Tag: Celebrities

The Meiks’s House from “Frailty”

One of my absolute, hands-down, favorite movies of all time is the 2001 thriller Frailty, which just so happens to be actor Bill Paxton’s directorial debut. And I am apparently in good company with that opinion – according to the Contact Music website, James Cameron, Sam Raimi and Stephen King are also huge fans of the flick, calling it “electrifying”, “the most frightening horror picture I’ve seen since The Shining”, and “edge-of-the-seat entertainment”, respectively. If you have not yet seen Frailty, I cannot more highly recommend doing so! In fact, stop what you are doing right now and go rent it! Do not pass Go, do not collect $200 – just head straight to your nearest video store and get your hands on a copy of the DVD! Anyway, when fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, tracked down the supposed Thurman, Texas-area house where the Meiks family – Dad (Bill Paxton), Young Fenton (Matt O’Leary – the phenomenal actor who also played Marcus in Matthew Lillard’s directorial debut, Fat Kid Rules the World) and Young Adam (the equally phenomenal Jeremy Sumpter) – lived in the movie’s flashback scenes, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to Sun Valley to stalk the place. Because I thought the location would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood postings, though, I had to wait a good four months to blog about it. So here goes!

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In real life, the Frailty bungalow, which was originally built in 1924, shares its 0.98-acre plot of land with another, larger abode. And while Zillow states that the dwelling boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and 1,825 square feet of living space, I believe that to be the combined measurements of both houses on the property.

While we were stalking the Frailty house, the owner happened to come outside and she honestly could NOT have been nicer! When I explained that Frailty was one of my favorite movies, she invited us ONTO THE PROPERTY to take a closer look and to check out the backyard area, which was used extensively in the flick. (Yes, I was pinching myself!) She also spent a good thirty minutes chatting with us about the residence and the filming. LOVE IT! The Frailty house actually has quite an interesting history – it was originally constructed in Watts and then moved to Sun Valley at some point thereafter. The abode is also rumored to be haunted, which is one of the reasons Bill Paxton chose to use it in the flick.

The residence is actually located on the grounds of the Rockin’ Horse Academy and I cannot tell you how much fun I had playing with the horses while we were there. So cute!

The Meiks home is one of the main locations used in Frailty and it shows up repeatedly throughout the flick. In the movie, adult Fenton (Matthew McConaughey) says, “We live right behind the Thurman Public Rose Garden [which was actually the Huntington Library rose garden, which I blogged about here], in the house where they used to keep the gardener back in the ‘50s. Dad had gotten a good deal on it back when he and mom got married.” Thankfully, the residence’s exterior looks almost exactly the same in person as it did onscreen, as you can see below.

The backyard area still looks much the same today as it did during the filming, as well.

Amazingly enough, the owner told us that the “cellar” that was used as a kill room in the movie was NOT a set. The Frailty production crew actually dug a huge hole in the home’s backyard, constructed a basement in the space, and filming took place inside of it. So incredibly cool!

After filming wrapped, the crew deconstructed the basement and tried to fill in the hole, but could not find the same type of dirt that covered the rest of the backyard. Because a different type of dirt eventually had to be used, you can still kind of see where the cellar was situated during the filming. Love it, love it, LOVE IT!

Because the real life interior of the home did not look dated enough to stand in for a 1970’s-era house, a set was constructed for the interior scenes. According to the movie’s production notes, of the set design, Bill Paxton said, “I wanted a stark, clean look, like an Edward Hopper painting.” Of the Hitchcockian-style flick, which took 37 days to shoot, he also said, “My vision of this story has always been the idea that it is a very edgy script that pushes a lot of buttons, especially because children are involved. But I thought that’s exactly the reason to give it a real, old Hollywood approach, where all of the darkness is implied instead of being explicit. We hear a chop or a scream, but we never see a drop of blood.” And that, in essence, is the movie’s magic. Without showing an ounce of gore, Frailty manages to grab you right from the very beginning and it does not let go until the credits roll. Did I mention how much I love this movie?

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Meiks’ house from Frailty is located at 10641 Tuxford Street in Sun Valley.

October 16, 2012
Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park

One location that I have wanted to stalk ever since first moving to Southern California in 2000 was the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park in Calabasas. For whatever reason, though, in over twelve years time, I had never made it out there. Then, this past September, while gathering addresses for my annual Haunted Hollywood stalkings, I was reminded of the locale, immediately added it to my To-Stalk list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there just a few days later.

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What I was not expecting was how humongous and absolutely beautiful the place is!

The location, which was first called the Los Angeles Pet Cemetery, was founded by a veterinarian to the stars named Dr. Eugene C. Jones. The land was originally owned by Gilbert H. Beesemyer, the one-time general manager of L.A.’s Guaranty Building and Loan Association, from which he fleeced $8 million in 1929. Shortly before he was caught and hauled off to prison to serve a 40-year term, Beesemyer began selling off his property in ten-acre plots. One of those plots was purchased by Dr. Jones, who wanted to build a pet cemetery on the site to help his clients deal with their grief over the loss of their beloved pets.

Los Angeles Pet Cemetery was officially opened on September 4th, 1928. That same year, Dr. Jones also opened a pet funeral parlor and viewing room on Highland Avenue in Hollywood. Jones’ mother and brother were in charge of driving the pets – in an actual hearse – from the parlor to the cemetery for the elaborate funerals that took place there. The funeral parlor was later moved onsite in 1969.

Dr. Jones constructed the cemetery’s brick mausoleum, which contains a crematory and a columbarium, in 1929.

The mausoleum underwent a $175,000-renovation in 2003, during which 450 new niches;

and the “Waiting Garden” area were added.

I absolutely loved walked through the mausoleum and reading the sweet inscriptions for pets who had passed away as long ago as 1940.

I also absolutely fell in love with the adorable stained glass designs in the mausoleum windows.

The image of the two cats with the intertwined tails broke my heart.

In 1973, after he retired, Jones donated the cemetery to the Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Ten years later, in a maddening move that I still do not completely understand, the SPCA decided to sell the land to a developer who had plans to raze the cemetery. Thankfully, a group of concerned pet owners gathered together to form S.O.P.H.I.E. (Save Our Pets’ History in Eternity). S.O.P.H.I.E. managed to raise $100,000 to purchase the park and then lobbied for – and passed! – a state law which prevents pet cemeteries from ever being developed or destroyed. Today, Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park serves as the final resting place for over 42,000 beloved animals of all varieties, including lizards, chimpanzees, horse, ferrets, goats, pigs, and one lion.

Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park has become the final resting place for quite a few celebrity pets, including those of Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson, Aaron Spelling, Bob Barker, Humphrey Bogart, Charlie Chaplin, Steven Spielberg, Bob Newhart, Adam Sandler, Diana Ross, William Shatner, Lauren Bacall, Mary Pickford, Harry James, Eva Gabor, Mae West, and Lionel Barrymore.

Some of the animals buried there are even celebrities themselves. Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park is the final resting place of both Hopalong Cassidy’s horse, Topper,and Tonto’s horse from the Lone Ranger, Scout. Unfortunately, because the cemetery is so humongous we were unable to locate either gravesite.

In a December 2009 Los Angeles Times article, Stephanie LaFarge, senior director of counseling services for Urbana, Illinois’ ASPCA Animal Health Services, is quoted as saying, “Pet cemeteries tend to be utterly beautiful, joyful places. I don’t know what it is – the markings on the gravestones or the pictures of something.” And she is absolutely right! While the GC and I did find ourselves tearing up at some of the heartfelt messages written on headstones (like the one below), we also felt an immense sense of joy and love walking through the park.

It was absolutely heartwarming to see the countless flowers decorating the various gravesites and to know that these precious animals are still loved and visited all these years later. I honestly cannot recommend stalking the place enough.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park is located at 5068 Old Scandia Lane in Calabasas. The cemetery is open Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays and holidays from 8 a.m. to dusk. The office is open Monday through Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. You can visit the official Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park website here.

October 15, 2012
The Home Where Marvin Gaye Was Killed

Way back in January, while on a stalking adventure with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, he took me by the West Adams-area home where, on April 1st, 1984, singer Marvin Gaye Jr. was shot and killed by his father, Marvin Gay Sr. (and no, gay is not a typo – Marvin Jr. added an e to his surname early on in his career). Mike thought the location would fit in perfectly with my annual Haunted Hollywood theme and, while I adamantly agreed, that unfortunately meant that I had to wait over ten months to blog about the place. So without further ado, here goes . . . finally!

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Marvin Gaye Jr.’s former home, which was originally built in 1905, was designed by Sumner Hunt, who also designed the Thomas W. Phillips residence, aka The People Under the Stairs house, that I blogged about yesterday. Marvin Jr., who had found massive success thanks to such hits as “Let’s Get It On”, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”, “What’s Going On”, and “Sexual Healing”, purchased the large Tudor-style dwelling in 1975 for $30,500, but, due to issues with drugs and a dire financial situation, wound up having to quit-claim the property to his parents just a year and a half later.

As the story goes, in late 1983, Marvin Jr. moved back into the home following the end of his U.S. tour. The singer was not in good shape. At the time, he was suffering from extreme depression, cocaine addiction, suicidal tendencies, and severe paranoia. Convinced that someone was trying to kill him, he had even taken to wearing a bulletproof vest when not onstage. And, according to this article, at one press conference he announced that he had been poisoned by an unknown individual and then later saved by an antidote potion that had been created by comedian Dick Gregory. Um, OK.

At about 11 a.m. on April 1st, 1984, Marvin Jr. got into an argument with his father, who was a Pentecostal minister and with whom he had always had a stormy relationship, in an upstairs bedroom of the house. The argument quickly escalated and got physical, resulting in Marvin Sr. grabbing a .38-caliber pistol and shooting his son twice in the chest.

In a very odd move, Marvin Sr. then walked downstairs, opened the front door, tossed the gun onto the lawn, sat on the porch, and waited for the police to arrive. There is a conflicting report making the rounds online that Marvin Sr.’s wife, Alberta Gay, was the one who actually threw the gun onto the lawn from an upstairs window. I am unsure which version of the story is true, but, either way, when the police did arrive, Marvin Sr. was waiting for them on the porch. He was arrested and later charged with murder. Marvin Jr. was taken to California Hospital Medical Center (located at 1401 South Grand Avenue), where he was pronounced dead at 1:01 p.m. – one day before his 45th birthday.

Due to the fact that he had suffered massive bruising from the altercation with his son, Marvin Sr. was allowed to plead no-contest to voluntary manslaughter and received only five years probation for the crime. Alberta moved out of the house during the trial and subsequently sued her husband for divorce. She passed away in 1987. That same year, Marvin Jr.’s sisters deeded the property to the Marvin P. Gaye Jr. Memorial Foundation, which wound up selling it to new owners in 1988. And while Wikipedia states that Marvin Sr. lived at the West Adams residence for a time briefly following his trial, I am not sure if that information is correct.

Marvin Gaye’s former home boasts 5 bedrooms, 2 baths, 5,352 square feet, and a 0.48-acre plot of land. The front door happened to be open while we were stalking the place, so we got a tiny peek at the interior.

The property also boasts a huge detached two-car garage with an upstairs guest house that Marvin Jr.’s brother Frankie and his wife, Irene, lived in at the time of the killing.

Fellow stalker Scott Michaels, from the FindADeath website, did a fabulous write-up on Marvin’s killing and also posted a photograph of the home taken shortly afterwards in which you can see that it still looks EXACTLY the same today as it did in 1984. Aside from a change in the trim’s paint color and a different style of fence, the residence is pretty much identical to its 1984 self. Absolutely amazing! You can check out another 1984 photograph of the house here. And while a January 1998 Los Angeles Magazine article stated that devoted fans still showed up to the residence annually on Marvin Jr.’s birthday to hold candlelight vigils for the fallen singer, I am unsure if those vigils still take place to this day.

You can check out a video that Scott Michaels took inside of the home by clicking below.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The home where Marvin Gaye was killed is located at 2101 South Gramercy Place in the West Adams District of Los Angeles.

October 12, 2012
The Thomas W. Phillips Residence from “The People Under the Stairs”

In his comment on my Milbank Mansion post, fellow stalker David, from The Location Scout blog, also informed me that directly across the street from the Beckett house (which I blogged about yesterday) was another famous movie location – the Thomas W. Phillips residence, which was featured extensively in The People Under the Stairs. And even though I had never seen the 1991 horror flick, since we were right there and since I was gearing up for my annual Haunted Hollywood postings, I figured I might as well stalk the place. And I am so glad that I did, because its façade is seriously sinister. The residence looks like a real life haunted house and it is not hard to see why Wes Craven chose to feature it in The People Under the Stairs.

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The Thomas W. Phillips residence was constructed in 1905 by the architecture team of Sumner B. Hunt & Abraham Wesley Eager. Hunt was also responsible for designing The Ebell of Los Angeles (an oft-filmed at locale that I have yet to blog about) and the Southwest Museum of the American Indian in Mt. Washington. Thomas W. Phillips, who had commissioned the construction of the three-story Craftsman-style abode, was one of the original founding residents of L.A. You can check out a photograph of the dwelling from its early days here. As you can see, not much has changed in the 107 years since it was built. Love it!

In real life, the massive abode, which was deemed a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1991, boasts 8 bedrooms, 4 baths, a whopping 7,707 square feet of living space, and a 0.40-acre plot of land. Besides being a filming location, according to a February 1999 Los Angeles Times article, the residence also belonged to actress Butterfly McQueen (aka Scarlett O’Hara’s maid in Gone with the Wind) at one point in time.

The Thomas W. Phillips residence was used quite extensively in The People Under the Stairs as the home where Man (Everett McGill), Woman (Wendy Robie) and Alice (A.J. Langer) – and, of course, the people under the stairs – lived.

In the movie, the residence was said to be the Robeson Funeral Home, which was established in 1896.

All of the interior house scenes were filmed on a studio lot, though, and not inside of the actual Thomas W. Phillips residence, which you can see some photographs of here. And yes, the dwelling does have a very large – and very spooky – basement in real life, much like its onscreen counterpart.

Thanks to The Official Halloween Message Board, I learned that the kitchen of the Thomas W. Phillips residence stood in for the Myers’ kitchen in Rob Zombie’s 2007 Halloween re-boot. Unfortunately, I could not find any great photographs of the real life kitchen online, but you can sort of see it here and here.

The Thomas W. Phillips residence also appeared in the background of both the Season 2 episode of Lie to Me titled “Darkness and Light” . . .

. . . and the Season 3 episode of Brothers and Sisters titled “Going Once . . . Going Twice.”

The abode also popped up in 1989’s The Immortalizer and 2000’s The Convent. And while I could not find copies of either of those movies with which to make screen captures for this post, you can see some on The Location Scout blog here. And while IMDB states that the house was also used in the 1998 video Witchcraft, I could not find a copy of the production with which to verify that information.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my latest post, about one of the best salads I’ve ever had in my life, on my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to David, from The Location Scout blog, for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Thomas W. Phillips residence, aka The People Under the Stairs house, is located at 2215 South Harvard Boulevard in the West Adams District of Los Angeles.

October 11, 2012
The Beckett House from “Delusion: The Blood Rite”

Way back in February, fellow stalker David, of The Location Scout blog, wrote a comment on my post about the Milbank Mansion, the interior of which was used as the inside of the Finch home in Running with Scissors, informing me that the exterior shots of the Finch residence were filmed at the Beckett house in the West Adams District. David also let me know that the Beckett house had appeared in quite a few B-movies from the ‘80s, most of them of the horror genre. And while I did add the place to my To-Stalk list, for whatever reason, I never ventured out there. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I spotted the mansion in a Season 2 episode of Lie to Me (the Grim Cheaper and I just finished watching the entire series on DVD and absolutely fell in love with it – I am seriously bummed that it was cancelled!) and decided that I had to stalk the place as soon as possible. So I dragged the GC right on over there, just in time for my Haunted Hollywood postings.

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The Beckett house was originally built in 1905 for Dr. Wesley W. Beckett and his wife, Iowa Archer. Dr. Beckett was a member of the board of trustees at USC and the namesake of the school’s Beckett Hall. According to commenter “KWB” on the Big Orange Landmarks blog (where you can read a fabulously detailed history of the residence), the doctor lived on the premises until his death in 1936. You can see a photograph of the home around the time that it was originally constructed here. It is amazing to me that, despite its severely dilapidated state, it still looks almost exactly the same today as it did over one hundred years ago. In 1981, the property apparently suffered a destructive fire on its top floors and while the then owners, thankfully, restored it, the mansion has since been left to deteriorate. Today, the home, which very much looks like a real life haunted house, is vacant and is used primarily for filming.

The Beckett house, which was designated a Los Angeles Historic–Cultural Monument in 1973, boasts 6 bedrooms, 4 baths, a whopping 5,415 square feet, and a 0.54-acre plot of land. You can check out some fabulous interior photographs of the mansion here. While some of the inside is in serious need of TLC, the majority of it is in far better shape than what the exterior would lead one to believe. Despite the decay, it is easy to see that the place must have been magnificent in its heyday!

As luck would have it, when we showed up to stalk the place, we happened to spot a man who was building some sort of elaborate scenery piece in the side yard. We got to talking with him and he informed us that he was setting up for an interactive Halloween-themed theatre production known as “Delusion: The Blood Rite“ that was going to be held at the mansion for the second year in a row. How incredibly cool is that? The 2011 play, which was simply titled “Delusion”, was named “Best Haunted Attraction” by FOX LA and “Hottest Ticket in L.A.” by NPR’s All Things Considered. Actor Neil Patrick Harris saw the show twice last October and loved it so much that he is actually co-producing it this year. Um, love it!

The play (which looks to be scaaaaaaaaaaary!) is currently running through November 10th. You can purchase tickets here and you can watch a video about it by clicking below.

Delusion play

Due to its marred appearance, the home has long been a favorite of location scouts seeking decrepit or spooky locales. As I mentioned above, the exterior of the property was used as the exterior of the mansion where the crazy Dr. Finch (Brian Cox) lived with his even crazier family in 2006’s Running with Scissors. As you can see below, the facade was painted Pepto-Bismol pink for the movie.

Thanks to The Official Halloween Message Board, I learned that the upstairs portion of the Beckett house was used as the upstairs of the home where the young Michael Meyers (Daeg Faerch) lived in Rob Zombie’s 2007 Halloween re-boot. Several areas of the abode appeared in the movie, including a bedroom (which you can see a real life photograph of here) that stood in for the bedroom of Judith Meyers (Hannah Hall, who also played “Young Jenny” in Forest Gump);

another bedroom (which you can see a real life photograph of here) that was used as Michael’s room;

a bathroom (which you can see a real life photograph of here);

a hallway (which you can see a real life photograph of here);

another bedroom (which you can see a real life photograph of here) that was used as the bedroom of Baby Boo (who was played by Sydnie Pitzer, Myla Pitzer and Stella Altman);

a back stairway (which you can see a real life photograph of here);

and the basement (which you can see a real life photograph of here). It was rather difficult to get a decent screen capture of the basement as the scene shot there was far too dark, but in the image below you can see that the small rounded windows that appeared in the movie match the home’s actual basement windows.

The living room of the Beckett house also masqueraded as the Strode family’s living room in the flick. You can see a real life photograph of that room here.

Thanks to Geoff, of the 90210Locations website, I learned that the Season 3 episode of Brothers and Sisters titled “Going Once . . . Going Twice”, which aired in 2008, featured the Beckett house as the bank-owned residence that Kevin Walker (Matthew Rhys) purchased as a surprise for his boyfriend, Scotty Wandell (Luke MacFarlane).

The interior of the property was also used in the episode.

The Beckett house was also shown in a real estate listing in the episode . . .

. . . and in an auction image, which stated that the property was located in Pasadena.

Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the house were also used extensively in the 2008 music video for Robert Plant and Allison Krause’s song “Please Read the Letter”.

You can watch that video by clicking below.

The Beckett House from the “Please Read the Letter” Music Video

In the Season 2 episode of Lie to Me titled “Darkness and Light”, which aired in 2010, Dr. Cal Lightman (Tom Roth) tracks a missing and troubled young woman named Molly (Natalie Dreyfuss) to the dilapidated old mansion where she has been living with several other downtrodden girls.

The interior of the home also appeared in the episode.

Mike, from MovieShotsLA, informed me that the mansion was also used as the frat house where Emma Kurtzman (Natalie Portman) and Adam Franklin (Ashton Kutcher) met for the second time in the 2011 romantic comedy No Strings Attached.

As you can see below, though, a different location was used for the interior of the frat house.

The Beckett house was also featured in 1988’s Twice Dead, 1989’s The Immortalizer, 1992’s Evil Toons, 2000’s The Convent, 2001’s The Attic Expeditions, and 2005’s Lethal Eviction, all of which you can read about and see screen captures from on The Location Scout blog here.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my latest post, about one of the best salads I’ve ever had in my life, on my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to David, from The Location Scout blog, for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Beckett house, from “Delusion: The Blood Rite”, is located at 2218 South Harvard Boulevard in the West Adams District of Los Angeles. The play will be running through November 10th and tickets are $45 per person. You can visit the official “Delusion: The Blood Rite” website here.

October 10, 2012
Katie’s House from “The Ring”

While doing research on the Malibou Lake residence that stood in for the office of Doctor Grasnik (Jane Alexander) in the thriller The Ring, I came across a page on fave website Washington State Film Locations which stated that the supposed Seattle-area house where Katie (Amber Tamblyn) lived – and died – in the 2002 flick was actually located in Hancock Park. Well, believe you me, I just about fell off my chair upon learning the information as I had always thought that particular abode was located in the Pacific Northwest, where the majority of The Ring was lensed. So I immediately added the residence to my Haunted-Hollywood-To-Stalk list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there just a few days later.

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Sadly, thanks to some very dense foliage, not much of Katie’s house is visible from the street, as you can see below. In real life, the Tudor-style abode, which was originally built in 1924, boasts 5 bedrooms, 3 baths, 3,610 square feet of living space, and a 0.28-acre plot of land.

The exterior of the stately residence was featured several times in The Ring. It first popped up in the movie’s opening scene in which Katie was tormented and then killed by Samara (Daveigh Chase), seven days after viewing a cursed video tape. As you can see below, while recognizable, the house looks quite a bit different today than it did in 2002 when The Ring was filmed, mostly due to the addition of a front gate, walkway and massive amounts of foliage.

The property next popped up in the scene in which Katie’s friends and family gather for her memorial. In that scene, the driveway area of the home is visible and, as you can see below, at the time of the filming, the hedges surrounding the front yard were much lower than they are now. Boo!

The house lastly shows up – through a rainy windshield – in the scene in which Rachel (Naomi Watts) drops her son, Aidan (David Dorfman), off at her sister’s place for the week.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was also used in the flick, but I was unable to find any interior photographs of the residence with which to verify that hunch.

Thanks to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, I learned that the very same residence was also used as the home where Buster (Bernie Mac) lived, with his cheating wife, Robin (Beverly Johnson), in 1997’s How to Be a Player, although very little of the house can actually be seen in the flick.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Charles, from the In Twin Peaks website, for finding this location and to Marc, from the Washington State Film Locations website, for posting it!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Katie’s house from The Ring is located at 413 South McCadden Place in Hancock Park.

October 9, 2012
“The Vanishing” Apartment Building

Today’s location is an oldie, but goodie. Waaaaaaaaaaay back in May 2010, the Grim Cheaper and I took a little pre-wedding stalking vacation to the Pacific Northwest to visit our good friends fellow stalker Kerry and her husband, Jim – and to see the grocery store where Michael Buble’s “Haven’t Met You Yet” music video was filmed, which I blogged about here. Before heading up there, Kerry suggested that I check out the 1993 thriller The Vanishing as she had tracked down all of its locales and thought I might be interested in stalking them. Well, I ended up watching the flick just a few days prior to our trip and absolutely loved it – and the uniquely tiered apartment building that appeared extensively throughout it. So Kerry took us right on over there to stalk the place during the second day of our vacay. And, let me tell you, the building is just as cool in person as it appeared to be onscreen. (Please excuse my appearance in the photograph above – the Seattle weather was not very kind to my naturally curly hair and I wound up having to either pull it back or hide it under a cap during most of our stay.)

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In The Vanishing, the apartment building is where Jeff Harriman (Kiefer Sutherland) lives with his new girlfriend, Rita Baker (Nancy Travis), after suffering through the unsolved disappearance of his previous girlfriend, Diane Shaver (a pre-Speed Sandra Bullock), three years prior. The building pops up countless times in the movie.

As you can see below, it looks pretty much EXACTLY the same today as it did nineteen years ago when The Vanishing was filmed. Even the paint color is still the same (at least it was in May 2010 when I stalked the place). LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT!

In The Vanishing, Jeff and Rita lived in Apartment #20, which is the real life address number of the unit where filming took place, as well. So incredibly cool!

While watching The Vanishing, I had been convinced that the view from the apartment building was fake as it seemed just a bit too spectacular. So I was floored when it turned out to be the building’s actual view! Jaw-dropping!

As luck would have it, while we were stalking the place we happened to meet one of the building’s super-nice residents who invited us to step onto the property to get a closer look. And while I was seriously tempted to pose for a picture next to Jeff and Rita’s front door, I restrained myself as I was afraid that might be overstaying my welcome just a bit.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of Apartment #20 was also used in the filming, although I could not find interior pictures of any of the units with which to verify that hunch.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Kerry for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Vanishing apartment building is located at 200 Aloha Street in Seattle. In the movie, Jeff and Rita lived in Apartment #20.

October 8, 2012
Alfred Hitchcock’s Second L.A. Home

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post (which you can read here), in the Spring of 1942, Alfred Hitchcock, his wife, Alma, and their daughter, Pat, moved out of their first Los Angeles-area home (a Bel Air rental that was previously lived in by Carole Lombard) and into a new one, which they purchased, that was located just a few miles away at 10957 Bellagio Road. I learned of this location, once again, thanks to the book Dial H for Hitchcock, the fifth installment of author Susan Kandel’s Cece Caruso mystery series, which I am a HUGE fan of.

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Hitch’s new story-and-a-half Colonial-style residence, which was originally constructed in 1942 (I am guessing that he was the home’s first owner), boasts 7 bedrooms, 5 baths, and 7,258 square feet of living space. It sits on a well-hidden 0.64-acre plot of land that backs directly up to the golf course of the Bel Air Country Club, near the fifteenth hole. According to the 1999 book Hitchcock & Selznick, the Master of Suspense would snatch up any errant golf balls that made their way into his yard and give them to his dogs. LOL The legendary director lived on the premises from 1942 until his death, which took place inside of the home, on April 29th, 1980. Alma passed away two years later on July 6, 1982. And it appears as though whomever purchased the residence from the Hitchcock estate still owns it to this day.

The Hitchcock & Selznick book also states that, while he was searching for his new home, Hitch told a reporter, “All I need is a snug little house with a kitchen, and the devil with a swimming pool.” Alfred, an avid cook, failed to mention that it would have to be a spectacular kitchen. According to Dial H for Hitchcock, the director apparently spent a whopping TWENTY YEARS redesigning the kitchen of the Bellagio road home. As Kandel states, “For Hitchcock, eating was serious business. His father, a grocer in London’s East End, insisted on potatoes at every meal. The habit stuck. Hitch wolfed them whole, halved, diced, sliced, boiled, baked, fried, sautéed, cottage-fried, double-baked, and, in his waning years, mashed. At age twenty-seven, he weighed two hundred pounds; at forty, he weighed close to four hundred. At forty-four, by his own admission, his ankles hung over his socks and his belt reached up to his necktie. Not that he particularly minded. His weight was his armor, his insulation. Which makes it doubly odd that in his work food is so unfailingly gruesome: the milk poisoned, the eggs scrambled to resemble brains, the ketchup explosive. Murder victims are baked into pies, then devoured. Corpses are concealed in sacks of potatoes. Chickens have necks meant to be strangled.” See why I love Kandel’s books so much? Each provides a plethora of fascinating historical information. I always prefer my mystery novels with a side of history.

Besides a great kitchen, Hitch also sought privacy and, as you can see below, his former Bellagio Road home is extremely well-covered with lush foliage and, unfortunately, not at all visible from the road.

But as I’ve said before, that’s why God created aerial views.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Alfred Hitchcock’s second L.A. home is located at 10957 Bellagio Road in Bel Air.

October 5, 2012
Alfred Hitchcock’s Former Home

I tend to get a bit overexuberant when it comes to stalking Haunted Hollywood sites each year and typically wind up with more locations in my stockpile (or should I say stalkpile? ) than there are days in October to blog about them. In fact, it would be safe to say that I have enough spooky locales left over from years past to cover all of this October’s posts, not that that will prevent me from stalking new ones, of course. Anyway, one location that I have had waiting in the wings for quite some time now is the first house that Alfred Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense himself, lived in upon moving to Los Angeles in 1939. I learned of the locale thanks to the 2009 book Dial H for Hitchcock, the fifth in Susan Kandel’s fabulous Cece Caruso mystery series. I absolutely love Kandel’s novels because, not only are they fun and suspenseful, but they always feature numerous real and historic locations – one of which, Thelma Todd’s Roadside Café, I blogged about during my Haunted Hollywood postings back in 2008. In Dial H for Hitchcock, biographer/part-time detective/heroine Cece Caruso, who has been commissioned by her publisher to pen a book on the Master of Suspense, heads out to several of his former residences in order to “commune with Hitch’s spirit”. Kandel provided the addresses of the homes in the novel, so I, of course, immediately added them to my To-Stalk list and ran right out to stalk them shortly thereafter.

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According to Kandel, in 1939 producer David O. Selznick convinced Alfred, who was by that time already a successful director, to migrate with his wife, Alma, and daughter, Pat, from their native England to Southern California. Selznick first rented the family a three-bedroom apartment in the Wilshire Palms building (which was once located at 10331 Wilshire Boulevard, but has since, I believe, been torn down). Shortly thereafter, the Hitchcocks learned that their good friend Carole Lombard was moving out of a French Country-style manse she was renting in Bel Air, so Hitch decided to take over her lease and relocated his family there that October.

Carole Lombard had first moved into the abode in 1936, after realizing that her home at 7953 Hollywood Boulevard was not conducive to the affair she had just begun with a married Clark Gable. So she leased a much more secluded residence at 609 St. Cloud Road in Bel Air. You can check out a photograph of Lombard and Gable that was supposedly taken inside of the home here. After finally marrying Gable on March 29th, 1939, the two purchased a ranch in Encino, began renovating it and finally moved in that October, at which point Hitch took over the lease. The Hitchcocks remained in the home until the Spring of 1942, when they purchased a larger Colonial-style manse located two miles away. (And don’t worry, I also stalked that abode and will be blogging about it tomorrow. ) According to this website, Shelley Long also lived in the St. Cloud Road residence at one point in time, although I have been unable to verify that.

The property, which was originally built in 1926 and boasts 5 bedrooms, 6 baths, 4,357 square feet, a 0.76-acre plot of land, a swimming pool, a fish pond, parking for over 20 cars, a chef’s kitchen, and a private guest house, last sold in December 2007 for a cool $7.85 million. It appears to have been remodeled at some point thereafter and, from the description of the place in Dial H for Hitchcock, was quite possibly in a state of disrepair for a brief period of time, as well. The book reads, “Considering the neighborhood, 609 was a dump. I wasn’t sure anybody was even living there anymore. The driveway was strewn with leaves and yellowed newspapers. The gate stretching across it was covered with brown canvas so you couldn’t see in. However somebody had cut a little hole at the bottom. Someone with an avid interest in the former residents, perhaps.” (A stalker, maybe? ) And while that description may have been conjured up for story purposes and not the actual state of the house at the time of the writing, Google aerial views do show that the yard was torn up at some recent date. I am very happy to report that the home was in nice shape when I stalked it earlier this year, although, sadly, not much of it is visible from the road.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Alfred Hitchcock’s former home is located at 609 St. Cloud Road in Bel Air. After finishing his second presidential term in January 1989, Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, moved into a house located just up the street at 668 St. Cloud Road.

October 4, 2012
Leigh Ann’s House from “Teaching Mrs. Tingle”

The final Teaching Mrs. Tingle location that I was absolutely desperate to find was the home where Leigh Ann Watson (Katie Holmes) lived in the 1999 thriller. Because the other two properties featured in the movie are located in Pasadena (you can read my post on the house belonging to Mrs. Tingle (Helen Mirren) here and Coach Wenchell (Jeffrey Tambor) here), I was positively convinced that Leigh Ann’s residence was, as well, and spent countless hours scouring aerial views of the city. After repeatedly coming up empty-handed, though, I decided it was time to call in the big guns – fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog – for some back-up. And, amazingly enough, Owen found the dwelling fairly quickly – in Culver City of all places, an area which I never would have searched in a million years. Thank you, Owen! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the abode just a few days later.

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In the screen capture I had sent him, Owen had noticed that the faint outline of a 4 was visible in front of the 110 address number posted above Leigh Ann’s front door. Because of the picturesque trees visible on Leigh Ann’s street, Owen was also at first convinced that her house was located in Pasadena and spent quite a bit of time searching 4100 blocks in the area. When those efforts proved fruitless, he decided to take a look at IMDB’s Teaching Mrs. Tingle filming locations page to see if it would provide any insight. And, sure enough, it did! After noticing that both Culver City High School and Culver Studios were mentioned as being used in the flick, he shifted his hunt there and eventually found the house at 4110 Lincoln Avenue, just a few blocks north of the high school (which I believe was only used for a few interior shots). Yay!

Leigh Ann’s house is only featured twice, and very briefly at that, in Teaching Mrs. Tingle – first in an opening scene in which Jo Lynn Jordan (Marisa Coughlan) picks Leigh Ann up for school. In the scene, only the residence across the street from Leigh Ann’s is actually shown, though.

The abode next pops up in the scene in which Leigh Ann returns home for the night after she and her friends have taken Mrs. Tingle hostage. As you can see below, the residence looks quite a bit different now than it did during the filming. A white picket fence has since been constructed around the perimeter of the property, the paint color has since been changed and quite a bit of foliage has since been added to the front yard. I was absolutely floored to see that the moon-shaped cut-outs were still present in the window shutters, though. Love it!

In real life, the residence was originally built in 1934 and boasts 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1,472 square feet of living space, and a 0.15-acre plot of land. As luck would have it, the homeowners happened to be outside when we showed up to stalk the place and they truly could NOT have been nicer. And while they did not own the bungalow at the time of the filming, the previous resident had informed them of the property’s cinematic history. For some inexplicable reason, though, they have yet to rent the movie to see the house onscreen for themselves. Sheesh! Some people! If I owned that house, I’d be watching Teaching Mrs. Tingle pretty much nightly!

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the dwelling was also used in the flick, but, unfortunately, I could not find any interior photographs of the residence with which to verify that hunch, nor did the homeowners know if any filming took place inside

I was absolutely shocked at how much Leigh Ann’s neighborhood resembled Pasadena in person. In fact, if someone had shown me the photograph below prior to me stalking Leigh Ann’s house, I would have bet money on the fact that it was a photograph of a Pasadena street. Who knew Culver City had trees like that?

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Leigh Ann’s house from Teaching Mrs. Tingle is located at 4110 Lincoln Avenue in Culver City.

October 3, 2012