Haunted Hollywood – Page 9

October 13, 2014September 29, 2017

The El Palacio Apartments

Situated at the corner of La Cienega Boulevard and Fountain Avenue in West Hollywood is an idyllic complex named The El Palacio Apartments. The gorgeous Spanish Baroque architecture is hiding some dark secrets, though. The building has been the site of two infamous deaths, the most notorious of which was the overdoes of actress Dorothy Dandridge in 1965. I have always been fascinated by the El Palacio’s lesser-known tie to the macabre, however. It was at the tenement that a young oil heiress named Georgette Bauerdorf was found murdered, face down in a bathtub, in 1944 – a mystery that remains unsolved to this day.

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The El Palacio Apartments were designed by architect William Hauptman in 1931. The 18-unit courtyard complex features a stuccoed exterior, subterranean parking, mahogany doors, cast stone ornamentation, balconets, a tiled gable roof and gardens fashioned by Seymour Thomas.

Georgette Bauerdorf was born into a life of privilege in New York City on May 6, 1924. After her mother passed away in 1935, she migrated to Los Angeles with her father and sister. Georgette graduated from the Westlake School for Girls in 1941 and spent the next few years travelling. In the summer of 1944, she moved into the family’s multi-level, two-story apartment at the El Palacio along with her sister and father. When they decided to return to Manhattan in August, Georgette remained behind. She spent her days working for the Los Angeles Times Women’s Service Bureau and also volunteered each Wednesday night as a junior hostess at the Hollywood Canteen, a nightclub for servicemen formerly located at 1451 Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood.

On the night of October 11th, 1944, Georgette left the Hollywood Canteen at 11:30 p.m. and arrived home about a half an hour later. She ate a can of string beans and some cantaloupe and then changed into pajamas. The following morning she was found by the cleaning staff, face down in her bathtub with a nine-inch by nine-inch piece of cloth lodged in her throat. It is said that the bath water had been left running, though I am not sure how or why the tub did not overflow. The police were immediately called and it was determined that Georgette had been raped and strangled. Nothing in the apartment was found to be amiss, save for a lone drop of blood on the floor of the bedroom, and Georgette’s expensive jewelry had been left undisturbed on her dresser. Investigators later discovered that her front porch light had been unscrewed slightly, rendering it unusable, possibly so that the intruder could leave the premises undetected.

A few suspects were later questioned, but the crime was never solved. It is believed, though, that a man, most likely someone Georgette knew, broke into her apartment while she was at the Hollywood Canteen and then proceeded to hide out until after she returned home, at which time he raped and killed her. You can read a more detailed account of the case here.

Twenty years later, Dorothy Dandridge, the first African American woman to be nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award, moved into unit D2 of the El Palacio. Her tenure there was not long. She was in fairly dire straits at the time, victim to both a drug addiction and a Ponzi scheme that had depleted her finances. On September 8th, 1965, just a year after she had moved in, she was found dead of a prescription pill overdose in the bathroom of her apartment. She reportedly had $2.14 in her bank account. You can read more about her death here.

According to Curbed LA, my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe also lived at the El Palacio Apartments, in the spare bedroom of actor John Carroll and his wife, Lucille Ryman, for five months in 1947.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The El Palacio Apartments, where the murder of Georgette Bauerdorf took place, are located at 8491-8499 Fountain Avenue in West Hollywood.

October 10, 2014September 29, 2017

Dorothy Stratten’s Former House

True crime has always fascinated me. One case that I had never followed, though (probably because I was barely three years old at the time the events took place), was the murder of Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten in 1980. When my friends Lavonna, Kim, Katie and Kaylee came to L.A. for a visit this past June, Lavonna insisted we stalk the house where the killing took place so that I could write a blog post on it come October. Here goes.

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Dorothy Stratten grew up in Vancouver and, while working at a Dairy Queen at the age of 17, met and hooked up with a club promoter/get-rich-quick schemer/pimp nine years her senior named Paul Snider. Thinking the naïve and beautiful young blonde could be his potential meal ticket and his “in” to show business, Paul had professional nude photographs taken of her shortly after they met and sent them off to Playboy. Hugh Hefner liked what he saw and quickly flew Stratten out to L.A. It was not long before Paul followed, intent on riding on his girlfriend’s coattails. To seal the deal, he convinced Dorothy to marry him and the couple tied the knot in a quickie Vegas ceremony on June 1st, 1979. She was 19. Along with a roommate named Dr. Stephen Cushner, the newlyweds moved into a two-bedroom, two-bath, 1,424-square-foot home located at 10881 West Clarkson Road in Rancho Park.

Cushner lived in the residence’s upstairs bedroom . . .

. . . while Dorothy and Paul stayed in the bottom level room located at the back of the house. There was to be no honeymoon period, though. Dorothy’s star was on the rise and as she grew more successful, Paul grew more possessive and controlling.

Dorothy was named Playmate of the Month in August 1979 and then Playmate of the Year in 1980. Predictably, it was not long before Hollywood came a-callin’. She landed roles in episodes of Fantasy Island and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and in the movies Americathon, Skatetown, U.S.A., Autumn Born and Galaxina. The starlet caught director Peter Bogdanovich’s eye one afternoon at the Playboy mansion and he cast her in his film They All Laughed shortly thereafter. Dorothy had to relocate to New York for the shoot and, while there, she and Bogdanovich fell in love. Upon returning home once filming wrapped in early August 1980, Dorothy separated from Paul, asked for a divorce and moved into Peter’s Bel Air mansion located at 212 Copa De Oro Road in Bel Air.

Around noon on August 14th, Dorothy agreed to meet Paul at the house the two once shared to discuss the divorce. She brought along $1,000 cash to placate him and keep things amicable. The events that followed were anything but. Paul ended up shooting Dorothy and then killing himself. Their bodies were found at approximately 11 p.m. that evening by Cushner. The details of the murder/suicide are not pretty. If interested, you can read more about them on Findadeath and in this 1980 article from The Village Voice. In an odd twist, Bogdanovich, who still considers Dorothy the love of his life, wound up marrying her much-younger sister, Louise, in 1988. They divorced 13 years later.

In 1983, famed dancer Bob Fosse directed a movie about Dorothy’s life and untimely death named Star 80. Model Mariel Hemingway played Dorothy, while Eric Roberts played Paul. Oddly enough, part of the filming took place at the couple’s real life former home.

Supposedly, several areas of the real life interior of the dwelling appeared in the movie, as well, including the garage;

Paul and Dorothy’s bedroom, where the murder took place;

the downstairs bathroom;

the downstairs hallway;

and the downstairs living room/office. Without having seen images of the home’s actual interior, though, I cannot say with certainty whether or not that was the case. And because the layout of the windows shown in Star 80 does not match the window layout of the actual residence, I am guessing that the interior was just a set.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lavonna for taking me to this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Dorothy Stratten’s former house is located at 10881 West Clarkson Road in Rancho Park.

October 7, 2014September 29, 2017

Harbor Steps Apartments from “The Ring”

I am reaching deep into my stalking vault for today’s location. I visited the Harbor Steps Apartments from The Ring during a trip to Seattle well over four years ago – shortly after being caught in a torrential downpour, which explains my hat in the above photograph – but somehow failed to blog about them. Since the building’s appearance in the 2002 thriller was decidedly macabre, I figured what better time to write about it than during my annual Haunted Hollywood postings. So here goes!

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The 734-unit Harbor Steps Apartments, which are situated overlooking downtown Seattle and Puget Sound, were completed in 2000.

The upscale complex, which consists of four high-rise buildings, features three fitness centers, a basketball court, a volleyball court, three Jacuzzis, a sauna, a climbing wall, an indoor pool, a business center, a media room/theatre, stunningly gorgeous views, and (my personal favorite) 24-hour concierge service.

The Harbor Steps Apartments sit directly across from the Seattle Art Museum and one of Jonathan Borofsky’s Hammering Man sculptures. (There are several others situated throughout the world.) The 48-foot-tall instillation was constructed in 1991 out of hollow-fabricated steel and, according to the City of Seattle’s official website, “celebrates the worker’s contribution to society.”

Thanks to an electric motor, the sculpture’s arm makes a hammering motion every 15 seconds, 24 hours a day, every single day of the year. Well, except each Labor Day, that is, when Hammering Man is programmed to take a rest – a fact which I thought was so incredibly cool.

In The Ring, the Harbor Steps Apartments were where Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) lived with her son, Aidan (David Dorfman). According to the movie’s production notes, director Gore Verbinski chose to shoot the flick in Washington because, “The Pacific Northwest winter provided a seemingly perpetual overcast and cold, gloomy weather that only added to the story’s atmosphere of dread. The lack of sun also lent itself perfectly to the soft light and lack of shadows that Verbinski and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli were employing to complement the story’s surrealistic moments.” Production designer Tom Duffield based the film’s coloring on the paintings of Andrew Wyeth. He says, “In Wyeth’s work, the trees are always dormant, and the colors are muted earth tones. It’s greys, it’s browns, it’s somber colors; it’s ripped fabrics in the windows. His work has a haunting flavor that I felt would add to the mystique of this movie, so I latched on to it. “

He did a fabulous job, too, because, as you can see below, even moments after a downpour, the building is much more vibrant in person than Duffield made it appear to be in The Ring.

Rachel supposedly lived in Unit 601 in the movie.

But I am fairly certain that the interior of her apartment was a set. You can check out a few interior photographs of some real life Harbor Steps Apartments here and here.

The interior of Rachel’s unit seemed to be much larger and more open than those of the actual complex.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Harbor Steps Apartments from The Ring are located at 1221 First Avenue in Seattle, Washington. You can visit the complex’s official website here.

October 1, 2014September 29, 2017

Whitey Bulger’s Former Apartment

It is finally that time of year again – October 1st, the start of my Haunted Hollywood postings. And I could not be more excited, so let’s get to it! The October 2013 issue of Los Angeles magazine featured an absolutely enthralling article about the arrest of the infamous Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger. I read the column, titled “The Old Man Next Door,” in one short sitting and was elated that author Steven Mikulan had included the address of Bulger’s former Santa Monica apartment building. I finally made it out to stalk the place in January of this year, but held off on blogging about it until now as I figured the locale would make for a perfect Haunted Hollywood posting.

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James Bulger was born in 1929 in Boston’s North End. He was given the nickname “Whitey” thanks to his bright blonde hair and reportedly hated the moniker as much as fellow mobster Benjamin Siegel hated being called “Bugsy.” Whitey moved to a South Boston housing project with his family at a young age and his life of crime began shortly thereafter. By the age of fourteen, he had been arrested for larceny and was eventually sentenced to a juvenile facility. By 30, he was serving time at Alcatraz for a bank robbery conviction. After his release, it was not long before he was running South Boston’s infamous Winter Hill Gang. (Jack Nicholson’s Frank Costello character in The Departed was based on Bulger.) In 1993, a task force was implemented to catch and arrest Whitey for numerous crimes, including 19 murders. The task force was ready to take Bulger in the following year, but he was tipped off and immediately fled Boston. Oddly enough, he originally went on the lam with a longtime girlfriend named Teresa Stanley. She tired of life on the run fairly quickly and, upon her return to Massachusetts, Whitey asked a different longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, to flee with him. Apparently, Greig didn’t mind playing second fiddle.

Upon arriving in Santa Monica in 1996, James and Catherine took up residence at the Princess Eugenia apartment building located at 1012 Third Street. They lived for the next 15 years under the aliases of Charlie and Carol Gasko. Their life at the Princess Eugenia was a fairly quiet one, though Whitey could often be seen on his balcony looking through a pair of binoculars. The couple went on daily walks, were friendly with neighbors and took care of a couple of local stray cats. Their two-bedroom, two-bath apartment hid a more sinister existence, though. Holes in the walls concealed a stash of $822,198 in cash and a collection of thirty guns.

The Gasko’s lurid past caught up with them on June 22, 2011. The previous day, a former Icelandic native named Anna Bjornsdottir had randomly watched an FBI video about Bulger and Greig on TV and recognized the couple immediately. Anna had lived at the Embassy Hotel Apartments (now named Palihouse) across the street from the Princess Eugenia many years prior and had become friendly with Catherine thanks to a stray neighborhood cat that both women cared for. She called the FBI and less than 24 hours later they had infiltrated Whitey’s building. Shortly thereafter and thanks to some help from Josh Bond, the Princess Eugenia’s manager, Bulger and Greig were arrested without incident in the building’s garage.

Greig wound up pleading guilty to identity fraud and conspiring to harbor a fugitive and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. She is currently serving her time at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Whitey’s trial lasted two months and he was convicted of 31 counts, including murder involvement, drug trafficking, racketeering, money laundering, and extortion. He was given two life sentences plus five years and is currently serving that time at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona.

During their stint at the Princess Eugenia, Whitey and Catherine lived in Apartment 303, a corner unit located on the western side of the building’s third floor. Their unit is denoted with an orange arrow below. You can check out some photographs of the interior of the apartment from the time that the couple lived there here. To say the place was odd would be an understatement. Why there was a bed in the living room is beyond me. You can also see some interior photographs of what the space currently looks like here.

In an eerie twist, while writing this post I learned that Whitey’s former apartment unit is blurred out on Google Street View, as you can see below. I looked up Google’s privacy policy and apparently anyone can request to have their residence blurred from view. Whether this request was made by Whitey himself (a distinct possibility considering he had plastic sheets, duct tape, and black curtains covering all of his windows when he lived at the Eugenia) or the new tenants is anyone’s guess, but I was pretty spooked when I came across it. Freaaaaaaky!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Princess Eugenia, aka Whitey Bulger’s former apartment building, is located at 1012 Third Street in Santa Monica.

October 11, 2013September 29, 2017

Peg Entwistle’s Former House

Another location that I learned about thanks to the fabulous Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites book, which was penned by fellow stalker E.J. of The Movieland Directory, was the one-time Beachwood Drive home of Peg Entwistle, the tragic blonde actress who only achieved fame after her 1932 suicide, in which she jumped to her death from the Hollywood Sign. And while I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk the residence just a few days after reading about it, I figured it would be the perfect spot to feature in my Haunted Hollywood postings and held off on blogging about it until now.

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Peg was born Lillian Millicent Entwistle across the pond in London, England in 1908. After her mother passed away suddenly when Entwistle was about eight, she and her father, Robert, packed up and moved to New York in the hopes of starting a new life. While there, Robert remarried and had two sons. Tragically, he was killed about six years later by a hit-and-run driver while walking home from work. Peg’s brothers were then sent to California to live with their uncle, Harold Entwistle, while Peg stayed behind to try her turn at acting. She quickly secured a role in a Broadway production of Hamlet and garnered favorable reviews. It was not long before the petite beauty was acting steadily, earning parts in over ten different Broadway productions. Sadly, most were flops. In 1927, Peg met actor Robert Keith and the two were later married. The union was quickly dissolved, though, when Entwistle discovered that Keith had not only been married previously, but had a son (Family Affairs’ Brian Keith, who also later committed suicide, as did his daughter, Daisy).

In 1931, Peg heard Hollywood calling and moved to the West Coast, originally renting a room at the Hollywood Studio Club. She instantly won a role in the short-lived play The Mad Hopes, which also featured Humphrey Bogart and The Wizard of Oz’s Billie Burke. Stardom was almost within reach shortly thereafter when she landed a part in RKO’s Thirteen Women, but, sadly, when the movie premiered in 1932, it was lambasted by critics and the studio subsequently re-edited it, cutting Peg’s role almost entirely. RKO cancelled her contract just a few weeks later and the actress was forced to move into her uncle’s house at 2428 North Beachwood Drive in Hollywood. Peg then made plans to return to New York and the Great White Way, but, unfortunately, could not come up with the necessary train fare. Times were dire.

On the evening of Friday, September 16th, 1932, Peg informed Harold that she was heading to a local drugstore. Instead, she walked a mile and a half up Beachwood Drive to the Hollywood Sign (which then spelled out “Hollywoodland”), climbed up a maintenance ladder to the top of the 50-foot-tall letter H, and jumped to her death. She was 24. The following morning, her clothing and purse were discovered by a hiker. Inside the purse, was a letter that read, “I am afraid I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E.” (The image below is a screen capture taken from an E! Mysteries & Scandals episode about Entwistle. I am unsure if the letter pictured is Peg’s actual letter or a facsimile.) The hiker gathered the clothes and purse and dropped them on the steps of the Hollywood Police Station anonymously. The next day, detectives located Peg’s remains. Investigators were unable to identify her, so they published the suicide note in the Los Angeles Times in the hopes that someone would recognize the handwriting. Harold did, called the police and later identified the body. Peg was cremated and subsequently interred at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Glendale, Ohio.

Supposedly, a letter from the Beverly Hills Playhouse offering Peg the lead part in a play arrived at Harold’s house shortly following her death. The role? A beautiful woman who commits suicide. I am fairly certain that is just Hollywood lore, though – an anecdote dreamed up to make Peg’s story all the more tragic (especially being that, according to Wikipedia, the Beverly Hills Playhouse was not founded until 1954, over two full decades after Entwistle’s suicide).

Harold’s tiny bungalow, which was originally built in 1913, boasts three bedrooms, one bath, 1,650 square feet of living space, and a 0.16-acre plot of land. The property last sold for $35,000 in November 1974. Zillow estimates its worth today at $980,000. Not a bad return on an investment!

Pictured below is the view from the front of Peg’s former home. I cannot tell you how haunting it was to be standing in front of the residence with the Hollywood Sign looming over us.

You can watch the E! Mysteries & Scandals episode about Peg 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 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: Peg Entwistle’s former home is located at 2428 North Beachwood Drive in Hollywood.

October 9, 2013September 29, 2017

The Cecil Hotel

Los Angeles magazine’s The Crime Issue had me absolutely drooling when I received it back in July, especially Steve Erickson’s article “Sleep Tight,” which detailed the bizarre 2013 death of 21-year-old Canadian tourist Elisa Lam at the Cecil Hotel in downtown L.A. I was glued to every single word Erickson wrote and, upon finishing the article, immediately headed to my computer to find out more information about the case, which is easily one of the most haunting and peculiar ever to touch the City of Angels. Then, when I came across the insanely eerie surveillance footage of Lam in the hotel’s elevator – the last images taken of the young woman alive – I knew I had to cover the place during my Haunted Hollywood postings and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it just a few days later.

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The Cecil Hotel was constructed sometime during the 1920s (there are varying reports online stating that it opened in 1924, 1925 and 1927 and I am unsure of which year is correct). The fifteen-floor property was originally billed as an upscale hotel for business travelers, but when the Great Depression hit just a few years after its founding, the Cecil’s business took a severe downturn. By the 1950s, the site had become a sanctum for transients and criminals and was eventually converted into a Single Room Occupancy (SRO) establishment, offering rooms with shared bathrooms to long-term residents at low rates.

In May 2007, the structure was purchased for $28.5 million by a development company who had plans to turn it back into a hotel. Renovations were started in which the lobby was restored to its original grandeur (the result was fabulous as you will see at the end of this post) and three floors of rooms converted into a modernized “boutique hotel/youth hostel hybrid.” Sadly though, the city stepped in and halted the project mid-way through, claiming that the property was a “residential hotel” and that the owners would have to find replacement housing for any displaced occupants. Lawsuits followed and the Cecil wound up being turned back over to the lender. It is unclear as to what is to become of the locale in the future, but at the present time the site offers both long-term and short-term accommodations, and a rather odd dichotomy.

Despite the partial renovation and grandness of the lobby, seediness still dogs the Cecil. A 2008 Los Angeles Times article states, “Fresh Monet, Picasso and Kandinsky posters hang on the vivid yellow, red and blue walls next to the elevators on each floor. But around the corner, reality hits: The rooms are small, bugs scamper across the floors and in the dim hallways, one sometimes encounters guests who have been using drugs or alcohol.” Steve Erickson actually spent the night at the hotel before penning his “Sleep Tight” article. (Um, no thank you!) Upon checking in, he snagged his neighbor’s DO NOT DISTURB sign to hang on his own door because, as he says, “When someone knocks on your door at the Cecil, it isn’t room service.” When he returned to his room after a dinner at Cole’s restaurant (which I blogged about here) a few hours later, the sign was gone – stolen by another wary hotel guest. Erickson describes the property as such, “If you aren’t at the Cecil to hide, or to look for the city you’ve occupied but never known, you’re probably a foreign traveler stranded by expectations, inconsolable for a glimpse of Hollywood or the beach that the travel guide promised is only ‘minutes away.’ The Cecil hasn’t been minutes away from anything worth being minutes away from for decades.” Yeah, I’d say that pretty much sums the place up.

The Cecil has had numerous brushes with darkness over its eighty-plus-year history. In 1985, Richard Ramirez, aka the Night Stalker, lived on the hotel’s top floor in a $14-a-night room. Austrian journalist/serial killer Jack Unterweger moved into the property in 1991 in what many believe was an homage to Ramirez. He killed three prostitutes during his tenure there. The structure has also been the site of at least three suicides and one unsolved murder. Its most bizarre incidence of the macabre, though, has to be the disappearance and death of Elisa Lam.

Lam, who was traveling alone, checked into the Cecil Hotel on January 27th, 2013 while on a California holiday. She spoke with her family back in Vancouver daily during the trip. Then, on January 31st, she vanished without a trace. Detectives investigating the case were at a loss until they asked to see the hotel’s surveillance videos, on which was footage of Elisa acting extremely strangely in the Cecil’s elevator the night of her disappearance. In the video, which you can watch by clicking below, the young woman, seemingly both petrified and playful, is shown haphazardly pushing buttons for every floor, hiding in a corner, jumping in and out of the elevator, speaking to someone real or imagined just out of the camera’s view, and inexplicably flailing her arms and hands about. The feed is honestly one of the most haunting things I’ve ever watched in my life!

Lam’s body was not found until almost three weeks later, when, on February 19th, a maintenance worker headed to the Cecil’s roof to check the water tanks after several guests complained of low water pressure in their rooms. He discovered Lam’s naked body at the bottom of one of the property’s four 8-foot tall, 4-foot wide tanks. (And yes, hotel guests had been bathing in, brushing their teeth with, and drinking the water from that tank while Lam’s body was decomposing. Talk about an absolute nightmare! The incident triggered some rather humorous Yelp reviews, though, including the admonition, “Worst. Swimming. Pool. Ever.”) Despite the eerie video and mystery surrounding her disappearance, the coroner’s report ruled Lam’s death an “accidental drowning” and listed her bi-polar disorder as a contributing factor. Um, what now? Detectives were unable to explain how the young woman entered the roof area, which can only be accessed with a key, although they speculated that she climbed there via a fire escape. But did she do so naked? If not, then where are her clothes? And how does one theorize a tiny woman scaling an 8-foot tall water tank, opening the lid, climbing inside, and then shutting the lid back over herself ALL ON HER OWN? Accidental drowning, my foot! While the case is now closed, I have a feeling that the mystery surrounding it will never quiet.

Besides being the site of real life horror, the Cecil hotel is also a filming location. In 1977, the structure was where a taxi cab driver named Lawson (James Sutorius) killed a prostitute (Juno Dawson) in the Season 5 episode of Kojak titled “A Strange Kind of Love.” As you can see below, the exterior of the hotel looked quite a bit different back then.

Although the “Cecil” sidewalk sign (which you can see a photograph of here) still looks the same.

The interior of the property seen in Kojak bears no resemblance whatsoever to the interior of the Cecil hotel today. As you will see in a minute, the new owners did one heck of a remodel!

Fellow stalker Walter also informed me that in 1978 the exterior of the Cecil appeared in the background of the Season 4 episode of The Rockford Files titled “Dwarf in a Helium Hat.” Thanks, Walter!

The property has also been used in no less than three episodes of the television series Castle. It first popped up in 2009 in the Season 2 episode titled “When the Bough Breaks” as the supposed fancy New York building where Dr. Cameron Talbot (Reed Diamond) lived. Only the interior of the lobby area was used in the filming. (Like I said, the renovation was really quite spectacular.)

That same year, a bike messenger was struck by a hit-and-run driver in front of the Cecil in the Season 2 episode of Castle titled “Kill the Messenger.”

In 2011, the site popped up once again in the Season 3 episode of Castle titled “Nikki Heat,” as the supposed New York-area Beaumont Hotel. And while IMDB also states that the property appeared in the Season 1 episode of Baretta titled “The Half-Million Dollar Baby,” I was unable to find a copy of the episode with which to verify that claim.

On a Halloween side-note – this past Saturday I attended the bachelorette party for Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, which took place at Disneyland, my favorite place in the entire world. I just about died upon arriving at the park’s gates and seeing the decorations pictured below. Halloween and Disneyland together was almost more excitement than this stalker could handle!

Check out the autumn leaves used as a bow in Minnie’s hair.

For those who have never been, Disneyland is an absolutely magical place during Halloween. Who am I kidding? Disneyland is an absolutely magical place any time of year, but it is especially so during Halloween.

Um, LOVE IT!

Add to that the fact that a Starbucks FINALLY opened inside the park – right on Main Street – and my head was about to explode! As my mom said, now Disneyland truly IS the Happiest Place on Earth. Winking smile

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 Cecil Hotel is located at 640 South Main Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the property’s official website here.

October 3, 2013September 29, 2017

The Former Menendez Family Home

Just around the corner from Vincente Minnelli’s former abandoned mansion (which I blogged about yesterday) is the palatial Elm Drive residence where on August 20th, 1989, brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez (then 22- and 19-years-old, respectively) shot and killed their parents, entertainment company executive Jose and housewife Mary Louise, aka “Kitty.” (I honestly cannot believe that the murders took place in 1989! I would have guessed them to have occurred far more recently.) The case that followed would become one of the most-famous and most-watched of the century, rivaled only by that of O.J. Simpson – which is ironic, but more on that later. I first became interested in the Elm Drive house earlier this year while reading the book You’ll Never Make Love in This Town Again, one of the chapters of which was written by actress Robin Greer whose husband, businessman Mark Slotkin, custom-built the property.

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The Mediterranean-style home was originally constructed in 1927, but was completely redesigned by Slotkin in 1974 and became his and Robin’s primary residence. Slotkin’s rebuild featured six bedrooms, eight baths, 9,063 square feet of living space, a pool, a tennis court, and a two-story guest house with its own sitting room, full bath, bedroom, and two-car garage. And here’s where the irony comes in. Greer and Slotkin were longtime friends of O.J. Simpson’s, and Robin reportedly hosted Nicole Brown Simpson’s baby shower, when she was pregnant with Sydney, at the Elm Drive manse in 1985. How’s that for eerie? Robin even states in You’ll Never Make Love in This Town Again that Nicole named Sydney after Robin’s character on Ryan’s Hope. In October 1988, after Mark and Robin decided to divorce, the estate was put on the market and sold to the Menendez family. They would live in it for less than a year. (Ironically enough, Robin was also at the center of a very interesting – and heartbreaking – Los Angeles Times story about an autograph collector’s unsuccessful quest that caught my eye this past July.)

On the evening of August 20th, 1989, Erik and Lyle murdered their parents with shotguns while the couple sat on the couch in their den watching The Spy Who Loved Me. Jose was shot five times, Kitty nine. The brothers, feigning grief, claimed that the killings had most likely been conducted by the mob. Their strange behavior was a red flag to investigators, though. Just three days after the murders, Lyle and Erik began blowing through their inheritance, going on extensive shopping sprees and ultimately spending over $1 million in six months time. Their purchases included a $64,000 Porsche, a Rolex watch, $40,000 worth of clothing, and, oddest of all, one of Lyle’s favorite restaurants in Princeton, Chuck’s Spring Street Café. Erik wound up confessing the crime to his therapist, L. Jerome Oziel, quite fittingly on Halloween day 1989. When Lyle found out, he became infuriated and threatened Oziel. The therapist taped some later conversations with the brothers and Oziel’s mistress informed police of the recordings in March 1990. The brothers were arrested that same month and charged with multiple murder for financial gain. The first trial, in 1994, resulted in hung juries, but they were both convicted and given life sentences during their retrial in 1996.

The Elm Drive house has been sold twice since the murders – first in 1993 to mystery television writer William Link and then in 2001 to a telecommunications executive named Sam Delug. Thinking about a normal family living their day-to-day life on the premises, I am reminded of the following quote by crime novelist Denise Hamilton from her article “Bringing Out the Dead” which was printed in the July 2013 issue of Los Angeles magazine: “And I wondered, Do bricks and mortar retain memories of crimes committed in airless rooms? Can violence sear a pattern into walls that no layers of paint can cover? Is this small patch of earth forever cursed?” Thankfully though, it looks like the macabre history of the house has not prevented Mr. Delug from celebrating Halloween, as you can see in this photograph on the Find a Death website.

Some sort of construction took place at the residence in 2002 (as you can also see on Find a Death) and the interior was reportedly gutted, but the exterior still looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did when Jose and Kitty owned it. Oddly enough, though, a gate that used to surround the property was taken down during the remodel. With a dwelling as notorious as this one, you’d think the owners would have wanted to put a fence up, not take one down!

And while there are rumors that Elton John, Michael Jackson, Prince, and members of the band U2 all rented the mansion at different points in time, being that Mark Slotkin sold it directly to Jose and Kitty, I do not see how that could be possible – unless, of course, they were tenants prior to the home’s 1974 rebuild.

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 Menendez Brothers’ former house is located at 722 North Elm 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.

November 2, 2012September 29, 2017

Halloween 2012 at Dick Van Dyke’s House

Christina Aguilera–But I Am a Good Girl Number

As I have mentioned countless times before, this stalker is just a wee bit obsessed with the movie Burlesque. Upon first seeing the flick in 2010, I fell head-over-heels in love with the “But I Am a Good Girl” number (which you can watch by clicking above) and Ali’s (Christina Aguilera’s) feathered costume, and promptly announced to the Grim Cheaper that we would be dressing up as Ali and Jack (Cam Gigandet) the following Halloween. His response, “I am SO NOT wearing eyeliner!” LOL Because we were invited to a prom-themed Halloween party last year, though, we ended up instead dressing up as Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) and Brenda Walsh (my girl Shannen Doherty) from the Beverly Hills, 90210 “Spring Dance” episode (which you can see photographs of here). But believe you me, as soon as November 1st rolled around, I immediately began hunting for the perfect “But I Am a Good Girl” outfit – which was not as easy as I had hoped.

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I thought for sure that I would be able to find something resembling the “But I Am a Good Girl” costume (pictured below) quite easily online, but, unfortunately, that was not the case. While plenty of Burlesque-style outfits seemed to be available, none of them looked a thing like Ali’s. Then, in March, I happened to come across Madame Gigi L’amour’s Esty page which featured a slew of handmade Burlesque ensembles. And while Gigi did not have one that resembled the “But I Am a Good Girl” corset, I wrote to her and asked if she would be able to custom-make one for me. Thankfully, I heard back from her just a few hours later and she said that she would be happy to. She even provided some suggestions to help keep the costs down – i.e. using less Swarovski crystals than were used on the movie costume and swapping out the ostrich feathers for turkey feathers, which are much less expensive. Oh, and she also threw in some nude-colored fishnet stockings. At the time, I was not even aware that Ali had worn nude fishnets in the scene, but as it turns out she had! Thank you, Gigi!

I received the finished product at the end of May and, let me tell you, when I opened the package I just about had a heart attack! I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY as the costume FAR exceeded my expectations. I was devastated that I would have to wait a full five months to wear it! And believe me, if I thought I could have gotten away with walking around Old Town Pasadena in a Burlesque costume during the summer, I so would have! Having that thing in my closet, unworn, for five months was like the Tell-Tale Heart in Edgar Allen Poe’s story of the same name – I could almost hear it calling out to me, “Wear me! Try me! Come on – just put me on!” So when Halloween did finally roll around, I was BEYOND excited to finally don the costume. I was a little nervous, though, being that it looks quite delicate, but I am very happy to report that the outfit was completely wearable and even comfortable!

Thankfully, the GC’s costume was much easier to find. To become Jack, he just wore a derby-style hat (which my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, tracked down for us), a black shirt and black slacks. Oh, and eyeliner, which he finally (and begrudgingly) agreed to wear.

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. Winking smile The “But I Am a Good Girl” outfit turned out to be my favorite Halloween costume of all time! I did NOT want to take it off and am already trying to figure out where I can wear it next. Words cannot express how much fun it was to walk around in that thing!

Halloween day actually turned out to be a completely amazing whirlwind! In the early afternoon, Miss Pinky (who dressed as, what else, Princess Pink) invited me to attend a Mad Hatter Tea Party at Walt Disney Imagineering, where she works. Um, Halloween and Disney mixed together? Count me in!

The party was held outside and, as you can see below, the decorations were absolutely amazeballs. There were tea-themed trinkets as far as the eye could see.

The display below had all sorts of fun surprises, like a tea pot that spit water at passersby, spinning tea cups and a hidden monster who would grab at people’s feet from underneath the tablecloth.

My favorite, though, was the Venus Flytrap that would come to life intermittently. You could feed the plant gummy worms, stick your hand in its mouth or scratch its chin and it would respond accordingly. So incredibly cool!

There was also a professional photo booth set up where guests could pose for pictures with props while pretending to kill a giant octopus. Love it!

And no visit to WDI would be complete without a stop at the onsite Starbucks. Smile

At night, the GC and I headed, once again, to Malibu to visit our friends who live next-door to Dick Van Dyke. As I mentioned in my 2011 Halloween post, DVD puts on a massive annual Halloween extravaganza at his house in the gated Serra Retreat community. Thankfully, our friends were nice enough to invite us over again this year (even though they JUST had a baby) so that we could check out the festivities. And while I didn’t think it would be possible, amazingly enough, this year’s spooktacular was even better than the last! That’s Dick’s front porch pictured below . . .

which he had decked out with a creepy hologram picture of himself;

along with a few mannequins that writhed and shook constantly.

As I said last year, being at Dick Van Dyke’s house on Halloween is like being in the middle of a huge horror movie set. It is simply incredible to witness (especially for this Halloween-obsessed stalker) and there is so much to look at and so much detail put into the whole thing that it is virtually impossible to see it all. In the video below, Dick says, “We’ve got the Haunted House in Disney beat!” and he couldn’t be more right!

As you can imagine, I ate it all up with a spoon – from huge mannequins that moved, talked and jumped out at passerby;

to a witch stirring a bubbling caldron;

to figurines in various states of undead;

to the burn victim below, who looked so real it was almost unbelievable –

check out his shoes, the attention to detail is amazing! –

to a huge graveyard made complete with with cauldrons, crows and random severed heads;

to a second huge fenced-off graveyard with writhing bodies and, like last year, an invisible screen on which was projected a video of skeletons doing the Thriller dance, which I (obviously) LOVED.

The animatronic attack dog from last year was also back.

And the GC somehow convinced me to try to hold its leash, which was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my life! The dog of course attacked just as I got ahold of it and I pretty much jumped right out of my skin. SO MUCH FUN!

There were also random creatures walking around, scaring people and posing for pictures.

At the perimeter of the extravaganza was a GINORMOUS 12-foot statue that I just had to pose in front of.

What I did not realize at the time was that the darn thing would not only come to life, but that a guy also jumped out of it! Thank God that didn’t happen while I was posing for a picture – I probably would have had a heart attack!

The highlight of the night, though, had to be when James Cameron and his wife, Titanic actress Suzy Amis, came to our friends’ house – in costume! – to trick-or-treat with their kids . And while I was too scared to ask them for a photo last year, nothing was stopping me this year! And I am very happy to report that they honestly could NOT have been nicer! They even told me that they had been admiring my costume earlier in the evening! Like seriously???? James Cameron and Suzy Amis liked my costume??? OMG dying! I know I said it last year, but I’m going to say it once again – hands down the Best. Halloween. Ever. Can’t wait for 2013’s!

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Unfortunately, because Dick Van Dyke lives inside of Serra Retreat, a gated community that is not accessible to the public, there is no stalking location for this one. You can check out the Madame Gigi L’amour Etsy page here and her Fackbook fan page here. And my exact costume can be purchased here.

October 31, 2012September 29, 2017

Johnny Weissmuller’s Former Home

I would like to start off today’s post by wishing all of my fellow stalkers a very Happy Halloween! And while I could not be more excited to celebrate the day that I pretty much spend all year waiting for, my heart is broken over the devastation to the East Coast (especially New York, one of my favorite cities in the entire world) caused by Hurricane Sandy. My prayers go out to those affected by the storm. Here’s wishing for a speedy and safe recovery process and that those on the East Coast are still able to somewhat enjoy Halloween. And now, on with the post! Knowing how much I love me some historical properties, fellow stalker E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, recently told me about a massive Bel Air estate that had once belonged to Tarzan-actor/five-time Olympic-gold-medalist Johnny Weissmuller. E.J. thought that I might be interested in stalking the place for my Haunted Hollywood posts being that it has been abandoned for almost two and a half decades now. An abandoned mansion with a Hollywood history? Um, sold! So I immediately added the site to my To-Stalk list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there this past weekend.

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According to Wikipedia, the property, which was named a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument on April 6, 1990, is known as the Nicolosi Estate and it was designed in 1931 by Paul Revere Williams, the legendary architect who also designed Perino’s restaurant (which I blogged about here) and the residence that stood in for Wayne Manor on the Batman television series (which I blogged about here). The mansion was named in honor of one of its lesser-known residents, sculptor Joseph Nicolosi, who lived on the premises beginning in the 1950s until his death in 1961. According to property records, the Mediterranean Revival-style pad still belongs to the Nicolosi family, although it has not been lived in for over 24 years. As you can see below, sadly, not much of the place can currently be seen from the street.

Thankfully though, E.J. was kind enough to share some photographs that he took of the home back in 1988, when the property was much more visible to the public. As you can see, thanks to some fire damage, the place looks like a real life haunted house.

The Nicolosi Estate was commissioned by Johnny Weissmuller, who portrayed the legendary character Tarzan in twelve of the series’ films. The actor was also a lifelong competitive swimmer and the house reflects his passion. While the 8,700-square-foot, 4-bedroom, 5-bath abode looks to have been pretty spectacular during its heyday, it is the GINORMOUS 300-foot-long serpentine swimming pool (which is visible from the road) that circles around the dwelling, complete with rock bridges and grotto-style hot tubs, that had me drooling. What I would not give to have seen that pool in its glory days!

The pool also featured a cascading 150-foot electric waterfall made out of rocks, which you can see a portion of in the photograph below.

There seems to be quite a bit of confusion, as well as a slew of rumors, surrounding the history of the Nicolosi Estate. In fact, some people doubt that the house ever even belonged to Weissmuller. In The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book, author William A. Gordon states, “Weissmuller’s only biographer was unable to substantiate this claim, and Jeff Hyland, a prominent Beverly Hills realtor and author of The Estates of Beverly Hills, told me he believes tour guides concocted the story because ‘it sounded good.’” According to the official Paul Revere Williams website, though, the house was indeed built for the Tarzan actor. And judging by that spectacular pool, I would say that the place definitely had to have been commissioned by a professional swimmer.

The rumors don’t stop there, though. In the book Miss O’Dell: My Hard Days and Long Nights with The Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and the Women They Loved, author/groupie Chris O’Dell says of the house, “The grounds were equally extravagant, with a swimming pool the size of a football field, another pool made to look like a river and big enough for a rowboat, tennis courts, four pink stucco guest houses, and stately old trees with overarching branches and dense foliage. Newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst had bought the house for his mistress, actress Marion Davies; Howard Hughes had been a guest there in the grand old days of Hollywood, and John and Jackie Kennedy had honeymooned there in 1953. At least that’s what I was told, and I believed it.” And while the William Randolph Hearst/Marion Davies story is, most likely, true, I do not believe that JFK and Jackie ever spent any time on the premises.

Not that the place didn’t have its fair share of celebrity inhabitants. In 1972, actress Mackenzie Phillips lived there for a short time with her father, The Mamas & the Papas’ John Phillips, and step-mom, actress Genevieve Waite. In her 2009 book High on Arrival, Mackenzie says, “Dad gave me my own wing of the mansion. It was that kind of place – a pink Italian palace that was designed by Paul Williams for Johnny Weissmuller, the Olympic swimmer and on-screen Tarzan. We also heard it had been rented or owned by William Randolph Hearst for his long-term paramour, Marion Davis. Whatever the case, the house was clearly built as a place for rich people to play. First Mick and Bianca Jagger had rented it at my dad’s recommendation, and when they left, Dad and Genevieve moved in from the Chateau Marmont. Dad liked to live large, to show everyone what a big star he was. The ceilings were twenty feet tall. The moldings had hand-painted fleur-de-lis. There was a mirrored hall and countless antiques. The vast ballroom was surrounded by Moroccan murals of guys on horses and temples with pointed tops. There was a stage, mirrors, a ballet bar, and a supply of wax to restore the floor to an optimal surface for dancing.”

Of the pool, Mackenzie states, “Outside, there was a swimming pool that Johnny Weissmuller must have had built so he could do his laps. To say the pool was long is an understatement. It was 301 feet long, but skinny, and winding like a snake through exotic landscaping and funhouse weirdness. An arched bridge crossed over the pool and led to a stone tunnel with Gothic windows. Near the tunnel was a wall of hand-painted stucco cabanas. All the structures, including the bottom of the bridge over the pool (the part you saw when you swam under it) were decorated with hand-painted murals. It looked like the hybrid child of an Italian church and a Hawaiian lagoon. At the end of the pool closest to the road was a massive waterfall. What made the enormous, serpentine swimming pool most extraordinary was that it was kept empty. Who could maintain a pool that size? Dry and collecting dead leaves, it wound a deep, smooth path through the gardens with the mysterious aura of ancient ruins – the indestructible relic of other people’s lives. It may have been empty and eerie, but we put the pool to good use. It would have made an excellent skateboard park, but we didn’t have skateboards, so we rode Big Wheels down the length of it at four in the morning, racing back and forth in the deep darkness of the long, sunken pit.” So incredibly odd!

The Phillips family was evicted from the Nicolosi Estate after only a few short months due to non-payment of rent. Apparently, when Mackenzie was on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2009, a video clip of the house was shown, but I, unfortunately, could not find a copy of the episode anywhere with which to make screen captures for this post.

Sadly, the massive abode was completely gutted by a fire sometime in the late ‘80s and, for whatever reason, has been left to rot, abandoned, ever since. You can see some of the fire damage in E.J.’s photographs below. According to Yahoo Answers poster Cortney K., another rumor about the house states that the then owner of the property set fire to it, while his family was inside, one Christmas Eve night before fleeing the scene. Who knows if that story is true or not, but Cortney said she did once spot old Christmas lights and bows on the premises. Oh, if only those walls could talk! Whatever the truth behind the mystery of the abode may be, there is no discounting the fact that it is a fabulous place to stalk and I was absolutely in awe while there.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, for telling me about this location and for providing the fabulous pictures for this post!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Johnny Weissmuller’s former house is located at 414 St. Pierre Road in Bel Air. Alfred Hitchcock’s first Los Angeles home (which I blogged about here) is located just around the corner at 609 St. Cloud Road.