Tag: filming locations

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Hotel Del Coronado

Ever since I was a little girl, my family has been vacationing at Hotel Del Coronado on the island of Coronado. Hotel Del is a truly magical place – like no other hotel I have ever seen. Stepping inside it is literally like stepping back in time a hundred years to a completely different era. Completed in 1888 for the cost of one million dollars, the Victorian style hotel is one of the oldest and last remaining buildings made entirely of wood. It’s hard to believe, but not one single nail was used in the building of the hotel, instead the workers used wooden pegs to fasten and secure. Hotel Del Coronado was named a historical landmark in 1977 and it truly is a marvel to see in person. The lobby is covered in dark wood paneling and looks like it was taken right out of the set of James Cameron’s Titanic.

The hotel has undergone many changes in the past decade, including a $57 million renovation. Ironically I preferred the hotel in its pre-renovation days, as many of the original areas of the Del are now gone. When I was a little girl, the original men’s cigar room was still intact, but it was gutted a few years ago and is now a restaurant. The lobby piano bar was a favorite of my parents, but it was recently turned into a gift shop. The hotel’s original dining room, the Crown Room, used to be a magnificent 156 foot long restaurant with 30 foot high arched ceilings made entirely of Oregon Sugar Pine, but it is no longer open to the public and is now only used for special events. My parents actually threw me a surprise 21st birthday party in the Crown Room, so it holds a special place in my heart. While the hotel truly is still a magical place, sadly it was much more enchanting in years past.

Hotel Del is now and has always been a celebrity mecca. Hundreds of celebrities, dignitaries, authors, and almost every single American president of the past 20 years have all been guests of the hotel. Thomas Edison, George Burns, Harry Truman, Charlie Chaplin, Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh, Lucille Ball, and Frank Sinatra all stayed at the Del at one time or another. L. Frank Baum, who lived on Coronado, was a frequent guest of the hotel, and it is rumored that the Del was his inspiration for Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz. He also designed the crown chandeliers that still hang to this day in the Crown Room.

Countless TV and movie productions have been filmed at the Del – including My Blue Heaven, K-9, Mr. Wrong, The Stunt Man, The Married Virgin, Simon & Simon, Ghosts of California, Baywatch and, of course, the 1959 Marilyn Monroe classic Some Like It Hot , where it was used extensively as a Miami resort. Interestingly enough, Billy Wilder chose to shoot Some Like It Hot at the Del because at the time the hotel was in an economic decline so the owners let him film there for minimal costs. He also wanted to shoot at a place where Marilyn Monroe could stay on location – due to her numerous on-set antics, he did not want to take the risk of her not showing up to the set due to transporation problems. The picture to left is of the stage where Marilyn and “the girls” performed their concert in Miami. Also, the book Bid Time Return , on which the 1980 movie Somewhere In Time was based, was written about Hotel Del Coronado. However, producers chose to use the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in Michigan for the filming of the movie.

Movie memorabilia and photographs used to line the Del’s long hallways and as a little girl I would walk the corridors looking at all of the old time movie photographs, completely mesmerized. At the time, being at the Del was the closest I ever got to being on a movie set. Today, the memorabilia has been moved to the Coronado Museum of History and Art, just down the street from the Del. For a $4 admission fee, you can enter the museum and learn the history of the island and the hotel.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Hotel Del Coronado is located at 1500 Orange Avenue on Coronado Island in San Diego. You can visit the hotel’s website to book a room here. While at the hotel, be sure to visit the Est. 1888 gift shop – they sell photos and souvenirs from the many movies filmed at the Del. The Coronado Museum of History and Art is located at 1100 Orange Avenue. They are open Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm and Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 5pm. You can visit their website here.

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Stalking San Diego

Spent this past weekend in Coronado, a small island off the coast of San Diego, with my family to celebrate Father’s Day. My best friend, who lives nearby, came over to spend the day with me by the hotel pool and when she got there she mentioned that she was a “bit afraid” to tell me that a production crew was filming on the San Diego-Coronado Bridge. LOL While I didn’t drag her over to the bridge to do some stalking, I thought I’d do a post about past productions that took place there.

The Coronado Bridge, as it is more commonly referred to, is 11,288 feet long and 200 feet high – a height which permits Navy ships harbored at the nearby Naval Station San Diego to safely sail underneath. The Bridge was built in 1969 and connects the City of San Diego, via the 5 Freeway, to Coronado Island. It is the third most popular suicide bridge in America, following the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Aurora Bridge in Seattle, Washington. My best friend also shared a very cool, little known bridge fact with me – it floats! Yes, you read that right! In the case of a disaster, natural or otherwise, if the Coronado Bridge is destroyed, pieces of it will actually float instead of sinking to the bottom. It was designed this way so that in the case of a disaster large pieces of the bridge can be towed out of the harbor so that the Naval Station and Navy ships are not blocked in.

The Coronado Bridge is an oft used filming location, mostly for commercials, but it has showed up in a few TV shows. The bridge was featured each week in the opening credits of the TV show Simon & Simon and it also showed up several times on Veronica Mars, where most notably it was the bridge where Logan’s mother jumped to her death. While it is sometimes referenced as the bridge used in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, even though that movie was supposed to take place in “Sun” Diego, it was actually filmed almost entirely in Long Beach. The scene where Will Ferrel and Jack Black get into a fist fight was actually filmed on the Queensway Bridge in Long Beach, not on the Coronado Bridge.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The San Diego-Coronado Bridge is located off the 5 Freeway in San Diego County, just past the Downtown San Diego exits. If you have time, spend the afternoon walking around Coronado – it is an adorable little town.

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Buy A Set From Laguna Beach!

Fave website Real Estalker just posted news that Lauren Conrad’s parents put their Laguna Beach dream house up for sale for a cool $17.5 million! You may remember that James Conrad built this house during the first season of Laguna Beach: The Real O.C. and LC and Ste-ven traipsed through the house during construction in the pilot episode. L.C. threw a few pool parties/BBQ’s there during subsequent seasons of the show and it was at one of those pools parties that her romance with Jason Wahler blossomed. I have no idea why the Conrad’s would sell this home – it is absolutely amazing!

You can read the entire Real Estalker article here.

Stalk It: The Conrad’s home is located at 29 Vista Del Sol in Laguna Beach. You won’t get past the guardshack located at 32350 Pacific Coast Highway, though, so you’ll just have to settle for views of the house from the road.

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The World’s Most Famous Subway Grate

The other night in my acting class we were talking about Marilyn Monroe and the movie The Seven Year Itch. One of my classmates asked me if I had ever seen the famous scene of Marilyn standing on top of a subway grate from the movie. I told him that not only had I seen it, I’ve stood on that very subway grate! So, I thought I’d do a little post about it. 🙂 In that famous scene, Marilyn and her downstairs neighbor, played by Tom Ewell, exit the Trans Lux Theatre, which once stood at 586 Lexington Avenue, and walk onto a subway grate. Marilyn is standing atop the grate as a subway passes making her white skirt billow high above her waist as she exclaims “Oh, can you feel the breeze from the subway? Isn’t it delicious?”

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The scene was originally shot on location in Manhattan on September 15, 1954 at 1 O’clock in the morning, with over 5000 spectators and media men watching. The crowd went wild as Marilyn’s skirt flew higher and higher, making the footage being shot completely unusable due to the noise. Director Billy WIlder ended up having to re-shoot the entire sequence at 20th Century Fox Studios in Los Angeles.

The footage that ended up making it to the final cut of the movie was significantly edited down as the scene was considered far too racy for its time. But everyone remembers those black and white photographs taken of Marilyn that September night in Manhattan with her skirt billowing high above her waist, showing off her panties and her long gams. In the actual movie, you barely see Marilyn’s skirt fly up at all, most of what is shown is her face reacting to the subway breeze. You can watch the subway grate scene below:

On a side note – One of the many people in attendance that September night in New York was Marilyn’s husband at the time, Joe DiMaggio. Supposedly, Joe became enraged that the gleeful onlookers were viewing his wife’s panties over and over again during the filming of the scene. The marriage was already on the rocks at the time and this experience put Joe over the edge. Just a few weeks later he filed for divorce from the starlet, long before the movie ever premiered.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Seven Year Itch subway grate is located at the northwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 52nd Street. The Trans Lux Theatre is no longer there and a large office building now stands in its place.

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Making My Job a Little Easier!

For my birthday my boyfriend bought me the new Sex and the City: The Movie book and I was totally floored to open it up and find a whole chapter devoted to filming locations from the movie! Takes a bit of the guesswork out of stalking, but it will make things so much easier on my next trip to New York. 🙂 The book is GREAT! I absolutely LOVE IT! There are tons of pictures, gossip, and trivia inside and I am having so much fun flipping through it. The only location not named in the filming locations chapter in the book is the Mexican restaurant the girls go to during Carrie’s “honeymoon”. It does mention, though, that it is located in Simi Valley, so it looks like I’ll be stalking all Mexican restaurants in the Simi Valley area for the next few months. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: You can buy your very own Sex and the City: The Movie book here.

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Alma Mater to the Stars

This weekend, while stalking in the Valley, my boyfriend and I drove by Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks. American Idol fans might remember Notre Dame from Season 5, when Katherine McPhee returned to her hometown of Sherman Oaks for a large pep rally held in the gym of her alma mater. Antonio Villaraigosa even showed up for the celebration and declared the day as “Katharine McPhee Day”! Gag me! I, personally, did NOT have McPhever during Season 5 of Idol and was very happy when she didn’t take home the crown. 🙂

Besides Ms. McPhee, Notre Dame is the alma mater to countless celebs, including Rachel Bilson from The OC, director Nick Cassavetes, Kristin Dunst, Maureen Flannigan (from Out of This World), Devon Gummersall and Devon Odessa from My So-Called Life, Staci Keenan from My Two Dads, Jerry Mathers aka the Beave, Dave Navarro and Stephen Perkins from Jane’s Addiction, and Michelle Trachtenberg from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Gossip Girl, as well as countless professional football and baseball players. There must be something in the water at Notre Dame, I swear!! It definitely seems like a breeding ground for lots of talented celebrities. 🙂

According to Wikipedia, the softcore porn TV series Love Street shot an episode at Notre Dame High School, which is very surprising as schools are usually pretty choosy about what productions can and cannot film on campus.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Notre Dame High School is located at 13645 Riverside Drive in Sherman Oaks.

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Britney’s Cure for a Bad Hair Day!

This weekend, before our Vitello’s dinner, my boyfriend had the idea to stalk the Tarzana salon where Britney Spears shaved herself bald in February of last year. Apparently, at around 7pm on the night of February 16th, after the salon was already closed for the night, Britney along with one of her bodyguards entered the shop and asked Esther Tognozzi to give her a buzz cut. When Esther refused, Britney took matters into her own hands and shaved her head bald.

Later that week Esther and her husband put BritBrit’s hair up for sale on eBay for a cool $1.2 million! They were also going to throw in the half empty can of Red Bull Britters was drinking during the hair cut, her blue Bic lighter and the electric razor she used to shear herself. I am not sure what happened, but the listing was taken down off of Ebay before the hair was ever sold. The website Esther started – www.buybritneyshair.com – has also been taken down. Maybe Esther just couldn’t bear to part with such an iconic piece of history. For the time being, whatever happened to Britney’s hair will, I guess, remain a mystery.

Esther’s Haircutting Salon is a tiny little place set way back on Ventura Boulevard. How Britney chose this tiny little salon to shave herself bald is beyond me. I sooooo wanted to go inside and talk to Esther herself but my boyfriend flat out refused and said he’d leave me there if I did so. LOL I guess I’ll have to go back to Esther’s on my own to do some further stalking.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Esther’s Haricutting Studio is located at 18360 Ventura Boulevard in Tarazana. It is set back a bit from the road, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled. You can visit the salon’s website here.

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“The Entertainment Capital of L.A.”

This weekend, for my birthday, my boyfriend surprised me with a day at Universal Studios Hollywood, which according to the entrance sign, is the “Entertainment Capital of L.A.” and is now just as expensive to visit as Disneyland – $70 per day! I must say that while I had a FABULOUS time on the Studio Tour (which lasts about 45 minutes), I was ready to leave the park by 1pm. LOL Besides the Studio Tour, Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride, and The Universal Experience attraction, there wasn’t a whole lot I wanted to see. I don’t know that I’d recommend spending the $70 to get into the park, unless you are a huge movie buff. For me, the Studio Tour alone was worth the entrance fee. 🙂

Even though it was a bit cheesy at times, I loved every single minute of the backlot tour!!! It was a blast and I could hardly sit still in my tram seat! The first stop we made on the tour was the entrance to Courthouse Square, from Back to the Future fame and, more recently, the location of the Universal fire. As we came upon it, my boyfriend said “Oh, that must be the War of the Worlds set.” I was like, “No, no – that was the real fire!” LOL I am happy to report, though, that the Clocktower that sends Marty back in time in Back to the Future was not harmed in the fire, despite news reports to the contrary. The Courthouse Square set is currently being used in the TV show Ghostwhisperer and it looks a bit different than it did when Back to the Future was filmed. The Courthouse is now made of brick and the clock is no longer there- it is currently in Universal’s storage area until Ghostwhisperer goes off the air, at which point they plan to re-attach it.

While the tram does go right by the fenced off, fire-damaged section of the backlot to give you and up close and personal view of the destruction, it unfortunately does not drive very close to the Courthouse or the New York Street sets, many of which are still standing. I was so looking forward to seeing that area of the lot, so I guess I am going to have to go back as soon as it is rebuilt and is part of the tour again! My boyfriend will be oh-so-happy about that. 🙂

Our next stops on the tour were a demonstration of a flash flood and rain storm, a drive through Old Town Mexico where the Tijuana episode of The OC was filmed and a drive through of the Old West set where the bar from Jessica Simpson’s These Boots Were Made For Walkin’ video is located. After that came the moment I had been waiting for all morning – the tour of Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives! Mia posted a comment on my previous Universal Studios post saying I probably wouldn’t be able to see the Wisteria Lane set as the area is usually closed for filming, but since it was during the summer, when most episodics are on hiatus, the street was open for us to view. YAY!

We got to see all the Housewives homes and they were all so much smaller than I had expected. Ironically my boyfriend said they were bigger than he imagined they would be, but I was just shocked at how tiny they were. To me they look like they were built on a 3/4 scale or something. Wisteria Lane is a little cul-de-sac which begins with Gaby Solis’ large yellow home (pictured above). The houses definitely look like sets – the flowers are all fake and I can’t quite put my finger on it, but they just don’t look like real homes. Possibly because of the size thing. Bree’s house (pictured at left) is by far the nicest and apparently was also used as the main home on the TV show Providence. I guess the first few episodes of Providence were filmed at a real house somewhere in LA, and subsequent episodes were filmed on the back lot. Looks like I have some research to do so I can stalk the real home! 🙂

Susan Meyer’s (Terri Hatcher’s) house was by far the tiniest of the street! I almost didn’t recognize it at first. It is a teeny, tiny yellow house with gable windows. In the picture to the left, though, it looks normal size. So wierd how cameras can do that! The magic of the movies! Wisteria Lane used to be known as Colonial Street where it was used in Leave It To Beaver, The ‘Burbs, Ghostwhisper, National Lampoon’s Delta House, The Munsters, Gremlins, and the Smashmouth Allstar video, as well as countless other productions. The exterior of the homes on Wisteria Lane change for each film shoot (with the exception of Bree’s house which looked exactly the same in Providence as it does in Desperate Housewives), so the houses at this time are not recognizable from other productions.

One of the last stops on the tour is a plane crash set from Steven Spielberg’s movie War of the Worlds. This set was absolutely incredible! Steven took a real 747 airplane and destroyed it for the movie and let me tell you, it was HUGE! In the movie a plane crashes into the middle of a suburban neighborhood, destroying homes and cars in the process. I think it is so cool that this set was left intact for stalkers like myself to tour long after filming was completed and I wish more productions did that. Imagine if the set from Friends was still around and was open to the public for touring! How cool would that be??? 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Universal Studios Hollywood is located at 100 Universal City Plaza in Universal City. You can visit the park’s official website here. There is a VERY cool site called The Studio Tour that gives a comprehensive and detailed history of Universal Studios (as well as other LA studios) and productions that were filmed on the lot. LOVE IT!

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Miranda and Steve’s Garden Wedding

In keeping with the SATC theme of this week, I thought I’d do a post about a location that my boyfriend actually dragged me to! At the time I had no idea it was a filming location, let alone a SATC filming location, so sadly I didn’t take many pictures while I was there. When I was in New York two years ago, my boyfriend and I happened upon what looked like a huge brick castle in the middle of Greenwich Village and he insisted we go inside to explore. It turns out the building was not a castle at all, but a former New York City courthouse and detention center. A bit of trivia – the detention center once held famous prisoner Mae West! I must admit that while I am usually not into touring museums or historical buildings, this location was a really fun one to stalk. 🙂

Jefferson Market Courthouse functioned as the Third Judicial District Courthouse from 1874 to 1945, at which time it fell into disrepair and was headed for demolition. Thankfully, New Yorkers protested against the demolition and the property was turned into the Jefferson Market Branch, New York Public Library. The building is now a National Historic Landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The detention center that was attached to the Courthouse was demolished in 1974 and replaced with a community garden called the Jefferson Market Garden. That garden was the location of Miranda and Steve’s nuptials on Sex and the City. According to a Villager article, thanks to that episode of SATC, the garden has turned into a frequent wedding venue. Besides being used in the SATC, Jefferson Market was also featured in David Duchovny’s movie House of D.

The Library is very cool to stalk, as it is still set up like an ancient courthouse. There are winding staircases, wood paneled rooms and even a dark, creepy dungeon that now houses the computer room. 🙂 When you step inside the library, it feels as if you are stepping back in time.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Jefferson Market Garden is located next to the Jefferson Market Branch, New York Public Library at 425 6th Avenue in Greenwich Village. The former courthouse is open daily to the public.

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Grease is the Word!

Grease has long been a favorite movie of mine, ever since I was a little girl, actually. I still have pictures of my friend Nat and I at eight years old dressed up in her mom’s wigs and 50s clothes acting out scenes from Grease in front of the TV. One of our favorite scenes to act out was Frenchy’s slumber party when Rizzo sings “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee”. So when fave website Seeing Stars posted the address of the slumber party house I about died and dragged my dad right out to stalk it! 🙂

I was absolutely shocked to see that the house looked exactly the same as it did in Grease, which was filmed back in 1978. In reality, the house is not actually a single family home, but a tri-plex comprised of three different apartments. In Grease, it appeared to be just one home, but if you take a close look at the house in the movie, you can see that there are actually two front doors. 🙂

In the movie, the T-Birds show up to crash the Pink Ladies’ slumber party. They drive up in Greased Lightnin’ and park in Frenchy’s driveway, which runs along the side of the house. Rizzo decides she’s “going to get her kicks while she’s still young enough to get ’em”, climbs out Frenchy’s window and shimmies down the drainpipe on the side of the house. I am happy to report that the drainpipe is still there! 🙂 Later on in the movie, Sandy sings “Hopelessly Devoted To You” in the backyard of this home.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Frenchy’s house is located at 4524 Kingswell Drive in Hollywood, near Los Feliz. John Marshall High School, which was the high school in Boy Meets World, Growing Pains, Pretty in Pink, the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer, among countless other productions, is located a short distance away at 3939 Tracy Street in Los Feliz.