celebrity books – IAMNOTASTALKER

July 26, 2011July 25, 2011

Charlie Rich’s Former Palm Springs Estate

Another location that Jennifer Grant spoke fondly of in Good Stuff, the memoir about her late father, actor Cary Grant, was the Palm Springs estate belonging to Cary’s good friend, Las Vegas Dunes Hotel owner Charlie “Kewpie” Rich. Many weekends of Jennifer’s childhood were spent at “Uncle Charlie’s” lush, four-acre Coachella Valley oasis, which the Beverly Hills, 90210 actress described as “my adolescent wonderland” and a “desert Disneyland”. In the book, Jennifer writes, “Our number-one weekend getaway was to Uncle Charlie’s Palm Springs estate. Uncle Charlie was a staple in our life. Kewpie was maybe five feet tall, bald as they come, with a year-round tan (sometimes orange out of the Coppertone bottle – which Dad heckled him for) and a heart that never stopped giving. Uncle Charlie lived in a Spanish adobe on several acres of manicured, palm-tree-lined property. I learned to drive a golf cart and play putt-putt on that lawn. We stayed in the pool house, near the good-for-guppy-hunting pond and gorgeous rose gardens.” Well, as you can imagine, as soon as I read those words, I became absolutely obsessed with tracking the place down. And while vacationing in the Desert two weekends ago, I spent quite a few hours doing just that. I ran into a few snags along the way, though, as I was originally under the very incorrect assumption that Charlie “Kewpie” Rich, hotel owner, and Charlie Rich, country crooner, were one in the same. As it turns out, they are most definitely not!

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Charlie Rich’s Palm Springs House–Villa Paradiso

It was not until I came across the YouTube video posted above that I realized my mistake. Thankfully, said video lead me to a real estate listing for the estate formerly belonging to the correct Charlie Rich, complete with an address! Yay! So I immediately dragged the Grim Cheaper right on our to stalk the place – in 108-degree weather, no less!

Charlie Rich’s former home, which Cary Grant dubbed “Villa Paradiso”, was originally built in 1928 and features 8 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms (not kidding!!!), 13,000 square feet of living space, a four-car garage, a climate-controlled fur-storage-closet (also not kidding!!!), a swimming pool, a pond, over one hundred palm trees, several eighty-year-old Cypress trees, sweeping mountain views, and 3 stand-alone guest houses, one of which was built by Uncle Charlie especially for Cary Grant. Cary’s guest house boasts a formal living room, a fireplace, a large bar, a kitchen, two bathrooms, and one large bedroom. A photograph of that guest house circa 1970 was featured in Good Stuff and I was absolutely FLOORED to discover a recent picture of the structure on the property’s real estate listing in which it still looks almost exactly the same as it did when Cary and Jennifer vacationed there. SO INCREDIBLY COOL! According to the real estate listing, Howard Hughes also spent quite a bit of time at the property.

Sadly, not much of the ultra-private estate, which is currently for sale for a cool $8,950,000, is visible from the street.

Thank god for aerial views! As you can see above, the place is pretty darn magnificent and majorly dwarfs everything which surrounds it. I cannot even imagine owning a home like that! Sigh! You can visit two of the property’s real estate listings and see some great close-up photographs of it here and here.

On a stalking side note – fellow stalker/celebrity enthusiast Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, her dog Sammy, the GC, and I were lucky enough to run into a few stars while hanging out together this past Saturday night in Beverly Hills.

While walking to our cars after grabbing dinner, Pinky happened to spot The Hangover star Ken Jeong, who could not have been nicer or funnier! He practically did an entire, private stand-up comedy routine for us, right there on the sidewalk. So incredibly cool! And he gave Pinky a kiss on the cheek after posing for a pic with her! How cute is that?

We spotted Kevin Nealon a few minutes later and he was also a total sweetheart and even remembered meeting Pinky at the Sundance Film Festival a couple of years ago.

And last, but definitely not least, we saw Ed Helms from The Office and The Hangover. I had previously heard that Ed is not especially fan-friendly, but I am very happy to report that that information is not accurate as he was super sweet to Pinky and me and happily posed for a picture with both of us. Mine sadly came out a little blurry, which I did not realize until after I got home. Such a bummer, but I am stoked nonetheless to have gotten a picture at all.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Charlie Rich’s former home is located at 457 West Hermosa Place in Palm Springs.

June 30, 2011June 29, 2011

The Jennifer Grant “Good Stuff” Book Signing

Back on Thursday, May 26th (I told you I am way behind in my reporting! Winking smile ), Vroman’s Bookstore welcomed Jennifer Grant for a signing and discussion of her new book Good Stuff: A Reminiscence of My Father, Cary Grant which chronicles the actress’ experiences being raised by one of the most iconic movie stars of all time. And while most of the people attending the event were fans of Jennifer’s famous father, I have been a long-time fan of Jennifer herself, ever since she appeared as Steve Sander’s (aka Ian Ziering’s) longtime girlfriend Celeste Lundy during Seasons 3 and 4 of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210.

Jennifer also made an appearance as Nina Bookbinder, the girl Chandler Bing (aka Matthew Perry) couldn’t fire, in the Season 1 episode of Friends titled “The One With Two Parts: Part I”. But I digress.

Because I have never actually seen a Cary Grant movie, before attending the reading I did not have much interest in reading Good Stuff. My only reason for going to the event was to meet and, of course, get a photograph with Jennifer. But, let me tell you, all of that changed as soon as I started looking through the memoir. As I have mentioned before, I am just slightly anal, so I arrived at the signing about 3 hours early. Well, not only did those three hours ensure me a front row seat, but they also gave me time to peruse through the book and I was immediately mesmerized. Cary Grant was not only an amazing man, but an amazing father! He retired in 1966, the same year that Jennifer was born, so that he could devote all of his time to being a dad. Because Jennifer’s mother, Dyan Cannon (whom the actress is the spitting image of!), was at the height of her career at the time and often on location filming movies for months on end, most of Jennifer’s childhood was spent with her father. And Cary wanted to document his only child’s early years as best he could. Not only did he save and catalogue ever single letter ever exchanged between the two and every single photograph ever taken of them, but he also made hundreds upon hundreds of audio recordings of their time together, many of which are transcribed in the book. Sweetest of all, though, was the fact that, on the mornings when Jennifer was not staying with him, Cary would wait along the sidewalk of her bus route just to wave to her as her bus passed by on the way to school.

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The event began right on time and I just about died when I caught my first glimpse of Jennifer as she looks almost exactly the same today as she did eighteen years ago when she was on 90210. Jennifer started out the evening by reading a few passages from her book and I have to say that she is a fabulous writer and a fabulous speaker. Her voice has an almost lyrical quality to it and I was absolutely mesmerized listening to her. I was completely shocked, though, when she adopted a British accent to read her father’s words! Prior to that evening, I was unaware that Cary Grant was British!

Jennifer then opened up the session to questions from the audience and, even though A LOT were asked, for once they were actually well-crafted. I should explain here, to those who do not regularly attend book signings and television screenings, that people at these events usually ask the most asinine questions imaginable and it absolutely drives me mad! If you have the chance to ask a question of an actor, author, or director, make it a good one, people! And, for the love of God, do NOT ask the celebrity to get you a role in a movie or TV show! And yes, that has been asked at almost EVERY SINGLE EVENT I have ever attended! Most of the questions asked of Jennifer, though, were about what it was like to grow up with such a famous father. In answer to those questions, Jennifer told numerous anecdotes and, as amazing as it may sound, it seems she had a very normal childhood. The two often squabbled about Jennifer’s choice in music and boys, they took frequent outings to the Fox Hills Mall – one of Cary’s favorite haunts – and played regular family games of Trivial Pursuit. She said she never viewed Cary as a celebrity, but, while she knew he was special and certainly different than her friends’ fathers, to her he was always just “Dad”.

When it came time for the signing portion of the reading, the Vroman’s coordinator asked Jennifer if she would be willing to take posed photographs with those in attendance, to which the actress gave a puzzled look and said, “Of course I will!”, as if she could not figure out why anyone wouldn’t take a picture with their fans. LOVE IT!

When it was my turn to meet Jennifer, I told her what a huge fan I had been of Beverly Hills, 90210 and she said that the show was actually the very first acting job she had ever had and was one of the best experiences of her life. She told me that all of the actors were extremely nice and welcoming and that she looks back on that time with incredible fondness. She took quite a bit of time to chat with me and I even got to tell her about my experiences as an extra in the final episode of the series and that the 90210 theme song was still the ringtone on my cell phone. Smile Jennifer was so abundantly sweet and warm, it was almost unbelievable.

As I was leaving Vroman’s, I opened the book to read what Jennifer had signed and almost died over her inscription. It reads, “To Lindsay, Thank you for watching 90210 – your smile is infectious. Jennifer Grant” OMG nicest inscription EVER! Especially considering that so many celebrities will not even personalize books at their signings! Meeting Jennifer was such an incredible experience and I love her even more now than I did before! And while I have not started to officially read Good Stuff yet, it is the next book on my “To Read” list and after I do so, I will most definitely be stalking the many locations mentioned in it.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: You can purchase a copy of Jennifer Grant’s book, Good Stuff: A Reminiscence of My Father, Cary Grant, here. Vroman’s Bookstore is located at 695 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. You can visit the store’s official website here. And you can check out Vroman’s upcoming author events here.

December 14, 2010December 6, 2013

Granville Towers – Portia de Rossi’s Former Home

I just recently finished reading Portia de Rossi’s new memoir Unbearable Lightness and I have to say that it was easily one of the best books I have ever read in my entire life! I literally could NOT put it down. The memoir is a harrowing account of the actress’ long-time eating disorder which consumed her life during the years she portrayed Nelle Porter on the hit television series Ally McBeal. Besides being a fabulous read, the book’s topic really hit home with me as I was once told by an acting teacher that I was “stocky” and needed to lose weight if I wanted to make it in this business. I was a size two at the time. Needless to say the notion of “there is no such thing as too thin” is alive and well in Hollywood. Thankfully I had a strong foundation to fall back on at home and was able to blow off my acting teacher’s words – and eventually her class. But it is easy to see why someone like Portia, who was already deeply insecure over the fact that she was gay and whose family lived a world away in Australia, would falter in that sort of environment. Her story is both heartbreaking and fascinating and I honestly cannot recommend reading it enough. Anyway, in the book, Portia talks about living in a penthouse unit at the legendary Granville Towers in West Hollywood, so as soon as I finished reading the tome, I immediately ran right out to stalk the place.

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The Granville Towers, which was originally an apartment building named The Voltaire, was built in 1930 in the French Revival style by architect Leland Bryant, who also designed one of my favorite hotels in Southern California – the Sunset Tower Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. The 7-story, 40-unit property was a celebrity magnet from the very beginning and such stars as Ann Sothern, Jack Lord, Arthur Treacher, Janet Gaynor, and Rock Hudson called the place home. My girl Marilyn Monroe even stayed there for a brief while after her divorce from Joe DiMaggio in 1954. In the 1980s, the property was transformed into a luxury hotel at which point it was renamed The Granville. A few years later it was transformed yet again, this time into an upscale condominium building, and Hollywood luminaries once again began calling the place home. Just a few of the celebrities who have lived there in more recent years include Nicole Scherzinger, Ashley Greene (her boyfriend Joe Jonas is a frequent visitor), Mickey Rourke, Brendan Fraser, David Bowie, Amy Locane, and Michael Michele.

Portia de Rossi lived in the building’s north tower penthouse from the late 1990s through mid-2002. Of first seeing the penthouse apartment, she said, “I felt as though I had been transported to an artist’s loft in a city like Philadelphia, which was much more exciting to me than where I actually was. Where I was, was predictable. But the apartment made me think there was more to life than being an actress on a David Kelly show.” She signed the papers on the spot and immediately set about transforming the upstairs attic loft into a workout room. Of her makeshift gym, she says, “The treadmill was really the only thing up there and was perfectly centered in the attic, between the wall of windows that showcased the industrial city that was the roof of the Sunset 5 and the east windows through which I could see all the way downtown. The wall opposite the smokestacks acted as a bulletin board where I had taped pieces of paper. Mostly the pieces were exaggerated to-do lists. I say ‘exaggerated’ because they said things that were more like goals that I wanted to achieve than things that needed to be done. The largest piece of paper with the boldest writing stated ‘I WILL BE 105 POUNDS BY CHRISTMAS’.” She also fastened a list of cards to the wall just to the left of her to-do list. Each card featured a number, beginning at 111 and running backwards. Portia was 111 pounds at the time and each time she lost a pound, she would remove a card. Of her weight wall, she says, “It helped keep me focused and it helped me to remember that once I’d achieved the new lower weight and the card stating my previous weight was gone, that I could never weigh that much again; that the old weight was gone. It was no longer who I was. It was getting more difficult to lose weight as I got thinner, so I needed all the incentive and motivation I could muster. Putting my weight on the wall was a clever thing to do as it always needed to be in the forefront of my mind, otherwise I might’ve forgotten and walked on the treadmill instead of run, sat instead of paced. I once saw a loft where a famous writer lived, and all over the wall was his research for the novel he was writing. He described the book to me as his life’s work, his magnum opus. I felt like controlling my weight was my magnum opus, the most important product of my brain and was worthy of devoting a wall to its success.” See what I mean? Absolutely riveting – and harrowing – stuff!

The Granville is a truly beautiful building and features a 24-hour doorman, valet parking, a lobby with a piano, an indoor pool and spa, and a large garden patio area complete with statuaries and fountains. You can view some great interior photographs of the building here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Granville Towers is located at 1424 North Crescent Heights Boulevard, just south of Sunset Boulevard, in West Hollywood.