Tag: Celebrities

Aunt Mitsy’s House from “Rumor Has It”

One location that I have been on the lookout for for what seems like ages now is the home where Aunt Mitsy (aka Kathy Bates) lived in the 2005 movie Rumor Has It. Even though I was never a particularly big fan of the flick, I pretty much fell in love with Aunt Mitsy’s adorable little bungalow – and her huge front porch – at first sight and have wanted to stalk it ever since. Especially being that my girl Jen Aniston had filmed a scene on the premises. Because no apartment number, street sign, or even a full view of the exterior of the property was visible at any point during the movie, though, I figured this was one locale that would be virtually impossible to track down.

Enter fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, who emailed me last week to ask for some help in locating the home where Grandma Bunny (aka Betty White) lived in the 2010 romantic comedy You Again. Well, I took one look at the screencap he sent me (pictured above) and realized that, while it was not the same house featured in Rumor Has It, the two properties looked amazingly similar – which got me to thinking that they might just be located in close proximity to each other, quite possibly even on the same street. So I immediately began searching for the You Again house and also got fellow stalkers Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and Owen on the case.

As fate would have it, Mike happened to recognize the yellow Victorian-style home located in the background of the Rumor Has It scene and when he looked at that property on Google Street View, sure enough, there was Mitsy’s house right across the street. Yay!

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Aunt Mitsy’s house was only featured in one very brief scene in Rumor Has It, in which Sarah Huttinger (aka Jennifer Aniston) asks Mitsy for information about her deceased mother. It is there that Mitsy first tells Sarah about her mother’s affair with Beau Burroughs (aka Kevin Costner), at which point Sarah realizes that her family served as the inspiration for the movie The Graduate. (Yeah, yeah – lame plot for a movie, I know.) From its appearance in Rumor Has It, I had assumed that the home was an extremely small, one-story dwelling and searched for it as such. As it turns out, I could not have been more wrong.

In real life the house looks nothing at all like how I had envisioned it to look in my mind. Not only is the place two levels, but it is also pretty darn huge!

And furthermore, the property is actually an apartment building – not a private residence as I had originally thought! As you can see above, the dwelling has several front doors and consists of at least three separate units. This is one location that I can honestly say I NEVER would have found on my own. Not in a million years.

Thankfully, the front porch area looks pretty much the same today as it did back in 2005 when Rumor Has It was filmed. There is currently much less foliage in place and the house is now painted blue instead of yellow, but otherwise little else has changed in that section of the property over the years and it still looks just as cute in person as it did onscreen. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to sit on that porch in the same spot that Jen sat to pose for a pic!

The other houses on the street that appeared in the background of the scene look exactly the same as they did in the movie, as well. And, yes, we did also end up finding Grandma Bunny’s house from You Again – well, fellow stalker Chas found it – and I will be blogging about it soon.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and to fellow stalkers Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, and Owen for all of the time and effort they put into this search.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Aunt Mitsy’s house from Rumor Has It is located at 485 Ellis Street in Pasadena.

September 2, 2011
Michael Jackson’s Childhood Home in Gary, Indiana

Today’s blog is a major, major fail on my part as I had originally intended to write about this location on Monday, August 29th – the day that would have been legendary singer Michael Jackson’s 53rd birthday. The suggestion to write about the King of Pop’s childhood home on the anniversary of his birth came from fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, who had stalked the Gary, Indiana-area property for me last August, after I had mentioned how badly I wanted to see it in person, and had then sent me photos of it as a surprise wedding gift. As is the case with most wedding presents, this one was most definitely geared towards the bride. But I digress. Anyway, for whatever reason, I completely forgot about the house when Monday rolled around and instead wrote about Vitello’s Italian restaurant from The Deep End of the Ocean. Ugh! I am such a blonde sometimes! So, with the thought that all things are better late than never, I decided to blog about the location today, in belated honor of my beloved MJ.

As you can see in the photograph above, Michael Jackson’s childhood home, which was originally built in 1949, is miniscule. The tiny abode, which Joseph and Katherine purchased in 1950 for $8,500, consists of only 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 672 square feet of living space and measures about 100 feet deep by 50 feet wide. When you consider that at one point in time all eleven members of the Jackson family – Joe, Katherine, Michael, Maureen (aka Rebbie), Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, LaToya, Marlon, Janet, and Randy – lived there, it is almost unbelievable. According to J. Randy Taraborellli in his book Michael Jackson: The Magic, the Madness, the Whole Story, 1958-2009, of the house Michael once said, “You could take five steps from the front door and you’d be out the back. It was really no bigger than a garage.” Which, ironically enough, the property lacked. Taraborrelli explains the living arrangements as such: “Katherine and Joseph shared one bedroom with a double bed. The boys slept in the only other bedroom in a triple bunk bed; Tito and Jermaine sharing a bed on top, Marlon and Michael in the middle, and Jackie alone on the bottom. The three girls slept on a convertible sofa in the living room; when Randy was born, he slept on a second couch.” The whole thing is suffocating to even think about! In August of 1969 Motown Records moved Joe, Michael, and the rest of the Jackson 5 out to Los Angeles where they were put up in various hotels. In December of that year the rest of the family relocated to California whereupon they all settled into a Mediterranean-style house located at 1601 Queens Road in West Hollywood. According to Taraborrelli, the living room of their new abode was twice the size of their entire former home in Gary.

Amazingly enough, very little of Michael Jackson’s childhood home has changed in the 42-plus years since the family last lived there. The only major difference is that, shortly after his death, a large marble plaque honoring the fallen icon was placed in the northeast corner of the front yard (pictured above). Oddly enough, it seems that the Jackson family may still own or be involved with the dwelling somehow. Property records list the owner of the house as the Anthony Otis Whitehead Trust located at 14126 East Rosecrans Avenue in Santa Fe Springs, California. So I did some digging on Google and, as it turns out, 14126 East Rosecrans also just so happens to be the business address of Brian Oxman, one-time lawyer for MJ and current lawyer for Joe Jackson.

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On a side-note: About Me is currently hosting a contest to find the new “face” of their company, a person who will ultimately star in an advertisement that will be featured on a large billboard in Times Square. I would love to be that new face! Especially because the grand prize winner will also get a free trip to New York City and we all know how much I absolutely love me some NYC. To vote, simply click on the “Vote for this profile!” tab in the upper right hand corner of my About Me page. For those who have not yet heard of About Me, it is an INCREDIBLY cool company that enables one to build a page with links to all of their various social networking sites, websites, blogs, email addresses, etc., compiling all of their information in one easy-to-find place. It is basically like a digital business card and I LOVE it. So please vote! Who knows, maybe this stalker will get lucky and wind up on a Times Square billboard! Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Michael Jackson’s childhood home is located at 2300 Jackson Street, on the corner of Jackson Street and West 23rd Avenue, in Gary, Indiana. The property is apparently not located in a very safe area, so please exercise caution when stalking it.

August 31, 2011
Figaro Bistrot from “Made of Honor”

As I mentioned in my post about Le Petit Bistro back in early August, one location that I have been longing to stalk for quite some time now is Figaro Bistrot, an adorable little French cafe that has appeared in numerous productions over the years, most notably the Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2009 advertising campaign which featured pop star Madonna. For whatever reason, though, the Grim Cheaper and I had just never made it out there. Until this past Saturday evening, that is, when we found ourselves in Los Feliz and I suggested stopping by for a cocktail. The sandwich board sign out in front of the restaurant proclaimed that Figaro offered “the very best Happy Hour in Los Feliz” and, let me tell you, it was not an exaggeration! Not only did the GC and I absolutely stuff ourselves silly, but we managed to get out of there for under $45!

As you can see in the photographs above, Figaro Bistrot is an absolutely ADORABLE little spot. Decorated with authentic French antiques, flower-shaped chandeliers, tiny sidewalk bistros, gilded mirrors, and a zinc-plated bar, the setting could not be more magical. Walking through the front doors, one is immediately transported to Paris. Not real life Paris, but a fantasy Paris – the Paris of the movies, the Paris that Bogey and Bergman so fondly reminisced about in Casablanca. And the food! Oh my god, the food! It was quite simply out of this world! The GC and I both ordered two items off of the happy hour menu, each of which were priced at around $5. The GC opted for the Beef Carpaccio and Moules Gratinees aux Fromage (mussels gratin with parsley butter sauce), while I ordered the Mini Burger, which was quite simply the best burger I have ever had in my life, and the Croquettes de Crabe (crab cakes), which were also divine. The GC was so insanely happy over the large portions, inexpensive prices, and fabulous fare that I can pretty much guarantee this is one spot we will be stalking again and again.

The Spring/Summer 2009 ad campaign for Louis Vuitton, which was directed by fashion icon Marc Jacobs and shot by legendary fashion photographer Stephen Meisel, featured the café quite prominently, most notably the bar area and the red leather banquettes located in the rear of Figaro’s southern-most dining room. And even though I am not a fan of Madonna – like at all – I have to admit that Meisel’s pictures of her are absolutely stunning. (The photographs above do not belong to me, but are the sole property of photographer Stephen Meisel and Louis Vuitton.)

As I mentioned in my post about Le Petit Bistro in August, the exterior of Figaro was featured in a brief establishing shot in the Season 3 episode of 90210 titled “How Much is that Liam in the Window”. It was used as the exterior of the French restaurant where Charlie Selby (aka Evan Ross) took Annie Wilson (aka Shenae Grimes) on a date. For some reason, though, the interior scenes were shot about six miles away at Le Petit Bistro in West Hollywood.

Our super-nice bartender informed us that Figaro had also made an appearance in the 2008 flick Made of Honor and I just about died of excitement. You see, I have always had a very special place in my heart for that movie because when I first asked my non-celebrity-obsessed best friend, Robin, who is male and lives in Switzerland, to stand up for me at my wedding, he sent me an email which stated, “I would do absolutely everything to be at your wedding. I just don’t know what the best man has to do. I’m not so familiar with the American rules of marriage. I went to watch a really bad movie last Spring with Steffi [his girlfriend]. I, of course, don’t know the name of the movie or of the actor in it, but it was with the guy who plays the doctor in Grace [his spelling, not mine – love it] Anatomy. Anyway, he had to organize the bachelor party for women and stuff like that. So you will have to give me a summary of the duties of the bride’s best man.” So incredibly cute! I immediately printed out that email and have carried it around in my wallet ever since. The “really bad” movie he was speaking about was, of course, Made of Honor, which I had actually never before seen. So after our dinner at Figaro, the GC and I headed right on over to Blockbuster to rent it. And I have to say that it was not half bad. It is not great, mind you, but it is a cute, little lightweight romantic comedy. Anyway, Figaro Bistrot was featured a few times in the flick. The exterior first pops up as the supposed Manhattan bakery where Hannah (aka Michelle Monaghan) tries to guess what dessert her best friend Tom (aka Patrick Dempsey – the guy who plays the doctor in Grace Anatomy ) is going to order.

It later pops up in the scene in which Tom, who has since realized that he is in love with Hannah, takes a random date out for dessert and tries to get her to play the guessing game, which she fails miserably at. While there, she also complains about the long line, to which Tom says, “This is the best bakery in the world! That’s why it’s worth waiting in line.”

And, finally, the interior pops up in the scene in which Tom, while eating two pieces of cake, thinks about Hannah, who is on a business trip in Scotland for six weeks.

Figaro Bistrot is also something of a celebrity hot spot. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there include Katherine Heigl, Josh Kelley, Isabel Lucas, Lindsay Price, Jessalyn Gilsig, and Keifer Sutherland. The GC and I also once spotted Archie Panjabi dining at one of the restaurant’s sidewalk tables while we were walking by after grabbing a bite to eat at nearby Fred 62.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Figaro Bistrot, from Made of Honor, is located at 1802 North Vermont Avenue in Los Feliz. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. Figaro offers Happy Hour from 5 to 7 p.m. daily, including Saturdays and Sundays!

August 30, 2011
Vitello’s Italian Restaurant from “The Deep End of the Ocean”

A couple of weeks ago, after doing some stalking in Beverly Hills, the Grim Cheaper and I decided to head over to the Valley to grab dinner at one of our very favorite eateries in all of Los Angeles – Vitello’s Italian Restaurant in Studio City. And even though I have blogged about the place twice before – first in June of 2008 and then again later that November – due to the fact that it is set to undergo an extensive – and when I say extensive, I mean extensive – renovation and remodel in the near future, I figured that it was most definitely worthy of a re-post.

Vitello’s was originally opened by Sal Vitello, a native New York baker, in 1964. Ironically enough, at the time the place was not an Italian restaurant, but a modest subway sandwich shop which featured fresh, homemade bread. In 1977, Sal sold his little eatery to brothers Joe and Steve Restivo, Sicilian natives who migrated to Los Angeles via Chicago. The brothers added down-home, hearty Italian-style staples to the Vitello’s menu, quickly turning the restaurant into a Los Angeles institution.

Thanks to its proximity to the many area movie studios, along with its fabulous fare, it was not long before Hollywood took notice of Vitello’s. As you can see above, the restaurant’s main entrance is literally covered with autographed headshots. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted dining at Vitello’s over the years include Frank Sinatra, Sally Kellerman, Ana Ortiz, Tony Danza, Jason Alexander (the one from Seinfeld, not Britney Spears’ ex-husband ), Life Goes On’s Chris Burke, Candice Bergen, Melissa Joan Hart, Frankie Muniz, Michael Landon, Joanna Kerns, Dom DeLuise, Rick Fox, Scott Baio, Tom Smothers, and Wilford Brimley.

The restaurant’s most famous celebrity guest, though, has to be actor Robert Blake, who used to be a regular patron of the eatery, dining there at least three times a week. On the evening of May 4, 2001, Blake notoriously grabbed dinner there with his then-wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley, in a booth that, according to the above photograph, was located in the bar area.

The actual bar area is pictured above. Shortly after the couple finished their meal, Bonnie was shot and killed just around the corner from the restaurant. And while Blake claimed that at the time of the shooting he had been walking back to the restaurant to retrieve a gun he had inexplicably left behind in his booth, he was arrested and charged with Bakley’s murder on April 18, 2002. He was then acquitted of those charges in March of 2005, but a few months later was found liable for Bakley’s wrongful death in a civil court. Unlike was the case with Brentwood’s Mezzaluna Restaurant, where Nicole Brown Simpson ate her last meal and which closed shortly thereafter, Vitello’s association with the crime only seemed to further the eatery’s fame and made the place even more of a Valley hot spot.

In 2005, Joe and Steve Restivo, seeking retirement, sold Vitello’s to Matt Epstein, a Sherman Oaks real estate agent who had been a regular patron of the restaurant since childhood. And while Epstein kept the menu and décor largely the same for quite some time, earlier this year he brought in a new chef, Tonino Cardia, and completely revamped the menu. And I am very sad to report that it is not nearly as good as it used to be. Gone are the vast majority of the hearty Vitello’s staples that the GC and I had come to know and love and the few items that the new menu did retain have been completed made over. The chicken marsala – which used to be my favorite entree – is a lackluster version of its former self and Vitello’s famous garlic bread now tastes much like the kind that can be purchased in the frozen food aisle of your local supermarket. Such an incredible shame!

There are also plans in the works to gut the interior of the restaurant and give it a completely new look. Even the famous Vitello’s wall mural will be coming down, as will the vintage leather booths. The new design will apparently feature French doors in the entryway and a huge olive tree in the middle of the dining room. And while it all sounds lovely, I am of the mantra that “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”. Vitello’s has been a veritable Los Angeles institution for decades, always packed to the gills whenever we have dined there. It is widely noted that 59% of new restaurants close within three years of their opening, so for an eatery that has remained successful for over thirty-four years, you have to wonder why the owners would change a thing! It is such a shame! And while the super-nice manager came over to speak with us after we had expressed our disappointment with the new fare and even offered to comp our meal (which we turned down – we were not looking for a free meal, but just wanted to voice our opinion that the former cuisine was one hundred times better than the current), I am sad to say that I do not think we will ever be dining at Vitello’s again – the food was that bad!

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Besides being a celebrity hangout, our super-nice waitress also informed us that Vitello’s has been used as a filming location! Ironically enough, it stood in for two different locations in the 1999 movie The Deep End of the Ocean. The interior very briefly appeared as the supposed Madison, Wisconsin-area Italian restaurant where Pat Cappadora (aka Treat Williams) worked towards the beginning of the flick.

And the exterior later popped us as Cappadora’s, the supposed Chicago-area restaurant that Pat founded with his father, Angelo (aka Tony Musante), in the middle of the movie.

And while the interior was (I think) just a set, with its orange-toned walls, painted murals, and brickwork, it very closely resembles the real life interior of Vitello’s. Our waitress also informed us that the restaurant will be featured in an upcoming episode of Whitney, the yet-to-be released television series which stars Chelsea-Lately-regular Whitney Cummings.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Vitello’s Restaurant, from The Deep End of the Ocean, is located at 4349 Tujunga Avenue in Studio City. You can visit Vitello’s official website here.

August 29, 2011
The Cliffhouse Restaurant from “City of Industry”

For our first wedding anniversary this past weekend, the Grim Cheaper and I headed out to the desert to spend a few days at the La Quinta Resort & Club, a historic hotel and popular celebrity hangout which I blogged about extensively last December. The GC’s brother, who works for the Hilton Hotels chain, which owns the resort, hooked us up royally with a Friends-and-Family discount so we were able to book a suite at an amazingly low rate – a suite that turned out to be the property’s Errol Flynn room! When I first walked through the doors and saw Errol’s star hanging on the wall, I just about had a heart attack! (As I mentioned in my December post, in each room where a celebrity has once stayed, the hotel posts a replica of that celebrity’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star.) A super-nice concierge that we later spoke with also informed us that comedian Red Skelton had once vacationed in our suite. But for some reason, even though Red Skelton was actually honored with two Walk of Fame stars during his lifetime – one for radio and one for TV – only a replica of Errol’s star was posted in our room.

We absolutely fell in love with our little Spanish-style suite, which featured two bathrooms and two patios and was situated in an adorable trellised courtyard. So much so that we ended up extending our stay at the last minute by one more night, as neither of us could bear to leave.

Just to explain the kind of place La Quinta Resort is, we were not only sent a split of champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries on the night of our anniversary . . .

. . . but after deciding to extend our stay, we were sent more champagne, more strawberries, and a bottle of wine! All while we were paying a room rate that was almost obscenely low. Needless to say, the La Quinta Resort & Club is all about customer service. I absolutely LOVE the place and cannot more highly recommend staying there! You can read more about Hollywood’s extensive love affair with the hotel in the post I wrote back in December. And now, on with today’s location!

Long before they moved to the desert, my parents discovered a La Quinta-area eatery named the Cliffhouse and it quickly became their favorite local spot to grab a bite to eat. And while I have dined there quite a few times over the years, it was not until just a couple of weeks ago that, thanks to favorite stalking tome Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, I discovered the restaurant was a filming location! As it turns out, the ranch-style eatery was featured briefly in the 1997 heist movie City of Industry! So when my parents mentioned that they wanted to treat me and the GC to dinner there in honor of our anniversary, I could NOT have been more excited!

As you can see in the above aerial view, the Cliffhouse is literally built directly into the side of a small cliff that is known locally as “Point Happy”. The area was named for rancher Norman “Happy” Lundbeck who, in the early 1900s, owned a store and ranch directly across the highway from the small hillside. Over time, Norman’s homestead, which he dubbed “Point Happy Ranch”, became a popular hitching post and watering hole for weary gold-seekers traveling from California to the Colorado River. And the small, but prominent hillside eventually became a landmark to those travelers, letting them know that much-needed food and rest was near. The Cliffhouse restaurant, which cost $5 million to construct, took over 5 years of planning to complete, and involved a hollowing out of a part of the Point, opened in 1992 and has been a desert staple ever since. The eatery is not only beautiful and incredibly unique in its architecture, but it also serves up some FABULOUS food, especially the fish tacos, which are INCREDIBLE – and I don’t even like fish! The two-story, 9,000-square foot steakhouse is owned by TS Restaurants and, sadly, the corporation will not be renewing its lease come 2012, which is such an incredible shame I cannot even tell you. There is hope that a new company will come in and take over the property, keeping the Cliffhouse name and menu, so my fingers are crossed. I will be extremely sad if this place closes, as will my parents!

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In City of Industry, after being double-crossed and shot at by his partner Skip Kovich (aka Stephen Dorff), bank robber Roy Egan (aka Harvey Keitel) climbs up the retaining wall located on the western side of the Cliffhouse and then proceeds to steal a car from the restaurant’s parking lot. Immediately after dining at the Cliffhouse, the GC and I ventured over to my parents’ house to watch City of Industry and I have to say that the movie was pretty darn horrible! We ended up fast-forwarding through the vast majority of it, pausing just long enough to check out the numerous Palm-Springs-area locales which popped up.

Only the parking lot area and the exterior of the restaurant were shown in the movie. If you were at all a fan of City of Industry (I’m sure there have to be at least a few of you out there ), and would like to stalk the restaurant, I would recommend doing so before December 31st, when it is set to close.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Cliffhouse restaurant, from City of Industry, is located at 78250 Highway 111 in La Quinta. The area where Harvey Keitel climbed up the retaining wall in the movie is marked with a pink “X” in the above aerial view. The area from which he stole the car is marked with a blue star. You can visit the official Cliffhouse website here. La Quinta Resort & Club is located at 49-499 Eisenhower Drive, also in La Quinta. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. The Errol Flynn suite is Room 222.

August 26, 2011
Lucille’s House from “Bye Bye Love”

Another location that fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, had on his extensively detailed list of places to stalk during our day together in L.A. this past July (and there were over 30 locales on that list, by the way; as I said it was quite extensive!) was the residence where Lucille (aka Janeane Garofalo) lived in the 1995 film Bye Bye Love. And while I had never actually seen Bye Bye Love at that point in time, I absolutely fell in love with the house as soon as we drove up to it. So much so that I immediately added the flick to my list of movies to rent and finally did so this past week – which I think may have actually been a first for me. I do not believe that I have ever before watched a movie solely based on the fact that I liked a location featured in it. Ladies and gentlemen, I have reached a new level of stalking! I have to say, though, that I was not too crazy about Bye Bye Love. While it was heartwarming, it was also extremely sad and, as I have mentioned before, I am not too keen on depressing flicks. Never in my life have I been more thankful that my parents never divorced than I was while watching that movie. And, surprisingly enough, while I typically cannot stand Janeane Garofalo – actually, to be completely honest, I absolutely abhor the woman; she’s right up there with Jessica Simpson on my list of least favorite celebrities – I LOVED her in Bye Bye Love. She had me laughing out loud on several occasions, especially when she continually tried to utilize the passenger controls in Vic Damico’s (aka Randy Quaid’s) Driver’s Education car. But I digress.

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Lucille’s house was only featured briefly in Bye Bye Love and, surprisingly, very little of the property was ever shown. You would think producers would have utilized more of the place being that it is so completely adorable. The residence first showed up in the scene in which Vic picks Lucille up for their blind date. Immediately after opening the door and meeting for the first time, Vic says to Lucille, “Nice place!”, to which she responds, “Yes, thank you. Buying this place was the only smart thing that son-of-a-b*tch ex-husband of mine ever did!” LOL

It later shows up when Vic drives Lucille home after suffering through a horrible dinner with her, only to discover that she has locked her keys inside the property and cannot get in.

And even though the house is absolutely ADORABLE in person, I actually prefer the blue color it was painted in Bye Bye Love to the yellow/red combination that it is painted now. The home, which was originally built in 1920, is not actually as small as its façade would lead you to believe. According to fave website Zillow, the residence boasts 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and 1,596 square feet of living space.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location. You can check out Chas’ extensive Bye Bye Love filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Lucille’s house from Bye Bye Love is located at 1612 Courtney Avenue in Los Angeles.

August 19, 2011
The “Troop Beverly Hills” House

A couple of weeks ago, fellow stalker Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, mentioned that he had recently stalked the residence belonging to the Nefler family – Phyllis (aka Shelley Long), Freddy (aka Craig T. Nelson), and their daughter, Hannah (aka Jenny Lewis) – in the 1989 comedy Troop Beverly Hills. Well, let me tell you, after hearing that I literally just about had a heart attack! TROOP BEVERLY HILLS? TROOP BEVERLY HILLS! How in the heck had I forgotten about that movie?? I absolutely loved it as a teenager and remember renting it countless times from the video store around the corner from my house. Due to some sort of brain lapse, though, I had not thought about or seen the flick in years. So when Mikey mentioned it, I immediately ran to my local Blockbuster to rent it. Shockingly though, the sales clerk informed me that the store did not carry the title! And neither did any of the other Blockbusters within a ten mile radius of my apartment! (Perhaps this is why the chain has been floundering in recent years! I mean, hello! How does a video store not carry a major 80s classic like Troop Beverly Hills????) I was further shocked to discover that my local Borders Books did not have the movie, either. (Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010, Borders in 2011 – a coincidence? I think not! ) Thankfully, Troop Beverly Hills was available for purchase on iTunes (oddly enough, they do not offer the flick for rent), so I immediately purchased it and, because iTunes does not allow one to burn a purchased movie onto a DVD, was forced to watch the entire hour and forty minutes on my tiny computer screen. But I have to say that it was completely and totally worth it! What a fabulous, FABULOUS flick! And, immediately after watching it, I, of course, dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the Nefler mansion.

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The 6 bedroom, 6 bath, 7,694-square-foot, Spanish-style abode, which was originally built in 1916, was featured numerous times throughout Troop Beverly Hills.

And, amazingly enough, the residence still looks almost EXACTLY the same today as it did when the movie was filmed over twenty-two years ago! SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

The only difference is that there is now a large, three-car garage located on the northern side of the property.

For some reason, while watching the movie, the inside of the Nefler house just did not look real to me. So, while I could not find any interior photographs of the home online, I am fairly certain that all of the interior scenes were filmed on a set inside of a studio soundstage somewhere in Hollywood and not at the actual residence.

I believe the backyard that was shown in the movie was also a set, as it does not match up to the home’s real-life backyard.

As you can see in the above aerial view, the mansion’s real-life pool is not the same shape as the one that appeared in the movie and its position in relation to the house also does not match up with what was shown onscreen. And while it is possible that the backyard was completely remodeled in the two-plus decades since filming took place, I do not find that scenario to be very likely.

According to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory website, the house has also had several celebrity inhabitants over the years, including movie star Betty Compson, producer Samuel Goldwyn, silent film star Charles Ray, and actor Charles Smith.

Big THANK YOU to Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Troop Beverly Hills house is located at 901 North Camden Drive in Beverly Hills.

August 18, 2011
Edith Palmer’s Country Inn

The final Nevada-area location that I stalked while visiting my grandmother in Reno last month was Edith Palmer’s Country Inn in Virginia City – the spot where my girl, Miss Marilyn Monroe, stayed for a short time while filming her last completed movie, 1961’s The Misfits. I had actually stalked the exterior of the historic property once before, while vacationing at my grandmother’s back in June of 2008, and had also written a short blog post about it. As fate would have it, the inn’s super-nice owner, Leisa Findley, happened to see that post and wrote a comment in which she mentioned that if I ever wanted to re-stalk the place, she would give me a personal tour of the interior. Well, as you can imagine, I read Leisa’s words and had been absolutely itching to collect on her kind offer ever since. Because I usually visit my grandmother at Christmastime, though, when driving conditions from Sparks, where she lives, to Virginia City are a bit unfavorable, I was not able to do so until my most recent trip to the Silver State this past July.

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Edith Palmer’s Country Inn was originally built in 1863 as a private home/cider factory for a businessman and cider/vinegar manufacturer named Ellis Morton. In 1948, an award-winning chef named Edith Palmer purchased the premises with the intention of using it as her residence. Edith, who was a member of the prestigious French gastronomic society Chaine des Rotisseurs, would host frequent dinner parties in the former cider factory area of the property (pictured above) and eventually decided to turn her abode into an inn, so that those guests who did not want to drive home after eating her culinary feasts would have a place to stay. Word of mouth traveled quickly and Edith’s meals became so sought after that she wound up converting the factory into a public restaurant which she dubbed ”The Cider Factory”. It did not take long for the Hollywood elite to come a-knockin’ on the door of Edith’s ultra-private little haven of an inn and its ambrosial eatery. Just a few of the luminaries who stayed or dined at the property include Liberace, Polly Bergen (who played grandmother Kate Allen on fave show Commander in Chief), Michael Landon, Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker, Pernell Roberts, Phil and Alice Harris, Yvonne De Carlo, Robert Goulet, and Dinah Shore. In 2000, Leisa and her husband, Pat, purchased the inn, which had fallen into serious disrepair, from Edith’s heirs and and immediately set about a three-year renovation process during which they lovingly restored the place to its former grandeur. Today, Edith Palmer’s Country Inn is comprised of three separate Victorian-style houses – the Edith Palmer House, the Silver Street House, and the Storey House – which feature eight guest rooms and two suites.

As luck would have it, the inn was vacant during our visit and Leisa was kind enough to take us through pretty much every square inch of the property. She began our tour in the Edith Palmer House, where we were shown the sitting room area;

the Maggie Belle Room, which was named in honor of Pat’s grandmother;

the Edith Room;

the Evelyn Room, which was named after Leisa’s mother;

and the Marilyn Room, which was where the starlet stayed for a brief time while The Misfits was being filmed in nearby Dayton, Nevada.

As you can see above, the Marilyn Room is an absolutely adorable little space which is tucked away in a quiet corner of the inn’s second floor and features peaked ceilings, gabled windows, and a sitting area.

It was in the Marilyn Room that Leisa showed me what I had been absolutely dying to see for more than three years – the inscription MM wrote to Edith during her stay at the historic property.

The inscription reads, “To Edith Palmer and her oasis in the desert and warm hospitality – may I always be a welcome guest. Marilyn Monroe.” Apparently, when Leisa and Pat purchased the property, Marilyn’s autograph had become extremely weathered and faded, so they took it took a restorer who made two copies of the print in which the ink was darkened. One of the copies currently hangs in the inn’s Marilyn Room and the other in Leisa’s main office. The original is safely tucked away somewhere, far from sunlight and possible sticky fingers. And even though it was a copy, I cannot tell you how exciting it was for me to see that inscription in person. SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

Next, Leisa took us to the famed Cider Factory, which is no longer in use as a restaurant, but is currently only available as a wedding and special events venue. The front room of the Cider House is still set up much the way it was in Edith’s day and features an adorable little bar that one former waitress dubbed “The Biggest Little Bar in Nevada”.

The walls of the front room are almost completely covered with autographed headshots and messages written to Edith on pieces of paper placemats, as had become the Cider Factory custom during Edith’s day.

As you can imagine, I was absolutely drooling while reading the many inscriptions.

I was most excited to see the inscription from Lee Strasberg, Marilyn’s beloved acting coach and founder of the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, who accompanied the star to Virginia City. Lee’s daughter Susan also signed the placemat.

The back room of the former restaurant, which housed the original cider factory, is a beautiful rock-walled space that seems straight out of another era.

The room features a HUGE, floor-to-ceiling fireplace that was constructed completely out of rocks from the nearby hills.

We also got to walk through the inn’s quaint garden area, which, as legend has it, was where Edith first met Marilyn upon the star’s arrival in Virginia City. All in all, Leisa spent over an hour showing us her lovely inn and regaling us with tales of its storied past. My grandma, my dad, and I all absolutely fell in love with the place and my dad is already talking about booking a room there for a few days next summer. I told him to count me in, so long as he reserves the Marilyn Room.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Edith Palmer’s Country Inn is located at 416 South B Street in Virginia City, Nevada. You can visit the Inn’s official website here.

August 16, 2011
The Virginia Street Bridge from “The Misfits”

Another Marilyn Monroe location that I dragged my dad and grandmother out to stalk while visiting Reno, Nevada last month was the famed Virginia Street Bridge, aka the “Bridge of Sighs”, which was featured in the 1961 film The Misfits. As I mentioned in last Friday’s post about the Washoe Country Courthouse, during the first half of the Twentieth Century, Reno was known as “the Divorce Capital of the World” and the “Great Divide” due to its lenient divorce laws. People from all over the United States would temporarily relocate to the “Biggest Little City in the World” in order to be granted a quickie divorce, or to get “the six week cure” as divorces were dubbed in 1931 when residency laws in Reno were shortened to a scant six weeks. According to tradition, after receiving their final dissolution of marriage decree, which was also called “being Reno-vated”, newly-single female divorcees would leave the courthouse and immediately head one block north to the Virginia Street Bridge to toss their wedding rings into the Truckee River as a symbol of celebrating their new-found freedom.

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In The Misfits, immediately after being granted a divorce at the Washoe County Courthouse, Roslyn Taber (aka Marilyn Monroe) and her friend Isabelle Steers (aka Thelma Ritter) head to the Virginia Street Bridge where Isabelle tries to convince Roslyn to toss her ring into the Truckee River by saying, “If you throw in your ring, you’ll never get another divorce.” Contrary to what has been reported on countless tourism websites and in numerous filming location books, Roslyn does not in fact throw her ring into the river, but instead walks off to grab a drink at the supposed Harrahs Club (filming actually took place at the now-defunct Mapes Hotel Casino) with the band still safely encircling her finger. In the scene, Marilyn and Thelma stood on the southwest corner of the Virginia Street Bridge, facing the Sierra Street Bridge, which is pictured in the background of the above screen captures.

That same view is pictured above.

It is widely debated as to how the ring-tossing tradition began and some historians even believe the whole thing was quite simply a publicity stunt dreamed up by Reno officials hoping to lure divorce-seekers – and their money – into the city. The first known account of the Virginia Street Bridge ring-fling was depicted in a 1927 informational pamphlet titled “Reno! It Won’t Be Long Now: Ninety Days and Freedom”. The custom became more widely known when Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr., who came to the Silver State in 1927 in order to obtain a divorce, penned his 1929 premiere novel Reno, in which one of his main characters throws his wedding band into the Truckee River. In October of 1930, a movie based on Vanderbilt’s book was released and the rest, as they say, is history. And while numerous historians were apt to dismiss the tradition as myth, the ring-toss lore became inexorably woven into the pages of Reno’s history and in 1976, three fortune-seeking citizens who were searching for coins in the Truckee River wound up excavating more than 400 wedding bands from the area directly underneath the Virginia Street Bridge, forever quieting the legend’s many naysayers.

No matter how the tradition began, whether a legitimate custom dreamed up by newly-minted divorcees or a marketing tool created by city officials, the Virginia Street Bridge is an ABSOLUTELY gorgeous place to visit and I cannot more highly recommend stalking it! The structure that stands today was originally built in 1905 by San-Francisco-area architect John B. Leonard. Amazingly enough, the span was actually the fifth to be constructed in that particular spot linking Virginia Street above the Truckee River. The first bridge was engineered in 1860 by a man named Charles W. Fuller and was known, appropriately, as “Fuller’s Crossing”. The wooden and log construction could not withstand the strength of the Truckee, though, and was sadly washed away in a flood in 1861. Four replacements followed, the last of which is the Beaux-Arts-style structure pictured above.

As you can see above, the area surrounding the Virginia Street Bridge, which includes a “River Walk”, a public park, flowing waterfalls, and outdoor restaurants, is truly breathtaking and my dad absolutely fell in love with the place. While there, he kept enthusing, “I cannot believe I never would have known this area existed if not for you and your stalking!” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – stalking is the VERY best way to discover off-the-beaten-path, not-in-a-guidebook type spots. So I guess I should be saying, “Thank you, Marilyn!” for this one!

While there, I just had to make my grandma – who at 86 years old was still up for walking miles around Downtown Reno to do some Misfits stalking with me – pose for a pic. The woman absolutely rocks my world and I can only hope that I am in half as good a shape as she is when I enter my golden years! I love you, Grandma!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Virginia Street Bridge spans the Truckee River on South Virginia Street, in between Island Avenue and Truckee River Lane, in Downtown Reno, Nevada. In The Misfits, Marilyn Monroe and Thelma Ritter stood at the southwest corner of the bridge, near where Island Avenue meets South Virginia Street, in the area depicted with a pink circle in the above aerial view.

August 15, 2011
The “Eye for an Eye” House

A couple of months ago, my good friend and fellow stalker Lavonna asked me to track down the supposed Pacific-Palisades-area residence where the McCann family – Karen (aka Sally Field), Mack (aka Ed Harris), Julie (aka Olivia Burnette, who also played Dorothy Jane Torkelson on The Torkelsons, one of my very favorite television series ever, but I digress), and Megan (aka Alexandra Kyle) – lived in the 1996 revenge thriller Eye for an Eye. Amazingly enough, even though I absolutely LOVE me some revenge thrillers, I had never before even heard of Eye for an Eye, so the Grim Cheaper and I promptly headed out to rent it that very evening. And I have to say that we both thoroughly enjoyed it. Not as much as Taken or Man on Fire (which in this stalker’s never-to-be-humble opinion are the ultimate vigilante flicks ever made), mind you, but it was a good watch nonetheless.

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Like Lavonna, I, too, was immediately taken with the stately home belonging to the McCann family while watching the flick and was absolutely convinced that it was located somewhere in the Pasadena area. After a few hours of looking for the residence via aerial views, though, I came up completely empty-handed. So I did what any good stalker does in a situation like this – I called in the troops – i.e. fellow stalkers Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, and Owen. And, amazingly enough, Owen immediately sent me back a text informing me that he had tracked down the residence about four years beforehand! Duh! Note to self – always ask my fellow stalkers if they have found a location prior to looking for it myself!

In real life, the Eye for an Eye house is located at 456 South Arden Boulevard in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. As you can see above, though, the property was given a fake address number of “244” for the filming, so I have no idea how in the heck Owen managed to find the place! My hat is definitely off to you, buddy!

I finally made it out to stalk the residence a couple of weeks ago, along with Chas, who happened to be in town for a little Southern California stalking vacay. And while the Eye for an Eye house is very pretty in person, I must say that I much prefer the way it looked onscreen – painted grey and white and sans shutters on the upstairs windows.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was also used in the filming, but I was unfortunately not able to find any photographs of the property on any locations websites to verify that hunch.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen for finding this location! And you can check out fellow stalker Chas’ in-depth Eye for an Eye filming locations page on the It’sFilmedThere website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Eye for an Eye house is located at 456 South Arden Boulevard in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.

August 11, 2011