Enemy of the State – IAMNOTASTALKER

July 28, 2017July 27, 2017

Chasen’s Restaurant from “Enemy of the State”

I grew up about as far removed from Hollywood and the world of show business as you can get. But somehow I was familiar with Chasen’s, the West Hollywood restaurant that played stomping ground to the Tinseltown elite for close to six decades. I’m not sure where my knowledge of the famed eatery came from, but it is likely due to the countless celebrity biographies and magazines I read as a child and/or the fact that my mom has long been something of a chili connoisseur. For those not in the know, Chasen’s was noted as much for its legendary chili as it was for its acclaimed clientele. Sadly, neither my mom nor I ever got to dine at the restaurant. It was shuttered in 1995, long before we moved to Los Angeles. A portion of its Neo-colonial façade still stands, though (it’s now part of a Bristol Farms market), and I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk it way back in May 2013. Then I promptly forgot about it. Flash forward to last week. While researching Baltimore’s Hollywood Diner, I came across a mention that Enemy of the State had done some filming at the Charm City site. As it turns out, that information was incorrect, but I was thrilled to learn while looking into the matter that the 1998 thriller had actually shot a few scenes at Chasen’s. So I figured it was high time I blog about the place.

[ad]

Chasen’s was originally established in 1936 by New York-based Vaudeville performer Dave Chasen. Even the restaurant’s inception is steeped in Hollywood lore. As the story goes, Chasen came out to L.A. to act in a movie and began supplying his actor friends with his special homemade chili, just as he had done with his Vaudeville buddies back home. Depending on which version of the tale you believe, either director Frank Capra or New Yorker magazine editor Harold Ross suggested Chasen get out of show business and start a restaurant. He heeded the advice and on December 13th, 1936 opened the doors of Chasen’s Southern Pit. (Supposedly, Capra had to loan Dave his silverware from home for the opening.) The tiny BBQ joint, which consisted of a scant 6 tables and an 8-seat bar, was an instant hit with the show biz set, despite only serving spare ribs and Dave’s famous chili.

In 1942, Dave married a Sax Fifth Avenue beauty salon head named Maude Martin, whom pal Dom Amici had brought in to Chasen’s for dinner while she was in town on business. Dave was immediately smitten. Following the nuptials, Maude set about expanding both the restaurant’s menu and its square footage, employing renowned architect Paul Revere Williams to spruce up the interior with red leather booths and wood paneling. Williams was hired for a few additional expansions over the years as the restaurant’s popularity continued to grow.

For decades, Chasen’s was the place to see and be seen in Hollywood. Just a few of the legends who regularly dined on the premises include Alfred Hitchcock, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Kirk Douglas, Cary Grant, Walt Disney, Marilyn Monroe, Carol Burnett, Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, and Jack Lemmon. Ronald and Nancy Reagan even got engaged there (the booth where Ronnie proposed is now on display at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library). And Elizabeth Taylor was so taken with Chasen’s chili that she reportedly had it flown to her regularly while she was on location in Rome filming Cleopatra. You can check out some photos of Chasen’s from its heyday here.

After Dave passed away in 1973, Maude ran the restaurant herself, greeting customers at the front door nightly. Chasen’s remained popular under Maude’s tutelage and attracted new celebrity clientele such as John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Elton John, Sharon Stone, Madonna, and Jack Nicholson. Aaron Spelling even hosted annual Christmas parties for the cast and crew of Beverly Hills, 90210 on the premises. Jason Priestley dedicated a chapter of his book, Jason Priestley: A Memoir, to one of the parties and you can see a photo of the December 18th, 1991 soiree here and the 1993 shindig here.

Sadly, Chasen’s started to see a decline in patronage during the ‘90s. Maude eventually sold the restaurant to a developer and its doors were officially closed on April 1st, 1995. Though there were plans to build a massive 2-story, 89,000-square-foot shopping center on the site, they never came to fruition largely due to neighborhood opposition. While development sat in limbo for the next few years, Chasen’s remained intact and was rented out for filming and private events. The project finally got underway in 1999 and the eatery’s interior décor, furnishings and restaurant equipment were auctioned off to the public in October of that year. The structure was razed shortly thereafter and a 29,000-square-foot Bristol Farms grocery store, which opened in 2000, was built in its place. Thankfully, the market’s owners decided to preserve a piece of the historic eatery. As I mentioned above, a portion of Chasen’s Beverly Boulevard façade was left intact during the demolition, was incorporated into the Bristol Farms exterior, and still stands today. That façade, with the restaurant’s former main entrance denoted with a pink arrow, is pictured below.

Most amazing of all, the Bristol Farms owners also re-created a section of Chasen’s interior inside the store. It serves as the market’s onsite restaurant.

Called Bristol Café, the space serves soups, salads, sandwiches, and other staples.

Oh, and Dave’s famous chili! For those who don’t live in the area, but want to know what all the fuss is about, you can make Chasen’s iconic chili at home – recipe here.

Though I never got to experience Chasen’s first-hand, Bristol Café was not a bad consolation prize thanks to the fact that the space boasts several of the original restaurant’s booths;

its knotty pine paneling and light sconces;

and doors. For anyone who hasn’t been, I highly recommend a visit.

In Enemy of the State, Chasen’s portrayed Pintero Social Club, the supposed Washington, D.C.-area Italian restaurant owned by mobster Paulie Pintero (Tom Sizemore). The eatery’s dining area was only shown briefly in the flick, though.

Most of the filming took place in Chasen’s kitchen, including the massive shoot-out at the end of the flick.

Only the interior of Chasen’s was utilized in the movie. Exterior scenes involving Pintero Social Club were filmed at a different location.

Enemy of the State is hardly the first production to feature Chasen’s. Columbo (Peter Falk) dines there – and, in a tongue-in-cheek moment, gets scoffed at by a waiter for ordering chili – in the Season 3 episode of Columbo titled “Publish or Perish,” which aired in 1974.

Simon Davenport (Henry Fonda) receives a telephone call from Harry Calder (George Segal) while he is at Chasen’s celebrating his wedding anniversary in the 1977 thriller Rollercoaster.

Bugsy Siegel (Warren Beatty) tells his wife he wants a divorce over diner at Chasen’s in the 1991 film Bugsy.

In the Season 3 episode of Melrose Place titled “Love Reeks,” which aired in 1994, Susan Madsen (Cheryl Pollak) has a job interview at Chasen’s.

Dede Truitt (Christina Ricci) and Matt Mateo (Ivan Sergei) meet up with Bill Truitt (Martin Donovan) and Lucia DeLury (Lisa Kudrow) for a highly awkward dinner at Chasen’s in the 1998 comedy The Opposite of Sex.

Even Bristol Farms is popular with location scouts. In the Season 2 episode of Six Feet Under titled “Back to the Garden,” which aired in 2002, David Fisher (Michael C. Hall) waits for Keith Charles (Mathew St. Patrick) at Bristol Café in a very brief scene.

And in the Season 3 episode of The Osbournes titled “Pain in the Neck,” which aired in 2004, Ozzy Osbourne shops at Bristol Farms with his assistant.

Chasen’s also appeared in the second episode of the 1989 television series Nightingales, but, unfortunately, I could not find a copy of the episode with which to make screen captures for this post.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Chasen’s restaurant, aka Pintero Social Club from Enemy of the State, was formerly located at 9039 Beverly Boulevard in West Hollywood. The site is now home to a Bristol Farms grocery store.

February 27, 2017February 23, 2017

Baltimore’s Washington Monument from “Sleepless in Seattle”

Most people know about the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., but what few realize is that there is another memorial honoring America’s first president located nearby and that it actually predates the District one. It is a filming location, to boot – from Sleepless in Seattle, one of my favorite movies, no less! So I just had to do some stalking of it while I was back east last September.

[ad]

The original Washington Monument, which was constructed from 1815 to 1829 and was the first public memorial to pay homage to George Washington, stands about forty miles outside of the nation’s capital in Baltimore, Maryland’s Mount Vernon neighborhood. The structure was designed by architect Robert Mills, who also designed its D.C. counterpart, though that one did not begin to take shape until 1848 and was not completed for another 37 years after that.

Manufactured out of marble from three local quarries, the monument stands at 178 feet, 8 inches tall.

The focal point of the memorial is a towering Doric column positioned at the center of a rectangular base. Inside of the base is an exhibit about the monument and its surrounding neighborhood. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a stalking fail with this particular location because until I started doing researching for this post, I was unaware that visitors could not only venture inside the structure, but to the very top of it! The tower’s apex apparently provides some fabulous views of the city, so I am really disappointed the Grim Cheaper and I did not head inside.

Affixed to the exterior of the monument’s base are eight bronze captions denoting important events in Washington’s life.

And holding court at the top is a sculpture designed by Italian artist Enrico Causici that represents the moment when Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army on December 23rd, 1783. Why did Causici choose to immortalize that particular occasion? As History.com explains, “Washington’s willingness to return to civilian life was an essential element in the transformation of the War for Independence into a true revolution. During the war, Congress had granted Washington powers equivalent to those of a dictator and he could have easily taken solitary control of the new nation. Indeed, some political factions wanted Washington to become the new nation’s king. His modesty in declining the offer and resigning his military post at the end of the war fortified the republican foundations of the new nation.”

The detailing of the statue cannot be seen from ground level, which is quite possibly a good thing. The Baltimore Business Journal’s Kevin Litten got a close-up view of the piece in 2014, while the monument was undergoing a $5.5-million, 19-month restoration, and as he humorously reported, Causici’s rendering of the nation’s first president depicts him with “a wide, googly-eyed stare” that “looks a lot more like the late actor Jack Elam than the father of our country.” Who is Jack Elam, you ask? Litten explains, “Elam was known both for his frequent depiction of evil characters in western films, and for having what the New York Times called a ‘leer, bulging eye’ that ‘conveyed villainy as surely as [Jimmy] Durante’s nose suggested humor.’” I mean, try to look at this photo and not laugh. I’m literally in hysterics as I write this.

In 1917, it was decided that a statue of Marquis de Lafayette, the French aristocrat who fought alongside Washington during the Revolutionary War, would be added to the site. Sculptor Andrew O’Connor was commissioned to create the instillation and architect Thomas Hastings was enlisted to re-design the area surrounding the Washington Monument to better suit the new piece. The statue was eventually dedicated in 1924.

Surrounding the monument are four gorgeously manicured park-like squares.

Lined with trees, the squares feature fountains, shaded paths, and benches and chairs where visitors can enjoy quiet respite from the bustle of Baltimore.

It truly is a gorgeous site and fitting homage to the father of this great nation.

Towards the beginning of Sleepless in Seattle, Annie Reed (Meg Ryan) and her BFF Becky (Rosie O’Donnell) pass by the Washington Monument on their way to have lunch at the Women’s Exchange, which I blogged about last week.

In the scene, the two ladies are shown walking from the east side of the monument to the south side, past the Marquis de Lafayette statue.

Baltimore’s Washington Monument has popped up in a few other productions over the years.

In the 1979 thriller . . . And Justice for All, Arthur Kirkland (Al Pacino) takes a spontaneous jog around the monument and Marquis de Lafayette statue.

Robert Clayton Dean (Will Smith) and Rachel F. Banks (Lisa Bonet) have a clandestine meet-up at the Washington Monument in 1998’s Enemy of the State.

That same year, the memorial was featured briefly in the opening scene of the John Waters comedy Pecker as the spot where Pecker (Edward Furlong) caught a bus.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Washington Monument, from Sleepless in Seattle, is located at 699 Washington Place in Baltimore. Several other filming locations can be found in the same vicinity, including the Women’s Exchange, also from Sleepless in Seattle, at 333 North Charles Street; the George Peabody Library, again from Sleepless, at 17 East Mount Vernon Place; Terry Lambert’s (Steve Guttenberg) apartment from The Bedroom Window at 12 East Mount Vernon Place; and The Helmund from He’s Just Not That Into You at 806 North Charles Street.

May 19, 2011May 20, 2011

The Cravens Estate from “Commander in Chief”

As I mentioned a few weeks back, because of my love for Matt Lanter, the Grim Cheaper and I recently purchased and sat down to watch the first – and only – season of the short-lived television series Commander in Chief, on which the cutie actor portrayed the role of First Son Horace Calloway. I absolutely fell in love with the show and immediately started creating a list of locations to stalk from it, the most important being Pasadena’s former Cravens Estate, now the American Red Cross’ San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters, which was used several times to stand in for the White House on the series. And as soon as the GC and I finished watching the final episode, I dragged my dad right on out to stalk the place. I have actually written about the Cravens Estate once before, back in July of 2008 just a few months after I first started my blog, but it was a very brief post and did not include any photographs of the interior of the property. So, I figured the place was definitely worthy of a re-post.

The Cravens Estate was originally built in 1930 for Mr. John S. Cravens and his wife Mildred and was designed by San Francisco-area architect Lewis P. Hobart, who was also responsible for constructing the City by the Bay’s Grace Episcopal Cathedral and the Crocker Building on Market Street. After migrating to Pasadena in 1900, the Cravens first commissioned an English-style mansion to be built on a 16-acre plot of land on what was then known as “Millionaires’ Row”. Three decades later, after vacationing in France, the couple decided to tear down their existing abode and build a new one based upon the design of the the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte, located just south of Paris. That new manse became known as the Cravens Estate and it cost a whopping $310,000 to construct, making it one of Pasadena’s most expensive homes at the time. After the Cravens, who had no children, passed away in the 1940s, the property went through a succession of owners until finally being donated to the American Red Cross in 1962, whereupon it became their San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters. The mansion is both a Pasadena Cultural Landmark and a Landmark of Historical Significance. In 2010, it was chosen to be used as the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, whereupon numerous designers came in and completely restored the property, which had lost a bit of its luster over the years, back to its original grandeur.

When I originally dragged my dad out to stalk the estate, I was hoping that we might be allowed to take a quick peek at the interior of the property and snap a few pictures. Well, imagine my surprise when the SUPER-nice receptionist said that if we were interested we could schedule a full-blown tour of the building. If we were interested? IF WE WERE INTERESTED??? Um, heck yes, we were interested!!! So I immediately scheduled a tour and dragged my dad back out to the estate once again just a few days later. What we ended up being given, though, was not what I had expected at all. Our SUPER-nice tour guide was extremely excited over how much I already knew about the estate and my enthusiasm for its filming history, so she wound up taking us on a TWO-AND-A-HALF-HOUR excursion through the property during which she showed us its every nook and cranny, including the attic area, the servants’ quarters and the basement. I can honestly say that it was one of the best stalking experiences of my life! Even my dad enjoyed it! The estate, which boasts four levels, 50 rooms, and just under 20,000 square feet of living space, is an absolutely remarkable piece of property! Pictured above is the entryway, which features hand-painted murals depicting the grounds of the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte.

Our tour included the Cravens Estate’s reception room;

dining room;

Mrs. Cravens’ former sitting room;

a sun room;

the media room;

one of the original bathrooms;

the upstairs balcony;

the bridal room;

Mrs. Cravens’ original closet;

and the back side of the estate.

The area of the home that I was most excited about seeing, though, was the kitchen, which stood in for the White House Residence’s kitchen on the first few episodes of Commander in Chief.

The Cravens Estate kitchen was actually remodeled in 2010 for the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, but thankfully, as you can see above, it still looks very much the same as it did on the series.

We also got to see one of the property’s upstairs rooms . . .

. . . which was featured on Commander in Chief as the office of First Gentleman Rod Calloway (aka Kyle Secor).

And we were shown the central stairwell and glass-plated dome area . . .

. . . which popped up in the series as a White House stairwell in the episode titled “The Price You Pay”.

I just about died when our tour guide said I could pose for a picture on that very same stairwell. LOVE IT!

The exterior of the Cravens Estate also appeared in “The Price You Pay” episode as a supposed Washington, D.C.-area restaurant where President Mackenzie Calloway (aka Geena Davis) and her husband, Rod, take Attorney General nominee Carl Brantley (aka Alan Arkin) and his wife, Sue (aka Elizabeth Dennehy), out for dinner.

The Cravens Estate was also used extensively as Dalton Academy during this past season of Glee – a show which has gotten so bad that I can hardly bear to watch it anymore. Anyway, it first showed up in the Season 2 episode titled “Never Been Kissed” in the scene in which Kurt Hummel (aka Chris Colfer) spies on a rival Glee club known as the Warblers. Kurt later transfers to Dalton and joins the Warblers, after which time the estate was featured regularly on the series. Areas of the estate which appeared on the show include the central staircase;

the entryway;

the reception room;

and the dining room.

The Cravens Estate was also featured weekly as the supposed Falls Church, Virginia-area JAG headquarters on the television series of the same name. According to the official Cravens Estate website, JAG producer Donald P. Bellisario used to regularly receive letters from fans stating that they had searched high and low for the property while on stalking expeditions in Falls Church, Virginia, not realizing that it was actually located right here in Pasadena.

[ad]

The Cravens Estate was also used extensively as the Silverberg & Blake law firm where Robert Clayton Dean (aka Will Smith) worked in the 1998 thriller Enemy of the State. Areas which appeared in the movie include the exterior;

the dining room;

the central stairway;

and the same upstairs room that was used as Rod Calloway’s office on Commander in Chief.

In the 2001 movie Swordfish, the estate was where Stanley Jobson’s (aka Hugh Jackman’s) daughter, Holly (aka Camryn Grimes), went to school.

The back of the estate stood in for the French Consulate where a limo was bombed towards the beginning of the 2007 flick Rush Hour 3.

The estate’s reception room also appeared in Rush Hour 3.

According to the book The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, the above-pictured scene from the 2001 movie Traffic, in which Robert Wakefield (aka Michael Douglas) is briefed by the White House Chief of Staff (aka Albert Finney), was filmed in a room at the Cravens Estate, although because only a tight shot of it was shown, I am not able to verify this or make a guess as to the exact room where filming took place.

The estate was also where Chauncey Gardiner (aka Peter Sellers) and Eve Rand (aka Shirley MacLaine) attended a cocktail party in the 1979 movie Being There.

The estate also stood in for the University of Minnesota dorm where Brenda Walsh (aka Shannen Doherty) briefly lived in the Season 4 episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “So Long, Auf Wiedersehen” and “The Girl from New York”.

In the Season 5 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Look Into Their Eyes and You See What They Know”, the estate stood in for Beecher Academy, where Edie Britt’s (aka Nicolette Sheridan’s) son Travers (aka Stephen Lunsford) attended school. After Edie’s death, the women of Wisteria Lane – Bree Hodge (aka Marcia Cross), Lynette Scavo (aka Felicity Huffman), Gabrielle Solis (aka Eva Longoria), Susan Mayer (aka Teri Hatcher), and Karen McCluskey (aka Kathryn Joosten) – travel to the school in order to bring Edie’s ashes to Travers.

The entryway of the Cravens Estate was transformed into a restaurant in the Season 3 episode of Mad Men titled “The Gypsy and the Hobo” for the scene in which Roger Sterling (aka John Slattery) takes Annabelle Mathis (aka Mary Page Keller, who, ironically enough, also had a recurring role on Commander in Chief) out for dinner.

Fellow stalker/Jennifer Love Hewitt-aficionado Owen also let me know that the estate appeared as Parkdale Academy in the Season 4 episode of Ghost Whisperer titled “Delusions of Grandview”.

Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used quite extensively in the episode.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The American Red Cross’ San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters, aka the Cravens Estate from Commander in Chief, is located at 430 Madeline Drive in Pasadena. Here is a map link to the location. You can visit the property’s official website here. If you would like a tour of the estate, please call to schedule an appointment first.