Tag: Celebrities

The “Doppelganger” Mansion

Another location from the 1993 thriller Doppelganger that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk this past weekend was the mansion where Holly Gooding (aka Drew Barrymore) grew up in the flick. I found this locale, once again, thanks to Tony, my friend and fellow stalker who has the amazing Flickr photostream which I mentioned yesterday. Incredibly enough, Tony has somehow managed to track down almost every single location featured in Doppelganger and he was kind enough to share them all with me so that I could blog about them during my Haunted Hollywood month – well, every location that is except for the supposed-Arcadia-area Our Lady of Mercy Psychiatric Institute which I have now become just a wee bit obsessed with finding. But I digress. Anyway, last weekend, after stopping by the apartment building featured in the movie, the GC and I headed a short two miles north to Los Feliz to do some stalking of the mansion.

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The Doppelganger mansion is featured twice in the flick. It first pops up in the scene in which Holly and her new roommate, struggling mystery writer Patrick Highsmith (aka George Newbern), meet with Holly’s family lawyer, Mike Wallace (aka George Maharis), in order to get the keys to her former home which has been locked up and sealed since her father’s murder four years prior. While there, Patrick says that the abode is “right out of a Bette Davis movie” – a line which I, of course, loved.

The large, English-country-style abode later pops up in the movie’s climactic, rather odd, and definitely spooky final scene in which Holly returns to her childhood home in the middle of the night to confront her evil doppelganger and finally end the nightmare in which she has been living.

Patrick, of course, follows Holly and, carrying a baseball bat, climbs up the side of the house and through a second story window in the hopes that he can save her.

I believe that the interior of the mansion that was shown in the movie was just a set and not the home’s real life interior.

According to fave website Zillow, the Doppelganger mansion, which was originally built in 1923, boasts 5 bedrooms, 2 baths, and 3,500 square feet of living space, although I would have guessed it to be much, much larger. And amazingly, the property still looks almost exactly the same today as it did 18 years ago when Doppelganger was filmed. Even the three large circular trees which flank the home’s front door and front window still look exactly the same. Love it!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Tony for finding this location! You can check out Tony’s FANTASTIC Flickr photostream, which features countless filming locations, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Doppelganger mansion is located at 2421 Glendower Avenue in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. Donna Martin’s house from the B.Y.O.B. episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is located just two doors south of the Doppelganger mansion at 2405 Glendower Avenue. And the so-called “Los Feliz Murder House”, which I blogged about back in January, is located just around the corner at 2475 Glendower Place.

October 7, 2011
The “Doppelganger” Apartment Building

Last week, while perusing through my friend and fellow stalker Tony’s Flickr photostream – which is comprised of an absolutely AMAZING collection of pictures of hundreds upon hundreds of filming locations – I came across his photographs of the apartment building that was used in the thriller Doppelganger. And while I had absolutely loved me some Doppelganger when it first came out way back in 1993, I had not seen the movie in such a long time that I had somehow forgotten Drew Barrymore was even in it! So I decided it was most definitely time for a re-watch and ran right out to rent the flick that very night. Unfortunately, it was not nearly as good as I had remembered it to be, especially the ending which I did not understand at all. But I, nevertheless, still had to drag the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the apartment building that very same weekend – especially since it fit in so perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme!

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In Doppelganger, Holly Gooding (aka Drew Barrymore) migrates from New York to Los Angeles after being cleared of a murder charge, whereupon she moves into an apartment building with a struggling mystery writer named Patrick Highsmith (aka Father of the Bride’s George Newbern).

In the movie, the idyllic little building, which has a central courtyard, a two-tiered fountain, and a communal birdcage, is named “Angel’s Court” and it is supposedly located at 1167 North Orange Grove Avenue in the Hollywood area.

In reality, the building is located just east of Hollywood and south of Thai Town and is, sadly, not nearly as inviting or picturesque in person as it appeared to be in Doppelganger. Don’t get me wrong, the building is by no means unattractive, but the neighborhood where it is located is, unfortunately, a bit on the iffy side and the courtyard that seemed so charming onscreen is rather bare in real life. I am guessing that the fountain and birdcage that appeared in the movie, along with the archway that was situated over the front gate, were just props that were brought in solely for the filming as they are no longer there.

In Doppelganger, Patrick and Holly lived in Apartment #2 and I am guessing that the real life interior of that particular unit was also used in the filming.

And, according to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory website, the building, which was originally constructed in 1922, was once also home to a few celebrities – cinematographer Harry Zech lived there during the 1920s and silent film actress Frances Deamer lived there in the 30s.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Tony for finding this location! You can check out Tony’s FANTASTIC Flickr photostream, which features countless filming locations, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Doppelganger apartment building is located at 1165 North Hobart Boulevard in Los Angeles. In the movie, Patrick and Holly lived in Apartment 2 and FBI Agent Stanley White (aka Dan Shor) lived in Apartment 6.

October 6, 2011
The Macy’s at Burbank Town Center Mall from “The Mentalist”

One spooky-type location that I have had on my To-Stalk list for just about forever now is the Macy’s department store located inside of the Burbank Town Center Mall, which was featured as a murder site in the Season 2 episode of fave show The Mentalist titled “Redemption”. And while I had recognized the location immediately while watching the episode way back in September of 2009 and had even stalked the Burbank Town Center Mall recently due to its appearance in another episode of The Mentalist, for whatever reason I had completely forgotten about Macy’s. So I promptly dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place this past weekend after doing some shopping at a nearby Ikea.

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In the “Redemption” episode of The Mentalist, CBI Agent Teresa Lisbon (aka Robin Tunney) and her ne’er-do-well consultant Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) are called in to investigate the murder of a man in a supposed-Sacramento-area department store. The scene in which the two arrive at the store was filmed at the bottom of the escalators on Macy’s Second Floor, next to the MAC Cosmetics counter.

Lisbon and Jane are immediately escorted by Police Captain Bocanegra (aka Geoffrey Rivas) to the murder site in the store’s Men’s Department. It was due to this particular segment of the scene, in which Patrick and Jane walk over some unique green tile and wood flooring, that I recognized the episode had been shot at the Macy’s in Burbank. The GC and I once did some shopping in the Burbank Macy’s Men’s Department quite a few years back and while we were there I had commented on how pretty I thought the floors were. They did not look like typical department store floors and made me think of the upscale Herald Square Macy’s on 34th Street in New York in which the Men’s Department is composed of dark woods. Anyway, the image of those floors stuck with me, for whatever reason, so when I saw Lisbon and Jane walk over them in “Redemption”, I recognized them immediately.

Lisbon and Jane are then shown the bludgeoned body of Ivar Rasmussen, which was found in a little waiting area outside of the men’s dressing rooms. It is there that Patrick proceeds to smell the body in order to gather clues, infuriating Captain Bocanegra in the process.

Sadly, the area used for the filming of that scene was being redressed when we showed up to the stalk the place and was not very accessible.

But I did manage to snap a picture of a similar alcove located in a different section of the store.

After properly “sniffing out” the body, Jane proceeds downstairs to the Ground Level Furniture Department in order to interview the patrons who were in the store at the time of the bludgeoning.

It is there that he performs a ritual using the hands of one of the witnesses to lead him to the murder weapon, which turns out to be the base of a crystal wineglass.

After the murder weapon is found, a huge fight breaks out among the killer and the security guards, which ends up causing $250,000 worth of damage to the store. When Lisbon admonishes him for creating the ruckus, Jane says, “What? The case is closed isn’t it?” Ah, I so love Patrick Jane!

That portion of the scene was filmed in Macy’s furniture/bedding/cookware department, which, amazingly enough, looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen. I thought for sure the production crew had dressed the area for the filming, but that does not actually appear to have been the case.

On a Mentalist side note – A couple of weeks ago, my good friend Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, called me up for some help after she discovered that she had locked her keys inside of her car while doing some shopping at the Burbank Town Center Mall. I headed over there and after calling Roadside Assistance and having them jimmy open the lock, we discovered that her keys were not, in fact, inside of the car after all. So I ventured inside the mall to see if anyone had turned them in to the security office. No one had and Pinky’s poor dad ended up having to drive all the way from Ventura to bring her a spare set – and, sadly, her originals have still yet to be found. FAIL! But every cloud does indeed have a silver lining, as they say, because a few days later I was watching the Season Premiere of The Mentalist, which was titled “Scarlet Ribbons”, and just about died when I noticed that a scene was filmed at the Burbank Town Center Mall security office! As I mentioned in the post I wrote about the show’s Season 3 Finale back in June, Patrick Jane finally killed Red John (aka Bradley Whitford) in the middle of the Burbank Town Center Mall at the very end of the episode. Well, when Agents Kimball Cho (aka Tim Kang) and Wayne Rigsby (aka Owain Yeoman) set out to investigate the killing in the Season 4 opener, one of their first stops was the mall’s real life security office, looking exactly as it had when I visited it only days before. SO incredibly cool!

That security office is pictured above. I had to take the photograph a bit on the down-low as I was afraid that one of the security guards might get upset if he saw me snapping any pictures of the place.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Macy’s at Burbank Town Center Mall, from the “Redemption” episode of The Mentalist, is located at 200 East Cypress Avenue in Burbank.

October 5, 2011
The Stimson House from “House II: The Second Story”

After stalking Mills View, the Monrovia-area residence that appeared in the 1986 movie House, I started doing some online research on the flick’s 1987 sequel, House II: The Second Story, and came across information about the Stimson House, an incredibly unique, castle-like property located in Los Angeles’ West Adams District. I was immediately intrigued by the home and, because it has been featured in several spooky productions over the years, figured it would fit right in with my Haunted Hollywood theme and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place a short time later. Incredibly though, thanks to the abode’s unusual beauty and prominent history, this was one location that he actually did not mind being dragged to!

The 3 1/2-story Stimson House was originally built in 1891 as a retirement home for Chicago lumberman/financier Thomas Douglas Stimson. The 12,800-square-foot, 30-room property was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style by architect Carroll H. Brown and featured an Arizona red sandstone façade, a 4-story octagonal corner tower, stained glass windows, gabled Gothic arches, Palladian windows, and brick chimneys. The interior, which was dubbed “a shrine to lumber” by Jake Doherty in a January 1994 Los Angeles Times article, consisted of oak flooring, hand-carved wood-paneled walls, beamed ceilings, custom-built china cabinets, and made use of over 8 different kinds of wood, including ash, sycamore, walnut, gumwood, birch, mahogany, oak, and monkeypod. Construction on the residence was completed in 1893 and cost approximately $130,000, making it, at the time, the most expensive home in all of Los Angeles. After Stimson passed away in February 1898, his widow, Achsah, continued to live at the residence until her death in 1904. The property was then sold and underwent several ownership changes until 1940, at which time it was purchased by the USC chapter of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity for $20,000. For the next 8 years, the Stimson House became the site of boisterous parties, elaborate pranks, and late-night frolicking.

At the time, Carrie Estelle Doheny, the widow of oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny, lived in the mansion located directly behind the Stimson House and was not at all happy with her rowdy neighbors. After filing countless complaints with the USC president, she decided to take matters into her own hands and offered the Pi Kappa Alphas $70,000 for the residence. They agreed, moved out, and Carrie promptly deeded the home to a much quieter set of neighbors, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. The Sisters transformed the abode into a convent where they lived until 1969, at which point they allowed the neighboring Mount St. Mary’s College to use the property as student housing. In 1993, the Sisters returned to the house and set about an extensive $1 million restoration of the property. They continue to live there to this day and often rent the place out for filming in order to offset the mansion’s expensive upkeep and to finance their retirement fund. The Stimson House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 30, 1978 and became Los Angeles’ 212th Historic-Cultural Monument on May 16, 1979.

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In House II: The Second Story, the Stimson house was the haunted residence inherited by Jesse (aka Arye Gross) and his girlfriend, Kate (aka Lar Park-Lincoln).

The Aztec-inspired interior appears to have been a set, though, as it does not match up with these interior photographs of the actual home.

In the Season 2 episode of The Bionic Woman titled “Black Magic”, the Stimson mansion was used as the island home of wealthy inventor Cyrus Carstairs (aka Vincent Price). Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were featured in the episode. And, according to the aforementioned Los Angeles Times article, Vincent Price became so enamored of the house’s echo-y acoustics during filming that he returned there later to tape a few productions of his own.

In the 1989 horror movie After Midnight, the Stimson house appeared in the segment titled “The Old Dark House” as the spot where Joan (aka Nadine Van der Velde) and Kevin (aka Marc McClure) sought help after getting two flat tires while driving late at night. Ironically enough, though, only the front porch and the interior of the Stimson house appeared in the flick.

As you can see above, for the wide angle shots of the mansion’s exterior another location altogether was used.

In the Season 1 episode of Pushing Daisies titled “The Fun in Funeral”, the Stimson House stood in for the Schatz Brothers Funeral Home in Couer d’Couers, where grave-robbing twins Lawrence and Louis Schatz (who were both played by Brad Grunberg) worked and also died.

The home’s real life interior was also used in the episode.

Two television mini-series, 1976’s Captains and the Kings, and 1977’s Testimony of Two Men, were also filmed at the mansion, but unfortunately I could not find copies of either of them to make screen captures for this post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Stimson house, from House II, is located at 2421 South Figueroa Street in the West Adams District of Los Angeles.

October 4, 2011
The Mills View House from “Picket Fences”

Well, my fellow stalkers, it is finally that time of year again, the month I look forward to all year long – October! With it comes fall leaves, cooler temperatures, and my favorite holiday of them all, Halloween. And you know what that means – I will once again be devoting the entire month of blog posts to locations having to do with Haunted Hollywood! First up is the Mills View house, a Monrovia-area property that I learned about way back in March from a journalist named Toni Momberger who interviewed me for an Inland Valley Daily Bulletin newspaper article she was writing about famous movie homes. Toni told me that she had toured the huge, Victorian-style abode as part of her research for the article and she was shocked to discover that I had never before heard of the place. As fate would have it, the house had been featured prominently in not one, but two spooky productions over the years, so I figured it would be the perfect start to my Haunted Hollywood theme and I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it a few weeks back.

The 5-bedroom, 2-bath, 3,140-square-foot Mills View house, which was built in 1887 by architects Luther Reed Blair and Uriah Zimmerman, was originally situated on a 5-acre plot of land on what was then the corner of Banana Avenue (now Hillcrest Boulevard) and Melrose Avenue. The Eastlake-Victorian-style home was commissioned by William N. Monroe, the founder of Monrovia, as a wedding gift for his son, Milton Monroe, and his new bride, Mary Nevada. Construction on the property began in May of 1887, shortly after Milton and his wife were married, and was completed a mere seven months later. Sadly, the Monroes divorced a short time after tying the knot and ended up selling their wedding home to Colonel John H. Mills and his wife, Elizabeth Cook Mills, in 1893. The Mills dubbed their new residence “Mills View” because on a clear day the island of Catalina was supposedly visible from one of the third floor windows. Unfortunately, Colonel Mills passed away only three months after moving into the home and it went through several ownership changes after Elizabeth subsequently died in 1905. Mills View, which boasts numerous stained glass windows, a third floor attic, hardwood flooring throughout, and five fireplaces with original tilework, became a Monrovia City Landmark on June 4, 1996.

According to this Monrovia Patch article, Mills View has appeared in over 20 productions since 1980 alone. Sadly though, I know of only two – both of which, as I mentioned above, fit the thriller genre. And the property definitely does give off a spooky vibe in person – I think primarily due to its gargantuan size – so it is not very hard to see why location scouts have flocked to it over the years.

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In the Season 1 Halloween-themed episode of fave show Picket Fences titled “Remembering Rosemary”, Mills View was where Rosemary Bauer committed suicide ten years prior by jumping out of a third-floor window, and where Sheriff Jimmy Brock (aka Tom Skerritt) and his deputies Maxine Stewart (aka Lauren Holly) and Kenny Lacos (aka Costas Mandylor) returned to investigate the case after deciding to re-open it a few days before Halloween.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the house, which you can see some photographs of here, was used in the episode.

Mills View was also the primary location used in the 1986 horror flick House. In the movie, it was the haunted property that mystery-writer Roger Cobb (aka William Katt) inherited from his Aunt Elizabeth (aka Susan French). According to the House production notes, for the onsite filming, which lasted two weeks, production designer Gregg Fonseca repainted the exterior of the property and added Victorian gingerbread detailing, a few spires, a wrought-iron fence, and a sidewalk. At the rear of the residence, he covered up the home’s real life clapboard siding with a fake brick edifice and added some much-needed landscaping.

No filming took place inside of the actual home, though. For all of the interior scenes, a replica of the house, which included two full stories, a living room, a den, a staircase, and three upstairs bedrooms, was built on a soundstage at Ren Mar Studios in Hollywood.

And I am fairly certain that the pool shown in the movie was either a fake built on the property solely for the filming or that a second location was used, as Mills View does not currently appear to have a pool.

Two very lucky British House fans were given a personalized tour of Mills View last year and wrote a great blog post about it which you can check out here.

On a Halloween side note – I was finally able to dig up a photograph of me dressed up as Agent Dana Scully for Halloween one year during college, which I had mentioned in the blog post I wrote about meeting David Duchovny back in June. The only picture I could find, though, was not a very good one as my eyes are closed in it. Ah well. That is my good friend Alex, who was dressed up a Parrothead, posing with me.

While going through boxes at my parents’ new house looking for the Dana Scully picture, I also stumbled upon my Fox Mulder doll, which I could NOT have been more excited about! I am so going to have to stalk DD again and get him to sign the doll for me. How incredibly cool would that be??

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Mills View, from the movie House and the “Remembering Rosemary” episode of Picket Fences, is located at 329 Melrose Avenue in Monrovia.

October 3, 2011
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ Former Mansion

I recently finished reading Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography which was written by Andrew Morton, the legendary celebrity biographer who also penned Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words, and I have to say that it was absolutely FABULOUS! I honestly cannot more highly recommend it. Not only was the book, which became a 2008 bestseller, a fascinating read, but it also got me completely obsessed with Dawson’s Creek once again and I just started re-watching the series from the beginning last week. SUCH a great show and one of these days I have GOT to get myself to Wilmington, North Carolina to do some stalking of the locales, but I digress. Anyway, one of the locations talked about in Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography was the Beverly Hills manse that the actor called home when he first started dating Katie Holmes and which Katie also later moved into. So I, of course, just had to drag the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place as soon as I finished reading the book.

Sadly though, as you can see above, virtually no part of the mansion is visible from the street.

But, as I’ve said before, that’s why God created aerial views. As you can see above, Tom and Katie’s former house is absolutely gargantuan. In fact, it would be more appropriate to call the place a “compound” rather than a “house”. The English-Country-style abode, which was originally built in 1927, features a 6,685-square-foot main house with five bedrooms and five baths, a guest house which is comprised of three separate apartments, each with their own kitchen and bath!, a screening room, formal gardens, a sunken tennis court, a pool, a spa, and almost three full acres of secluded land. According to the Berg Properties website, Tom Cruise first leased the residence in 2001, shortly after his separation from then-wife Nicole Kidman. TomKat moved out of the home sometime in 2007, at which point it went on the market at a rental rate of $100,000 per month. Not kidding! According to fave website The Real Estalker, Russell Crowe may have lived there for a time after the Cruises left. And it appears that the property is once again available for lease. You can check out the real estate listing – and see some fabulous interior photographs of it – here.

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And, amazingly enough, not only was the abode once the home of one of the world’s biggest movie stars, but the place is also a filming location! In 2001’s Blow, the mansion was where George Jung (aka Johnny Depp) lived with his wife, Mirtha (aka Penelope Cruz). It was featured in the memorable scene in which George shows his father, Fred (aka Ray Liotta), his extensive collection of cars. The home was also where George was arrested by the FBI during his 38th birthday party.

The interior of the house was also used in the filming.

In the Season 3 episode of Californication titled “Wish You Were Here” the mansion was the residence of Dean Stacy Koons (aka The O.C.’s Peter Gallagher) and his wife, Felicia (aka Embeth Davidtz), where Hank Moody (aka David Duchovny) attended a dinner party.

The real life interior of the mansion also appeared in that episode.

And the mansion also shows up each week on the ABC Family series Switched at Birth as the residence of the Kennish family – Bay (aka Vanessa Marano), Toby (aka Lucas Grabeel), John (aka D.W. Moffett), and Kathryn (aka Lea Thompson) – and the Vasquez family – Daphne (aka Katie Leclerc), Regina (aka Constance Marie), and Adrianna (aka Ivonne Coll).

Although the interior is, I believe, just a set. As you can see in the screen captures above, it does not look at all like the real life interior of the former Cruise home.

But the backyard, pool, and guest house scenes all take place at the actual house.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ former house is located at 918 North Alpine Drive in Beverly Hills.

September 30, 2011
The “Beaches” Mansion vs. The “Starsky & Hutch” Mansion

Two weeks ago, fellow stalker Jenny left a comment on my post about the long-sought-after Beaches mansion in which she mentioned that the very same residence had also been used in both 1983’s Mr. Mom and 1987’s Who’s That Girl. Ironically enough, I had received virtually that same exact comment from a fellow stalker named Sarah on the post I wrote about the Starsky & Hutch mansion (pictured above) way back in May of 2009. So yesterday I decided to do some digging to see which mansion, if either, had been used in the two 80s flicks – a task which proved to be easier said than done.

Both the Beaches mansion and the Starsky & Hutch mansion are extremely large, Tudor-style residences situated on absolutely huge pieces of land in Pasadena, so it is easy to see how they have been mistaken as being one in the same over the years. The Beaches mansion, which is pictured above although sadly not much of it can be seen from the street, was originally built in 1916 and boasts 8 bedrooms, 4 baths, and a whopping 7,479 square feet of living space.

The gargantuan home sits on just under two acres of land.

In Beaches, the mansion was where Hillary Whitney Essex (aka Barbara Hershey) lived with her daughter, Victoria Cecilia Essex (aka Grace Johnston).

The Starsky & Hutch mansion, which was built in 1912, boasts 13 bedrooms (and no that is not a typo!), 8 baths, and 11,573 square feet of living space.

The monstrous residence sits on a 2.2 acre plot of land.

In 2004’s Starsky & Hutch, the mansion was where Reese Feldman (aka Vince Vaughn) lived with his wife, Mrs. Feldman (aka Molly Sims), and was where David Starsky (aka Ben Stiller) accidentally shot a pony while at a bar mitzvah party.

As it turns out and as you can see above, Mr. Mom was filmed at the Starsky & Hutch mansion and not at the Beaches mansion. In the movie, the property stood in for the residence belonging to Caroline’s (aka Teri Garr’s) millionaire boss, Ron Richardson (aka Martin Mull).

And here’s where things get confusing. As you can see above, the Starsky & Hutch mansion was also used as the home of Simon Worthington (aka John McMartin) in Who’s That Girl. Well, the front of the house was, at least.

The backyard, though, where the wedding of Louden Trott (aka Griffin Dunne) and Wendy Worthington (aka Sixteen Candles’ Haviland Morris) was supposed to take place, was actually the backyard of the Beaches mansion!

The interior scenes from Who’s That Girl were also filmed at the Beaches mansion. The screen captures in the top row pictured above were taken from Who’s That Girl, while the ones in the bottom row were taken from Beaches, and, as you can see, the interiors match perfectly.

The Starsky & Hutch mansion was also used numerous times in the television series Falcon Crest as the home belonging to Carlo Agretti (aka Carlos Romero) and his daughter, Melissa (aka Ana Alicia). It first showed up in the Season 1 episode titled “House of Cards” and then popped up repeatedly throughout the next few seasons. According to IMDB, the Starsky & Hutch mansion was also used in the Season 2 episode of Fantasy Island titled “The Last Whodunit” and in the Season 4 episode of Murder She Wrote titled “Witness for the Defense”, neither of which I could find a copy of to make screen captures for this post. And according to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, the property also appeared in an episode of the short-lived television series Pepper Dennis.

As I mentioned in my post two weeks ago, the Beaches mansion has also been used in countless productions over the years. It stood in for Roger Sterling’s (aka John Slattery’s) country club in the Season 3 episode of Mad Men titled “My Old Kentucky Home”.

And in the Season 2 episode of Parks & Recreation titled “94 Meetings” it appeared as the Turnbill Mansion, which Leslie Knope (aka Amy Poehler) fought to save.

Fellow stalker Tamara in Australia also let me know that the Beaches mansion was used as the residence where the eponymous Alice (aka Natalie Gregory) lived in 1985’s FABULOUS Irwin-Allen-produced television movie Alice in Wonderland, which featured an all-star cast and which I used to watch repeatedly with my grandma when I was a child. The same property also appeared in the Season 7 episode of Columbo titled “Try and Catch Me”, which I was unfortunately unable to find a copy of to make screen captures for this post.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Jenny, Sarah, and Tamara for helping me to clear up the filming location confusion with these particular properties.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Beaches mansion is located at 880 La Loma Road in Pasadena. The Starsky & Hutch mansion is located just about two miles east at 1050 Arden Road in Pasadena.

September 29, 2011
Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant on Wilshire

Because I encountered so much filming location misinformation while researching my post on Bob’s Big Boy Broiler in Downey last week, I decided that I just had to write a blog about the place’s sister eatery, the now-defunct Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile District of Los Angeles, which has also appeared in countless productions over the years. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place this past Saturday afternoon.

Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant, which was originally named Romeo’s Time Square, was built in 1955 by Louis Armet and Eldon Davis, the Googie-style architecture firm that was once deemed the “Frank Lloyd Wright of ‘50s coffee shops” by author Merrill Shindler in a 2009 Daily Breeze article that is sadly no longer available online. The Armet and Davis duo was also responsible for creating the Norm’s Restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard, the iconic Schwab’s Pharmacy on Sunset Boulevard, the now-demolished Holiday Bowl bowling alley on Crenshaw Boulevard, and Twain’s Restaurant in Studio City, which was featured in fave movie A Lot Like Love. The sleek, bright, space-age construction of Romeo’s was designed to catch the attention of passing motorists and lure them – and their wallets – in for a bite to eat.

Romeo’s Time Square went through several changes in ownership and name in the ensuing years, becoming “Ram’s Restaurant” in the 1960s and then, finally, Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant shortly thereafter. In 1994, the property was purchased by the Gold family, owners of the 99 Cents Only Store chain, who sadly shuttered the eatery in 2000. The building has thankfully remained intact, though, and its parking lot is now being used by a 99 Cents Only Store located nearby. As you can see above, the store even made use of one of the original Johnie’s signs, which I think is so incredibly cool.

In 2003, the Gold family made a few restorations to the shuttered restaurant, including repainting the exterior, fixing the cantilevered roof, and repairing the many burnt-out lights on the exterior neon signage. According to this July 15th, 2004 article which appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Eric Schiffer, president of the 99 Cents Only Stores, would like to see the place re-open as a restaurant someday. He said, “This needs to be done in a special way. We’re open to hearing creative uses. We just don’t have time to go out and market the building.” Here’s hoping that a savior steps in soon, much like Bob’s Big Boy did with Johnie’s Broiler in Downey, and restores the historic eatery to its former 1950’s glory. Surprisingly, despite being closed for more than a decade, the restaurant appears to be in pretty good shape. I was able to snap the above photographs of Johnie’s interior through the many windows, on which the shades were, thankfully, not drawn.

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Thanks to its futuristic and streamlined design, Johnie’s has long been a location scout favorite. In a very prominent scene from 1988’s Miracle Mile, the eatery was where Harry Washello (aka Anthony Edwards) learned that the world was about to end.

In 1992’s Reservoir Dogs, Johnie’s was where Mr. Orange (aka Tim Roth) met up with his superior.

In the 1997 disaster flick Volcano, Johnie’s pops up very briefly in the scene in which the firefighters of Los Angeles stand off against the lava from a nearby volcano.

In 1998’s Very Bad Things, Johnie’s was where Michael Berkow (aka Jeremy Piven) announced to a roomful of confused diners that he had just killed his brother.

In 1998’s The Big Lebowski, Johnie’s was where The Dude (aka Jeff Bridges) and Walter Sobchak (aka John Goodman) discussed severed toes, victimless crime, and First Amendment rights.

Johnie’s popped up in 1998’s City of Angels as the spot where Nathaniel Messinger (aka Dennis Franz) told Seth (aka Nicolas Cage) how to become a human.

The diner was featured at the end of 1998’s American History X as the place where Derek Vinyard (aka Edward Norton) and his younger brother Danny Vinyard (aka Edward Furlong) stop to grab a bite to eat before heading over to Venice High School.

Johnie’s also appeared in the 1999 music video for the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ song “Swingin’”, which starred The Mentalist’s Robin Tunney and which you can watch by clicking here.

And the restaurant showed up in 2004 in Reba McEntire’s music video for her song “Somebody”.

Reba McEntire – Somebody Video Filmed at Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant

You can watch that video by clicking above.

The diner was featured prominently in the 2007 music video for Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls”, which is SUCH a great song, by the way! I literally cannot stop listening to it!

Sean Kingston–Beautiful Girls Video filmed at Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant

You can watch that video by clicking above. But be forewarned – it is HIGHLY addictive!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Johnie’s Coffee Shop Restaurant is located at 6101 Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile District of Los Angeles.

September 28, 2011
The 3rd Annual “Get Lucky for Lupus” Celebrity Poker Tournament

Last Wednesday evening, my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, invited me to do a little stalking of the 3rd Annual “Get Lucky for Lupus” Celebrity Poker Tournament, which benefited Lupus LA, the West Coast division of the S.L.E. Lupus Foundation. Well, once I head the word “lupus”, I knew that I had to attend as I had a pretty strong feeling that one of my very favorite actresses, Kellie Martin, would be there. Kellie’s younger sister, Heather, tragically passed away from lupus in 1998 at the tender age of 19 and the actress has been a very vocal advocate for research on the disease ever since. (You can read an article that Kellie wrote about her sister’s battle with lupus for the September 1999 issue of Jane Magazine here.) And, sure enough, about ten minutes after the Grim Cheaper and I arrived on the scene, who should walk up but Kellie! And, let me tell you, I just about had a heart attack I was so excited to meet her! Life Goes On was one of my very favorite television shows growing up, so seeing Becca Thacher in person was almost most than I could bear. Kellie was very sweet and happily posed for a picture with me, but seemed truly surprised that anyone had recognized her, which shocked me!

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Next to arrive was Melissa Joan Hart, from Sabrina, the Teenage Witch fame, whom I had been dying to get a picture with for over a decade!

When I moved to Los Angeles way back in early 2000, one of the first things I did was register for background work at Central Casting. The same day that I registered, I was fortunate enough to get hired as an extra in the Season 4 episode of Just Shoot Me titled “Fast Times at Finchmont High”. As it turned out, the scenes I was in were with special guest star Melissa Joan Hart in which I played one of her cheerleader friends. That’s me in the above screen captures – in the first capture, I am standing to the right of Melissa and in the second, I am standing in between Melissa and the other cheerleader. Melissa could not have been sweeter to me or more professional to work with even after I accidentally gave her a flat tire (i.e. stepped on the back of her shoe, causing it to come off) while we were filming! I am a huge klutz by nature and the director, who as it turns out was Steven Levitan (the creator of Modern Family whom I just met two weeks ago at a pre-Emmy party), had asked me to stay as close to Melissa as possible while walking down the hall. Well, I stayed so close to her that I ended up stepping on the back of her shoe and pulling it off. She did not miss a beat, though, and kept right on shooting. I was highly embarrassed over the whole thing, but Melissa was a complete and total sweetheart and, when I apologized to her afterwards, she said, “Oh my gosh, don’t worry about it at all!” All in all, I could not have asked for a better first Hollywood experience and it was largely due to the kindness of Melissa.

Me on “Just Shoot Me”! 🙂

You can watch the clip of me on Just Shoot Me by clicking above.

Other celebrities who attended the “Get Lucky for Lupus” Celebrity Poker Tournament (and who were ALL so nice and laid back) included James Denton, from Desperate Housewives;

Aaron Hill, from Greek;

Verne Troyer;

Roger R. Cross, from 24;

George Costanza himself, Jason Alexander, who was so incredibly friendly and nice it was almost unbelievable;

Jamie Gold, the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event champion;

singer Ryan Cabrera;

Camryn Manheim – SUCH a sweetheart and absolutely GORGEOUS in person;

Michael Trucco, from Battlestar Galactica;

Ben Lyons, from E!’s The Daily 10;

poker player Tiffany Michelle;

Josh Altman, from Million Dollar Listing;

Karina Smirnoff, from Dancing with the Stars;

Slash, from Guns N’ Roses, who really did not want to pose for a photo, but was somehow magically talked into it by Miss Pinky Lovejoy;

and Derek Mears, who played Jason Voorhees in the 2009 remake of Friday the 13th.

Derek was so nice that he actually took two pictures with me as he was not sure he looked “scary enough” in the first. Love it!

I also ran into Jermaine Jackson this past Saturday afternoon and he was SUPER nice and happily agreed to pose for a photo with me. So, factoring in the Emmys, I guess you could say that it was a pretty INCREDIBLE week for this particular stalker. And I have no idea how I am going to write my Emmy post at this point in time, by the way, as it is looking to be a pretty daunting undertaking. I think I am going to have to break it up into several different columns, as it will just be FAR too long otherwise. But I do promise to write it soon.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, for inviting me to this event.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: There is no stalking location for this one, but you can find out more about lupus and lupus research by visiting the official Lupus LA website here.

September 27, 2011
Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood

Another location that has long been stockpiled (or should I say stalk-piled?) in my ever-growing stalking backlog is the original Barney’s Beanery restaurant in West Hollywood, which has been featured in numerous productions over the years and which I visited with fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, this past July. For whatever reason, even though the eatery is a major celebrity hot spot and a veritable Los Angeles institution, in my ten-plus years of living in Southern California I had yet to stalk the place.

Barney’s, which dubs itself as being the third oldest restaurant in Los Angeles, was originally founded by John “Barney’” Anthony, a Los Angeles native who got his culinary start by serving chili burgers and onion soup to his fellow soldiers during World War I. He opened his first men’s-only Beanery in Berkeley, California in 1920, but moved it to its present location on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood in 1927, after deciding that he wanted to live in a warmer climate. The eatery started out as little more than a one-room wooden shack with a small bar, but thanks to its location, which at the time was in the middle of nowhere, on Route 66, it attracted hundreds of travelers who were making their way from the East Coast to California. It became common practice for those patrons to leave their license plates behind at the bar in a symbol of saying goodbye to their previous life. The Barney’s of today is literally wallpapered with hundreds upon hundreds of old out-of-state license plates. When Anthony passed away on November 25th, 1968, a man name Erwin Held purchased the restaurant and promised to keep it in its original form. And despite a few expansions and another change in ownership (today the restaurant belongs to David Houston and Avi Fattal), the ramshackle little roadhouse-style Barney’s Beanery still looks much the same today as it did when it originally opened in 1927. In recent years, David and Avi have opened up four sister eateries and now have Barney’s locations in Old Town Pasadena, Santa Monica, Burbank, and Westwood.

The restaurant’s long-time popularity is largely due to its down-home food. Unbelievably, the menu features over 1,000 items (and no, that is a not a typo!), including 45 different varieties of chili, 20 different burgers with 24 different toppings, 13 types of hot dogs, and 200 varieties of beer. As they say at Barney’s, “If we don’t have it, you don’t want it!” The menu is so large in fact, containing everything from Mexican fare to pizza and calzones, that it is printed in newspaper format and boasts a whopping 12 pages! And while I did not eat at the original location with Chas that day, the Grim Cheaper and I used to frequent the Santa Monica outpost almost weekly when he lived on the West Side and I have to say that the fare is INCREDIBLE! The place serves up comfort food at its finest, including delectable chicken strips (my fave!) and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (SO COOL!). As owner David Houston is quoted as saying on the inmag website, “We’re not concerned about dieting, carb counting and all that because this is where you go to get away from it all.” LOVE IT!

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As I mentioned above, several productions have been filmed at Barney’s. The restaurant appeared almost weekly on the television series Columbo, as the regular hang-out of the show’s eponymous chili-loving Lieutenant Columbo (aka Peter Faulk). It first showed up in 1971 in the the Season 1 episode titled “Ransom for a Dead Man”, in which filming took place at the actual eatery. It next popped up in the Season 1 episode titled “It’s All In The Game” and in numerous later episodes as well, but only the exterior of the restaurant was actually used. The interior was just a set that had been based on the real Barney’s interior.

In 1984’s Body Double, Jake Scully (aka Craig Wasson) grabs a drink at Barney’s Beanery after discovering his girlfriend in bed with another man.

in 1985’s Real Genius, Barney’s stood in for Purgatory, the burger joint where Chris Knight (aka Val Kilmer) and his friends met up with Lazlo Hollyfeld (aka Jon Gries).

Val Kilmer returned to Barney’s in 1991 to shoot a rather disgusting scene for The Doors, in which Jim Morrison relieves himself on the bar. What is odd is that while Barney’s today still looks much the same as it did in Body Double, it does not look the way it did in The Doors, which was filmed some seven years later. I am guessing that producers had the bar dressed for the filming of The Doors to make the place appear as it did back in the days when Jim Morrison actually did hang out there.

In 2003’s Stuck on You, Barney’s Beanery was where conjoined twins Bob Tenor (aka Matt Damon) and Walt Tenor (aka Greg Kinnear) discuss undergoing surgery to separate themselves. The restaurant was also featured in the 1986 flick Out of Bounds, which unfortunately I could not find a copy of anywhere. Fail!

As I mentioned above, Barney’s has long been a celebrity hot spot. Just a few of the stars who have dined there over the years include Clara Bow (Hollywood’s first “It Girl”), Jim Morrison, John Barrymore, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Judy Garland, Lou Costello, Charles Bukowski, Marlon Brando, Bette Davis, Jack Nicholson, Elliot Gould, Bette Midler, Mel Gibson, Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Drew Carey, Rob Lowe, Keefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, John Cusack, Andrew McCarthy, Liza Minnelli, Matthew McConaughey, David Arquette, Chace Crawford, Lauren Conrad, my girl Jen Aniston, my other girl Marilyn Monroe, Ashton Kutcher, Courteney Cox, Josh Stewart, Wilmer Valderrama, Ed Westwick, Jessica Szohr, Adam Sandler, Billy Idol, James Dean, Ronald Regan, and Jean Harlow. Supposedly Quentin Tarantino wrote much of Pulp Fiction while sitting in his favorite booth at Barney’s. And Janis Joplin famously ate her last meal at the restaurant shortly before midnight on October 3rd, 1970. Janis apparently carved her name into the tabletop pictured above which is currently affixed to Barney’s ceiling. Unfortunately though, we could not find that carving anywhere, but the FindaDeath website has a great picture of it, which you can take a look at here.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for taking me to this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Barney’s Beanery, from Body Double, is located at 8447 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood.

September 23, 2011