’s famed Temple Bar (which is now closed), among a slew of others.

The lounge, known for its specialty craft cocktails, occupies a space on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and North Virgil Avenue that formerly housed Little Temple, another of the Ryans’ watering holes which opened in mid-2004. Prior to that, the site was the longtime home of The Garage, a rock club owned by Steve Edelson.

Comprised of two spacious areas, the “Stage” room and the “B Side” (the latter of which Lavonna did not get any photos of, but you can see what it looks like here), The Virgil has a distinctly bohemian vibe . . .

. . . with some Moroccan elements thrown in.

With curtains flanking wide openings . . .

. . . and unique carvings adoring various doorways, The Virgil looks like a really cool place to hang out.

In A Star Is Born, Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) pops by “Bleu Bleu” to get a drink while on his way home from a performance. The exterior of the bar is only shown briefly in the segment.

Though, as Lavonna informed me, the billboard out front does provide some foreshadowing of the movie’s ending. (And she wonders why I’m resisting watching it! Yeah, that’s gonna be a hard ‘no’ from me!)

It is at The Virgil that Jack first lays eyes on Ally (Lady Gaga) as she spectacularly performs “La Vie en Rose.”

Due to low lighting and rather tight camera angles, not much of the bar can be seen in the movie. We do get a better glimpse of it later in the scene, when Jack is invited to perform onstage while he waits for Ally after Bleu Bleu has closed for the evening. Despite some major set dressing that was added for the shoot (which, per Vulture, took two days to complete), the place is still definitely recognizable from its appearance.

I am unsure if the Bleu Bleu dressing room segments were shot at The Virgil, as well, but I am guessing that they were.

The Virgil is also featured twice in the Season 1 episode of Strange Angel titled “The Sage,” which aired in 2018. The B Side area first pops up as the bar where Jack Parsons (Jack Reynor) laments to his friend Ernest Donovan (Rupert Friend) about not being allowed in to an important business function.

The Stage room then masks as the gentleman’s club that Jack and Ernest visit later in the episode.

As I mentioned earlier, Glow also did some filming at The Virgil, so be sure to look for it in an upcoming episode of the third season.

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

Big THANK YOU to my friend Lavonna for stalking this location for me!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Virgil, aka Bleu Bleu from A Star Is Born, is located at 4519 Santa Monica Boulevard in East Hollywood. You can visit the bar’s official website here.

February 6, 2019
The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites from “True Lies”

There is no shortage of unique architecture in Southern California. The Bradbury Building, LADWP, and the 8500 apartment complex all immediately come to mind as highly individualistic spots. One structure stands heads and shoulders above the rest, though, as being extra extraordinary – The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in downtown Los Angeles. If you’ve ever found yourself on the 110 Freeway, you are sure to have spotted its futuristic edifice gracing the skyline. It’s been called “the world’s largest cappuccino machine,” “a bronzed grain elevator,” and “Camelot in glass” (all per a 1976 Baltimore Sun article that is not available to link to online). Regardless of one’s feelings about the aesthetic of the massive towered building, its Hollywood allure can’t be argued. Location managers have flocked to it like a beacon since its inception. I happened to pop into the exceptional hotel last month and when my eyes landed upon the fountain Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) famously rode a horse through in True Lies, I realized that, although I wrote a brief post on the place back in 2008, it was definitely time for a redux.

[ad]

The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, originally known simply as the Los Angeles Bonaventure, was constructed from 1974 to 1976 at a cost of $110 million. Designed by architect John C. Portman Jr., at the time it was the most expensive lodging ever built and the city’s largest. It still holds that latter distinction today.

The 367-foot-tall Postmodern structure, which consists of 5 mirrored cylindrical towers flanked by 12 glass elevators, makes for a strikingly unique vision along the downtown horizon.

Housing 35 floors, the goliath hotel boasts a lobby with a 6-story atrium and a rambling indoor fountain so large it is often referred to as a “lake.”

The Bonaventure also features 1,358 rooms, 135 suites, an outdoor pool, a gym, 155,000 square feet of meeting and event space, and a plethora of restaurants and watering holes including the famed BonaVista Lounge, a revolving bar situated on the 34th floor.

There’s even a mall on the premises with more than 40 stores and a food court!

The Grim Cheaper and I have checked into the Bonaventure several times over the years and have always enjoyed our stay. The rooms are small, but well-appointed and modern . . .

. . . and boast views for days!

And days!

To say that the Bonaventure is unique would be an understatement.

With its cement-clad interior, the hotel is almost post-apocalyptic in its minimalism and starkness . . .

. . . and I mean that in the best way possible.

Though no longer the case, the Bonaventure formerly boasted a highly unusual open-air gym on its third floor with pod-like overhangs holding exercise machinery cantilevered over the lobby below . . .

. . . each of which branched off a small indoor track, as you can see in the images above and below that the GC and I snapped during a 2005 visit.

The exercise equipment has long since been removed and today the former gym area remains eerily vacant.

The place even has a few ties to true crime! On October 7th, 1979, a North Hollywood couple was shot, killed and dismembered in one of the Bonaventure’s rooms (their bodies were later removed via trash bags!) thanks to a drug deal gone wrong. And it was there that John DeLorean was videotaped agreeing to smuggle cocaine as part of an FBI sting operation on September 28th, 1982, which is rather ironic being that a few years prior the hotel was used as a futuristic backdrop in an ad for the businessman’s infamous DMC-12 car.

Though management likely doesn’t relish those moments in the hotel’s past, great pride is taken in its cinematic history. Not only is the hallway leading from the parking garage to the lobby lined with posters from the various productions lensed on the premises . . .

. . . but the elevators that have cameoed onscreen are outfitted with plaques denoting their respective résumés. (Oddly, the In the Line of Fire placard pictured below boasts some erroneous info. The action hit was released on July 8th, 1993, so there is no way that any filming of it took place on the Bonaventure grounds in September of that year, a full two months later!)

A poster noting the hotel’s use in Interstellar was even on display in the lobby the last time we checked in.

The Bonaventure has been featured in so many productions over the years, it would be impossible for me to chronicle them all here.

But I’ve corralled a list of some of my favorites.

As I mentioned earlier, the Bonaventure most famously figures in a climatic action sequence in the 1994 hit True Lies in which Harry Tasker, on horseback, chases a motorcycle-riding Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik) through the hotel’s lobby . . .

. . . into one of its elevators . . .

. . . and onto the roof, which he subsequently almost falls from.

The BonaVista Lounge masked as the restaurant Above the Top in the 1980s sitcom It’s a Living. Though all actual filming took place on a soundstage, the hotel was featured regularly in establishing shots as well as in the weekly opening credits.

The BonaVista Lounge is also where David Addison Jr. (Bruce Willis) ambushed Maddie Hayes’ (Cybill Shepherd) date in the pilot episode of Moonlighting, which aired in 1985.

MacGyver (Richard Dean Anderson) lands on top of the Bonaventure via helicopter at the beginning of the Season 1 episode of MacGyver titled “Deathlock,” which aired in 1986. (The chopper apparently experienced dangerous “ground resonance” during the filming, as detailed here.)

Dr. Bruner (Gerald R. Molen) attempts to buy off Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) while walking around the Bonaventure’s pool in the 1988 drama Rain Man.

The following year, Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) got into a car crash in front of the hotel while chasing a suspect in Lethal Weapon 2.

Mason Storm (Steven Seagal) is ambushed at the Bonaventure in 1990’s Hard to Kill.

It is at the hotel that Mitch Leary (John Malkovich) sets up his plot to assassinate the President (Jim Curley) in 1993’s In the Line of Fire.

Many areas of the property appeared in the thriller, but I am unsure if the California Ballroom is where the actual assassination attempt took place as has been asserted on a few websites. That particular venue looks considerably smaller than the one featured, as you can see in these photos as compared to the screen captures below.

The Bonaventure also prominently appears in the 1995 thriller Nick of Time as the spot where accountant Gene Watson (Johnny Depp) is sent to kill Governor Eleanor S. Grant (Marsha Mason).

Dr. Eugene Sands (David Duchovny) visits the Bonaventure to perform surgery on a gunshot victim in the 1997 thriller Playing God.

Usher made great use of the place in his 2002 “U Don’t Have to Call” music video.

In 2005, the outside of the Bonaventure was utilized in exterior shots of the hotel where Roberts (Michael Kenneth Williams) met with Carter (Paul Ben-Victor) in the Season 4 episode of Alias titled “Another Mister Sloane.” The property’s elevators also appeared in the episode, but all other interior filming took place at The L.A. Grand Hotel Downtown, which I blogged about here.

The hotel portrays a top secret NASA facility in the 2014 sci-fi drama Interstellar.

That same year, the outside of the Bonaventure popped up as the Manhattan hotel where David Clarke (James Tupper) stayed in the Season 4 episode of Revenge titled “Repercussions.” As was the case with Alias, interiors were filmed at The L.A. Grand Hotel Downtown.

In the Season 4 episode of Bosch titled “Dreams of Bunker Hill,’” which aired in 2018, Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) and Honey Chandler (Mimi Rogers) visit Michael Harris (Keston John) who is sequestered at the Bonaventure.

The hotel is also said to have been featured in Forget Paris, but I scanned through the 1995 romance and didn’t see it anywhere.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites. from True Lies, is located at 404 South Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the property’s official website here.

February 4, 2019
A Visit to My Grandma’s

I am currently in Reno visiting my Grandma for a couple of days, so I will be taking the rest of the week off from blogging. But I will be back on Monday with a whole new post! Hope my fellow stalkers have a great week!

January 30, 2019
The Millennium Biltmore Hotel’s South Galleria from “The West Wing”

The Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles is a rare bird when it comes to filming locations in that virtually every square inch of it has appeared onscreen – and I’m talking in multiple major productions! This factoid fascinates me and I thought it would be fun to cover in an in-depth article, so a few years back I pitched the idea to my editor at Discover L.A. who told me to run with it. Though I chronicled ten areas of the vast hotel in the column, which was published in 2016, due to length concerns there were a few spots I had to leave out including the South Galleria, an ornate hallway that was most famously featured in Pretty in Pink. I had planned on writing about the beautiful space on my own site as a follow-up to the article shortly thereafter, but never got around to it. Then, last week, while watching an early episode of The West Wing (which the Grim Cheaper and I just started binging and are absolutely obsessed with!), I spotted the Galleria and decided it was high time I finally dedicate a post to it.

[ad]

The South Galleria, which is situated along the southwest edge of the Biltmore, connects the hotel’s South Grand Street entrance to its Main Galleria and provides access to the Heinsbergen Room, the Regency Room, and the Biltmore Bowl.

The gilded hallway, inspired by the opulent Roman villas of ancient Pompeii, boasts an intricate Beaux Arts-style vaulted ceiling featuring bucolic frescoes hand-painted by muralist Giovanni Smeraldi.

The dramatic space is also flanked by elaborate friezes, carved columns, and sweeping archways.

The gilded gates situated on its south side . . .

. . . lead to an equally grand stairwell that heads down to the Biltmore Bowl and the Regency Room.

Being that the South Galleria is situated in a tucked away area on the side of the hotel, it would, sadly, be quite easy for visitors and guests to spend ample time at the Biltmore and not even realize the impressive space exists. If you happen to find yourself on the premises, do not make that mistake. The striking hallway is not to be missed!

In the Season 1 episode of The West Wing titled “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet,” which aired in 2000, the South Galleria portrays Washington D.C.’s Old Executive Office Building (now known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building), where President Jed Bartlet’s (Martin Sheen) speech to the United Organization of Trout Fishermen is moved at the last minute due to some unforeseen rain.

Producers cheated a bit with the locale in the scene by shooting from both ends of the Galleria in order to make it appear as two different hallways that the President has to walk down on the way to deliver his speech. The West Wing does love a good lengthy walk-and-talk segment!

John Norman Howard (Kris Kristofferson) gets into a fight with the paparazzi during the Grammy Awards at the top of the staircase/escalator leading down to the Biltmore Bowl in the 1976 version of A Star Is Born.

In the 1986 classic Pretty in Pink, Andie (Molly Ringwald) trepidatiously ventures alone down the South Galleria on her way to her Senior Prom (which was held in the Biltmore’s famed Crystal Ballroom) . . .

. . . only to find her BFF Duckie (Jon Cryer) waiting for her at the other end.

Though Richard Alleman asserts in his book New York: The Movie Lover’s Guide that “James Caan, as the novelist in Steven King’s Misery (1990), celebrated his latest best seller” at Tavern on the Green, I discovered that information was incorrect while doing research for my June 2018 post about the famed NYC eatery. In actuality, at the end of the film, Caan’s character, Paul Sheldon, shares a celebratory lunch with his agent, Marcia Sindell (Lauren Bacall), at none other than the South Galleria, which was dressed to look like an upscale Big Apple restaurant.

The South Galleria also posed as a restaurant in Atlas Shrugged: Part I. In the 2011 drama, it served as the spot where Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling) confronted Francisco D’Anconia (Jsu Garcia) about his shady copper mine investments.

But the South Galleria’s noted onscreen appearances don’t end there! The space also pops up as a Beirut hotel hallway in the Season 7 episode of The Mentalist titled “Orange Blossom Ice Cream,” which aired in 2014.

And Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) and Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) have a terse conversation in the South Galleria during an awards ceremony in the Season 1 episode of The Morning Show titled “A Seat at the Table,” which aired in November 2019.

Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) is also shown walking down the Biltmore Bowl staircase on her way to the ceremony in that same episode.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles is located at 506 South Grand Avenue in downtown L.A. You can visit the property’s official website here. The South Galleria, from the “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet” episode of The West Wing, can be reached via the hotel entrance situated just north of and adjacent to Coffee on Grand at 530 South Grand Avenue.

January 28, 2019
The Firehouse Restaurant from “Speed”

Pop quiz, hotshot! You’re hanging around Venice Beach, in dire need of a latte, and you happen to pass by The Firehouse Restaurant from the 1994 action hit Speed. What do you do? What do you do? Why, you head in for some stalking and a cup of joe, of course! I’m really reaching into my reserves with this particular post because I actually visited the landmark café waaaay back in September 2009 (I wasn’t even married yet!) and then somehow promptly forgot about it until doing some research on the Venice area last week. It was such an ancient stalk, in fact, that I had to practically do an archeological dig through the Grim Cheaper’s computer to find the photos I took there. Talk about delving into the archives!

[ad]

As the name suggests, the Firehouse is situated inside of an actual former fire station located on the corner of Main Street and Rose Avenue, just a few short blocks from the beach. Known as the Ocean Park Firehouse, it served as the home of Engine Co. #62 from the time it was built in either 1902, 1904, 1907 or 1909, depending on which report you happen to be reading, until it was decommissioned in the ‘50s. You can see what it looked like when it was still in operation here and here.

The building housed several different entities in the years that followed including an antique store, an art studio and a lingerie shop. Finally, in 1986, it was taken over by Leiko Hamada and transformed into The Firehouse Restaurant. With its hearty breakfasts, the site initially catered to the body builders who worked out in the sand at nearby Muscle Beach, but soon became popular with locals and tourists alike. It remains a neighborhood favorite today, more than thirty years after opening.

The Firehouse pops up briefly at the beginning of Speed as the spot where Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) picks up a morning coffee moments before being unexpectedly looped into a deadly game with Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper).

Though some changes have been made to the interior in the 25 years since filming took place, the restaurant is largely recognizable from its cameo. (Love, love, love the ladder hanging from the ceiling above the counter.) And yes, I realize that my photos are almost ten years old, but per images featured on Yelp, not much has been altered since my visit.

It is directly kitty-corner from The Firehouse, in front of LADOT Parking Lot 740, that the bus explodes in the scene.

And it is directly across from the explosion site that Jack receives the ominous call from Howard alerting him that there is a second bomb on a different city bus.

The payphones featured in the scene were not real, but set pieces placed pretty much exactly where the bus stop is situated today.

Fellow stalker/Emergency! expert Richard Yokley (you may remember him from this post and this post) informed me that Wick Lobo (cutie Christian Kane) and his team also popped by The Firehouse in the Season 1 episode of Rescue 77 titled “Remember Me: Part 1,” which aired in 1999.

The GC and I didn’t eat at The Firehouse that day in 2009 – I made like Keanu Reeves and just grabbed a coffee – so I can’t really attest to the quality of the food, but the place is adorable and I highly recommend stopping by for a visit.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Firehouse Restaurant, from Speed, is located at 213 Rose Avenue in Venice. You can visit the eatery’s official website here. In the movie, the bus explodes kitty-corner from The Firehouse, on Main Street just south of Rose Avenue in front of LADOT Parking Lot 740. The payphones were set up directly across the street from the parking lot on the opposite side of Main in the area where the bus stop now stands.

January 23, 2019
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day

When initially writing out “Martin Luther King Jr.” in the above title, I made a mistake, spelling his last name “Kind” instead of “King.” Talk about an apropos typo! Today, as we celebrate the birth of the great leader, whose example of compassion and love has proved everlasting, let’s remember to be kind to one another in honor and recognition of all that he gave us.

I’ll see you back here Wednesday with a whole new locale.

January 21, 2019
Jerry’s Condo from “Jerry Maguire”

Location hunts can take some strange, circuitous paths. Case in point – during my laborious, years-long search for the condo where Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) lived in the 1996 classic of the same name, I headed down a fairly deep rabbit hole in an attempt to identify the onetime beach home of actress Suzanne Somers and her husband, Alan Hamel. What in the heck do Somers, Hamel and their former beach house have to do with Jerry Maguire? Let me explain.

[ad]

My quest to find Jerry’s condo actually began many moons ago, around the time I first met Mike, from MovieShotsLA. During one of our initial stalking outings, Mike mentioned that he had worked in Marina Del Rey for years and would often walk by a house on the Strand that had a unique rock sculpture displayed on its beach side. Upon seeing Jerry Maguire years later, he noticed a rock sculpture visible outside of Jerry’s windows and knew it was the same one he had regularly passed. Unfortunately though, other than it being on the Strand in MDR, he could not remember exactly where it was located. As soon as I got home that day, I spent more than a few hours searching the area’s coastline. Being that the exterior of Jerry’s place was never actually shown in the film, I had my work cut out for me and came up empty. Figuring the rock statue had long since been removed, I abandoned any hope of ever pinpointing the site. Then, in 2016, while on a Jerry Maguire kick, I sat down to watch the video commentary featured on the film’s Special Edition DVD and just about fell over when Renée Zellweger mentioned that Suzanne Somers lived next door to the location used as Jerry condo’s. Hope restored, I began hunting for the Somers/Hamel residence, which both Zellweger and Cuba Gooding Jr. said was in Manhattan Beach and which I figured would be a snap to find.

A Google search led me to a 1999 Los Angeles Times article chronicling the sale of the Three’s Company actress’ longtime Marina Del Rey home, which was described as a “beachfront townhouse” with three levels, three bedrooms, a rooftop sundeck, and 3,500 square feet. According to the blurb, Somers and Hamel had owned the pad since 1977. While the Marina Del Rey part did not gibe with Renée and Cuba’s recollections, it did gibe with Mike’s, so I figured I was on the right track. Hope was soon dashed, though, when I came across a 1982 People feature that catalogued all of the Hamel/Somers’ homes, noting that their coastal property was “a seven-level beach-fronter” in the “expensive section of Venice.” Though I knew that one of the articles had to be incorrect in its reporting, I couldn’t find an address for the couple in either MDR or Venice, nor could I find a seven-level property anywhere along the Speedway! The hunt for their pad was proving just as difficult as the search for Jerry’s! So I reversed course and sat down to scour the entire coastline from Venice down to Manhattan Beach. Using Google Street View (which amazingly chronicles the beach side of the Strand!) and some serious elbow grease, I finally came across the infamous rock sculpture outside of the property located at 3811 Ocean Front Walk in Marina Del Rey. Eureka!

I promptly did an internet search of the address to see what else I could dig up on the locale and was flummoxed when the first result kicked back was a 2015 real estate listing with this sentence in the description, “Residence offers Hollywood pedigree, as it was the home of Jerry Maguire in the popular movie of the same name.” Face palm! Had I just simply Googled “Jerry Maguire” and “Marina Del Rey” upon revisiting my quest for the house, I would have saved myself a lot of time! Ah, well. I ran out to stalk the place just a few days later and was saddened to see that the rock statue that had figured so much in the hunt was no longer in place.

I’m assuming the sculpture was removed when the place sold in 2015 (for a cool $2,754,000, mind you!) because it was still on display in the MLS photos.

As was depicted in Jerry Maguire, 3811 Ocean Front Walk houses condos in real life – two condos to be exact. Unit 1, a one-story space, is situated on the lower level and Unit 2, a two-story spread, comprises the second and third floors. It was the lower level unit that was utilized in the film.

The site pops up several times in the movie. Though the master bedroom was not utilized (Jerry’s bedroom was a set built on Stage 21 at Sony Pictures Studio), the rest of the condo’s interior was used prominently in the film.

Areas of the pad that appeared onscreen include the kitchen;

the living room;

the dining room, which served as Jerry’s home office;

and the media room. (Notice that the shutters and shelving visible behind Kelly Preston below are identical to those pictured in the listing photo! I think the couch might actually be the same, too!)

One room in the condo was also apparently utilized as the office of Cardinals General Manager Dennis Wilburn (Glenn Frey) in the movie, but I was unable to find anything that resembled it in the listing photos.

In real life, Unit 1 features 2 en-suite bedrooms, 3 baths, 2,368 square feet, a private beachfront terrace, a fireplace, an open kitchen, a media room, flagstone flooring throughout, and granite countertops. Or, at least, it did.

Sadly, as you can see in recent Google Street Views and in this image, the second and third floors appear to be undergoing massive renovations.

It is heartbreaking that the locale remained virtually frozen in time from its onscreen stint all the way up until its recent sale, only to then be completely gutted. What a shame.

For those wondering, I did end up finding Suzanne Somers’ home, but not until I sat down to write this post. Once I finally pinpointed Jerry’s condo, I was so excited, I completely forgot to see if the Hamel/Somers residence was actually located next door. As Zellweger noted, though, it does indeed neighbor Jerry’s place at 3819 Ocean Front Walk! I wound up identifying it thanks to a set of photos published on Alamy of a fire that took place at the property in 2009 which ran with captions stating the locale was once owned by Somers.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Jerry’s condo from Jerry Maguire is located at 3811 Ocean Front Walk #1 in Marina Del Rey. Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel’s longtime former home is right next door at 3819 Ocean Front Walk.

January 18, 2019
Kabuki Japanese Restaurant from “Clueless”

OK so I’m totally buggin’! I just found out that Paramount Pictures is in talks to reboot Clueless! This may be way harsh, but all I have to say regarding the news is ‘Whatever!’ The 1995 classic is absolute perfection AS IS and should NOT be touched! Hearing about the project did remind me of several locales from the flick that I stalked long ago, but have yet to blog about, namely Kabuki Japanese Restaurant in Burbank, aka the former Crocodile Cafe, where Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) lunched with her Beverly Hills besties Dionne (Stacey Dash) and Tai (Brittany Murphy). I had been on the lookout for the eatery for ages – pretty much since starting my blog back in 2007. It was not until 8 years later, on June 4th, 2015, that a reader named Jasmine finally solved the mystery when, in response to another reader asking about the restaurant in the comments section of my post on the Horowitz house from the movie, said, “It used to be Crocodile Cafe in Burbank on San Fernando and Orange Grove. But now it’s a Kabuki. I have no idea how I figured this out but I’m pretty sure that’s exactly where it was. The booth they sat at is right behind the hostess/cashier. I sound so stalkerish right now it’s ridiculous.” Jasmine’s comment was quite stalkerish, but in the best way possible! One look at images of the place online told me she was right. I could not have been more thrilled and ran out to stalk Kabuki just a few days later with my friend Kate who was in town visiting from Kentucky. Very shortly after that, author Jen Chaney released her fabulous book As If!: The Oral History of Clueless as told by Amy Heckerling and the Cast and Crew which confirmed Crocodile Cafe’s appearance in the film on page 126.

[ad]

The former Crocodile Cafe actually pops up twice in Clueless – first very briefly in the opening “So, OK, you’re probably going ‘Is this, like, a Noxzema commercial or what?’” montage.

It then later appears in the scene in which Cher and Dionne take Tai out for a “calorie fest” to cheer her up after she finds out that snob-and-a-half Elton (Jeremy Sisto) isn’t into her.

Upon walking into the restaurant, I was thrilled to see that despite the changeover from Crocodile Cafe to Kabuki, it was entirely recognizable from its big screen cameo. Unfortunately, someone happened to be sitting in the exact booth utilized during filming, so I couldn’t snap any photos of it, but as you can see in the image below as compared to the screen capture, the booths remain very much the same today as they appeared in Clueless. The cushioning has been swapped out and glass partitions have since been added, but other than that, they are untouched.

The front door and hostess area also largely look the same.

Crocodile Cafe’s bar, which was visible in both Clueless scenes, was apparently gutted when Kabuki took over.

The area where it used to be located is pictured below. Thankfully, the frosted glass blocks formerly situated behind the bar are still intact, as are the wood columns that frame them.

It is not hard to see why the restaurant was chosen for the movie. With its bright pink and green color scheme and 90s-modern vibe, the place fit in perfectly with the splashy, over-the-top visual aesthetic that made up Cher’s world. Interestingly, Crocodile Cafe was not producers’ first choice, though. Per As If!, “Originally the Clueless crew was hoping to shoot the restaurant sequences at California Pizza Kitchen. But once the CPK people saw the final script, and saw how much breadstick-penis talk goes on between Cher, Dionne and Tai, they said no. Says producer Adam Schroeder: ‘I think the whole idea of talking about boy parts in CPK, that made them uncomfortable.” The default location turned out to be ideal, though.

Of Crocodile Cafe’s unique décor, Los Angeles Times writer Max Jacobson had this to say in a 1997 article, “It’s a breezy place with an open kitchen tiled in a pattern that looks like a multicolored snake. The dining room–all brick walls, high ceiling and a gallery’s worth of modern art–is narrow and noisy.” I believe the open kitchen Jacobson mentions (or at least a portion of it), which was not shown in Clueless, serves as the restaurant’s sushi counter today.

The Burbank Crocodile Cafe outpost opened its doors in July 1994, so it was new when Clueless filmed on the premises. (Though I am unsure of the exact day the scenes were lensed, the movie was shot from November 21st, 1994 through February 7th, 1995.) The eatery was the fifth in the CC chain, which was founded in Pasadena in 1987 by restauranteur Gregg Smith as a sort of casual version of his upscale and highly popular bistro Parkway Grill. I was unable to dig up the year the eatery closed, but, per a newspaper ad I came across, the shuttering took place between May 2002 and July 2005, at which time Kabuki Japanese Restaurant was already in operation. Oh, how I wish I could have seen the Croc when it was still open in all of its bright green and pink glory!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Jasmine for finding this location!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Kabuki Japanese Restaurant, aka the former Crocodile Cafe from Clueless, is located at 201 North San Fernando Boulevard in Burbank. You can visit the eatery’s official website here. The Downtown Christmas Shopping District from “The Voice of Christmas” episode of The Brady Bunch is located a little over a block away at 100 South San Fernando.

January 16, 2019