Arnold Schwarzenegger – IAMNOTASTALKER

April 5, 2012April 4, 2012

The Historic Mayfair Hotel from “The Office”

Fellow stalker John Bengtson, from the SIlent Locations blog, sent me an email last week after reading my post on Red Studios Hollywood from The Artist (a location that I had learned about from his website) informing me that he had tracked down some locales from Season 7’s “The Search” episode of The Office that I might be interested in stalking, most notably The Historic Mayfair Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles where Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and Holly Flax (Amy Ryan) shared a rooftop kiss. Ironically enough, my good friend, fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, had also sent me this location on February 4th of last year, the day after the episode had originally aired, along with a list of all of the other places featured in “The Search”. And while I did stalk a few of them – Kung Pao China Bistro and Larry’s Chili Dog – for whatever reason, I never made it out to The Mayfair. So, this past weekend, I decided to change that and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there. (I am not sure what happened with the above photograph, but somehow it turned out a bit wonky and neither the GC nor I realized it at the time.)

The Historic Mayfair Hotel was originally designed in 1927 by Alexander E. Curlett and Claud W. Beelman, the same architecture team who gave us the Park Plaza Hotel near MacArthur Park (an extremely popular filming location that I have stalked, but have yet to blog about), the Cooper Arms condominium building in Long Beach, and the Los Angeles Board of Trade Building in Downtown L.A. The 13-story hotel, which at the time was named simply The Mayfair, was commissioned by Texas oil tycoons and was constructed at a cost of $1.5 million – and we’re talking 1920’s dollars! In its heyday, the luxury property hosted such luminaries as Mary Pickford and John Barrymore. Raymond Chandler even wrote and set his 1939 short story “I’ll Be Waiting” at The Mayfair, although he dubbed the place the “Windermere Hotel” in the tale.

The property, which originally boasted 350 rooms, but now has just 304, was the largest hotel west of the Mississippi at one time and featured an immensely popular supper and dance club known as the Rainbow Isle Room, from which George Eckhardts, Jr. and the Rainbow Isle Orchestra would broadcast a live radio show each night. In 2004, after suffering from a long period of neglect, the structure underwent a massive and much-needed $40 million renovation, at which point it was renamed The Historic Mayfair Hotel. You can check out some great photographs of the place during its early days on The Mayfair’s Facebook page here.

[ad]

In “The Search” episode of The Office, after being stranded at a supposed Scranton, Pennsylvania-area gas station, Michael Scott goes on a walkabout which ends on the rooftop of The Historic Mayfair Hotel. When Holly finds him there and Michael tells her how much he has missed her, the two finally kiss, ending several years worth of will-they-or-won’t-they-get-together storylines and allowing audiences to finally breath a long-overdue sigh of relief. Not surprisingly, the roof area of The Mayfair is closed to the public, so I was unable to snap any pictures of it.

Mike, from MovieShotsLA, figured out that The Mayfair stood in for the supposed Chicago, Illinois-area The Addison Hotel where Beth Cappadora (Michelle Pfeiffer) attended her 15-year high school reunion in 1999’s The Deep End of the Ocean.

It was from the lobby of The Mayfair that Beth’s 3-year-old son, Ben Cappadora (Michael McElroy), was kidnapped.

As you can see above, despite the renovation, the lobby still looks very much the same today as it did back in 1998 when The Deep End of the Ocean was filmed.

The super-nice front desk clerk that we spoke with while we were there informed us that both the interior and the exterior of the property had also appeared in 1994’s True Lies, as the supposed Washington, D.C.-area Washington Mayfair Hotel where Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger), on horseback, chased motor-cycle-riding religious zealot Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik) through a lobby.

The Mayfair lobby was actually one of three different lobbies used in that particular scene. Harry is first shown chasing Salim across the length of The Mayfair’s lobby.

The two then turn a corner and are magically transported to the now-defunct The Ambassador hotel, the same lobby of which was used as the Regent Beverly Wilshire in 1990’s Pretty Woman.

The duo then heads outside, “across the street” and into The Westin Bonaventure Hotel. In reality, when the Ambassador was still standing, it was located a good two miles away from The Bonaventure. Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

Thanks to the Richard Dean Anderson Website, I learned that The Historic Mayfair Hotel was also used in the 1986 Season 1 episode of MacGyver titled “The Assassin”.

I am fairly certain that only the exterior of the property appeared in the episode, though, and that all of the interior hotel scenes were filmed on a set. And while IMDB states that The Mayfair was also featured in 2009’s Don’t Look Up, I scanned through the flick yesterday while doing research for this post and did not see it pop up anywhere.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers John Bengtson, from the SIlent Locations blog, and Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for telling me about this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for informing me of its appearance in The Deep End of the Ocean! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Historic Mayfair Hotel, from “The Search” episode of The Office, is located at 1256 West 7th Street in Downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

June 17, 2011June 17, 2011

Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston’s Honeymoon Suite at the Ingleside Inn

As I mentioned in Monday’s post, I spent my recent birthday weekend in Room 148 of the Ingleside Inn in Palm Springs – the very room where Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston stayed during their mini-honeymoon shortly following their July 29th, 2000 wedding. I first found out about the Ingleside Inn back in April of 2009 thanks to this Jetsetters Magazine article and, as you can imagine, just about died upon hearing that my girl Jen had honeymooned there. Then, shortly thereafter, the Grim Cheaper ended up proposing to me at the Ingleside, so the hotel has always had a very special place in my heart. During that proposal weekend, I, of course, just had to ask Melvyn Haber, the Ingleside’s longtime owner, what room it was that Brad and Jen had stayed in. Before I could even get the question fully out of my mouth, he replied, “Room 148, the Princess Room.” And that right there is just one of the many reason that I fell in love with the hotel! Almost a full decade later, Melvyn STILL knew the exact room where Brad and Jen had stayed right off the top of his head!

Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago. My dad called me up to let me know that he had booked Brad and Jen’s honeymoon suite as a surprise for my upcoming birthday. (He had to tell me about his plans a few weeks early as the GC and I had been thinking about spending my birthday at Disneyland and were thisclose to booking a hotel room there.) I happened to be driving at the time and got so excited upon hearing his news that I literally almost crashed the car! For those who have never visited the Palm Springs area, it gets EXTREMELY hot there during the summer months – we are talking like 115 to 120 degrees hot – so hotels drastically drop their rates from early June through the end of August. Because of this, and the fact that the Ingleside inn is not overly-expensive to begin with, my dad was able to get Brad and Jen’s room for only $200 per night! My birthday just so happened to fall on my mom’s very last day of work ever (she retired this year), so he also booked a suite at the hotel for them, and talked the GC into booking a second night in Brad and Jen’s room so that we could all spend the weekend together. Now mind you, my dad was extremely sick during this time and was in and out of the hospital, so how he managed to come up with such an incredible idea AND do all of the planning without me or my mom’s help – not to mention that he also purchased some FABULOUS gifts for the two of us – is absolutely BEYOND me!! It was one of the best, most exciting weekends of my entire life and I cannot believe he pulled it all off while feeling so incredibly sick! Best. Present. Ever.

When we first arrived at the Ingleside Inn and were checking in at the front desk, I saw the above-pictured “Happy Birthday Lindsay” message displayed on the marquee in the front lobby and just about fell over. So incredibly cool!! The lobby sign is very typical of the personal touches that the Ingleside Inn employs in order to make guests feel at home. Love it!

After checking in, we were handed the above-pictured room key. As you can see, the Ingleside Inn still uses actual brass room keys, not the keycards that are typically found in hotels today. So, as you can imagine, as soon as those keys were handed over, I turned to the GC and said, “OH MY GOD! Jennifer Aniston once held this key in her hand!” Granted, the key quite possibly could have been swapped out for a new one in the decade that has passed since Jen stayed at the Ingleside, but just let me have my fantasy! Winking smile

[ad]

I covered the Ingleside Inn’s vast history in the post I wrote about the hotel back in May of 2009, so I won’t go over it again here. But needless to say, the tiny, 30-room inn, which sits on just over 2.5 acres of land, has had quite a celebrated history since it was first founded in 1939. Thanks to its extreme privacy and award-winning service, celebrities have long been drawn to the place like moths to a flame. Just a few of the luminaries who have stayed there over the years include Frank Sinatra, Kate Hudson, Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds, Lance Bass, Donald Trump, Marla Maples, Ava Gardner, Clark Gable, Marlon Brando, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Bob Hope, John Travolta, David Boreanaz, Joan Collins, Cher, Howard Hughes, and Rita Hayworth. The Ingleside is by no means fancy or extravagant, though. It is a very simple, low-key retreat where people go to truly get away from it all. The Inn is not a party hotel, it is not a place for families, and it is not modern in any way, shape, or form. It is an extremely quiet, private, and relaxing sanctuary; the type of place where an A-List star can lay out by the pool and not worry about being approached by a fan or fellow guest.

Brad and Jen’s honeymoon suite features a wood-burning fireplace, a sitting area, a king-sized bed, two picture windows, and a plasma TV, and while it is extremely nice, it is not overly-luxurious or the type of place one would expect one of the most famous couples in the world to have spent their honeymoon. And that right there is why I LOVE Jen so much! Of course she would choose a simple, laid-back, low-key space to spend her first few days of married life. And while Brad and Jen’s room is a suite, it is by no means the Ingleside’s largest. There are two others that are far bigger than the Princess Room, which led me to wonder how the couple ending up choosing it for their honeymoon.

Besides the fact that Jen has always been a fan of small spaces (the bungalow she rented in Malibu post-divorce measured a scant 1,531 square feet, the home on Blue Jay Way where she lived during the height of her Friends’ success measured only 2,903 square feet, and she is currently selling her 9,105-square-foot Beverly Hills manse as it is reportedly too large for her), as it turns out, the Princess Room is by far the hotel’s most private and secluded suite. It is located towards the very back of the property, far away from the pool and the award-winning Melvyn’s restaurant, but close to the back parking area, which means that Brad and Jen could have parked their car and been inside of their room less than ten steps later. As you can see above, there is also a gate surrounding that particular wing of the hotel, which consists of three rooms, and the actual suite itself is bordered by a large stucco wall.

The Princess Room is one of the few at the hotel that also boasts a completely private patio area, which I absolutely fell in love with while there.

As you can imagine, pretty much all weekend I was saying things like “I just took a shower where Jennifer Aniston once showered!” or “Jennifer Aniston sat on this couch!” or, my personal favorite, “Jennifer Aniston slept here!” My head was literally about to explode the entire time I was there! And poor, poor fellow stalker Owen! I must have sent him about 100 text messages, all saying things like, “I just washed my face where Jennifer Aniston once washed her face!” Smile

My parents stayed in Room 145, aka “Margaret’s Room”, which according to one of the super-nice front desk clerks that we spoke with while there, was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver’s favorite suites. The former Governator and his soon-to-be ex-wife stayed at the hotel on an almost monthly basis at one point in time.

My parents’ room boasted a HUMONGOUS semi-private patio (semi-private as it has an opening on the backside that is accessible to the public) that was honestly bigger than most backyards!

All in all, it was an A-MA-ZING weekend and, as you can see above, I was BEYOND sad to check out of what the GC and I had dubbed “our perfect little room”.

Ingleside Inn–Brad and Jen’s honeymoon hotel

You can watch a video about the Ingleside Inn, in which owner Melvyn Haber is interviewed, by clicking above.

Ingleside Inn Palm Springs

And you can watch another video, which shows the Inn’s beautiful grounds, by clicking above.

On a stalking side-note – This Sunday (June 19th), stalking gods Harry Medved and Karie Bible will be signing copies of their new book Location Filming in Los Angeles at Vroman’s Bookstore, which is located at 695 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. They will also be conducting a walking tour of some famous Pasadena movie sites, including locations from Knocked Up, The Prestige, Live Free and Die Hard, and Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator immediately following the signing at 4 p.m.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Ingleside Inn is located at 200 West Ramon Road in Palm Springs. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston spent their honeymoon in the hotel’s Princess Room, aka Room 148. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver frequently stayed in Margaret’s Room, aka Room 145. You can visit the Ingleside Inn’s official website here.

January 28, 2011January 27, 2011

The “Crossroads” Gas Station

One location that I was absolutely dying to stalk while visiting Palmdale last week was the supposed Texas-area gas station where Lucy Wagner (aka Miss Britney Spears) stole the keys to Ben’s (aka Anson Mount’s) Buick Skylark convertible in the 2002 movie Crossroads. I had known from watching the flick’s DVD commentary with director Tamra Davis and writer Shonda Rhimes that the gas station scene was filmed somewhere in the Palmdale/Lancaster area, but unfortunately its exact location was not specified. So, the night before my dad and I were set to head out that way, I got to work looking at aerial views of what I thought was every single gas station located within the Palmdale/Lancaster city limits. Unfortunately though, I came up completely empty-handed. So, imagine my surprise the following morning when I spotted what I was fairly certain was the Crossroads station while driving to the famed Four Aces movie set. I just about had a heart attack, slammed on my brakes, did a U-turn in the middle of the street, and headed right on back to the station to get a closer look.

[ad]

And, as it turns out, my instincts were right! The Super Store 6, as it is called in real life, was in fact the gas station from Crossroads! So, I immediately headed right on inside to speak with the owner who truly could NOT have been nicer. She told me that Britney had been very friendly and down-to-earth during the filming and that it had been a fairly low-key shoot. The owner also informed me that her station had appeared in both ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’” music video and the final scene from the original Terminator movie. Unfortunately though, the gas station has been completely remodeled since that time and looks quite a bit different today than it did in the early 1980’s when those productions were filmed.

Thankfully though, Crossroads was filmed after the remodel took place, so it still looks very much the same in person as it did onscreen. In what turned out to be one of my very favorite scenes from the movie, Lucy, Ben, and their friends Mimi (aka Taryn Manning) and Kit (aka Zoe Saldana), stop by the station to fill up their car with gas while making their way from Louisiana to California. After grabbing a snack in the station’s mini-mart, Lucy, Mimi, and Kit discover that Ben has fallen asleep in the backseat of his car and, even though they have been warned that they are not allowed to touch the car under any circumstances, they decide to steal his keys and drive to their next destination themselves.

Mimi nominates Lucy to steal the car keys from Ben’s pocket because, as she says, “Well, Kit and I voted and you lost!” (LOVE IT!) So, Lucy snatches the keys and the girls drive off into the sunset.

But not before snapping the above photograph of themselves which I think is just about the cutest thing ever. I love, love, love that famous cross-eyed, tongue-out Britney face . . .

. . . which she later duplicated in her Super Bowl commercial for Pepsi Cola, but I digress.

In Crossroads, Ben’s Buick is parked at the station’s southeastern-most pump, in the spot where I am standing in the above photograph. Because there was a large truck parked right near the pump, though, my dad had to take the picture from the opposite direction from which the camera was facing in the movie.

In the very final scene of The Terminator, Sarah Connor (aka Linda Hamilton) stops by the Super Store 6 to fill her tank with gas and winds up having her photograph taken by a young boy. I am fairly certain that the station was never actually colored pink and green in real life, but that producers had it painted solely for the filming of the movie and then painted it back to its original color when the production was wrapped. Because the gas station is supposed to be located somewhere in the Mexican desert in the flick, producers also added quite a bit of set dressing, including Spanish signs, piñatas, and souvenirs, making the place look quite a bit different than it actually appeared at the time.

ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’” music video takes place almost in its entirety at the Crossroads/Terminator gas station.

In the video, the woman in red parks her car in the exact same spot that Sarah Connor parked her Jeep in The Terminator, but the camera is facing in the opposite direction in the video than it was in the movie so the view is a bit different.

But, as you can see in the above screen captures, the square-shaped bars that cover the mini-mart’s windows . . .

. . . and the roofline and roof shape from the “Gimme All Your Lovin’” video exactly match that which appeared in The Terminator.

“Gimme All Your Lovin’” Music Video at Palmdale Gas Station

You can watch the “Gimme All Your Lovin’” music video by clicking above.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Super Store 6, aka the gas station from Crossroads, the final scene in the first Terminator movie, and ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’” music video, is located at 37202 90th Street East, at the corner of 90th Street East and Avenue S, in Palmdale. Some maps also list the gas station as being located in the town of Littlerock. In Crossroads, Ben’s car was parked at the pump located in the northeast corner of the station, in the area denoted with a pink “X” in the above aerial view. At the end of The Terminator, Sarah Connor was parked in front of the station’s western-most pump, in the area denoted with a blue “X” in the above aerial view. ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’” music video was filmed in the exact same spot that was used in The Terminator.

November 22, 2010November 21, 2010

The Parking Garage from “Twins”

Last weekend, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the city of Glendale to do some stalking of the historic Alex Theatre, where the cast of Glee was recently spotted doing some filming for this year’s “Sectionals” episode which is set to air on December 7th. After finishing up at the theatre (which I will be blogging about after the episode of Glee premieres), we headed a few blocks up the street to stalk the parking garage where Al Greco (aka a very young David Caruso) worked in the 1988 movie Twins. And I have to say that in all of my years of stalking, this one was actually a first for me because, while I’ve stalked a parking lot before, never in my life have I actually stalked a garage. And while it might seem a bit odd to all of my fellow stalkers out there that I would even want to stalk a parking structure in the first place, my reason for doing so was two-fold. First, the garage was a fairly prominent location in Twins and quite a few segments were filmed there, but more importantly it was where all of my man David Caruso’s scenes were filmed, and because the actor has got to be THE nicest celebrity that I’ve ever met in my entire life, I was dying to stalk the place where he filmed one of his very first movies. I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, who actually tracked the place down for fellow stalker Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, who had been searching for it for quite some time. So, thank you, Gary!

In Twins, Vincent Benedict (aka Danny DeVito) frequents the supposed airport parking garage where his buddy Al works in order to steal high end cars which he then subsequently sells on the black market. Towards the beginning of the movie, Vincent inadvertently makes off with a Cadillac carrying a very valuable stolen fuel injector prototype that he then decides to deliver to an industrialist in Houston who has offered to pay him $5,000,000 for it. The movie’s storyline takes off from there.

And I am very happy to report that the parking garage looks EXACTLY the same today as it did 22 years ago when Twins was filmed. I guess if I were to think about it, though, how much could a parking garage really change over the years, even in more than two decades time, but I was still pleasantly surprised and grateful, nonetheless.

The guard shack is the only part of the structure that has been altered since filming took place back in 1988. At the time of the filming, it was located outside of the garage, but it has since been moved a few feet backwards.

[ad]

Big THANK YOU to Gary, from Seeing Stars, for finding this location and to fellow stalker Chas from ItsFilmedThere who asked for his help in doing so! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The parking garage from Twins is located at 127 Burchett Street, off of North Brand Boulevard in between Goode and Arden Avenues, in Glendale. The area used in the movie is denoted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view.

October 22, 2010October 21, 2010

The Old Zoo In Griffith Park

Just around the corner from the Griffith Park Merry Go Round, which I blogged about yesterday, is the location of the park’s former zoo – an abandoned site which is commonly referred to as the Old Zoo or the Old Zoo Picnic Grounds. I first found out about this location from favorite stalking tome Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors and was shocked to discover that in the almost decade that I’ve lived in Southern California and in all of the stalking that I have done during that time period, I had never before even heard the place mentioned. As “Javier J.” commented in his Yelp review of the Old Zoo, “It’s one of the biggest in-plain-sight secrets of Old Los Angeles”. So incredibly true! After stalking it a couple of weeks back, I couldn’t help but wonder why more about the landmark location has not been written. It is a truly AMAZING place!

[ad]

The Old Zoo property was first built almost a century ago in 1912 and continued to operate until 1965, when a new zoo attraction was opened in another area of Griffith Park, about two miles north of its predecessor. Thankfully, but for reasons I am not entirely sure of, the city had enough foresight to keep the former property intact for the future citizens of L.A. to enjoy and explore. The Old Zoo site, which had been completely renovated and expanded in the mid-1930s, is an absolutely AMAZING piece of L.A. history and is comprised of such structures as animal enclosures;

aviaries and monkey habitats;

rows of cages of all different shapes and sizes;

and a house-like structure of some sort . . .

. . . all of which are (unbelievably) open and accessible to the public.

I was absolutely shocked upon our arrival to discover that there were no fences or gates barring access to the former enclosures and cages. Guests are pretty much given a free pass to wander around and explore the entire property, including the insides and employee-access areas of the former bear habitats. SO incredibly cool!

The website WebUrbanist recently named the Old Zoo one of its Seven Most Amazing American Abandonments and I have to say that I completely agree with that sentiment. While stepping inside one of the old abandoned cages, I turned to my husband and said, “How lucky are we to live in a city that has stuff like this?” It still boggles my mind – and I often have to pinch myself to actually believe it – that we live in such an amazing place! Each week we get to go on these incredible stalking adventures during which we discover countless hidden and historic gems located throughout the city. Los Angeles seems to be an unending treasure trove of unique and historically significant locations and I still can’t believe that I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to explore them all. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I SO HEART L.A.! 🙂

And the Old Zoo is, of course, a filming location! It stood in for the Central Park Zoo in the 1996 movie Eraser in the scene in which Lee Cullen (aka Vanessa Williams) and U.S. Marshal John Kruger (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger) face off against U.S. Marshal Robert Deguerin (aka James Caan).

The zoo was redressed significantly for the shoot in order to make it appear as if it was an actual working zoo. Fake entrance gates, resembling those of the real Central Park Zoo in New York, were added to the property for the filming . . .

. . . as was a large indoor exhibit. According to the Hollywood Escapes book, Eraser director Chuck Russell said of the site, “The whole complex is a fun bit of L.A. history. The Old Zoo’s barred cages supplied a nice retro touch. More importantly, the area’s grassy field was big enough for us to land a helicopter, fire weapons, and crash vehicles through our prop gates, activities we were not allowed to do in New York.”

In the 2004 flick Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, the Old Zoo stood in for the San Diego Zoo where Lee Wong, the Panda, gave birth.

The big bear tank that Veronica Corningstone (aka Christina Applegate) and Ron Burgundy (aka Will Ferrell) fell into is not there in real life. It was in actuality just a set that was built solely for the filming.

The Old Zoo was also featured in the Season 2 episode of CSI: New York titled “Zoo York”. (I blogged about this same episode yesterday, as it was also filmed at the nearby Griffith Park Merry Go Round). In the episode, the property stood in for the Central Park Zoo where a dead body is found in one of the tiger cages.

The Old Zoo also appeared in the movies Human Nature, Crazy Mama, and The Star.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Old Zoo is located inside of Griffith Park, just northwest of the Merry Go Round which I blogged about yesterday. It is a bit tricky to find, but the best way to get there is to take Los Feliz Boulevard to Crystal Springs Drive and head north. Make a left onto Fire Road and bypass the first parking lot that you come to (denoted with the blue arrow in the above map). Keep driving until you reach “Merry Go Round Parking Lot #2”, which is denoted with the pink arrow in the above aerial view. Walk due west from that lot and follow the signs to the Old Zoo Picnic Grounds.

September 14, 2010September 14, 2010

Griffith Observatory

A couple of months ago I dragged my parents and my then-fiancé/now husband out to Los Feliz to do some stalking of the Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park – a place which I had never before visited despite having lived in Los Angeles for over a decade. I had actually wanted to stalk the Observatory for close to 18 years – ever since November of 1992, to be exact – thanks to the fact that it was featured in a Season 3 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210. But more on that later.

The land that now encompasses Griffith Park was donated to the City of Los Angeles by Welsh industrialist Colonel Griffith J. Griffith (and no, that was not a typo – the guy’s first name was actually the same as his last!) on December 16, 1896. Griffith stipulated that the donated parcel of land, which measured 3,015 acres, was to be used as a public park. He said, “It must be made a place of rest and relaxation for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people. I consider it my obligation to make Los Angeles a happy, cleaner, and finer city. I wish to pay my debt of duty in this way to the community in which I have prospered.” When Griffith passed away 26 years later, in 1919, he bequeathed the majority of his $1.5 million estate to the city for the purposes of building a theatre and an observatory inside of the park. Construction on the observatory, which was designed by architect John C. Austin and engineer Russell W. Porter, began on June 20th, 1933 and the building opened to the public just under two years later, on May 14, 1935.

The Griffith Observatory, which sits high atop Mount Hollywood, features a 300-seat state-of-the-art planetarium, a 2,700-square foot multimedia theatre, a Zeiss refracting telescope, an exhibit hall, and, as you can see above, views which are nothing short of incredible.

Hollywood location scouts took notice of the property right from the very beginning when it was chosen to appear in the 1935 movie The Phantom Empire shortly after its opening. Since that time, the Observatory has been featured in hundreds upon hundreds of productions – far too many for me to be able to properly catalog here, but I’ll do my best to give my fellow stalkers a broad overview.

[ad]

As I mentioned above, the Observatory was featured in a Season 3 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. That episode was titled “Rebel With A Cause” and it was, ironically enough, one of my least favorite episodes in the entire history of the series. The episode centers around the break-up of longtime couple Dylan McKay (aka Luke Perry) and Brenda Walsh (aka my girl Shannen Doherty), immediately after which Dylan puts the moves on Brenda’s best friend Kelly Taylor (aka Jennie Garth). Mind you, Dylan and Kelly had also been seeing each other behind Brenda’s back for an entire summer at that point in the series. Dylan then decides to take Kelly out on a date – just two nights after his break-up with Brenda! – and when Brenda randomly catches the two of them together in a restaurant, she calls Kelly a “bimbo” and Kelly actually has the nerve to be mad at Brenda. I mean, HELLO, Kelly! Not only did you spend an entire summer making out with your BEST FRIEND’S boyfriend, but when said best friend and said boyfriend break-up, it’s not 48 hours later that you are out on a date with him. With friends like that, who needs enemies?? Let me tell you, had that happened to me, I would have been calling Kelly a whole lot worse things than “bimbo”. And yes, I realize Beverly Hills, 90210 is just a television show and that the “Rebel With A Cause” episode aired almost two decades ago, but the whole thing still seriously upsets me! But I digress. Anyway, in the episode, before taking her out to dinner, Dylan brings Kelly to the Griffith Observatory, where they watch a show in the planetarium.

After the show, the two little home-wreckers head outside for a heart-to-heart chat and, even though I was strongly opposed to the whole Kelly/Dylan romance, for whatever reason, it was the location of that chat that I was most interested in stalking.

I had a very difficult time locating the wall where Dylan and Kelly sat, though, as it is not in an easily-visible part of the building. It actually wasn’t until we were heading back to our car that I finally spotted the right place.

As it turns out, Kelly and Dylan’s wall is located in the eastern-most section of the Observatory. It is actually the wall to a ramp which leads to the back of the building and is located on the left-hand side of the Observatory (as you are facing it) and is denoted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view.

ScreenShot5422

The Observatory’s most famous onscreen appearance was, of course, in the 1955 James Dean classic Rebel Without a Cause, which, amazingly enough, I have never actually seen! In the beginning of the flick, Jim (aka James Dean) and Judy (aka Natalie Wood), along with the rest of their high school class, go on a field trip to the Observatory where they watch a show in the planetarium.

And the very same wall from 90210 also appears in that scene.

Rebel’s final scene also takes place at the Observatory, but I do not want to post any screen caps of that scene as they would spoil the ending.

There is a statue of James Dean on display on the Observatory’s front lawn which commemorates the historic filming that took place there in 1955. So darn cool!

Griffith Observatory was also the site of the climatic scene in 1999’s hilarious comedy Bowfinger, in which renegade, wanna-be movie director Bowfinger (aka Steve Martin) and his ragamuffin film crew secretly tape Daisy (aka Heather Graham) and Kit Ramsey (aka Eddie Murphy) fighting off a fictitious band of aliens.

In the first Transformers movie, Mikaela Banes (aka Megan Fox) and Sam Witwicky (aka Shia LaBeouf) are at the Observatory when they witness a group of Transformers crash landing on earth in the form of meteorites.

In The Terminator, the Observatory is the spot where the Terminator (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger) first emerges from a time warp and begins his mission to kill Sarah Conner (aka Linda Hamilton).

In 2008’s Yes Man, the Observatory is the location of Allison’s (aka Zooey Deschanel’s) weekly jogging/photo class, during which Carl (aka Jim Carrey) crashes after drinking waaaaaaay too many Red Bull energy drinks.

It is also where Carl professes his love to Allison at the very end of the movie.

And it is during that ending scene that Carl and Allison run right by the exact spot where Beverly Hills, 90210 was filmed 16 years beforehand. 🙂

The scene in which Natalie Cook (aka Cameron Diaz), Dylan Sanders (aka Drew Barrymore) and Alex Munday (aka Lucy Liu) discover that Madison Lee (aka Demi Moore) is actually a fallen angel in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle takes place at the Observatory.

The observatory was also featured in the music video for Paula Abdul’s hit single “Rush Rush”, which was an homage to the movie Rebel Without a Cause.

You can watch the full video, which starred Keanu Reeves, by clicking above.

Griffith Observatory has also appeared in the movies Dragnet, Devil in a Blue Dress, The Rocketeer, House on Haunted Hill, Nancy Drew, and Earth Girls are Easy, and in episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles, 24, Star Trek Voyager, Alias, MacGyver, Melrose Place, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Colbys.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Griffith Observatory is located at 2800 East Observatory Road, inside of Griffith Park, in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. You can visit the observatory’s official website here. Admission is free. The observatory is closed to the public on Mondays and Tuesdays.

May 21, 2010May 21, 2010

The “FlashForward” FBI Headquarters Building

I was thoroughly disappointed to learn about the cancellation of the ABC television series FlashForward earlier this week, as the show was one of my favorites of the 2009 Fall Season. What makes the cancellation most heartbreaking, though, for me at least, is the fact that because the season finale was filmed long before the series was canceled, producers did not get a chance to wrap-up the show’s central mystery. I am afraid that unless a different network purchases FlashForward (which does happen on occasion), its fans will not be offered any sort of ending, resolution, or closure. Not only will it remain a mystery as to what exactly caused the two minute and seventeen second worldwide blackout, but we will also never know how the lives of the main characters turn out. UGH! So annoying! Anyway, a few weeks back, long before I left for Minnesota, I dragged my fiancé out to Downtown L.A. to stalk the John Ferraro building, which is used as the FBI Headquarters building each week on FlashForward. Oddly enough, even though the building looked familiar to me when I first watched the pilot episode of the series, I couldn’t figure out exactly where I had seen it before. Thankfully, though, fellow stalker Owen clued me into the fact that Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, was putting together a FlashForward locations page. So, I emailed him to ask where the headquarters building was located and he wrote back immediately. Yay! Thank you, Gary!

The John Ferraro building, which was originally known as the Department of Water and Power’s General Office building, took four years to construct at a cost of $30 million and was first dedicated on June 24th, 1965. The 17-story building, which was built entirely out of glass, steel, and concrete, was designed by architect Albert C. Martin of AC Martin Partners, an architectural firm who, according to a 1979 Los Angeles Times article, designed “more than 50 percent of all the major buildings erected in downtown Los Angeles since World War II”. Martin, who was apparently light years ahead of his time, incorporated many “green” elements into the construction of the building, including a system which used the property’s fountains to cool the interior and its lighting to heat it. Amazingly enough, that system is still in use today! On November 16, 2000, the City of Los Angeles renamed the Department of Water and Power building in honor of former L.A. Councilman John Ferraro, who at the time had dedicated over 50 years of his life to public service.

[ad]

I can quite honestly say that the John Ferraro building is one of the most beautiful structures in all of L.A. – and one of my favorites! With its 360 degree views of the Downtown Los Angeles skyline and ginormous fountain which surrounds its perimeter, the building is nothing short of majestic. If you haven’t had the chance to stalk the place yet, I HIGHLY recommend doing so. As was made apparent by the group of people enjoying a leisurely walk around the building, the photographers taking time-lapse pictures of the fountains, and the many couples just sitting and enjoying the unparalleled views, this is one building that can be appreciated by stalkers and non-stalkers alike. It’s simply breathtaking! And a place I never would have even known about had it not been for FlashForward!

In addition to being used each week in establishing shots of the FBI Headquarters on FlashForward . . .

. . . some filming has also taken place on location at the John Ferraro Building, including the fight scene between Detective Janis Hawk (aka Christine Woods) and Marcie Turoff (aka Amy Rosoff) in the episode titled “Queen Sacrifice” (pictured above) and the suicide scene of Agent Al Gough (aka Lee Thompson Young) in the episode titled “The Gift”.

The parking structure of the John Ferraro Building was also used in the big chase scene between Sarah Connor (aka Linda Hamilton), Kyle Reese (aka Michael Biehn) and The Terminator (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger) in the first Terminator movie. There are also some reports floating around that the John Ferraro Building stood in for both New York’s 14th Precinct on the 1980’s television series Cagney & Lacey and a Tacoma police station in the 1989 movie Three Fugitives, but that information is actually incorrect.

On a side note – For those who have yet to visit the Google website today, you really need to do so NOW! In honor of the 30th anniversary of PacMan,Google has implanted a fully-functional mini-version of the 80’s classic arcade game on their homepage. It is just about the coolest thing ever and I’ve already spent WAY too much time today playing it. Love it, love it, love it!

Big THANK YOU to Gary, from Seeing Stars, for finding this location. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The John Ferraro Building, aka FBI Headquarters from FlashForward, is located at 111 North Hope Street in Downtown Los Angeles.

May 19, 2010May 19, 2010

Mickey’s Diner from “The Mighty Ducks”

I thought I’d give y’all a break from the myriad of Beautiful Girls locations that I’ve been blogging about as of late by dedicating today’s post to a very famous and historic St. Paul restaurant named Mickey’s Diner. The diner is something of a Twin Cities landmark and pretty much every Native Minnesotan that my parents and I met while in the North Star State two weeks ago – from the concierge at our hotel to the barista at the local coffee shop – told us that we absolutely HAD to grab a bite to eat there. Ironically enough, though, like any good stalker, I already had Mickey’s at the very top of my Must-See-While-In-Minnesota list long before our plane even touched ground at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. I first found out about the diner a few weeks prior to my trip thanks to the the IMDB Mighty Ducks filming locations page and, since I loved the entire Mighty Ducks series – especially its leading man, Joshua Jackson – I was dying to see the place in person. Unfortunately though, because I had over twenty locations on my To-Stalk list, I didn’t have time to actually eat at Mickey’s, which is a real shame as I hear the food there is absolutely to die for! Not eating at Mickey’s is truly my only Minnesota stalking regret. 🙁 Ah well, there’s always next time!

[ad]

Mickey’s Diner was founded by friends David “Mickey” Crimmins and John “Bert” Mattson, who decided to purchase a dining car after attending the National Restaurant Convention in Chicago in 1937. The fifty foot by ten foot car, which was one of the first to be designed in the Art-Deco-style, was originally built in Elizabeth, New Jersey by the Jerry O’Mahoney Company. In 1939, the completed restaurant was transported by a flatbed railcar to its current location at the corner of West 7th and St. Peter Streets in Downtown St. Paul. It has been in continuous operation – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year – ever since and, after three generations, is still owned and operated by the Mattson family. On February 23, 1983, Mickey’s was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Mickey’s Diner is an incredibly cool little spot and the people there truly could NOT have been nicer. They answered all of my silly little questions about the filming that has taken place there over the years and allowed me to take all of the photographs of the interior that I wanted, even though I wasn’t actually dining there. I’m hardly the first stalker to visit the place, though. According to this article written by Chicago Sun-Times staff writer Dave Hoekstra, the restaurant’s current owner, Melissa Mattson, conducted a survey back in 1999 to determine how many of her patrons were actually movie buffs who had come to stalk the diner due to its many cinematic appearances. According to her findings, stalkers account for five percent of her customers. Love it!

In Disney’s The Mighty Ducks, Mickey’s was the spot where Charlie Conway’s (aka Joshua Jackson’s) mom Casey (aka Heidi Kling) worked. The diner also appeared in the movie’s sequels, D2: The Mighty Ducks and D3: The Mighty Ducks. And yes, that is a VERY young Joshua Jackson pictured in the above screen captures! 🙂

In 1996’s Jingle All The Way, Howard Langston (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger) pushed his car to Mickey’s Diner after running out of gas on a Minnesota bridge. And while the real exterior of the restaurant was used in the filming . . .

. . . the interior was actually a set that was recreated on a soundstage. As you can see in the above screen captures, the set was built to be much larger than the actual restaurant. In real life, the diner boasts four booths, which are located at the far west end of the dining car, 17 counter stools, and can only accommodate a maximum of 36 patrons.

The 2006 movie A Prairie Home Companion actually opens up at Mickey’s Diner, where private investigator Guy Noir (aka Kevin Kline) is shown feasting on “a grilled cheese sandwich with beans for a chaser” before heading across the street to work at the Fitzgerald Theatre one rainy Saturday night in St. Paul.

The diner is also the site of the movie’s closing scene, in which Guy, along with his friends Rhonda Johnson (aka Lilly Tomlin), Yolanda Johnson (aka Meryl Streep), Lola Johnson (aka Lindsay Lohan), Dusty (aka Woody Harrelson), GK (aka Garrison Keillor), and Lefty (aka John C. Reilly), discuss taking their former radio show on the road for a farewell tour. And apparently, quite a few of the stars of A Prairie Home Companion would stop into Mickey’s quite regularly to grab a bite to eat during their time on location in St. Paul. So cool! Mickey’s Diner has also been featured in the television series Rachel Ray’s Tasty Travels, Unwrapped, Roker on the Road, Alton Brown’s Feasting on Asphalt, and Jesse Ventura’s Minnesota. The diner is also something of a celebrity hotspot and has attracted the likes of Roseanne Barr, Tom Arnold, Liv Tyler, Bill Murray, Andy Garcia, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, John Stewart, the Beach Boys, New Kids on the Block, and Julio Iglesias, who once spontaneously serenaded a Mickey’s waitresses while on bended knee.

On a side note – While making A Prairie Home Companion, the movie’s stars, including Woody Harrelson, Lindsay Lohan, Lily Tomlin, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline, Virginia Madsen, and John C. Reilly, all bunked at the absolutely gorgeous St. Paul Hotel. The St. Paul was built in 1910 by the Minnesota-area architectural firm of Reed and Stern, who are perhaps best known for designing Grand Central Station in New York. The hotel is absolutely beautiful inside and if you are in the area, I HIGHLY recommend stalking it. The next time I visit Minnesota, I am DEFINITELY booking myself a room there! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Mickey’s Diner is located at 36 West 7th Street in St. Paul, Minnesota. The restaurant is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can visit the Mickey’s Diner website here. The St. Paul Hotel is located at 350 Market Street, also in St. Paul, Minnesota. You can visit the St. Paul Hotel website here.

August 21, 2009August 21, 2009

The “Twins” Mansion

Another day, another Twins location. 🙂 Unbelievably, before writing my post about the Twins house yesterday, I had yet to actually see the movie. For some reason, even though we own a copy of it on DVD, I had never sat down to watch it. Until yesterday, that is. But, as often happens to me when watching a movie for the first time, I got more absorbed in the locations and behind-the-scenes information than the actual storyline. I kept having to pause the movie to run to my computer to look things up. LOL One of the locales that I became a bit obsessed with finding yesterday was the mansion belonging to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito’s father in the movie. Ironically enough, while doing some cyberstalking of the home, I came across this post on fave website ’80s Movie Rewind and was SHOCKED to see the location of the house listed with a special thanks to none other than my good friend Mike, from MovieShotsLA. LOL LOL LOL It’s such a small stalking world, isn’t it?? Granted, I’m sure Mike had told me the address of the Twins mansion before, but when the two of us get to talking about locations I get so excited that half of what he says doesn’t even register. I’ll ask him about a movie locale months later and he’ll say “I ALREADY told you where that was!” LOL Needless to say, the Twins mansion address is one of the bits of information that, for whatever reason, my brain didn’t store.

Anyway, as soon as I had the address yesterday, I ran right out to stalk the house. And I am very happy to report that – over TWO DECADES later – the Twins mansion looks pretty much EXACTLY the same today as it did when the movie was filmed! I mean, even the paint color is still the same! LOVE IT! In fact, the only differences I noticed were some very minor changes in foliage. Movie location owners really need to take lessons from the people that live in this house! LOL

The Twins mansion shows up very briefly in the scene when Arnold is out looking for infomation about his mother who passed away in childbirth. He winds up at this home and ends up meeting his father for the very first time. A scene takes place in the front yard of the house and then, later, in the father’s study. And, from how it looked in the movie, I believe a real room inside the house was used as the study.

The Twins mansion, which in real life is known as the A.L. Garford House, was built in 1916 by the prominent Pasadena architectural firm of Marston & Van Pelt. Sylvanus Marston built over 1,000 residences in the Pasadena area throughout his twenty-two year career, including America’s first ever bungalow motor court apartment complex, and has even been called “Pasadena’s Quintessential Architect”. Marston built homes and buildings in an eclectic array of styles ranging from English Tudor to Imperial Chinese. The Garford House was actually one of the first Pasadena area homes to be built in the elaborate Churrigueresque, or Spanish Baroque, style, and, according to this article, was the first ever Spanish style home to have a painted stucco exterior. It truly is a very beautiful and absolutely ginormous home!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito’s father’s house from Twins, aka the A.L. Garford House, is located at 1126 Hillcrest Avenue, on the Northeast corner of Hillcrest Avenue and South Oak Knoll Avenue, in Pasadena.

August 20, 2009August 20, 2009

The “Twins” House

A few weeks ago, fellow stalker Owen asked for my help in locating Danny DeVito’s Mediteranean style home from the 1988 comedy Twins. Owen had already done quite a bit of stalking legwork on this one and had managed to contact one of the movie’s crew members who told him that the house was located on a numbered street near Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Unfortunately, though, due to the fact that many of the numbered streets in Santa Monica aren’t featured in Google Maps Street View, Owen was not able to cyberstalk the home. Which is where I came in. 🙂 Because I am in the Santa Monica area quite frequently, I offered to drive around the numbered streets to see if I could locate the elusive Twins house. From watching the movie, Owen knew that the home had an address number of 323 and that the neighboring house was numbered 327, which narrowed down our search parameters quite a bit. So, a few weeks ago, with a screen capture of the house and those few bits of information in hand, I dragged my fiance out to find the Twins house. And find it, we did! 🙂

Amazingly enough, the house was actually located on the very first street we drove down. When I realized we had found it, I turned to my fiance in shock and said “Could it really have been this easy?” LOL Sadly, though, the Twins house looks MUCH different today than it did back in 1988 when the movie was filmed. While still recognizable, it looks as if quite a bit of remodeling has been done to it in recent years. I guess I really shouldn’t be all that surprised that the house has changed so significantly, though, after all the movie was filmed more than two decades ago!

Besides adding on a whole second story, the homeowners also removed the enclosed front porch area and popped out the home’s entry way and front door by a good couple of feet, as you can see in the above photograph and screen capture. A large tree which covers the front window has also since been planted.

But the most significant – and odd – change to the house has to be the complete removal of the driveway. Owen and I have actually been over the driveway removal issue ad nauseam and still can’t figure out the reasoning behind it. I mean WHY ON EARTH WOULD SOMEONE REMOVE THEIR DRIVEWAY? LOL It’s absolutely BIZARRE! My fiance brought up the point, though, that it’s quite possible the city refused to grant the homeowner’s remodeling permits unless they agreed to do away with their driveway. Santa Monica is known as something of an “alley city” – numerous homes in the area don’t have driveways and the garages are reached via a back alley – so it’s actually a pretty good possibility that my fiance hit the nail on the head about why that driveway is no longer there.

Ironically enough, the neighboring house, which shows up briefly in Twins, still looks EXACTLY the same as it did when the movie was filmed.

Even though the Twins house looks quite different today, it was still extremely exciting to be stalking it. And a little bit of movie trivia for you – a very young Heather Graham had a brief, uncredited role in Twins as Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mom. David Caruso also had a small role in the movie as parking attendant Al Greco. His voice is so different in the flick, though, that I literally almost didn’t recognize him!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Danny DeVito’s house from Twins is located at 323 11th Street in Santa Monica.