British Columbia attractions

June 30, 2010June 29, 2010

The Michael J. Fox Theatre

A few months back, while fellow stalker Owen and I were doing research on Michael J. Fox’s childhood home which I blogged about yesterday, I came across some information about a place called “the Michael J. Fox Theatre” which is located on the campus of Burnaby South Secondary School and, let me tell you, I just about passed out from excitement. I absolutely could NOT WAIT to tell Owen about the location, as he just so happens to be MJF’s biggest fan. Apparently, in November of 1995 Burnaby South renamed their 613-seat professional theatre, which originally opened in 1993, in recognition of the Canadian-born actor and his many achievements in the entertainment industry and contributions to the community that he once called home. Owen was extremely excited to hear about the theatre and I immediately added it to my list of Must-Stalk locations in Vancouver. So, Owen, this one’s for you! 🙂

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As I mentioned above, the Michael J. Fox Theatre is located on the campus of Burnaby South Secondary School, which is not actually the high school that Michael J. Fox attended as a teen. The actor was actually enrolled at the similarly-named Burnaby Central Secondary School, which is located about three miles north of Burnaby South. I’m not entirely sure why city officials did not dedicate a theatre in his honor at his actual alma mater, but I believe the reasoning behind the decision had to do with the fact that Burnaby South is a very technologically advanced institution that offers several communications and broadcasting courses to its 1,700-member student body. The school also televises its morning announcements via a daily news program each morning and offers a broadcasting class in which theatrically-inclined students can create and film short movies and television series which are then broadcast over the school’s airwaves during each lunch hour. Add to that the fact that the British Columbia School for the Deaf was moved to the Burnaby South campus in 1995 and that the theatre which now bears MJF’s name was designed with the hearing-impaired, and other special needs students, in mind, and it’s obvious why they chose the campus as the location of the Michael J. Fox Theatre.

And, let me tell you, I just about died when we pulled up to the Burnaby South campus and spotted the above sign. So darn cool! 🙂

Because the theatre is located on a high school campus and because we were stalking the place on a Saturday, I didn’t have high hopes that we would actually be able to see the inside of it. So, imagine my surprise when we pulled up and found the front doors standing wide open, thanks to a dance recital that was taking place inside. YAY!

The Michael J. Fox Theatre is truly beautiful inside, but my favorite part had to be the huge tile wall mosaic made up of brightly-colored musicians and dancers which greets patrons as they enter (pictured above).

And while the theatre’s logo, which consists of MJF’s initials written in his own handwriting – which I think is just about the coolest thing ever! – appears in numerous spots throughout the theatre, sadly there are no photographs of the actor displayed anywhere on the premises. Nor could I find any information about him or about the history of the theatre. I had expected there to be, at the very least, some sort of plaque honoring the theatre’s namesake along with a photograph of him at the theatre’s dedication ceremony, but all we could find was the above display which lists the names of those who have donated to the property at one time or another. Such a bummer!

Due to the dance recital which was taking place while we were there, the interior of the actual auditorium was far too dark for us to be able to snap any photographs. 🙁 Which is such a bummer as I had so wanted to see the Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan honorary chair! You can see what the auditorium looks like on the official Michael J. Fox Theatre website here, which is where I got the two photographs pictured above.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Michael J. Fox Theatre is located on the campus of Burnaby South Secondary School at 7373 Macpherson Avenue in Burnaby, British Columbia. You can visit the office Michael J. Fox Theatre website here.

June 29, 2010June 28, 2010

Michael J. Fox’s Childhood Home

My good friend – and fellow stalker – Owen is an absolutely huge and longtime fan of actor Michael J. Fox. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that MJF is Owen’s Jennifer Aniston. So, when I found out that the Canadian-born actor grew up in Burnaby, British Columbia, the very same Vancouver suburb where my man Michael Buble also spent his formative years, I just about died and decided I had to try to track down his childhood home before my trip up to the Pacific Northwest. I immediately emailed Owen and asked him to skim through Michael J. Fox’s autobiography, Lucky Man: A Memoir, which I knew he had a copy of, to see if the actor gave any clues as to where his former abode was located. And, sure enough, he did! I should mention here that celebrity autobiographies and biographies are FABULOUS stalking tools as they almost always dole out the addresses of otherwise unknown stalking locations, but I digress. Anyway, Owen got right down to scanning through the book, which was first published in 2002, and quickly sent me back an email. As it turns out, while MJF didn’t actually disclose the exact location of his childhood abode, he did write a detailed enough description of it that Owen was able to track it down. YAY! Thank you, Owen!

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In his autobiography, Michael J. Fox mentions that during the 1970’s he lived on the second floor of a three-story walk-up building named the Middlegate Apartments, which were located across the street from a “sprawling strip mall with an enormous parking lot perfect for endless hours of street hockey”. And while Googling the terms “Middlegate Apartments” got him nowhere, thanks to this Google Maps posting Owen was able to track down the location of the now-defunct strip mall with the large parking lot where MJF used to play. That strip mall was known as the Middlegate Shopping Centre and it was demolished in 2004 in order to make room for a new, more upscale complex named Highgate Mall. Once Owen had tracked down the former Middlegate Center’s address, it was simply a matter of using aerial maps to see if there was a three-story apartment building located across the street from it. And, sure enough, there was!

As a matter of fact, there were two! And while Owen and I were unable to discern which one of the the two very similar-looking, U-shaped buildings MJF used to call home, after visiting the place in person last month, I can say with 99.9% certainty that it was the one denoted with the blue arrow in the above aerial view.

Michael first moved into the Middlegate Apartments in 1971, at the tender age of ten, following his father’s retirement from the Canadian Army Signal Corps. According to the book, MJF spent quite a bit of time in the building’s “large, if indifferently maintained, outdoor swimming pool”, which, as you can see in the above photograph, has since been filled in with cement. It is because of that now-filled-in pool that I believe Michael lived in the eastern-most of the two buildings. While looking at the location using aerial maps, I had assumed that the two neighboring buildings were part of the same apartment complex, but after seeing the place in person, I now believe that they are actually two separate properties. And since the western-most building does not have a pool, nor does it look like it ever did, I am fairly certain that Michael J. Fox lived in the building located on the east. According to the book, Michael lived at the Middlegate Apartments until 1979 – the year he migrated south to Los Angeles in order to pursue a career in acting. And thank goodness he did, too, because just three short years later he was cast as one of the most iconic characters in television history – Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties.

Sadly, I can’t really recommend stalking MJF’s former building, as it is a fairly depressing place, although I don’t believe it was that way forty years ago when Michael lived there. Today, the building is extremely run-down and has a very bleak air about it. As you can see in the above photograph, even the word “middle” is misspelled on the awing above the front door. I don’t even know what to make of that!!! (At least I think it’s misspelled, being that I’ve never heard of the word “midle”.) And while my original plan was to knock on the manager’s door to see if he or she might know the exact unit where MJF used to live, the place gave off such an unfriendly vibe (I could even hear some tenants yelling at each other through one of the apartment windows) that I decided to abort my mission. Such a bummer, too, as I had so wanted to track down and snap a picture of MJF’s former front door for Owen. 🙁 Note to any celebrities who are currently penning an autobiography – please take a page out of Carol Burnett’s book (pardon the pun) and publish the exact location of your childhood home – including any apartment numbers, if need be! Hmph! Do I honestly have to think of everything? 😉

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Stalk It: The Middle Gate Apartments, where Michael J. Fox grew up, are located at 6961 Collier Street in Burnaby, British Columbia.

June 28, 2010June 27, 2010

Eric Hamber Secondary School from “Juno”

The third and final Juno filming location that I stalked while in Vancouver last month was the supposed Minneapolis-area Dancing Elk High School – the learning institution attended by Juno MacGuff (aka Ellen Page), her dorky baby-daddy Paulie Bleeker (aka Michael Cera), and her absolutely hilarious best friend, Leah (aka Olivia Thirlby). In real life, Dancing Elk High School is known as Eric Hamber Secondary School and it is located a good 1,400 miles away from Minneapolis in the Shaughnessy neighborhood of Vancouver, British Columbia, directly next door to the VanDusen Botanical Garden. The school, which was named after a former Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, was originally founded in 1962 and currently boasts 1,690 students in grades eight through twelve. I found this location, once again, thanks to fellow stalker Owen, who in turn tracked it down thanks to this trusty Flikr page. Thank you, Owen!

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Eric Hamber Secondary School is featured numerous times throughout Juno, most notably in the beginning scene in which Juno is shown riding her bike to Dancing Elk and then locking it up at a bike rack located in front of the school’s east-facing entrance. Sadly, in real life that bike rack does not exist, but aside from that, I am very happy to report that Eric Hamber Secondary School looks much the same in person as it did onscreen in the movie.

Quite a bit of the school’s interior also appeared in Juno, but, unfortunately, the buildings were all locked up while we were there, so we were not able to take a peek inside.

The school’s outdoor track and field area was also featured in the scene in which Paulie leaves his track meet early in order to go to the hospital to be with Juno after she has her baby. That is another area of the school that we, unfortunately, were not able to see, though.

According to Wikipedia, Eric Hamber’s parking lot also made several appearances in the ‘80s television series 21 Jump Street, which was filmed exclusively on location in Canada. The school also boasts quite a long list of notable alumni, including Smallville actress Kristin Kreuk, Disney animator Robert Bennett, The Daily Show writer Eric Drysdale, and former pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers Steve Wilson.

On a side note – Owen also managed to track down several other filming locations from Juno that we, unfortunately, did not have time to stalk while we were in the area. Those locations include the following: the house belonging to Mark (aka Jason Bateman) and Vanessa (aka Jennifer Garner), which can be found at 13926 23 Avenue in Surrey; the Honey and Milk convenience store where Juno writes a note to Vanessa on an old Jiffy Lube receipt, which is located at 9-1449 Prairie Avenue in Port Coquitlam; the Coquitlam Centre Mall where Juno and Olivia run into Vanessa while shopping, which can be found at 2929 Barnet Highway in Coquitlam; and Victoria Park where Juno and Olivia look at adoption ads in the Penny Saver, which is located on Victoria Drive & Kitchener Street in Vancouver.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding all of the Juno locations! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Juno high school, aka Eric Hamber Secondary School, is located at 5025 Willow Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. In the beginning of the movie, Juno is shown entering the school from its Willow Street entrance and then locking up her bike at the bike rack located in front of the school’s east facing doors, as depicted in the map above. Please remember that this location is an educational institution that is currently in use. I would not recommend visiting it while classes are in session, but would instead recommend stopping by after hours or on a weekend.

June 24, 2010June 23, 2010

Juno’s House from “Juno”

While I realize that most of my fellow stalkers are currently clamoring for me to put my Pacific Northwest blogging on hold in order to write about locales in the Southern California area, there are two more locations from the Academy Award-winning movie Juno that I wanted to blog about before doing so. So, please bear with me for now, as I promise to get back to my L.A. roots first thing next week. 🙂 In the meantime, the second Juno location that I stalked while in Vancouver three weeks ago was the supposed Minnesota-area house where the flick’s eponymous lead character, the lovable, but quirky Juno MacGuff (aka Ellen Page), lived with her equally lovable, but quirky parents, Mac (aka J.K. Simmons) and Brenda (aka Allison Janney). I, of course, found this location yet again thanks to fellow stalker Owen who had, in turn, tracked it down thanks to this ever-informative Flikr page. Thank you, Owen! On a side note, I am quickly discovering the endless values of using Flikr as a stalking tool. The site is an enormous treasure trove of location information that one can easily sift through using key word searches and I highly recommend it to anyone who is currently trying to track down an elusive locale. But, as usual, I digress.

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According to this fabulous February 2008 Vancouver Sun article about Juno filming locations in the area, two different homes actually stood in for the MacGuff residence in the movie – one property was used for all interior filming, while a different one entirely was used for all of the exterior scenes. The article states that while scouting residences for his lead character in January of 2007, just one short month before filming began, director Ivan Reitman, along with Canadian location scout Neil Robertson, sought out an average-looking, middle-America-type home that had some “old-school” elements to it, like La-Z-Boy recliners and wood paneling. Reitman found his perfect home (pictured above) in the Dunbar area of West Vancouver. Unfortunately, though, upon closer inspection, the property’s interior proved to be too small for the filming, so, the scenes involving Juno’s kitchen, family room, and basement had to be shot at a different residence, which was also located in the Dunbar area, although I am not sure of exactly where. The shooting of the interior scenes took a week to complete, during which time the owner, Yvonne Kolstee – along with her cat – had to relocate to a hotel. And although one of Kolstee’s lamps did make an appearance in the flick, for the most part her property was completely revamped for the filming. According to the article, set-designers made her “multi-million dollar home in Dunbar look like a trailer”. Which begs the question, why not just build a set to film on? Ah, I’ll never understand the decision-making process behind choosing filming locations. Anyway, the article also states that Kolstee used the money she made off of the filming to take not one, but two vacations to Mexico, along with trips to India and Singapore, as well. Oh, when are location scouts going to come knocking on my door??? 😉

I am very happy to report that the home which was used for the exterior of Juno’s residence looks pretty much EXACTLY the same in person as it did onscreen in the movie.

The only notable difference is the fact that the tree from which Juno tried to hang herself using a few feet of Red Rope licorice in the beginning of the flick is not there in real life. In actuality, that tree was a fake that was brought in solely for the filming. The MacGuff residence is absolutely adorable in person and it’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use it.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Juno’s house from the hit movie Juno is located at 4053 32 Avenue West in the Dunbar suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia. Mark and Vanessa’s house, which we, unfortunately, didn’t have time to stalk, is located at 13926 23 Avenue in the city of Surrey, which is located about 30 miles southeast of Vancouver.

June 17, 2010November 6, 2016

“The Crush” Mansion

Another Vancouver location that I stalked while visiting the Pacific Northwest two weeks ago was the supposed Seattle-area mansion where Adrian Forrester (aka Alicia Silverstone) lived with her parents in the 1993 movie The Crush. And while I can’t say that I was a huge fan of the thriller/drama, because Alicia Silverstone grew up in the same relatively small city that I did – a suburb of San Francisco named San Mateo – The Crush has always held a special place in my heart. Especially because it was one of Alicia’s very first acting roles.

Before landing her leading role in The Crush at the age of 15, Alicia’s only other major onscreen appearance had been a bit part in the Season 5 episode of The Wonder Years titled “Road Test” (pictured above). She was still attending San Mateo High School when her Wonder Years episode aired, but by the time she was cast in The Crush she had left school permanently to pursue acting and the entire city of San Mateo was abuzz with the news of the local girl who made good. I can still remember when the movie was released and the furor it caused in my hometown. Not only did Alicia fly her two best friends out to L.A. for the big Hollywood premiere (as detailed in a huge article in our local paper that I still have a copy of somewhere), but pretty much her entire class headed over to our local movie theatre, Fashion Island Cinemas, on the day the movie opened to watch. The theatre was completely sold out and there was a big party afterwards. From what I remember, Alicia was in attendance, as well. I went to a different high school, so I was not invited to the viewing, but one of my good friends, who knew Alicia fairly well, got to attend and I can distinctly remember calling him up later that night and pretty much hanging on his every word as he described the evening to me. Oh, how I would have LOVED to have been there! But I digress.

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So, when fellow stalker Owen mentioned that he had managed to track down several of the locations featured in The Crush, I just HAD to stalk all of them – in honor of my hometown. 🙂 And the locale that I was most excited about stalking, of course, was the ginormous mansion where the Forrester family lived in the flick. Owen found the residence thanks to one of the movie’s location assistants, who happened to remember the name of the street where it was located. From there Owen used Google Street View to determine its exact location. YAY! Thank you, Owen! In real life, the Crush mansion, which is known as “The Disher House”, was constructed in 1912 by British architect Paul Phipps. The home, which is absolutely beautiful in person, was originally built for a financier named J.B. Johnson, but is named after the Disher family, who lived there from 1916 through 1972. You can read more about the mansion in the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s Guidebook for their 2003 Open Vancouver Heritage House Tour here. And you can take a peek at some close-up photographs of the home here.

I am very happy to report that the Disher house looks much the same in person as it did onscreen in The Crush, but unfortunately there is quite a bit foliage in the front yard that limits the view of the property from the street. Both the interior and the exterior of the residence were used in the flick.

Sadly, the apartment that Nick Eliot (aka Cary Elwes) rented does not exist in real life. Producers had it built on top of the home’s real life garage exclusively for the filming and it was subsequently removed after the filming had wrapped.

The Forrester’s neighbor’s pool, which shows up a couple of times in The Crush, is located in the backyard of the home that is directly east of the Crush mansion. Apparently, the pool was the site of a deleted scene during which Adrian and Nick take a midnight dip. That scene is later referred by Adrian when she is being examined by an officer at the police station after falsely accusing Nick of rape.

UPDATE – The Crush mansion is for sale! You can check out some interior photographs of it here.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Adrian Forrester’s house from The Crush is located at 1526 Angus Drive in Vancouver, British Columbia.

June 11, 2010June 16, 2011

The Hyatt Regency Vancouver from “Love Happens”

My fifth and final Love Happens location – which I found thanks to fellow stalker Owen, as was the case with all of the other Love Happens locations I stalked while in Canada two weeks ago – is the Hyatt Regency Vancouver hotel, where Burke Ryan (aka Aaron Eckhart) hosted his week-long “A-OKAY!” grief workshop seminar in the 2009 romantic comedy. The Hyatt was one of Love Happens’ focal locations and appeared in countless scenes, including the scene in which florist Eloise Chandler (aka Jennifer Aniston), who hand-delivers floral arrangements to the hotel on a daily basis, first meets Burke. It is definitely not love at first sight, though, because, in one of the movie’s lighter moments, Eloise pretends to be deaf in order to avoid speaking with him. LOL

I cannot tell you how badly I wanted to go upstairs to take a photograph of the exact spot where Burke first caught Eloise writing the word “Quidnunc” with a pink pen on the hotel’s wall, which is located just outside of Room 1731 on the Hyatt Regency Vancouver’s 17th floor, but, sadly, a room key is required to gain access to each of the different floors. I explained to the concierge on duty that I was a film locations buff (using the word “stalker” in cases like this typically doesn’t help my cause – ha!) and that I really wanted to snap a quick photograph of “Eloise’s wall” and asked if there was any way she would allow me to take a brief trip up to the 17th floor, but she very adamantly said “No”. I told her that she could accompany me to make sure I didn’t cause any mischief while up there, but she again declined. HMPH! Such a bummer as seeing that wall in person was pretty much the only reason I wanted to stalk the hotel in the first place. 🙁 Ironically enough, the first Hyatt employee that I spoke with about the filming had absolutely NO IDEA WHATSOEVER that any sort of motion picture had been shot on the premises. After a few minutes of speaking with her she finally said, “Wait, so Love Happens was filmed here? In this hotel? Honestly?” I mean, HELLO! How do you not know something like that? It’s not like she was a new employee, either – she was actually working at the hotel at the time the movie was being filmed!! I really don’t understand people sometimes. Sigh!

I did get to stalk most of the other areas of the hotel that appeared in Love Happens, though, including the main lobby, which at the time of filming featured a Seattle’s Best Coffee bar near the main entrance. But I am VERY happy to report that Starbucks (my old staple) has now moved into that same space. YAY! 🙂

Also featured was the hotel’s check-in desk area;

the elevator bay located just off of the main lobby;

and the Gallery Lounge bar, which you can just barely see in the above photograph. According to the movie’s productions notes, the Vancouver Marriot Pinnacle Downtown hotel was also used in the filming of Love Happens, but I am unsure of exactly which scene it appeared in.

On a side note – no, you are not seeing things – that is actually an autographed photo of Michael Buble pictured above. Yes, a photograph of MB that was actually autographed . . . TO ME!!!!!!!!!!! The photo was gifted to me yesterday by fellow stalker Owen for my birthday and, as you can imagine, I literally just about PASSED OUT upon opening it!!!! I’m not joking when I say that my mouth was hanging open for a good five minutes. You’d think I would have screamed upon first laying eyes on it, but I was actually dead silent. It doesn’t happen often, but Owen managed to render me absolutely speechless! How did he get the autograph, you ask? (And believe me, that was the first question playing on my mind when I finally came to after opening it!) As fate would have it, Owen’s brother Paul has a good friend who is a regular on Saturday Night Live. When Owen found out that MB would be performing on the show WAY BACK in January of this year, he called in a massively huge favor and asked Paul’s friend if he would get an autograph for me. Paul’s friend came through BIG TIME and the result is the photograph you see above. What can I say except it’s, hands down, the BEST BIRTHDAY GIFT I’ve ever received! I told my friend Nat about it yesterday and she said, “Well, I guess I’m going to have to return what I got you, ‘cause there is no way it can compare to that! Tell Owen ’Thanks a lot!’” 🙂 My dad actually had surgery yesterday – yes, on my birthday – and when I opened Owen’s present in the morning before heading out to the hospital, I knew it was a good omen, especially being that my dad loves MB just as much as I do. Sure enough, the surgery went really well and, at the time of this writing, my dad has been out of pain for about ten hours. The doctors remain very hopeful that the surgery solved his problem, which, after two full years of him being in and out of the hospital on a regular basis and one VERY unsuccessful trip to the Mayo Clinic, would be simply amazing. So, truth be told, I received TWO of the best gifts of my life yesterday! And even though I spent the majority of the day in the hospital, I have to say it was, hands down, one of my best birthdays ever. 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location . . . and, ahem, for the AMAZING birthday present! Big THANK YOU to Paul, too! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Hyatt Regency Vancouver from Love Happens is located at 655 Burrard Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. Burke first caught Eloise writing on the wall just outside of Room 1731 on the hotel’s 17th floor. You can visit the Hyatt Regency Vancouver website here.

June 10, 2010June 16, 2011

The “Love Happens” Houses

Two other Vancouver-area locations that fellow stalker Owen managed to track down from the ultra-depressing 2009 romantic comedy Love Happens were the residences belonging to Eloise Chandler’s mom (aka Frances Conway) and Burke Ryan’s former in-laws (aka Martin Sheen and Deirdre Blades). Both homes are located about ten miles southeast of Vancouver in the Queens Park area of the city of New Westminster, British Columbia. And, as I mentioned in Tuesday’s post, even though I didn’t particularly like Love Happens, because it starred my girl Jen, I just had to stalk both locations.

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Eloise’s mom’s house only appears in one very brief scene in Love Happens, in which Eloise (aka Jennifer Aniston) stops by her mom’s residence in order to pick up the keys to a telephone truck she is borrowing from her mom’s neighbor, Bob. Why is she borrowing a telephone truck, you ask? Without giving too much away, I’ll just say it’s so that she and Burke (aka Aaron Eckhart) can “attend” a sold out Road Wave concert in a rather unconventional way.

I am very happy to report that Eloise’s mom’s house looks much the same in person as it did in Love Happens.

And I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home also appeared in the movie.

Located a little over a mile away from Eloise’s mom’s residence is the V.A. Brachat House, where Burke’s in-laws lived in Love Happens. The absolutely adorabe little house, which was built in 1940, popped up in two different scenes in the movie.

And, as was the case with Eloise’s mom’s residence, I believe that the real life interior of the V.A. Brachat house also appeared in the flick.

I am very happy to report that this house also looks much the same in person as it did in Love Happens.

I was most excited to see that the lightpost on which Rocky, the parrot, waited for Silver at the end of Love Happens was actually there in real life, too. So darn cool!

Missing in real life, of course, is the “Semper Fi” plaque and sword that ex-Marine Silver had posted above his front door in the movie.

Burke’s in-law’s house also appeared in the Season 3 episode of the television series Supernatural titled “A Very Supernatural Christmas”. I found this information thanks to the Supernatural Locations Website, a fabulous site dedicated to finding each and every locale ever featured on the show. So darn cool!

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding these locations! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Eloise’s mom’s house from Love Happens is located at 202 7 Avenue East in New Westminster, British Columbia, ten miles outside of Vancouver. Burke’s in-law’s house is located at 115 Queens Avenue, also in New Westminster.

June 9, 2010June 16, 2011

The Water Street Cafe from “Love Happens”

Just down the street from the former Tabu Boutique, the storefront that masqueraded as Eloise’s Garden in the 2009 movie Love Happens which I blogged about yesterday, is Water Street Cafe, the upscale restaurant where Eloise Chandler (aka Jennifer Aniston) and Burke Ryan (aka Aaron Eckhart) ate dinner during their extremely awkward first date at the beginning of the flick. I found this locale once again thanks to fellow stalker Owen who somehow managed to track down almost every single location featured in the movie. Unfortunately, though, because our time in Vancouver was limited (we were only in town for less than 24 hours as we wanted to spend a full two days in Seattle), while we were able to stalk the exterior of the Water Street Cafe, we weren’t able to grab a bite to eat there. As so often happens on vacation, there were just far too many locations on my To-Stalk list and not enough hours in the day to see them all. 🙁

In Love Happens, Eloise and Burke eat at a window-side table overlooking Cambie Street.

After finishing their meal, the two walk out of the restaurant’s main entrance on Water Street . . .

. . . and around the corner onto Cambie Street, where Burke confesses to Eloise that he hasn’t been on a date in over three years.

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The Water Street Cafe was first opened in 1988 by Domenique Sabatino. I’m quite bummed that we didn’t get a chance to eat there as the restaurant’s Italian-inspired menu looks pretty amazing, especially the Stuffed Pancetta Wrapped Chicken entree – a spinach stuffed chicken breast that is wrapped in pancetta and topped with brie. OH MY LORD does that sounds good!! 🙂 Especially since my dad is once again in the hospital and I’ve been existing solely on hospital cafeteria food for the past six days. Yeech!

Water Street Cafe is located directly across the street from the world-famous Vancouver Steam Clock, a large glass, antique-looking clock that is powered entirely via a combination of balance weights and steam. The clock was first built in 1977 by horologist Raymond Saunders and has been whistling and shooting out steam at fifteen minute intervals ever since. There are only six other working steam clocks in the entire world and the one in Gastown has been called Vancouver’s most photographed attraction. According to the Love Happens production notes, producers had to time the filming of the scene shot outside of the Water Street Cafe in accordance with the every-quarter-hour whistle of the clock. 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Water Street Cafe from Love Happens is located at 300 Water Street in the Gastown area of Vancouver, British Columbia. You can visit the Water Street Cafe website here. The Vancouver Steam Clock is located across the street at 305 Water Street.

June 7, 2010June 15, 2010

The Former BaBalu Lounge – Where Michael Buble Got His Start

Another Michael Buble location that I found thanks to the book Michael Buble: The Biography, by Juliet Peel was BaBalu Lounge, the Downtown Vancouver nightclub where the cutie crooner performed regularly for two years before becoming famous. And, let me tell you, once I heard about it, I became pretty hell-bent on the idea of grabbing a drink at the very spot where MB had honed his craft all those years ago. As I quickly found out, though, the BaBalu Lounge is sadly no longer. Apparently, the now-defunct club used to be located on the bottom floor of the Nelson-at-Granville Comfort Inn Hotel, but in 2001, a fire broke out on the top floor of the building and completely gutted the entire property, including Michael’s former singing spot. The building was eventually purchased by a real estate development company who renovated the entire property and a new restaurant named Doolin’s Irish Pub subsequently opened in the former BaBalu space. Such a bummer! But even though BaBalu is no longer, I just had to stalk the hallowed ground where it once stood.

Especially since the club had played such an important role on Michael’s road to fame. In 2001, the singer even named his second independently produced album “BaBalu” (pictured above) in honor of the lounge where he had sung every Sunday and Monday night for over two years beginning in 1997. Of MB’s premiere album, titled “First Dance”, biographer Juliet Peel states, “It made no impact whatsoever on the world at the time, but this, and the other two independent albums Michael brought out before he hit the big time, are now collectors’ items. Whole internet chains have been established trying to track them down (for a Buble fan, finding one of these records is equivalent to stumbling across a signed first edition of an early J.K. Rowling.)” You’re telling me, Juliet! What I wouldn’t give to own one of those albums!

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Michael’s love of music was originally cultivated thanks to his beloved maternal grandfather, Mitch Santaga. Mitch, who made his living as a plumber, not only first introduced Michael to the Standards, the songs that he would one day become famous for singing, but he also traded free plumbing services to local band-leaders in exchange for them allowing MB a chance to sing during their shows. After he became famous, Michael, whom Mitch had long-before dubbed “Sunshine”, said, “Isn’t that hilarious? He’d put in, like, a hot-water dispenser or something so that they would let me get up and sing.” Love it! In 1997, Michael landed his first regular paying gig at BaBalu Lounge, where he performed along with the Smokin’ Section band, for over two years. He credits his years there as a major learning experience, saying of the patrons, “They came to meet a woman or get wasted, but I learned my craft. It taught me how not to reek of desperation, how to step back and try to be charismatic and let them fall in love with me.” And fall in love with him they did. Michael quickly garnered a very loyal local fan base of mostly women :), who would come to watch him sing every single time he set foot onstage. After two shorts years at BaBalu, MB moved to Toronto with then-girlfriend Debbie Timuss. In a fortuitous twist of fate, shortly after that move, Michael performed at a corporate event where a man named Michael Sweeney was sitting in the audience. After the show, Sweeney introduced himself to Michael, who in turn gave him one of his self-produced albums. Sweeney passed along that CD to his close friend, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who immediately hired the singer to perform at his daughter’s upcoming wedding. One of the guests at that wedding turned out to be none other than music-producing legend David Foster, who is perhaps better known by his nickname – “the hit-maker”. Foster was immediately taken with the with the Canadian crooner and had him move out to L.A. so that they could work together the very next week. And, the rest, as they say, is history.

Unfortunately, because it was raining when we arrived at Doolin’s Irish Pub, I opted to stay in the car and take pictures through the window instead of getting out to stalk the inside of the place. From what I’ve read, though, it seems like a very cool place to hang out.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Doolin’s Irish Pub, the site of the former BaBalu Nightclub, is located at 654 Nelson Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. You can visit the Doolin’s website here.

June 4, 2010June 6, 2010

Michael Buble’s British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame Plaque on the Vancouver Starwalk

One of the other items on my must-stalk-while-in-Canada list was Michael Buble’s British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame plaque which is located on Canada’s version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame – the Granville Street Starwalk in Downtown Vancouver. I guess you could say that my trip up to the Pacific Northwest was a full-on Michael Buble Stalking Vacation. 🙂 Ironically enough, when fellow stalker Kerry, her husband Jim, the Grim Cheaper, and I first crossed over into British Columbia this past Friday night, we were given a bit of a hard time by the border guards. Actually, “hard time” is the wrong choice of words here. Let’s just say that we were definitely questioned. Upon finding out that I had never before visited the Pacific Province, our entire group was asked to get out of the car to answer some additional queries in the Border Services Agency’s main office. It was at that point that I realized that there was no way in heck I could give a truthful answer to their question of why I was visiting Canada. Can you imagine if I had stood there and said that I had traveled to their country for the sole purpose of stalking Michael Buble locations??? They probably would have had me arrested on the spot! 😉 But I digress. Anyway, before my trip up north, I purchased Michael Buble: The Biography by Juliet Peel and, while I can’t say that the book was a particularly great read, it did alert me to some fabulous stalking sites, including Michael’s star on Vancouver’s Granville Street Starwalk.

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The British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame was founded on July 4, 1994 in order to recognize those British Columbians who had made significant contributions in six different disciplines in the entertainment industry, including music, television, theatre, film, radio, and variety. Over 180 different artists are currently honored with brass plaques embedded in the sidewalk along Canada’s so-called “Starwalk” – a two block section of Granville Street in Downtown Vancouver’s Theatre District. About twenty new plaques, which are each the size and shape of a 12-inch phonograph record, are added each year. Michael Buble, who originally hails from the Canadian city of Burnaby, was inducted into the BC Hall of Fame on April 19th, 2009, along with nine other honorees including theatre actress Wendy Gorling, radio personality Fanny Kiefer, and music producer Terry McBride. Past inductees include jazz musician Diane Krall, “King of Swing” Dal Richards, and singers Sarah McLachlan and Bryan Adams. Each Hall of Fame member also has a photograph of themselves on display in the Starwall area of the nearby Orpheum Theatre’s main lobby. Unfortunately, though, I did not know about the Orpheum gallery until doing research for today’s post, so I was not able to stalk MB’s picture. Such a bummer! 🙁

Although the Hollywood Walk of Fame provides tourist maps which denote each particular star’s exact location, the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame, sadly, does not. And, oddly enough, I could not find much information about the place online before I left on my trip, so I had no idea where exactly on Granville Street Michael Buble’s plaque was located. Since the Starwalk only stretches for two short blocks, though, I figured we could just walk the entire thing and track down his star once we got there, which is exactly what we set out to do. But being that there were almost two hundred plaques to search, that got old rather quickly, so I popped into a Granville Street bookstore and asked the man at the counter if he could point me in the direction of Michael Buble’s star. His answer – “I didn’t even know he had one.” LOL Thankfully, though, while I was in the bookstore, Kerry and my fiancé managed to find MB’s star and I have to say that I was rather giddy with excitement upon seeing it. It was definitely worth the trouble it took to find it! Note to the British Columbia Hall of Fame – you really ought to provide maps which pinpoint the exact location of each honoree’s plaque. I mean, honestly, do I have to think of everything? Sheesh! 😉

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Michael Buble’s British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame plaque can be found just outside of the Mavi Jeans store, which is located at 850 Granville Street in Vancouver, Canada. You can read more about the Starwalk on the official British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame website here.