Tag: filming

Dolly Green’s House from “Eye for an Eye”

Taking a break today from my many Gossip Girl posts, I thought I would write about a residence that I stalked with fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, way back in mid-July. While he was in town for a little Southern California stalking vacay, the two of us, along with his super-sweet mother, Cynthia, headed out to the Los Feliz area to visit the tiny Tudor-style bungalow where Dolly Green (aka Beverly D’Angelo, who will always be “Ellen Griswold” to me) and her husband, Peter (aka Darrell Larson), lived in the 1996 revenge thriller Eye for an Eye. Chas had somehow managed to track down the property – despite only a small portion of it ever being shown – as well as all of the other locations featured in the movie, a little over a year ago. And while I actually could not even remember what Dolly Green’s abode looked like before we arrived there, let me tell you, I absolutely fell in love with the place on site!

Dolly Green’s little fairy-tale-like dwelling, which was built over the side of a cascading cliff on the winding Glendower Avenue high up in the hills of Los Feliz, is absolutely ADORABLE in person. The abode is so quaint and charming that it looks as if it jumped right out of a Disney cartoon. I half expected the Seven Dwarfs to come walking out the front door, marching along to “Whistle While You Work”, while we were there.

Although calling the home “little” is a bit misleading. While it does appear to be small from the street, the residence is actually quite large. According to fave website Zillow, the dwelling, which was originally built in 1926, boasts 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and measures 2,972 square feet. As you can see above, though, most of that square footage is located on the back side of the hill, below street level and out of view.

And speaking of views, the home boasts some incredible ones! We happened to stalk the residence on a smog-free day and were able to see all the way to Downtown Los Angeles! Amazing!

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Dolly Green’s residence only appears in one brief scene in Eye for an Eye, in which Karen McCann (aka Sally Field) and her husband, Mack (aka Ed Harris), spend the night at their friends’ house immediately following the murder of their teenage daughter, Julie (aka Olivia Burnette). Now that I have seen the property in person, I am shocked that only a small portion of it was shown in the movie. I mean, talk about curb appeal! This place has got it in spades! Why more of it was not featured is beyond me. But then again, I am not a filmmaker, so what do I know?

Sadly, I was not able to find any photographs of the actual interior of the residence, so I am not able to say whether or not it was used in Eye for an Eye, but I would guess that it was.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location! You can check out Chas’ extensive Eye for an Eye filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Dolly Green’s house from Eye for an Eye is located at 2757 Glendower Avenue in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. Quite a few other filming locations can be found nearby – the Doppelganger mansion is at 2421 Glendower Avenue; Donna Martin’s house from the B.Y.O.B. episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is at 2405 Glendower Avenue; the so-called “Los Feliz Murder House” is at 2475 Glendower Place, and the legendary Ennis-Brown house, which I have yet to stalk, is at 2607 Glendower Avenue.

November 10, 2011
Charlie’ Apartment Building from “Gossip Girl”

Well, it certainly looks as if it is shaping up to be Gossip Girl week here at IAMNOTASTALKER.com because here I am yet again with yet another location from the fabulous teen drama series – this time the apartment building where con-artist Charlie Rhodes (aka Kaylee DeFer) lived with her chef boyfriend, Max (aka Brian J. Smith), in the Season 5 episode titled “Beauty and the Feast”. This location was once again found by fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website who has somehow managed to track down all of the Los-Angeles-area locales featured in the two episodes of the series that were filmed on the West Coast this past August. Thank you, Geoff! So, I, of course, dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to West Hollywood to stalk the place, shortly before grabbing cocktails at Eveleigh Restaurant a few weeks back.

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The exterior of Charlie’s apartment building is featured three times in the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl. It first pops up in the scene in which Charlie and Max discuss the difficulties of trying to make it as an actor in Los Angeles.

It next shows up in the scene in which Serena van der Woodsen (aka Blake Lively) waits outside for Charlie in order to confront her about her bounced rental deposit check.

And finally it appears in the scene in which Serena arrives via limo to pick Charlie up to take her to their grandmother’s house in Montecito.

No filming took place inside of any of the actual apartment units, though. The interior of Charlie and Max’s dwelling was, I am fairly certain, just a set that was most likely built on a soundstage at Silvercup Studios in New York where the series is filmed, as was the case with Diana Payne’s bedroom which I talked about in yesterday’s post. You can check out some photographs of what the interior of the real-life apartments actually look like here and here. As you can see, they do not match up at all to what appeared onscreen and do not have nearly the same amount of charm that Charlie and Max’s apartment had.

I really had to laugh when Serena tried to convince Charlie to move out of the apartment building by saying, “But you can’t live here!” LOL While the outside of the place is a bit bland, I actually thought the interior of Charlie’s pad was kind of cute and not nearly the dump that Serena made it out to be. And I absolutely fell in love with her little kitchen alcove, which is pictured above. As my friend Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, would say, “It’s adorbs!” But then again, I did not grow up on the Upper East Side, so what do I know?

In real life, the exterior of Charlie’s apartment building looks pretty much exactly the same as it did on Gossip Girl. I am totally kicking myself, though, as I SO wished I had leaned against the entryway to pose for a picture as Serena had done in the episode! I do not know WHY I did not think of it at the time. UGH! Ah well, I will just have to drag the GC back there sometime to re-stalk the place.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Charlie’s apartment building, from the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl, is located at 1009-1015 North Croft Avenue in West Hollywood.

November 9, 2011
Diana Payne’s House from “Gossip Girl”

Another Los-Angeles-area location from fave show Gossip Girl that fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, tracked down recently was the home belonging to Diana Payne (aka Elizabeth Hurley) in the Season 5 episode titled “Yes, Then Zero”. Because Gossip Girl is primarily filmed on the East Coast, I was beyond excited when the cast and crew descended upon Tinseltown in early August to lens a few scenes and was positively itching to stalk absolutely everything and anything from the New-York-based series that I could. And being that I had fallen in love with Diana’s Mid-Century-modern-style abode at first sight while watching the episode, I just about died of excitement when Geoff emailed me to let me know that he had somehow managed to track the place down. So I, of course, promptly dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to the Hollywood Hills to stalk the dwelling the very next day.

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In the “Yes, Then Zero” episode of Gossip Girl, recent Los-Angeles-transplant Serena van der Woodsen (aka Blake Lively) invites her visiting friends Nate Archibald (aka Chace Crawford) and Chuck Bass (aka cutie Ed Westwick – sigh!) to attend a show biz party at the hilltop home of media mogul Diane Payne. And I just have to say here that the “Yes, Then Zero” episode featured one of my very favorite lines ever uttered on the series – when Serena’s boss, Marshall (aka Ethan Peck), speaks to her in a condescending manner, Nate says, “Well, the zip codes may be different, but douchebags are the same no matter where you go!” LOVE IT! But I digress. Anyway, several areas of Diana’s abode were featured in the Hollywood party scene, including the front exterior;

the amazing backyard;

. . . and some of the property’s interior.

I am fairly certain, though, that the bedroom that was shown in the episode was just a set (most likely built on a soundstage at Silvercup Studios in New York where the series is filmed) as it does not match up to any of the bedrooms featured on the home’s real estate website.

It, in fact, even reminds me a bit of Serena’s former bedroom at her mother’s house (which you can see more pictures of here) where Cousin Charlie (aka Kaylee DeFer) is now living, which makes me wonder if the same space was redressed to be used for the filming of the scene at Diana’s house. But who knows.

Diana’s home pops up a second time in the “Yes, Then Zero” episode, in the scene in which Nate returns to the residence in order to retrieve his phone, which he accidentally left behind the previous evening. The areas featured in that scene include the front exterior;

the backyard;

and the main entrance.

I am very happy to report that Diana’s house is just as cool in person as it appeared to be onscreen. In fact, it is exactly the type of place I imagine Frank Sinatra used to hang out at back in the heyday of Hollywood. I can so picture Ol’ Blue Eyes kicking back there, looking out at the view, listening to LP records, and mixing up martinis for the rest of the Rat Pack. Ironically enough, the property, which was first built in 1972, was not originally designed in the Mid-Century-modern-style you see pictured above, but as a French-ranch-style abode!

As you can see in the aerial views pictured above, Diana’s abode was given an extensive facelift in recent years, whereupon it was transformed into the Mid-Century modern marvel that it is today. Bonura Building Architects & General Contractors, along with CTW Engineers and Mark Schomisch Design, handled the remodel, during which an infinity edge pool was added, walls were taken down, and an open floor plan was created. As you can see in these pictures, the result was nothing short of spectacular! The home, which boasts 3 bedrooms, 4 baths, and approximately 3,300 square feet of living space, currently features cantilevered stairs, travertine flooring, and floor-to-ceiling glass walls. And, according to fave website The Real Estalker, the property also has a celebrity connection! In February of 2007, American-Idol-creator Simon Fuller purchased the dwelling for a cool $7,650,000 to use as an interim residence while his Beverly Hills manse was being renovated. He then sold the place in May of 2008 for $8.5 million.

There is an ABSOLUTELY amazing home visible from the front of Diana’s house that the GC and I became just a wee bit obsessed with while there. The home is located at 1474 Blue Jay Way and it was apparently only built just recently. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to live there!

You can watch a video which showcases that house by clicking above.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Diana Payne’s house, from the “Yes, Then Zero” episode of Gossip Girl, is located at 1407 Tanager Way in the Hollywood Hills.

November 8, 2011
Eveleigh Restaurant from “Gossip Girl”

Fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, emailed me a few weeks back to let me know that he had tracked down the open-air-patio-ed restaurant where Serena van der Woodsen (aka Blake Lively) and Charlie Rhodes (aka Kaylee DeFer) ate lunch in the Season 4 episode of Gossip Girl titled “Beauty and the Feast”. And while that lunch was supposed to have taken place in Los Angeles and some scenes from that episode were actually filmed in the SoCal area, I had been absolutely convinced that Serena and Charlie’s restaurant was located in New York. Not only did the place just look like a Manhattan-style eatery to me, but in the previous episode, which was titled “Yes, Then Zero”, Colonie, a restaurant in Brooklyn Heights, had been made to appear as if it was located in L.A. So when I received Geoff’s email alerting me to the fact that Eveleigh Restaurant in West Hollywood had been used in the “Beauty and the Feast” episode, I practically jumped for joy and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it. Because I was in the thick of my Haunted Hollywood postings at the time, though, I had not been able to blog about the place until today. So here goes!

I can honestly say that Eveleigh, which opened on November 1st, 2010 in a space that used to house a Kenneth Cole shoe store, is easily one of the coolest places I have ever been! From the outside, the restaurant does not look like anything out of the ordinary. In fact, with its large hedges, unmarked doorway, and sidewalk street sign that screams “Sunset Blvd”, the eatery could not seem any more “Hollywood”. But when you step inside, it is a different story entirely.

From Eveleigh’s airy front patio . . .

. . . to its cozy fireplace, complete with armchairs . . .

. . . to its central bar and wood-beamed ceilings . . .

. . . to its couch-like and antique school-chair seating . . .

. . . to its exposed wood tables and chalkboard menus . . .

. . . to its sweeping views . . .

. . . to its large, tented back patio – all I can say is, we are certainly not in Los Angeles anymore, Toto! As you can see in the twenty-some-odd pictures I took while there, Eveleigh, named for a suburb in Australia, is entirely unique. It is a little bit country, a whole lotta New York, with a dash of California thrown in for good measure. And I absolutely fell in love with the place on site. The GC and I ended up only having cocktails while there, though, as the menu was a bit too extravagant for my low-brow tastes. The offerings are definitely geared toward “foodies” and not this stalker, who much prefers hot dogs, mac & cheese, and chicken strips to the upscale culinary feasts served at Eveleigh, which include duck rillettes, jidori chicken liver pate, roasted natural bone marrow salad, and crisp sonoma pork belly. We will definitely be stalking the place again, though, and if I am feeling more epicurean-ly brave, I will surely branch out and sample some of the fare.

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In the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl, Serena and Charlie, a fraud who is posing as Serena’s cousin, meet up at Eveleigh and discuss life in California and possibly living together.

In the scene, the two sit on the restaurant’s tented patio, near the back bar.

After their meal, they walk past Eveleigh’s main bar, through the front patio area, and out onto Sunset Boulevard.

And our super-nice bartender informed us that the cover shoot for the Fall 2011 issue of Viva Magazine, which featured Paula Abdul, also took place at Eveleigh.

Besides being a filming location, Eveleigh is also something of a celebrity hot-spot. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there over the past year include Ashley Greene, Paula Patton, Nicky Hilton, Nicole Richie, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Dakota Fanning, Kimora Lee Simmons, Lisa Edelstein, Marcia Cross, Rebecca Romijn, Jerry O’Connell, Robin Tunney, Ashley Simpson, Ali Fedotowsky, Sasha Alexander, Jordana Brewster, Pete Wentz, Samantha Ronson, Amy Smart, Rachel Leigh Cook, Dianna Agron, Jamie King, Jessica Capshaw, Busy Phillips, Elisha Cuthbert, Mindy Kaling, Nia Vardalos, Idris Elba, Pierce Brosnan, and Armie Hammer. And the restaurant also has one more celebrity connection. While researching this post, I discovered that back when the place was a Kenneth Cole shoe store, the front patio area was the site of the Kenneth Cole Walk of Fame – a take-off of the iconic Grauman’s Chinese Theatre forecourt in Hollywood. At the KC Walk of Fame, such stars as Elizabeth Taylor (and her dog Sugar), Richard Gere, Matthew Modine, Patricia Arquette, Elizabeth Glaser, Rosie O’Donnell, Julianne Phillips, and Leeza Gibbons all placed their bare feet into blocks of cement outside of the store, with Kenneth Cole promising to donate a portion of sales on the day of each participating star’s birthday to AIDS research. Sadly, when the store closed, the footprints were removed and I can find no information whatsoever about where they are now located. I cannot tell you how said I am that I never got to see them!

On a side-note, I would like to wish my mom a VERY happy 60th birthday today! I love you, Mom!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Eveleigh Restaurant, from the “Beauty and the Feast” episode of Gossip Girl, is located at 8752 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

November 7, 2011
The “Mommie Dearest” House

Before I get started, I would like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a VERY happy Halloween! And while I will, of course, be posting pics of me and the Grim Cheaper in costume, because I always write my blogs at least one day ahead of time, I will not be able to do so until later this week. It is for that reason that I will be extending my Haunted Hollywood postings through Wednesday, which is a good thing as I am having an absolute blast writing them! But for now, on with today’s post! Another older movie that I watched in preparation for my Haunted Hollywood theme was 1981’s Mommie Dearest, the alleged true story of the abuse of Christina Crawford at the hands of her mother, screen legend Joan Crawford. While watching the flick, I immediately recognized the house where Joan and Christina lived, as not only had it appeared in the pilot episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, but several tour books had also long ago incorrectly identified it as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air mansion. I had stalked and blogged about the Bel-Air-area property way back in April of 2008, but it was not until later that same year that I discovered that the actual Fresh Prince house was located in Brentwood (at 251 North Bristol Avenue – just a block and a half away from Christina Crawford’s actual childhood home, ironically enough). Anyway, because my 2008 write-up on the house was incredibly brief, I decided that it was most definitely worthy of a re-post. So here goes!

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In Mommie Dearest, the huge Colonial-style house pictured above is where Joan Crawford (aka Faye Dunaway) teaches her adopted daughter Christina (aka a phenomenal Mara Hobel) the perils of using wire hangers. And while the movie and Faye’s performance have largely been described as “camp”, I did not find them to be so at all. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and all of the performances and became so fascinated by the story that I ran right out to my local library to check out the book on which it was based.

In real life, the Mommie Dearest house, which was originally built in 1942, boasts 5 bedrooms, 6 baths, 6,077 square feet, and a 1.5-acre corner plot of land. And, amazingly enough, as you can see above, it still looks almost exactly the same today as it did in 1981 when the movie was filmed! Only the front of the property appeared onscreen, though.

For all of the backyard scenes, producers chose to film at a different colonial-style mansion located in Beverly Hills. Remarkably, the backyard where filming took place looks almost identical to Joan Crawford’s real life backyard, which you can see a photograph of here.

I found the backyard location thanks to an old real estate listing which mentioned the property’s appearance in Mommie Dearest, so I, of course, just had to run right out to stalk it, as well!

And, as you can see in the above photographs from the listing, the backyard still looks EXACTLY the same today as it did onscreen in Mommie Dearest Even the backyard furniture is still the same! LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT!

I am fairly certain that the interior scenes were all filmed on a soundstage and not at either of the actual homes.

As I mentioned above, the Mommie Dearest house was also used in the pilot episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 as the home of Marianne Moore (aka Leslie Bega), where the Walsh twins, Brandon (aka Jason Priestley) and Brenda (aka my girl Shannen Doherty), attended their very first Beverly Hills party.

The home’s hot tub area also appeared later on in the episode in the scene in which Marianne invited Brandon over for a date.

You can see that hot tub in the above aerial view.

And, oddly enough, a very brief establishing shot of the residence was used in another episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 – the Season 7 episode titled “All That Jazz”, in which it was used as the New Orleans hotel where David Silver (aka Brian Austin Green) took Donna Martin (aka Tori Spelling) for the night.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Mommie Dearest house is located at 417 Amapola Lane in Bel Air. The home used for all of the movie’s backyard scenes is located at 355 South Mapleton Drive in Beverly Hills.

October 31, 2011
The Sierra Bonita Apartments from “Mulholland Dr.”

Another Haunted-Hollywood-type location that I found thanks to fellow stalker/David Lynch aficionado Brad, from the Brad D Studios website, was the fictionally-named “Sierra Bonita” apartment complex – the fairy-tale-style property that was featured in one of the more intense and terrifying scenes from the surrealist director’s incredibly odd 2001 thriller Mulholland Dr. Brad had posted a brief write-up of the unique Silverlake-area site just last week and, because I had stalked and blogged about Le Borghese, the other apartment building featured in the flick, way back in February of 2009, I immediately added the place to my “To-Stalk” list and dragged the Grim Cheaper out there to see it just a few days later.

The complex, which consists of eight small, wood-shingled bungalows built around a central courtyard, was originally designed by Ben Sherwood in 1931. Ironically enough, as you can see above, in real life there is nothing whatsoever spooky or macabre about the location. On the contrary, the bungalow court is actually quite charming and idyllic in person and seems far more Disney-esque than “Lynchian”, as David Lynch’s movies have come to be described.

Legend has it, in fact, that the bungalows were once occupied by Walt Disney Studios animators and that the storybook-like architecture served as the inspiration for the Seven Dwarf’s cottage in the very first full-length animated feature film, 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. According to the “Ask Chris” column which appeared in the December 2006 issue of Los Angeles Magazine, Walt Disney Archive founder Dave Smith confirmed that director Hamilton Luske and animators Dick Lundy, Lee Morehouse, and Fred Moore all did occupy the complex once upon a time, which makes sense being that the original Walt Disney Studios was located a stone’s throw away on Hyperion Boulevard, where Gelson’s Market now stands. Because the apartments do bear a strong resemblance to the Seven Dwarf’s cottage, Chris suggests that the animators “might have taken their home to work with them”. Thanks to the Snow White lore, the bungalows have come to be known as the “Snow White Cottages” or the “Disney Cottages”, although they have no official name.

The fact that David Lynch even thought to transform such a picturesque spot into a place so sinister and foreboding – solely using camera angles, a few set pieces, and some carefully timed bars of music, mind you – speaks volumes about the director’s massive creative genius. He also somehow managed to make the property look huge on film, when, in reality, it is incredibly small and sits on a plot of land that measures less than two-tenths of an acre.

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In Mulholland Dr., the Sierra Bonita Apartments are where budding actress Betty Elms (aka Naomi Watts) and her amnesiac new friend Rita (aka Laura Harring) search for a mysterious stranger named Diane Selwyn. When Betty and Rita first arrive at Sierra Bonita, their taxi drives past the front of the complex, down a side alley located just north of the complex, and then drops them off in the rear of the property where the carports are located.

The carport area is pictured above and, as you can see, even it is picturesque! I can honestly say that was the first time in history I have ever seen a cute carport!

Betty and Rita then walk through the Disney-esque tower located at the back of the complex. A fake wall and apartment directory were set up in that area for the filming, which blocked the rest of the property from view.

That tower is pictured above.

According to the directory, Diane Selwyn lives in Apartment Number 12 in the complex’s West Courtyard. In reality, though, the property only has one courtyard.

Betty and Rita then make their way along meandering pathways and through maze-like foliage to Apartment 12. It was here that David Lynch employed tricky camera work and the magic of Hollywood to make the complex appear to be much larger than it actually is. To borrow a phrase from the British, I was absolutely gobsmacked when I arrived at the property and saw how miniscule it was.

Lynch also had a fake wall and gate installed at the front of the property, along Griffith Park Boulevard, which you can see in the background of the above screen capture.

The fake gate was built behind the complex’s real life gate, which can also be seen in the movie.

When Betty knocks on the door to Apartment 12, she is told that Diane Selwyn has recently moved into Apartment 17.

The bungalow used as Apartment 12 is actually numbered 2912 1/2 in real life and is the complex’s northwestern-most unit. It is located right on Griffith Park Boulevard and can be easily viewed from the street.

When Betty and Rita arrive at Apartment 17, they discover that no one is home and wind up breaking into the unit through a side window.

In real life, Apartment 17 is the bungalow numbered 2910 and it is located at the northeastern-most edge of the complex.

The window that Betty breaks into is pictured above.

I am fairly certain that the interior that was shown in the movie was just a set as the spacing of the windows in the kitchen area does not match up to the spacing of the windows on the exterior of the actual bungalow. You can check out some photographs of one of the actual apartment interiors on fave website CurbedLA here.

In the Season 2 episode of My Name Is Earl titled “Sticks & Stones”, the “Snow White Cottages” were used extensively as “Shady Grove”, where Maggie Lester, aka The Bearded Lady (aka Judy Greer), and her carnival friends lived.

Maggie lived in the bungalow numbered 2906 1/2 in the episode.

That bungalow is pictured above.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the unit was also used in the filming. How incredibly cute is Maggie’s place, by the way?!?! Oh, what I wouldn’t give to live there!

On a Mulholland Dr. side-note – Justin Theroux, my girl Jen Aniston’s current boyfriend, played the lead role of director Adam Kesher in the film.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Brad, from the Brad D Studios website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The “Sierra Bonita Apartments” from Mulholland Dr. are located at 2900 Griffith Park Boulevard in Silverlake. The units which were used in Mulholland Dr. are denoted with pink arrows in the above aerial view – Apartment #12 is actually the bungalow numbered 2912 1/2 and Apartment #17 is the bungalow numbered 2910. Maggie’s apartment from My Name Is Earl is denoted with a blue arrow in the above aerial view and is numbered 2906 1/2 in real life.

October 28, 2011
Linda Vista Community Hospital

Way back in August, in preparation for my Haunted Hollywood postings, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to a spot that is, hands down, the spookiest location I have ever visited in all my years of stalking – Linda Vista Community Hospital in Boyle Heights. Because the property is not only a filming location, but has been abandoned for close to two decades now and is largely rumored to be haunted, I figured it would fit in perfectly with my Halloween-themed month. And the stalking gods must have agreed because a magical thing happened while we were there! As fate would have it, we happened to run into one of the hospital’s caretakers while we were snapping pictures outside and when he saw my enthusiasm for the place’s vast filming history, he invited us in for a private tour!

Linda Vista Community Hospital, which was originally named Santa Fe Coast Lines Hospital or Santa Fe Railroad Hospital, was first built in 1904 as a private infirmary for sick and injured employees of the Santa Fe Railroad Line. The 6-story, 150-bed property, which was expanded several times after its opening, was transformed into a community hospital in 1937, at which point its name was changed to Linda Vista. Sadly, as the Boyle Heights area fell upon hard times, the hospital suffered and, in 1989, due to a lack of funds and a drop in Medicare reimbursements, the Linda Vista Emergency Room was closed. Two years later, in 1991, the hospital shuttered its doors altogether. And that’s when Hollywood came a’knockin’. Shortly after the closure, Linda Vista’s property manager, Francis Kortekaas, decided to lease the site out to film crews in order to offset its high maintenance costs and he has not looked back since! Due to its vacancy and aged appearance, location scouts cannot seem to stay away from the place. The hospital, which is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, currently plays host to between 100 and 150 productions each and every year!

Linda Vista Community Hospital is also currently home to the Boyle Heights Paranormal Project, a research team that not only conducts intensive investigations of paranormal activity on site, but hosts regular events on the property – including late-night “flashlight tours” and overnight visits in which those stalkers far more brave than myself can actually spend the night inside of the hospital. Um, I think I’ll pass on that one! It was scary enough just being in that place in the broad daylight!

On our tour of Linda Vista Community Hospital, the GC and I were shown most areas of the property, including the hallways;

the front lobby;

the chapel;

an examination room;

the original morgue, which was dressed for the filming of an Eminem music video that had taken place a few days prior;

the original morgue freezer;

a room where serial killer Richard Ramirez supposedly camped out before he was caught;

and the basement area, which was used extensively in the pilot episode of ER and was the area that I had most wanted to see.

The basement contains a lobby area, which had been dressed with fake blood for a student film;

a kitchen/break room;

a surgical room;

and a fake morgue, which was constructed specifically for filming.

As you can see above, only one of the morgue freezers actually opens, the rest are fake. SO INCREDIBLY COOL! And while I have to say that I was scared out of my wits pretty much the entire time, the tour was one of the most exciting experiences of my life. 🙂 You can check out some more interior photographs of Linda Vista Community Hospital here.

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Linda Vista Community Hospital has been featured in so many productions over the years that it would be virtually impossible for me to chronicle them all here. But I will do my best to try. In a flashback scene in the Season 1 episode of Dexter titled “Let’s Give the Boy a Hand”, Linda Vista stood in for the Angel of Mercy Hospital where Harry Morgan (aka James Remar) took his son, Dexter (aka Michael C. Hall), to show him where his grandfather worked for thirty years. Harry and Dexter then posed for a photograph out in front of the hospital.

When the scene then switches back to the present day, Dexter once again heads out to the Angel of Mercy Hospital, which has since been abandoned, where he finds Tony Tucci (aka Brad William Henke) – one of the Ice Truck Killer’s victims – alive, but with a severed right foot.

The next episode of Dexter, titled “Love American Style”, in which the Miami Metro Police Department investigates the torture of Tony Tucci, was also filmed at Linda Vista.

In the Season 1 episode of Charmed titled “Dream Sorcerer”, the exterior of Linda Vista stood in for Bay General Hospital where Prue Halliwell (aka my girl Shannen Doherty) recuperated after being in a car accident.

I am not sure, though, if the interior hospital scenes were also filmed at Linda Vista or at a different location.

In the Season 1 episode of FlashForward titled “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, Linda Vista stood in for the abandoned Raven River Psychiatric Hospital in Arizona, where Dr. Olivia Benford (aka Sonya Walger) and Agent Shelly Vreede (aka Barry Shabaka Henley) investigated former patient Gabriel McDow (aka James Callis). When Olivia and Shelly first pull up to the hospital, Olivia says, “It’s like the setting in one of those slasher movies!” LOL

In the Season 1 episode of Moonlight titled “Arrested Development”, Linda Vista’s fake morgue was used as the morgue of St. John Hospital where Mick St. John (aka Alex O’Loughlin) and Beth Turner (aka Sophia Myles) investigated a Jane Doe who had been killed by a vampire.

Linda Vista’s former asylum building was also used in that episode, as the supposed-Los-Feliz apartment building where Mick and Beth tried to catch Jane Doe’s killer.

The asylum building, which is pictured above, is located just south of the main hospital.

In the second episode of the recently-aired Bachelor Pad 2, Michael Stagliano wins a date in which he takes Erica Rose, Michelle Money, and former-fiancé Holly Durst for an overnight visit to Linda Vista Hospital. As I said above, I think I’ll pass on that one!

While all of the later episodes of the television series ER were shot on a soundstage at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, as I mentioned above, the pilot, which was titled “24 Hours”, was shot in its entirety at Linda Vista. And even though I was never a huge fan of ER, I cannot tell you how cool it was to see that area of the hospital!

Linda Vista was one of several different locations used as the exterior of the Honolulu Hospital where Nurse Lt. Evelyn Johnson (aka Kate Beckinsale), Nurse Betty Bayer (aka Jamie King), Nurse Sandra (aka Jennifer Garner), and the rest of the girls worked in Pearl Harbor.

A false front was built on the back side of the hospital, in the area denoted with a pink rectangle above, for the filming.

And while the Pearl Harbor interior hospital scenes also supposedly took place at Linda Vista, I did not see any rooms on our tour that even remotely resembled the rooms pictured above.

Mike, from MovieShotsLA, happened to be at Linda Vista during the filming of Pearl Harbor and snapped the above photograph while there. As you can see, there looks to have been some sort of set built in the parking lot area of the hospital and because the window sizes and shapes of that set match up to what appeared onscreen, I am guessing that it is where the interior hospital scenes were filmed.

In 1995’s Outbreak, Linda Vista stood in for the hospital in Cedar Creek, California where the massive outbreak first occurred.

In 1999’s End of Days, Linda Vista was used as the New York hospital where Christine York (aka Robin Tunney) was born.

It was also where Satan (aka Gabriel Byrne) found and killed Thomas Aquinas (aka Derrick O’Connor).

In 1985’s To Live and Die in LA, the hospital, which in a nod to its history was called Santa Fe Hospital, was where prisoner Carl Cody (aka John Turturro) pretended to have a sick relative in order to escape from Secret Service Agent Richard Chance (aka William Peterson).

The 2007 Duran Duran “Falling Down” music video, in which a Britney Spears’ inspired starlet is forced into rehab, was shot at Linda Vista Community Hospital.

Duran Duran “Falling Down” Music Video–Filmed at Linda Vista Hospital

You can watch that video by clicking above.

And the 2005 video for the Garbage song “Bleed Like Me” was also filmed at Linda Vista.

Garbage “Bleed Like Me” Music Video–Filmed at Linda Vista Hospital

You can watch that video by clicking above.

Linda Vista Hospital also supposedly appeared in The Cell, but I scanned through the flick earlier today and could not find it anywhere.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Linda Vista Hospital is located at 601 South St. Louis Street in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles. You can visit the hospital’s official website here. You can check out the Boyle Heights Paranormal Project’s Facebook page here and you can find out more about their upcoming events and tours here.

October 27, 2011
The “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” House

A couple of weeks ago, while perusing through Chris Epting’s Marilyn Monroe Dyed Here: More Locations of America’s Pop Culture Landmarks in order to get a little inspiration for my Haunted Hollywood postings, I came across an entry about the home used in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? I had actually never before seen the 1962 classic and, up until reading the blurb in Epting’s book in which he described it as being “creepy”, did not realize the movie was of the thriller/horror genre. So I ran right out to rent it that very same night and, let me tell you, it was fabulous! Because What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? was made almost five decades ago and is almost always referred to as being “campy”, I did not have very high hopes for the flick, but, boy, was I off-base! Not only was the acting of both Joan Crawford and Bette Davis absolutely phenomenal in it, but I was also on the edge of my seat for the entire two-hour-and-twenty-minute run-time. Why I had waited so long to watch it is beyond me! Anyway, after seeing the movie, I, of course, could NOT wait to stalk the house and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to do just that later that same week.

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In What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, former child star “Baby Jane” Hudson (aka Bette Davis) holds her paralyzed sister, movie legend Blanche Hudson (aka Joan Crawford), hostage in the mansion pictured above. According to fave book Hollywood: The Movie Lover’s Guide, only the exterior of the house was used in the flick. All of the interior scenes were filmed at nearby Raleigh Studios, which was then named Producers Studios Inc., in Hollywood. Apparently, because Joan and Bette were famous long-time rivals, filming of the flick was racked with some pretty outlandish diva-ish behavior. According to IMDB’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? filming locations page, just a few of the shenanigans that took place included Bette installing a Coca-Cola machine on the set (at the time Joan was on the board of Pepsi-Cola and was the widow of one of the company’s high-ranking CEO’s); Bette kicking Joan so hard in the head during one of the fight scenes that she required stitches; and Joan putting weights in her pockets during the scene in which Bette had to drag her across the floor. Perhaps most awful of all, though, was the fact that when Bette was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in the film, Joan not only campaigned against her, but told fellow nominee Anne Bancroft, who was starring in a play in New York at the time, that she would accept the award on her behalf should she win. Anne did indeed win and when her name was announced, Joan took to the stage to accept the award, while Bette stood stunned in the wings. Talk about a celebrity feud!!!

Amazingly enough, the What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? house still looks EXACTLY the same today as it did back in 1962 when the movie was filmed! Even the address number plaque located next to the front door is still the same! LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT!

The home located next door, where Mrs. Bates (aka Anna Lee) and her daughter, Liza Bates (aka Barbara Merrill, who is Bette Davis’ real life daughter), lived in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, also still looks much the same as it did in the movie, although the driveway area and carport were the only portion of it ever shown.

The Bates residence also just so happens to be the abode where Peter Sanderson (aka Steve Martin) lived in the 2003 movie Bringing Down the House.

Thanks to The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations website, I learned that the absolutely horrible 1991 television remake of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, which starred real-life sisters Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave, was filmed at a home just a few blocks southeast of the original, so I, of course, ran right out to stalk that location as well. And I was shocked to discover how similar the two residences looked – which leads me to wonder why producers did not just film the remake at the mansion that was used in the movie.

Unfortunately, I could not find any copies of the cringe-worthy remake with which to make screen captures of the house for this post, but you can check out some clips of the flick on YouTube here or by clicking above. Trust me, they are definitely good for a laugh!

On a What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? side note – according to her autobiography, This ‘N That, Bette Davis decided that her make-up in the film should appear to be caked-on as she imagined that Jane would be the type of person who never took her make-up off at night and would apply new layers of it each and and every day. You can see that caked-on make-up in the screen capture above. Coming from an acting background, I have always been fascinated hearing about actors’ character choices and I think Bette’s was an absolutely brilliant one and added so much to the persona of Jane. In the September 2009 issue of Elle Magazine, when describing her process of creating a character, my girl Jen Aniston said, “I‘ll never forget my high school acting teacher, Anthony Abeson, who said, ‘It starts with the shoes.’ When I think about a character, it does start with the shoes: What kind would she wear? How would she walk in them? If I’m going to put on a dress for a role – I don’t care if it’s the hardest dress to put on – I have to put the shoes on first. The physicality leads me to the character . . . Like Justine in The Good Girl: She was so disconnected from how she looked, that’s what led to the discomfort of who she was.” Sigh! That is the kind of tidbit that I just eat up with a spoon! But I digress!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? house is located at 172 South McCadden Place in Hancock Park. The Bates residence, which appeared in both What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Bringing Down the House, is located next door at 166 South McCadden Place in Hancock Park. And the home used in the 1991 What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? television remake is located at 501 South Hudson Avenue in Hancock Park.

October 25, 2011
Villa Primavera – The “In a Lonely Place” Apartment Building

While doing research on the Double Indemnity house, which I blogged about a couple of weeks ago, I came across some information about Villa Primavera – a courtyard-style apartment building that was featured in the 1950 film noir classic In a Lonely Place. I immediately became intrigued with the West-Hollywood-area building due to an anecdote that was listed on the movie’s IMDB trivia page. Apparently, In a Lonely Place director Nicholas Ray had lived at Villa Primavera upon first moving to Southern California in the 1940s and was so enamored with the place that he decided to build a replica of the entire complex, courtyard and all, on a soundstage at Columbia Studios (now Sunset-Gower Studios) in Hollywood to be used as Humphrey Bogart’s bachelor pad in the flick. At some point during the shoot, Nicholas walked in on his wife, Gloria Grahame, who also starred in the movie, in bed with his 13-year-old son from a previous marriage. Nicholas immediately moved out of the home he shared with Gloria and into the Villa Primavera apartment set, where he ended up living – in what was essentially an exact replica of his former apartment – until filming wrapped. Because the building was so inextricably linked with both In a Lonely Place and the behind-the-scenes turmoil that marked the shoot, I was absolutely dying to see the place in person and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to do just that a few days later.

Villa Primavera was constructed by legendary husband and wife architecture team Arthur and Nina Zwebell in 1923 and was the couple’s very first Spanish-Revival-style building. The charming complex features red-tile roofs, white adobe walls, and a central courtyard with a large tiled fountain, an outdoor fireplace, lush foliage, and wandering brick pathways. The individual apartment units boast corner fireplaces, exposed wood ceilings, and tile floors. The Zwebells loved the design so much that they eventually moved into the Hacienda-like property for a time and legend has it that James Dean and Katharine Hepburn also once called the place home. Sadly though, as you can see above, the ten-unit complex is gated and not much of it can be viewed from the street.

I did manage to catch a brief glimpse of the interior courtyard and central fountain through the front gate, though, and they both looked absolutely beautiful.

Amazingly enough, when the GC and I first arrived at Villa Primavera, this little guy ran up to greet us.

And I just about died when I realized that he was a polydactyl cat, aka a “Hemingway cat”, aka a cat with more than five toes on one or more of its paws! I had watched a television special on the unusual felines a little over ten years ago and have been absolutely obsessed with them ever since. I cannot tell you how incredibly fitting it was that we ran into a so-called “Hemingway cat” while visiting an apartment building with such a storied Old Hollywood history! Love it!

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In In a Lonely Place, Villa Primavera stood in for the supposed-Beverly-Hills-area “Beverly Patio” apartments where frustrated Hollywood screenwriter Dixon Steele (aka Humphrey Bogart) and his beautiful new neighbor, Laurel Gray (aka Gloria Grahame), lived.

The location was such an integral part of the murder mystery – which was fabulous by the way – that it led Roger Ebert to write in an August 13th, 2009 review, “The courtyard of the Hollywood building occupied by Humphrey Bogart in In a Lonely Place is one of the most evocative spaces I’ve seen in a movie. Small apartments are lined up around a Spanish-style courtyard with a fountain. Each flat is occupied by a single person. If you look across from your window, you can see into the life of your neighbor.” It is thanks to that interior view of neighboring units that Laurel is able to provide an alibi for Dixon after he is accused of murdering a young woman whom he had been seen with the night before. And while the courtyard area that is pictured above;

and the interior of both Dixon and Laurel’s individual apartments were recreations built at Columbia Studios, some actual filming did take place on location at Villa Primavera.

In the beginning of In a Lonely Place, Dixon returns home from the Beverly Hills police station after being questioned about the murdered woman and walks across the lawn of the real life apartment building. As you can see, a fake sign reading “Beverly Patio Apartments” was installed for that scene.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Villa Primavera, the In a Lonely Place apartment building, is located at 1300-1308 North Harper Avenue in West Hollywood.

October 24, 2011
Abbey San Encino from “Dexter”

As I have mentioned several times before on this blog, I absolutely cannot watch an episode of fave show Dexter without having my iPad next to me and a web-browser open to the Seeing Stars website’s extensive Dexter filming locations page. And this season has been no different. While watching the episode titled “Once Upon a Time . . . “ two Sundays ago, I became just a wee bit obsessed with the amazing abandoned church where serial killer Professor Gellar (aka Edward James Olmos) and his young protégé, Travis Marshall (aka Colin Hanks), conduct their various crimes. Gary, who runs Seeing Stars, of course, had the location listed on his site. As it turns out, it is a historic building named Abbey San Encino and it is located in the Highland Park area of Los Angeles, just west of South Pasadena. So, figuring it fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place this past weekend.

Abbey San Encino, a private home which took over a decade to construct, was designed and built by a wealthy printer/typographer named Clyde Browne. Clyde, who originally hailed from Ohio, had moved onto the property, into what was then just a frame building, with his wife Grace Wassum in 1904. In the summer of 1915, he began construction on his dream home which, according to a fabulous Big Orange Landmarks article, he modeled after several different historic properties including the chapel at Holyrod Palace in Scotland, Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo in Carmel-by-the-Sea, and Mission San Francisco de Solano in Sonoma. For his building materials, Clyde used a myriad of artifacts, such as bells, crucifixes, hinges, and lanterns, that colleagues picked up for him from various abandoned edifices across Europe. Browne also salvaged numerous materials from several defunct buildings in the Los Angeles area, most notably the Van Nuys Hotel, which had closed shortly following Prohibition. The 2,627-square-foot Abbey San Encino was finally completed in 1921 and boasted a chapel, a massive cellar, with what looks to be an actual jail cell, a bell tower, and a central courtyard. For whatever reason, Browne and his family did not move into their new home until 1924, three full years after it was completed. When Clyde passed away in 1942, his son moved into the Abbey where he raised Clyde’s two grandsons, songwriter Edward Severin Browne and singer Jackson Browne – yes, that Jackson Browne.

In fact, Jackson actually used a photograph of the Abbey’s inner courtyard on the cover of his second album, “For Everyman”. And, amazingly enough, his brother Edward still lives on the property, along with his wife, to this day.

Abbey San Encino is a true architectural wonder and was declared Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #106 on November 15, 1972.

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Abbey San Encino first showed up in the Season 6 episode of Dexter titled “Once Upon a Time . . .”, in the scene in which Travis dropped off several bags of mannequins at Professor Gellar’s lair.

The door through which Travis tossed the bags of mannequins is pictured above.

The interior of Professor Gellar’s hideout appears later in that same episode, in the scene in which the Professor reprimands Travis for visiting his sister. And while the interior shown on Dexter does resemble the real life inside of the Abbey, which you can see photographs of here, filming did not actually take place there. I believe that for all of the interior scenes, producers most likely built a set based on the actual inside of the Abbey at Sunset-Gower Studios in Hollywood where the series is lensed.

The interior of the hideout showed up once again at the very end of the “Once Upon a Time . . . “ episode, in the scene in which Travis brought the Professor a jogger named Nathan (aka David Monahan) whom he had kidnapped.

The exterior of the Abbey was also featured in this past Sunday night’s episode of Dexter, which was titled “Smokey and the Bandit”, and I am guessing that it will also be appearing in all of the future episodes of Season 6, as well. And, according to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, the property is going to be used as the new home of Russell Edgington (aka Denis O’Hare) in the upcoming season of True Blood.

Abbey San Encino–Dexter Filming Location

You can check out a video which shows interior photographs of Abbey San Encino by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Abbey San Encino, aka Professor Gellar and Travis Marshall’s hideout from Season 6 of Dexter, is located at 6211 Arroyo Glen Street in Highland Park. You can visit the property’s official website here.

October 21, 2011