filming locations – Page 4

October 16, 2013September 29, 2017

The Former Site of Mulholland Farm

Another locale that fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory, mentioned in Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites was the spot where Mulholland Farm – the former home of actor Errol Flynn – once stood. And while I knew next to nothing about Flynn at the time I read the book, the blurb caught my eye due to a macabre practical joke that was allegedly played at the property involving John Barrymore (grandfather of Drew), which I thought would interest my friend Ashley, of The Drewseum website. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place way back in mid-February while the two of us were in L.A. for a weekend visit.

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The Tasmanian-born Flynn, who became an overnight sensation and Hollywood’s original bad boy after playing a swashbuckler in 1935’s Captain Blood, purchased an 11. 5-acre plot of land hidden away at the top of a ravine off of Mulholland Drive in 1941 and proceeded to build a two-story, country-style home there. He dubbed the $125,000 property, which he helped design, “Mulholland Farm.” The residence was a virtual den of iniquity, boasting a black marble pool, a tennis court, a barn, circular stables, a casino, a master bedroom with a mirrored ceiling, an obscene mural involving fish genitalia that ran behind a set of humongous fish tanks that lined the walls of his den, and a bar that covered a secret passageway leading to a hidden viewing area overlooking the women’s guest bathroom. The estate became a popular party pad (for obvious reasons) and such luminaries as Charlie Chaplin, Jack Warner, Mickey Rooney, Tyrone Power, and Flynn’s longtime friend and drinking buddy John Barrymore all hung out on the premises. There were also plenty of female visitors. Just a few of the starlets Flynn “entertained” at the home include Hedy Lamarr, Ann Sheridan, Linda Christian, Ida Lupino, Faith Domergue, and Dorothy Lamour. It should come as no surprise that the phrase “In like Flynn” came about thanks to the actor and his propensity for getting women into bed.

Flynn loved practical jokes and legend has it that, on May 29th, 1942, several of his drinking buddies pulled a whopper on him at the Farm. As the story goes, on the night that John Barrymore passed away, Flynn’s friends bribed a mortuary worker to let them “borrow” the corpse for a few hours. They drove it to Flynn’s house where they propped Barrymore up in a chair with a cocktail in his hand. When Errol returned to the Farm later that night after several hours spent drinking, he walked in to find the dead actor sitting in his living room. Of the event, Flynn wrote in his autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, “My God, the light went on and I stared into the face of Barrymore! His eyes were closed, and he looked puffed, white, bloodless. They hadn’t embalmed him yet. I let out a delirious scream.” With friends like that, who needs enemies? Flynn took the experience in stride, though, offering the pranksters a drink and cordially refusing to help them return the body to the funeral home. And while several sources claim that the Barrymore anecdote is pure fiction, it sure makes for one heck of a story!

In 1953, Flynn left Mulholland Farm and moved to Europe in order to avoid paying back taxes to the government and alimony to two ex-wives. At some point thereafter, he lost the property to his first wife, Lili Damita. She sold off some of the acreage, on which new homes were eventually built (one of which, at 7740 Mulholland Drive, is the dwelling featured in the photographs that appear in this post, but more on that later). In 1959, Errol’s former residence and the surrounding 7.5 acres of land were purchased by gospel singer Stuart Hamblen and his wife, Suzy. They lived there for the next twenty years. And while the couple reported no strange goings-on, when pop star Ricky Nelson purchased the site in 1980, his family witnessed all sorts of odd behavior, leading them to believe that the pad was haunted by Errol. I’d venture to guess, though, that it was Barrymore’s ghost who had come back to terrorize the place. Sadly, in 1988, Mulholland Farm was sold to a real estate developer who bulldozed Errol’s former residence and subdivided the remaining land. Helen Hunt purchased one of the parcels (at 3100 Torreyson Place) in 1997 and proceeded to build a mansion on it. She never lived there, though, and in 2002 sold the estate to none other than Justin Timberlake for $8.2 million.

The address of Mulholland Farm during Flynn’s tenure there was 7740 Mulholland Drive, as you can see in this 1942 newspaper article. At the time, his was the only house in the vicinity. (The 11.5 acres that comprised the Farm are roughly denoted by the orange circle below.)

Today, there are seven different residences located on those 11.5 acres. The house which now stands at 7740 Mulholland Drive, on what looks to have been some sort of horse riding arena in Flynn’s day, was built in 1967 on a parcel of land that had been sold off by Lili Damita.

You can watch a video about Mulholland Farm by clicking below. And you can click here to purchase a book written about the property titled Errol Flynn Slept Here.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., of The Movieland Directory, for writing about this location in his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Mulholland Farm, Errol Flynn’s one-time home, was formerly located at 7740 Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills.

October 15, 2013September 29, 2017

The Spot Where the Black Dahlia’s Body Was Found

One Haunted Hollywood locale that I had wanted to stalk pretty much ever since first moving to Southern California in 2000 was the spot where the dismembered body of Elizabeth Short, aka the “Black Dahlia,” was found on the morning of January 15th, 1947. Over six decades later and the case is still one of the most well-known, talked-about and sinister unsolved murders in the history of the City of Angels. I avoided the location for over thirteen years, though, because, for some reason, I had it in my head that the area was dangerous (which, as it turns out, could not have been further from the truth). But when I saw the site detailed in the The Crime Issue of Los Angeles magazine this past July, I decided that I had to bite the bullet and finally dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there just a few days later.

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Elizabeth Short was born in Hyde Park, Massachusetts on July 29th, 1924. In 1946, after years spent adrift in the Bay State, as well as Illinois and Florida, Beth, as she liked to be called, headed west to California to make a go of it in Hollywood. Her tenure there, which not much is known about, was not successful or long, and Elizabeth spent most of her time waiting tables and moving from boarding house to boarding house. As I mentioned in my July 2008 post about the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, the wanna-be starlet was last seen by a doorman on January 9th, 1947 as she walked out of the property’s east doors and made her way south down Olive Avenue. Six days later, her naked body, which had been cut in two, was spotted lying face-up in a vacant field by a housewife named Betty Bersinger. At first, Betty thought the lifeless figure was a broken store mannequin. When she realized the form was actually a dead body, she rushed to a nearby residence and called the police.

The responding detectives were shocked at the heinousness of the crime. Elizabeth’s body had been severed at the waist, then thoroughly cleaned and all of her blood drained. There were three-inch gashes on each side of her mouth, one breast was slashed open, rope marks marred her wrists and ankles, and a section of flesh had been removed from her thigh and then inserted into her body. No blood or other evidence was found at the scene, though, leading police to believe that she was killed and mutilated elsewhere. Newspaper reporters helped obtain Short’s fingerprints, which were then sent to the FBI in Washington, D.C., and thanks to an underage drinking arrest in Santa Barbara and an army base mailroom job application, she was identified quickly. When a photograph of the 22-year-old beauty was released to the press, Short became a media sensation. Her exotic nickname – which she was given thanks to her raven-colored hair and penchant for wearing black – only fueled the frenzy.

Upon seeing her picture in the paper, an acquaintance named Robert “Red” Manley came forward saying that, on January 9th, Elizabeth had asked him to take her to the Biltmore to meet her sister from Berkeley, whom she was going to move in with. Walter first helped her check her luggage at a bus station and then drove her to the hotel. He left her in the Biltmore lobby at 6:30 p.m. According to hotel employees, Elizabeth subsequently paced the lobby for several hours before departing. What happened from that time to when her body was found six days later is a mystery. (Walter was initially considered a suspect in the murder, but was absolved after passing a lie detector test.) In a very odd twist, on January 24th, a package was mailed to the Los Angeles Examiner containing several of Short’s belongings, including photographs, her birth certificate , her social security card, and her address book. Gasoline had been used to wipe the package clean of any identifying fingerprints. Then, the following day, Elizabeth’s purse and one high heel were found in a dumpster a few miles from where her body was dropped. According to the TruTV website, the killer later sent 13 letters to the police and the media. And while more than thirty people supposedly confessed to the crime, it was never solved. The case of the Black Dahlia murder remains open to this day.

The vacant lot where Elizabeth’s body was found is now a jarringly normal neighborhood of one-story tract homes. And while there seems to be quite a bit of confusion online as to the exact spot where Short was dropped, according to the coroner’s inquest, the site was 54 feet north of the fire hydrant located in front of 3831 South Norton Avenue.

I counted off 54 feet north from the fire hydrant and wound up at the spot pictured below. Elizabeth’s body was found on the patch of grass behind me, in what is now the front yard of the house located at 3825 South Norton Avenue.

The exact spot, denoted with an orange X in the image below, is situated on private property, which is why I did not pose there. You can check out a picture taken of the crime scene on the day that Elizabeth’s body was discovered as compared with a current photo of the area on Flickr here.

The site is also a filming location. Scott Michaels, of the Find a Death website, took Bridget Marquardt, Holly Madison, and Kendra Wilkinson there – in a purple hearse! – during a private Dearly Departed tour in the Season 2 episode of The Girls Next Door titled “Girls Will Be Ghouls.”

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Elizabeth Short’s, aka the Black Dahlia’s, body was found on South Norton Avenue halfway between West 39th and Coliseum Streets in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles. The exact spot, according to the coroner’s inquest, was 54 feet north and a few feet west of the fire hydrant located in front of the house at 3831 South Norton Avenue, which puts her death site in the northeast corner of the front yard of the house at 3825 South Norton Avenue.

October 10, 2013September 29, 2017

Ray Combs’ Former House

One Haunted Hollywood location that I learned about back in January thanks to the fabulous book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites, which was written by fellow stalker E.J. of The Movieland Directory, was the Glendale-area home where former Family Feud host Ray Combs was taken into custody shortly before his 1996 suicide. I was an avid watcher of the Feud during my teenage years and remember being heartbroken upon learning of Ray’s death, so I was, of course, immediately intrigued. I ran right out to stalk the residence just a few days later and have been absolutely itching to blog about it ever since. So here goes.

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Ray Combs was born Raymond Neil Combs Jr. in Hamilton, Ohio on April 3rd, 1956. He met his future high school sweetheart/wife, Debra, in the first grade. During his senior year at Garfield High, Ray was class president, a Boys State representative and the lead in the school play. Talk about most likely to succeed! After graduating in 1974, he received a nomination to West Point, but turned it down to instead embark on a two-year Mormon mission in Arizona. Upon his return, he married Debra and became a furniture salesman in Indianapolis. The job didn’t float his boat, though, and in 1982 he packed up his family and moved to Hollywood with stars in his eyes. He quickly gained success, winning an L.A. stand-up competition in 1984 and then an appearance on The Tonight Show in 1986, after which he received a standing ovation. Following that performance, he was offered a job hosting The Family Feud. Ray and Debra subsequently purchased a two-story, six-bedroom, two-bath, 1,987-square-foot home located at 1318 Sonora Avenue in Glendale in 1988. The dwelling, which sits on 0.26 acres, was originally built in 1925 and boasts a swimming pool and spa.

In early 1994, due to poor ratings, producers decided to let Ray go and bring back former Feud host Richard Dawson. Click below to watch Ray’s final appearance on Family Feud, in which a contestant fails to earn a single point during the Fast Money round, causing the comedian to say, “You know, I’ve done this show for six years and this could be the first time that I had a person that actually got no points and I think it’s a damn fine way to go out. Thought I was a loser till you walked up here and you made me feel like a man.” Then when the credits start to roll, Ray bolts from the stage, leaving the winning family cheering by themselves.

This clip is also amazing, by the way.

As is this one. But now I’m really getting off topic.

1994 was not kind to Combs. Besides losing his hosting gig and almost-$1-million-a-year paycheck, the comedian was in a car accident in July that rendered him temporarily paralyzed and left him with lingering spinal pain. Sadly, 1995 was no better. His family home of over 11 years in Ohio was foreclosed upon and he and his wife also separated and filed for divorce. Ray subsequently moved into an apartment in North Hollywood, while Debra and the couple’s six children remained at the Glendale residence.

According to the Find a Death website, on the night of May 31st, 1996, Ray telephoned Debra from his apartment and informed her that he had swallowed some pills. She called 911 and Ray was taken to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank (which I blogged about here). He contacted Debra again early the next morning informing her that he was being released and that he needed a ride home. During the drive, Ray became agitated that Debra wanted to take him to her place and wound up jumping out of the car – barefoot – and running onto the Ventura Freeway where a passerby picked him up. According to the Los Angeles Times, he was then taken to a friend’s residence and appeared to be “in a rage.” He told the friend that he was going to his family’s home “to hurt his wife and destroy the place.” His friend called the police and notified them of Ray’s plans. Detectives then made their way to Debra’s house, where they found Combs destroying furniture and bashing his head against walls. The comedian was again taken to a hospital, this time Glendale Adventist Medical Center, where he was placed on a 72-hour suicide watch. It did no good. In the early hours of June 2nd, Combs tied his bed sheets together and hung himself from a rod in the closet in his room. He was found by a hospital orderly at 4:10 a.m., dead at the age of 40.

At the time of his death, Ray had accumulated a debt of $500,000 (not including the $470,000 mortgage on the Glendale home), largely amassed from the failure of two shuttered comedy clubs he had owned in Ohio. According to an October 1996 People magazine article, the Glendale property was foreclosed upon shortly thereafter and Ray’s family subsequently moved into a two-bedroom rental. During that time, Johnny Carson, the man largely credited with giving Ray his big break, sent Debra a check for $25,000 along with a handwritten note that said, “I understand you are having some problems. I hope this will ease the burden.” Unfortunately, I could find no information on the Combs family whereabouts today.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., of The Movieland Directory, for writing about this location in his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Ray Combs’ former home is located at 1318 Sonora Avenue near the Kenneth Village area of Glendale.

October 2, 2013September 29, 2017

Vincente Minnelli’s Former Abandoned Mansion

Back in February 2012, a fellow stalker named Kayleigh emailed me to ask if I knew anything about the “creepy” mansion located on the southeast corner of West Sunset Boulevard and North Crescent Drive in Beverly Hills. Her email stated, “There’s very little information on it online other than the fact that Liza Minnelli battled her former step-mother over it. It stands out because all the houses in that area are gorgeous, but this home is unkempt, looks abandoned and is just plain scary.” I did not have any intel on the property – in fact, I had never even heard about it before – but hello! Unkempt, abandoned, scary, AND a celebrity tie-in? Count me in! Winking smile I contacted fellow stalker E.J., of the Movieland Directory website, who I figured would have the lowdown on the manse’s history and I was right – he had a boatload of information to share. Somehow though, I failed to stalk the place in time for last year’s Haunted Hollywood postings. So, believe you me, it was at the very top of this year’s list and I finally dragged the Grim Cheaper out there in early June.

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I do not know what it is about abandoned properties that makes this stalker’s heart go pitter-patter, but I could NOT have been more excited as we pulled up to the mansion.

Liza’s father, famed musical director Vincente Minnelli, moved into the six-bedroom, six-bath, 5,877-square-foot Hollywood Regency-style estate – which was originally built in 1925 and was later re-designed by architect John Elgin Woolf – at some point following his 1951 divorce from Liza’s mother, actress Judy Garland. Liza split her time evenly between both parents, spending six month of each year at Vincente’s house, which boasted a motor court, a pool and a 0.98-acre plot of land. According to Richard Alleman’s book Hollywood: The Movie Lover’s Guide, the director commissioned artist Tony Duquette – whose whimsical Dawnridge residence I blogged about in August – to build a large playhouse for Liza in the backyard. Alleman also states that the young girl’s closet was filled with tyke-sized reproductions of costumes from The King and I, Gone with the Wind and An American in Paris. In her 1984 autobiography Knock Wood, actress Candice Bergen said, “I remember always asking to go to Liza’s to play dress-up because in her closet hung little girls’ dreams.” The state of the house today, though, is the stuff nightmares are made of!

The estate’s first brush with darkness came in 1986. On July 25th of that year, Vincente, who was suffering from emphysema, took his usual after-dinner nap. Sensing something was wrong due to his pallor, Minnelli’s wife, Lee, whom the director had married in 1980, called 911. Paramedics rushed to the scene and Vincente was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival. He was 83. And while the mansion was willed to Liza, it was stipulated that Lee would be permitted to reside there – or at a comparable place – at Liza’s expense for the rest of her life.

In 2000, Liza decided to put the property on the market – unbeknownst to Lee. It sold for $2.75 million two years later and Liza subsequently purchased a $450,000 condo for her step-mother to live in. Lee wasn’t going anywhere, though. A battle ensued in which Liza ended up firing the mansion staff and shutting off the estate’s electricity, at which point Lee sued her. The lawsuit, referring to Liza’s recent wedding to David Gest, stated, “While defendant is honeymooning all over the world, having fed 850 of her closest friends a 12-foot cake, plaintiff is alone in a cold, dark house, at age 94.” You can see some photos taken of Lee at the dwelling, which was starting to dilapidate, during that time period here. Liza eventually had the power restored and the sale finally went through in 2006 –after a four-year escrow. A mediator ruled that Lee would be allowed to stay on the premises until her death, with Liza paying rent to the new owners, who would not be permitted to move in until Lee passed away.

When Lee did pass away three years later, on November 11th, 2009 at the age of 100, the new owners apparently set about making arrangements to tear the mansion down and build a Mediterranean-style estate in its place. The project was scrapped, though, in 2010 due to difficulties with the Beverly Hills Planning Division. Supposedly a restoration of the property was then scheduled to begin, but, as you can see below, that never occurred, either.

And while it seems that some sort of work was done on the property in recent years, as evidenced by the dumpsters and utility truck visible on Bing aerial views, for whatever reason it was stopped and the residence has been left untouched ever since. (How eerily awesome is that pool, by the way? LOVE IT!)

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Kayleigh for telling me about this location and to fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, for informing me of its history! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Vincente Minnelli’s former abandoned mansion is located at 812 North Crescent Drive in Beverly Hills.

October 1, 2013September 29, 2017

Tom Neal’s Former House

Upon first moving to the Desert in January, I started seriously perusing the book Palm Springs Confidential, which the Grim Cheaper’s boss had purchased for me several years prior. One locale mentioned in the tome that immediately piqued my interest was the former Little Tuscany Estates residence of Tom Neal, where, on April 1st, 1965, the ex-actor/onetime prizefighter shot and killed his third wife, Gail Evatt. (Her name is also sometimes reported as being “Gail Bennett” and, unfortunately, I am unsure of which moniker is correct, but for this post I’ll stick with Evatt.) Figuring the place would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme, I dragged the GC out to stalk it in July and have been itching to blog about it ever since. So here goes!

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Tom Neal’s acting career began on Broadway in 1935. The Illinois native, who had boxed quite successfully while attending Northwestern University, enrolled in Harvard Law School shortly thereafter and, upon graduating in 1938, migrated to Hollywood to pursue his dream of being on the silver screen. He landed his first film role that same year as Aldrich Brown in Out West with the Hardys and went on to play bit parts (mostly tough-guy characters thanks to his boxing background) and later star in over 180 low-budget, B-rated productions. His success garnered him quite a bit of wealth, a two-acre estate in Bel-Air and a romance with actress Barbara Payton. It was that romance with Payton that triggered his downfall. In 1951, the starlet told Neal she was leaving him for a new paramour, actor Franchot Tone. Neal did not take the news well. He beat Tone severely, giving him a broken nose, a concussion and a ten-day hospital stay. Payton later married Tone (though that was short-lived) and Neal was blacklisted by Hollywood. He wound up moving to Palm Springs, where he worked first as a host at the Doll House restaurant and then as a landscaper.

In 1961, Neal married Gail, who worked as a receptionist at the Palm Springs Racquet Club. (I blogged about the Racquet Club here.) The two moved into the four-bedroom, two-bath, 1,624-square-foot rental pictured below in early 1965. The ranch-style home, which was originally built in 1947, sits on 0.29 acres.

On the afternoon of April 1st, Tom and Gail began to argue. The couple had been separated for about ten weeks and Gail had filed for divorce on March 11th, unbeknownst to Tom. In the midst of the argument, Gail apparently headed for the living room, where she attempted to nap on the couch. Neal followed, accused her of cheating on him and wound up shooting her in the head with a 0.45-caliber pistol. He later claimed that Gail had grabbed the gun, pointed it at him and it had accidentally fired, striking her, during the course of a struggle, although the evidence did not reflect his account. Whatever the true story may be, Neal did not call the police, but, according to Palm Springs Life magazine, instead headed out to Tirol restaurant in Idyllwild for dinner. While there he informed two friends that he had just killed Gail. Apparently, neither of them thought to call the police, either.

The police were finally telephoned at 6:30 the following morning by Neal’s lawyer, James Cantillion, who informed them, according to Palm Springs Life, that a woman “had expired or was seriously injured” at 2481 Cardillo Avenue. Neal was indicted for murder two weeks later. After a twenty-day trial and a ten-hour jury deliberation, the former actor was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to up to 15 years in prison and ultimately served seven before being paroled on December 6th, 1971. Upon his release he moved to North Hollywood, where passed away from a heart attack eight months later. Neal was 58.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Tom Neal’s former house is located at 2481 North Cardillo Avenue in the Little Tuscany Estates neighborhood of Palm Springs.

September 30, 2013July 20, 2018

Ferndell Nature Center

It’s that time again, my fellow stalkers! Time for my annual, month-long Haunted Hollywood theme! And yes, I do realize that October 1st is not actually until tomorrow, but I just could not wait one more day to get started! So here goes! My first Haunted Hollywood locale is actually one of my very favorite spots in all of Los Angeles – a peaceful little idyll named Ferndell that is tucked away inside of Griffith Park. And while the place could hardly be described as spooky or sinister, because it played a role in one of L.A.’s more fascinating unsolved mysteries – the 1949 disappearance of actress Jean Elizabeth Spangler – I figured what better time than now to blog about it.

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According to the non-profit group Friends of Griffith Park, the twenty-acre site now known as Ferndell was originally a meeting place for the Tongva-Gabrielino Indian tribe. The group dubbed the canyon “Mococahuenga.” In the early Twentieth Century the area became a part of Griffith Park and in 1914 park workers began planting ferns there. Pathways, bridges and waterfalls were added shortly thereafter and by the 1920s, the shaded oasis had become an immensely popular weekend attraction for native Angelinos and visitors alike.

Today the peaceful twenty-acre glen is marked by a quarter-mile gravel trail, meandering streams, terraced pools, over twenty small waterfalls, 17 footbridges, more than one dozen different fern varieties, and vast canopies of pine, palm, sycamore, ash, and redwood trees.

There is also a fabulous café named Trails located just outside of Ferndell’s rear entrance.

Sadly, Ferndell was allowed to fall into decline over the years – due mostly to the layoff of maintenance workers in the 1970s and 2008 budget cuts – and in 2012 the Cultural Landscape Foundation declared it one of the United States’ 12 most threatened landscapes. Friends of Griffith Park is currently working to restore the site to its original grandeur, although I can’t really imagine it looking any prettier than it already does.

The place is honestly one of the most picturesque spots I have ever laid eyes on. In fact, my very favorite picture of my dad and the Grim Cheaper was taken there back in 2008.

Ferndell’s beauty does not at all mesh with the unsolved mystery that has been linked to it for over 60 years. At around 5:30 p.m. on October 7th, 1949, stunning bit-part actress Jean Spangler left her apartment in the Park La Brea area of Los Angeles, telling her sister-in-law that she was on her way to meet her ex-husband. (That statement was later proven to be a lie – Spangler never met or had plans to meet her ex-husband that night.) She was spotted by a store clerk shortly thereafter at the Original Farmers Market at Third & Fairfax. The clerk said that Jean appeared to be waiting for someone. At around 7:30 p.m., the starlet made a phone call to her sister-in-law saying she would be home later that night. She was never seen or heard from again.

On October 9th, Jean’s purse was found just outside of the Ferndell entrance of Griffith Park. One of the straps had been ripped loose, suggesting a struggle.

Most cryptic of all, though, was the fact that a handwritten note was discovered inside the purse that read, “Kirk: Can’t wait any longer. Going to see Dr. Scott. It will work best this way while mother is away,” (The unfinished note ended with a comma, leading police to believe that she was interrupted while writing it. Although the mark is not discernible as being a comma in the screen capture below, all articles I’ve read on the subject report that the note ended with a comma and not a period.) Over 150 officers and volunteers searched the park, but no other sign of Spangler was found. One of Jean’s friends later informed detectives that the actress was three months pregnant at the time of her disappearance and that she had been considering an abortion. Police were never able to locate a “Dr. Scott,” though, and it has long been assumed that his name was a pseudonym being that abortions were illegal in 1949.

Because Spangler had recently completed filming a small role in Young Man with a Horn, which starred Kirk Douglas, there were suspicions that he might have been the Kirk mentioned in the note. He denied having any sort of relationship with her, though. Spangler also had ties to several mobsters and other underworld types, which caused the investigation to take numerous twists and turns – all of which led nowhere. The LAPD still considers Jean to be a missing person and her case remains open to this day.

Jean’s disappearance was the subject of a 2001 Mysteries & Scandals episode, which you can watch by clicking below.

Thanks to its picturesque quality, Ferndell has long been a favorite of location scouts. According to the book Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, The Young Rajah was shot at the park in 1922. Unfortunately though, I could not find a copy of the silent film, which starred Rudolph Valentino, to make screen captures for this post.

According to The David Janssen Archive, Ferndell was where Dr. Richard Kimball (David Janssen) fell into a stream in the pilot episode of The Fugitive, which was titled “Fear in a Desert City.”

In the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was titled “Encounter at Farpoint,” Ferndell masqueraded as the “woodland simulation” where Commander William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) talked to Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) about being human.

The episode featured some amazingly realistic special effects, as you can see below.

I am fairly certain that the “woodland simulation” scene was shot both on location at Ferndell and on a soundstage. As you can see below, the stream that Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) fell into in the episode was quite wide and deep. Being that I have never seen a stream of that size at Ferndell, I believe that a fake one was created for that portion of the scene at Paramount Studios where the series was lensed.

Ferndell was also featured in the Season 1 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine titled “In the Hands of the Prophets” as the Bajoran Monastery of the Kai garden where Commander Sisko (Avery Brooks) met Vedek Bareil (Philip Anglim) for the first time.

Ferndell once again masqueraded as the Bajoran Monastery of the Kai garden in the Season 2 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine titled “The Circle.”

In the 2012 romantic comedy Ruby Sparks, Ferndell is where Calvin Weir-Fields (Little Miss Sunshine’s Paul Dano) both envisions Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan) riding her bike while looking at the ceiling of his therapist’s office (hence the weird vent patterns visible in the screen captures below) . . .

. . . and where he later jogs with his brother, Harry (Chris Messina).

Ferndell pops up briefly in the Summer musical montage scene from 2016’s La La Land.

I have also long suspected that Ferndell was the spot where my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe posed for photographer Ed Henry in 1950. You can check out those pictures, which were not released until 2009, on the Life magazine website here. Unfortunately though, I have not been able to verify that hunch.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Ferndell Nature Center is located at 2333 Fern Dell Drive, inside of Griffith Park, in Los Feliz.

September 27, 2013September 26, 2013

Dean’s House from “License to Drive”

For no particular reason and seemingly out of the blue, I got on a License to Drive kick a couple of weeks ago and was absolutely floored to come across a page on fellow stalker Geoff’s 90210Locations website that detailed almost all of the locales featured in the movie. The only spot missing was the Shakey’s Pizza Parlor where Les Anderson (Corey Haim), Dean (Corey Feldman), Charles (Michael Manasseri), and Mercedes Lane (Heather Graham) wound up after almost getting into a car accident in the middle of the 1988 flick – a location that I am now bound and determined to track down! Anyway, the place that I was most elated to see on Geoff’s site was the barn-like house where Dean lived in the film as it was a locale that I had always wondered about. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it while the two of us were in Los Angeles three weekends ago.

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Dean’s house popped up three times in License to Drive. It first appeared in the scene in which Dean and Charles called Les to congratulate him on getting his driver’s license. I am not sure what room of the house this scene was supposed to have taken place in. While I originally assumed that it was Dean’s room, the fact that there is a water heater and washing machine/dryer visible in the background (LOL!) gives me pause. And while the space looks like it could be a garage, it does not match the garage that is shown later in the movie.

The house next popped up towards the middle of the flick, in the scene in which Les enlisted Dean’s help in removing some dents that Mercedes had made in the hood of his grandfather’s Cadillac. It is during that scene that Dean convinces Les to go to Archie’s Atomic Drive-In (which I blogged about here), where “there’s five girls for every guy – and we’re not talking dogs. We’re talking bunnies!” LOL

And finally, the residence was featured at the very end of the movie in the scene in which Les dropped Dean and Charles off at home early in the morning following their wild night out. In that scene, the property’s real life 6313 address number was visible on both the front curb and light post. Love it!

While quite a bit has been changed in the twenty-five years since License to Drive was filmed, the dwelling is still very recognizable from its onscreen appearance.

As is the garage area.

In real life, the four-bedroom, four-bath, 3,591-square-foot house, which sits on 0.38 acres, was originally built in 1953 and last sold in July 1998 for $715,000.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Dean’s house from License to Drive is located at 6313 Riggs Place in the Westchester neighborhood of Los Angeles.

September 20, 2013October 19, 2013

The End – Kime Buzzelli’s Vintage Shop

As I mentioned in my April post about the Hideaway Saloon (which you can read here), I have been a longtime follower of 90210’s former costume designer Kime Buzzelli on both Twitter and Instagram. Kime is BEYOND sweet and is always happy to answer questions from fans, whether it be about what a character wore in an episode or where a scene was shot. She was even nice enough to share a photograph of a typo that she had taken with fellow stalker Owen for his blog, When Write Is Wrong. Anyway, I knew from following her that she had recently opened a vintage shop named The End in Yucca Valley. One Saturday morning back in May, the Grim Cheaper and I headed out to Starbucks for coffee and afterwards he suggested we take a drive up to Pioneertown – an Old West movie set near Joshua Tree that I had long wanted to stalk. I should mention here that I had no makeup on at the time. I had barely even run a comb through my hair before leaving the house that morning as I thought we were simply grabbing coffee and then going back home. But trooper that I am, I agreed to head over to Pioneertown, makeup-less, to do some stalking.

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I am severely directionally-challenged (which is ironic considering this hobby that I have chosen for myself) and at the time had no idea that Joshua Tree was near Yucca Valley. So when I saw a sign stating “Welcome to Yucca Valley” during our drive, I just about lost it! I immediately pulled out my iPhone to search for The End’s address and informed the GC that I would not be leaving the area without visiting Kime’s shop. Needless to say, we made a little detour and, let me tell you, I just about passed out when I opened the door to the place and there was Kime herself sitting behind the counter! Never in my wildest dreams did I think she would actually be in the store! (I am IN LOVE with the garland hanging above The End’s entrance, by the way. I am fairly certain it is a Confetti System garland, similar to the one that Cupcakes and Cashmere’s Emily Schuman has strung in her office.)

Kime was extremely gracious and we wound up hanging out in her shop for a good hour chatting about 90210. The GC even really enjoyed talking with her and he could care less about that stuff. Winking smile And even though I was sans makeup, I, of course, had to ask her for a photo while I was there.

While speaking with Kime, my eyes couldn’t help but dart around looking at all of the fabulous items in her adorable shop. One piece that I kept catching sight of was the feathered skirt pictured below, the edge of which was sticking out of a rack of clothes. Anything with glitter or feathers and this stalker is a goner! The GC said that as soon as we walked in, he had spotted the white and blue plumes poking out of the rack and knew right away that the skirt would be accompanying us home. Winking smile So when I pulled it out at one point and Kime informed me that it had actually been purchased for Erin Silver (Jessica Stroup) to wear during her burlesque period on 90210, I just about died! The skirt never actually made it into an episode, but that was pretty much all I needed to hear! Thank God it fit, otherwise I would have been devastated!

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I found out that Kime was bringing The End to the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs as a Labor Day pop-up shop, so I of course dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there to do some more shopping.

I was shocked – and delighted – upon walking in when Kime recognized me right away! Like I said, she’s an absolute doll! And she was even nice enough to take a second picture with me.

While milling around the shop, I happened to come across the beaded piece of heaven pictured below and fell immediately in love. Then when Kime informed me that it had been worn by Naomi Clark (AnnaLynne McCord) at her 18th birthday party on 90210, I just about had a heart attack! It was at that point that the GC resigned himself to the fact that there was absolutely no way I was leaving the store without that dress. Sadly, when I tried it on, though, it did not fit AT ALL. There’s nothing like trying on AnnaLynne McCord’s clothes to make a person feel bad about themselves. Winking smile When I came out of the dressing room and informed the GC that the dress was too small, he said, “Are you just one stomach flu away from your goal weight, honey?” LOL Thankfully though, I thought to check the interior seam and, sure enough, there was extra material, so my mom was able to take it out for me (she’s an amazing seamstress!) and the dress now fits like a glove. And while I was thinking about donning it for the Emmys this Sunday night (SO EXCITED, by the way), Marci, the owner of my very favorite store, Lula Mae, loaned me an uh-ma-zing frock that I am going to wear instead. I’ll save Naomi’s dress for next year’s show.

The dress was featured in the Season 3 episode of 90210 titled “Age of Inheritance.” In the episode, Naomi throws herself an extravagant birthday party after learning the news that she finally has access to her hefty trust fund. I, of course, re-watched “Age of Inheritance” immediately upon returning home from the Ace Hotel that night and really had to pinch myself. I canNOT believe I own Naomi’s dress!

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The End, 90210 costume designer Kime Buzzelli’s vintage clothing store, is located at 55872 29 Palms Highway in Yucca Valley. You can visit The End’s Facebook page here. There are a ton of great antique shops nearby, so I definitely recommend walking around the area a bit if you visit.

September 19, 2013September 19, 2013

The “Punky Brewster” Grocery Store

As I mentioned in my August 18th post about the buildings used in the opening credits of fave ‘80s television show Punky Brewster (which you can read here), one spot that remained a mystery was the grocery store where Punky Brewster (Soleil Moon Frye) offered to help patrons carry their bags in exchange for money. I wondered in the post if the market might be located in Chicago, but fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, sent me an email that same day letting me know that he had tracked the site down – just around the corner from Shatto Place, where the majority of the Punky Brewster opening was filmed. Sadly, he also informed me the grocery store was no longer standing. I decided the location was still blog-worthy, though, and ran right out to stalk it two weekends ago while the Grim Cheaper and I were in L.A.

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The grocery store actually only appeared in the opening credits of Punky Brewster’s pilot episode, which was titled “Punky Finds a Home: Part I.” All subsequent episodes featured a shortened version of the pilot’s credits.

In one portion of the grocery store segment, several buildings are visible in the background. It was those buildings that led Owen to the market’s location. In his email, which included the mocked-up screen capture pictured below, he wrote, “In the attached image from the opening credits, the camera is looking east. The building circled in red is 630 Shatto Place (the building is labeled “Retail Clerks Union” on Google Maps). The white building circled in blue (the one with many windows) is 3075 Wilshire Blvd., at S. Westmoreland Ave.”

He also included the east-facing, present-day, bird’s-eye view of those same buildings pictured below.

And a 1980 aerial view from the Historic Aerials website, in which he circled the Punky Brewster market and its parking lot in green. Owen said, “To the south of the grocery store you can see the slanted parking spaces along a wall, just like in the opening credits.” He provided a corresponding present-day aerial view of the area, as well.

He also dug up the 1968 image of the store pictured below on the USC Archives. As you can see, he literally did all of my work for me on this one, so thank you, Owen!

Because he did not know the market’s exact address, Owen suggested I check back-dated Los Angeles phone listings, saying, “Assuming the store was on the SE corner of W. 6th St. and S. Vermont Ave., I’m guessing you should look at addresses ~3190 W. 6th St. and 606 S. Vermont Ave.” So, for my first attempt I searched the 1987 phone directory for 606 South Vermont and, lo and behold, there was a listing for a Kal’s Supermarket at that address, as you can see below! Owen hit the nail right on the head!

Today, 606 South Vermont Avenue is the site of the Wilshire/Vermont Station for the Los Angeles Metro, which, according to Gazette.net, boasts the longest escalators this side of the Mississippi.

The $136-million mixed-use station, which was designed by the architecture firm Arquitectonica, opened in 2007.

The “transit village” consists of an upscale 449-unit apartment building and a whopping 36,000 square feet of retail space. Such restaurants as Chipotle, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Subway, as well as several boutiques, are located on the premises.

The two-panel mural that flanks the station’s southwest entrance was hand-painted by transmedia artist April Greiman and is titled “Hand Holding a Bowl of Rice.” Greiman initially took the image with a video camera and then converted it into an oil painting.

Because of the way the Wilshire/Vermont Station is situated, I could not get a perfect photograph of the two buildings that Owen spotted in the Punky Brewster opening credits. As you can see below, though, the picture that I was able to snap does match pretty closely what appeared onscreen in 1984.

You can watch the opening credits from Punky Brewster’s pilot episode by clicking below.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Kal’s Supermarket, the grocery store from the Punky Brewster opening credits, was formerly located at 606 South Vermont Avenue in Koreatown. That site is now the Wilshire/Vermont Metro station. The buildings that were featured in the Punky Brewster opening credits are located right around the corner on the 600 block of Shatto Place. The brick building that Henry Warnimont (George Gaynes) first walked by was the Pierre Crest Apartments at 673 Shatto Place; the alleyway where Henry stepped over the sleeping homeless man is just north of 688 Shatto Place; the building that Punky skipped by was the Modena Apartments at 661 Shatto Place; and the site of Henry’s photography studio, which has since been torn down, can be found at 651 Shatto Place.

September 18, 2013September 18, 2013

Liberace’s Valley House from “Behind the Candelabra”

As I mentioned last month in my post about Sherman Way Adult Books from Behind the Candelabra (which you can read here), back in May fellow stalker E.J., of the Movieland Directory website, challenged me to find several locales from the HBO biopic including the L.A.-area home belonging to Liberace (Michael Douglas). It was never made entirely clear where exactly in Los Angeles the house was meant to be located in the flick, but I believe that it was supposed to the pianist’s San Fernando Valley-area residence in Sherman Oaks. (I blogged about Liberace’s real life former Valley dwelling, with the piano-shaped pool, in 2010. You can read that post here).

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Fortunately, this location turned out to be a very easy find thanks to an address number of “4238” that was visible on the home’s mailbox in the scene in which Scott Thorson (Matt Damon) lamented to his friend Bob Black (Scott Bakula) that Liberace wanted him to have plastic surgery. I had an inkling that the number was not faked for the movie (despite its gold coloring), so I started searching 4200 blocks in various Los Angeles neighborhoods for the one-story, 70s-style ranch house. I fairly quickly came across an area known as View Park-Windsor Hills that had a plethora of ranch-style properties, one of which – at 4238 Olympiad Drive – turned out to be the right place. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk it two weekends ago while the two of us were in L.A.

I was absolutely FLOORED to discover, while driving there, that the home was located right off of Stocker Street. Winking smile Um, LOVE IT!

And I was even more floored to see that the mailbox and address placard that appeared in the movie were also there in real life.

Liberace’s L.A. house showed up several times in Behind the Candelabra.

As you can see below, the residence looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen.

The home’s backyard and pool were also utilized in the filming.

As you can see in the Google aerial view pictured below, the slide that appeared in Behind the Candelabra is also there in real life. So incredibly cool!

I am 99.9% certain that several areas of the residence’s actual interior, including the dining room, kitchen, living room, and den, were also used in the movie, but I could not find any photographs of the inside of the home with which to verify that hunch.

In real life, the 1957 house features three bedrooms, three baths, 2,824 square feet of living space, and a 0.23-acre plot of land.

Before tracking down the dwelling, I had been completely unaware of the View Park-Windsor Hills neighborhood, but once I arrived there, it was easy to see why the residence and area were chosen to be used in Behind the Candelabra. The suburb looks like it has not been touched since the 1970s. Walking among the homes made me feel as if I had stepped into an episode of The Brady Bunch – but in a good way.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Liberace’s Valley house from Behind the Candelabra is located at 4238 Olympiad Drive in the View Park-Windsor Hills area of Los Angeles. Supposedly, Ike and Tina Turner once lived just down the road at 4263 Olympiad Drive.