Heather Graham – IAMNOTASTALKER

April 13, 2020April 11, 2020

Tilly’s House from “Flaked”

I never thought I’d say I’m in love with a gate, but here we are. Back in March 2016, my Los Angeles magazine editor assigned me a piece chronicling the locations from the then-new Netflix series Flaked. I got to work researching right away and one spot immediately stood out among the rest – the manse belonging to Chip’s (Will Arnett) estranged wife, Tilly (Heather Graham). Or I should say the gate of the manse belonging to Chip’s estranged wife, Tilly. The shiny blue wall of glass was impressive, to say the least, and I promptly labeled it a must-see. I finally made it out there last September and, though I briefly featured the pad in my L.A. mag article, figured it was worthy of a post all its own.

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In person, Tilly’s gate did not disappoint!

Sleek, polished and striking, the reflective blue wall pretty much commands the street.

Spanning twelve feet, the enclosure is made up of Cobalt blue glass.

The rich coloring and sheer size of it make for some pretty arresting onscreen imagery.

While not visible from the street, the house that sits behind the gate is pretty darn impressive, as well. Designed by architect Paul McClean in 2014, the massive estate boasts 6 bedrooms, 8 baths 9,393 square feet of living space, white slab marble flooring, walls of glass, a chef’s kitchen with 2 islands, a built-in wine station and a coffee bar, a movie theatre, an atrium, a game room, a bar, a massive glass wine room, a cigar lounge, a gym with a steam room, a 0.56-acre lot, a courtyard, a 2-story fountain, outdoor living spaces, an outdoor kitchen, a negative-edge infinity pool, a spa, a BBQ, and panoramic views of Los Angeles, the Pacific Ocean, and Catalina. The ultra-modern estate is currently on the market for a cool $19,995,000. You can check out some interior photographs of it here.

A very traditional looking pad sat on the lot before McClean got his hands on it, as you can see in the Google Street View imagery from 2011 below.

While I much prefer the new house, the geometrically-paneled window that formerly overlooked the street is pretty darn spectacular.

The property pops up twice on Flaked – first in Season 1’s “Rose,” in the scene in which Chip visits Tilly, a massive television star, in the hopes that she can help him save his business.

Along with the gate, the home’s actual interior also appears in the scene.

Chip later returns to the pad in the episode titled “7th,” though Tilly refuses to let him in.

While Tilly makes an appearance in Flaked’s second season, sadly her fabulous residence does not.

The home’s real estate listing states, “Proven filming history provides substantial income for investors,” but, unfortunately, there is no specific mention of what productions have shot on the premises, so I am unsure if the place has any additional cameos on its resume.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Tilly’s house from Flaked is located at 1620 Carla Ridge in Beverly Hills’ Trousdale Estates neighborhood.

October 17, 2016September 29, 2017

Casey’s House from “Scream 2”

“What’s your favorite scary movie?” So asks Ghostface of Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) at the beginning of Scream. Well, if Ghostface asked me that question, my answer would be Scream everyday of the week and twice on Sunday. I love, love, love that movie! Though I was not as big a fan of the film’s three sequels, I got on a kick recently of tracking down some of their unknown locales. The spot I most wanted to find was the gorgeous peaked-roof house where Casey (Heather Graham) lived in Stab, Scream 2’s movie-within-a-movie. Thanks to a lot of help from my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, I was finally able to locate it!

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I knew from the Scream 2 production notes as well as the movie’s DVD commentary that the opening Stab sequence was shot in Malibu. Though the front exterior of Casey’s residence was never shown in the scene, enough of the backyard and pool area was that I figured tracking the place down via aerial views would be a snap. I was wrong. I cannot tell you the countless hours I spent searching for the pad to no avail.

Enter Owen. On the verge of giving up, I emailed him to ask if he might be willing to help with the hunt and provided him with all of the necessary information. It was not long (minutes, really!) before I received an email back with an address. As Owen discovered, Casey’s house from Scream 2 is located at 5730 Busch Drive in Malibu.

While searching for the home, Owen had come across a mention that during the filming of the Stab scene, neighbors heard Heather Graham’s screams and, not realizing that a film shoot was taking place, called the police. Armed with that information, Owen began looking for more neighborhood-y areas of Malibu via aerial views and fairly quickly spotted the house in Malibu Park. (I should mention here that I had also seen the anecdote about neighbors calling the police during my search for the residence, but I did not think it was pertinent. Malibu is canyon-y and rather silent at night and I figured that the scene could have been shot at a remote property with Heather’s screams still easily heard by people in homes nearby. That was a major fail on my part. D’oh!)

According to a cached Zillow page, Casey’s Stab pad was originally built by architect Doug Rucker in 1961. Rucker also later updated the property in 1989. The contemporary dwelling boasts 10 rooms, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 4,148 square feet of living space, a driveway with parking for 8 cars, a swimming pool and spa, a putting green, a 1.01-acre plot of land, a garden, a 400-square-foot garage, vaulted ceilings, and skylights.

Quite a bit of the home was featured in Scream 2. The property’s sprawling backyard is where poor Casey met her grizzly demise in a scene that emulated Drew Barrymore’s death from the original movie.

As you can see in the aerial view below, the backyard still looks much the same today as it did when the flick was filmed in 1997.

Portions of the residence’s interior also appeared onscreen, including a bathroom . . .

. . . and the living room.

It is while standing in the house that Casey utters one of the franchise’s most well-known lines – “You know, I don’t even know you and I dislike you already.”

Thanks to the residence’s wide expanse of sleek glass walls, much of the interior can be spotted in the backyard scenes, as well.

Though not much of the dwelling is visible from the street, especially not the areas used in Scream 2, I was absolutely floored to catch a glimpse from the road of the rear side of the fireplace that Casey walked by in the movie.

The house also made a brief appearance in Scream 4, during the Stab-a-Thon segment in which the opening scene from Stab was shown.

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

Big THANK YOU to my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Casey’s house from Scream 2 is located at 5730 Busch Drive in Malibu.

March 27, 2015March 26, 2015

“The Hangover” Wedding Chapel

It is no secret that erroneous (and/or imprecise) filming location information published online and in books is one of my biggest pet peeves – especially when it leads to me stalking an incorrect place, which is exactly what happened while I was in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. (Why there is some sort of halo on my shirt in the above pic is beyond me.)

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Several websites state that The Best Little Chapel from The Hangover was a fake set piece that was constructed for the shoot in a vacant parking lot near 1236 Las Vegas Boulevard South. The building at that address currently houses a youth hostel named Hostel Cat. When the Grim Cheaper and I arrived there, though, I found that there were two parking lots that fit that description – one to the north of Hostel Cat and one to the south – and only one of them was large enough to accommodate the construction of any sort of structure, not to mention the car accident scene that took place on the premises. I snapped some photos of the large lot and was shocked when I compared my pictures to images from the movie later that night in our hotel room. As it turns out, The Best Little Chapel set piece had not been constructed in the large parking lot.

The Best Little Chapel was actually not a set piece constructed in a vacant parking lot at all, but a fake front attached to the northern side of the Hostel Cat building.

As you can see below, the western portion of the hostel’s main building was even incorporated into the design of the chapel.

A white picket fence as well as quite a bit of foliage were added to the western portion of Hostel Cat during the shoot to make the place look less hotel-ish.

A fake bus stop – which was later destroyed – was also brought in for the filming. And Hostel Cat’s real life sign was covered over with signage reading “The Best Little Chapel” for the scene, as well.

Hostel Cat is actually made up of one main building and nine free-standing bungalows.

The back of one of the bungalows was painted over for the shoot. You can check out a great image of Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis sitting in front of that structure here.

The interior of The Best Little Chapel was a set built on a soundstage and not the actual interior of Hostel Cat.

I was thrilled to see that Hostel Cat embraces its filming history. Not only does the lodging make mention of its Hangover appearance on the homepage of its official website, but an image of Galifianakis as “Alan” is also painted on the wall of the main building.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Best Little Chapel from The Hangover is located “at the corner of get a map and f*ck off.” Just kidding. Winking smile The chapel was a fake façade that was built around the north side of Hostel Cat, which is located at 1236 Las Vegas Boulevard South in Las Vegas. The areas that appeared in the scene are denoted in the aerial view below.

July 28, 2014July 25, 2014

Bowfinger International Pictures from “Bowfinger”

I am a sucker for any movie about Los Angeles. Coincidentally (or perhaps no so coincidentally), Steve Martin has written and starred in two of my favorites – L.A. Story and Bowfinger. Two completely different takes on life in LaLaLand, but both equally valid and poignant. Because I originally moved to Southern California to pursue an acting career, Bowfinger really hit home for me. Especially the scene in which wannabe actress Daisy (Heather Graham) jumped off the bus that transported her from Ohio to Hollywood, suitcase in hand, and asked of random passersby, “Where do I go to be an actress?” That was so me when I moved to SoCal – bright-eyed, full of dreams and so, so naïve. Who am I kidding, that is still so me – the dreams have just shifted a bit. So when Mike, from MovieShotsLA, told me years back that he had tracked down the bungalow that served as both the residence of Robert K. Bowfinger (Martin) and the headquarters of Bowfinger International Pictures in the flick, I immediately added it to my To-Stalk list. Somehow, though, I did not make it over there until a couple of weeks ago.

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Sadly, the house has changed considerably since filming took place. While the columned portico stationed around the front door was a set piece added for the filming and never an actual fixture of the property, the front door itself used to be in the same spot it was shown to be in Bowfinger, but has since been moved.

Mike took some photographs of the residence a couple of years ago and, as you can see, the location of the front door at that time matched what appeared onscreen. You can check out some other pictures of what the front door originally looked like here and here.

The door has since been covered over and moved to the side of the dwelling, as you can see in the image below (which I got off of the Yelp page for the FunHouse 420 Café and Lounge which was formerly housed in the bungalow).

Oddly enough, though, while taking a closer look at Bowfinger I noticed that an opening in that area was visible, so it seems that the home used to have two front doors.

Despite the front door alteration, the dwelling is still recognizable from the movie.

The area surrounding it is not, though. While the neighborhood used to be chock full of bungalows and apartment buildings, it now consists mainly of parking lots. The Bowfinger house is pretty much the only home in the vicinity still standing. And, sadly, it does not look like it will remain so for long. The land the residence is located on is currently being offered for sale (for $5million!) for the purpose of building a high-tech storage facility.

I am fairly certain that the interior of Bowfinger International Pictures was a set and not the bungalow’s actual interior, which you can see some photographs of here.

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.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and for loaning me the picture that appears in this post! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Bowfinger International Pictures from Bowfinger is located at 1621 Vista Del Mar Avenue in Hollywood.

May 13, 2014May 29, 2019

The Warehouse Restaurant from “Anger Management”

While visiting L.A. last week, the Grim Cheaper and I stayed in Marina del Rey. One late afternoon, during a waterfront stroll, we found ourselves passing by a unique eatery that had long been on my To-Stalk List. Situated on the bustling Admiralty Way amongst upscale hotels and high-rise apartment buildings, the nautical-themed The Warehouse Restaurant is almost hidden from view. I first spotted the place years ago on another oceanside walk with the GC and was instantly intrigued as I had never before seen anything like it! The structure looks like a ramshackle beach hut, complete with a large man-made lagoon out front. My first thought was ‘This place has to have been in movies!’ During that particular visit, The Warehouse was, sadly, closed so I was not able to venture inside to inquire further. This time, though, we passed by just as the clock was reaching cocktail hour and I convinced the GC to pop in for some drinks.

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The Warehouse Restaurant was originally founded way back in 1969 by award-winning cameraman Burt Hixson. To decorate his eatery, Burt salvaged authentic nautical equipment from old San Pedro shipyards. The result is quite spectacular and utterly one-of-a-kind.

Actual wharf posts, boats, fishing nets and buoys flank the exterior.

The lagoon even boasts a large pier jutting out into its middle.

The interior is comprised of whiskey barrels, crates suspended from the ceiling, wooden oars and hanging lanterns.

The place feels like Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride come to life.

The establishment also boasts some pretty fantastic waterfront views.

The GC and I ate in the bar, which just so happens to be the area of the restaurant most often utilized in filming. But more on that later.

Thanks to its fabulous fare and kitschy aesthetic, The Warehouse Restaurant was a hit from the get-go. According to a Beaver County Times article, in 1973 it was the nation’s most successful restaurant. The eatery has also, of course, attracted its fair share of celebrities and has walls upon walls of photos of stars posing with Warehouse menus to prove it.

Just a few of the celebs pictured include Kirk Cameron;

a very young Michael Douglas;

‘N Sync boy-banders Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass, JC Chasez and Chris Kirkpatrick;

and Cary Grant (at least I’m pretty sure that’s Cary Grant).

We even spotted a celebrity during our visit there – Two Broke Girls’ Garrett Morris, who was nice enough to pose for a picture with me. (Too bad it turned out a bit blurry.)

In the mid-80s, after opening several successful sister restaurants, Burt decided to establish a boutique hotel in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and sold off his popular eateries. Today, The Warehouse Restaurant is owned by Lee and Martha Spencer, who also own another of my favorite Los Angeles hot spots – the Smoke House in Burbank, which I blogged about here.

Thanks to its unique tropical look, The Warehouse Restaurant has been immortalized onscreen several times over the years. In the 2003 comedy Anger Management, the site masqueraded as the Boston eatery where Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson) forced Dave Buznik (Adam Sandler) to hit on a random girl named Kendra (Heather Graham).

The following year, the eatery popped up in Meet the Fockers as the Miami, Florida restaurant where Bernie and Rozalin Focker (Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand, respectively) hosted an engagement party for their son, Greg Focker (Ben Stiller), and his fiancé, Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo).

The exterior of The Warehouse Restaurant was also shown briefly in the film.

In 2013, The Warehouse cameoed as the crab shack where the maritime law trial of Lucille Bluth (Jessica Walter) took place on Season 4 of Arrested Development.

The restaurant’s entrance was shown during the trial, as well.

The Warehouse also served as Bliss Point, the supposed Dana Point eatery where Jen Harding (Christina Applegate) and Judy Hale (Linda Cardellini) confront Jen’s dead husband’s mistress, Bambi (Olivia Macklin), in the Season 1 episode of Dead to Me titled “I Can’t Go Back.”

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Warehouse Restaurant, from Anger Management, is located at 4499 Admiralty Way in Marina del Rey. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

February 4, 2014February 3, 2014

Shakey’s Pizza Parlor from “License to Drive”

After reading my January 13th post about Mercedes’ friend’s house from fave movie License to Drive, fellow stalker Chas, of the It’s Filmed There blog, texted to let me know that he had managed to track down the Shakey’s Pizza Parlor from the 1988 flick. As fate would have it, the storefront next door to Shakey’s had appeared in 1976’s The Bad News Bears, a movie Chas had covered on his site. The bad news (pun intended) was that the shopping center where it was once located is no longer standing. The structure was torn down sometime in the ‘90s and a new center subsequently built in its place. Because I had been itching to find it for so long, though, I figured it was still blog-worthy.

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The location pops up once in License to Drive, in the scene in which Les Anderson (Corey Haim) accidentally drives off of an embankment before crash-landing in front of a random Shakey’s Pizza Parlor.

A sporting goods store was visible in the background of the scene and it was that shop that Chas recognized from The Bad News Bears. As you can see below, the sign, logo and roofline of the store from The Bad News Bears (second screen capture below) are an exact match to those of the storefront that appeared next door to Shakey’s in License to Drive (first screen capture below).

You can even make out the word “parlor” on the building next door to the sporting goods shop in The Bad News Bears scene.

While watching The Bad News Bears, Chas had spotted an address number of “19321” on the space next door to the sporting goods store. A quick Google search showed him that there was only shopping plaza in Los Angeles with shops boasting address numbers in 19300 range – The Village in Reseda. When he looked at aerial images of The Village, though, he realized that it was most-definitely not the same spot that had been featured in The Bad News Bears.

Enter the Historic Aerials website, from which we learned that there was once a different shopping center located on the property, one which had been demolished and rebuilt sometime prior to 2003. In the 1980 aerial view pictured below, Shakey’s former location is denoted with a pink arrow. Today, that area is partially comprised of a Chase bank and The Village’s parking lot

A current aerial view of The Village is pictured below with the former Shakey’s location denoted with a pink “X.”

According to this Valley News article, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Reseda Shakey’s took place in December 1964. Because the shopping center where it formerly stood was torn down sometime between 1988 and 2003, I am guessing that the demolition occurred due to damage resulting from the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. That is just a guess, though.

Sick Sam’s Rent-a-Car, which played a role in the movie’s original ending, but is only visible briefly in the background of the final cut, has also since been torn down.

Its former location is denoted with a pink circle below.

Today, a large apartment building stands in that spot.

On a License to Drive side-note – I’ve been searching for photographs of the Cabriolet I drove as a teenager ever since I wrote my post about the License to Drive hospital. As I mentioned in the post, even though I was a mere 11 years old at the time, as soon as I first laid eyes on the white VW convertible Mercedes Lane (Heather Graham) drove at the end of the movie, I became completely obsessed with it. I made it known that it was the only car I wanted to drive upon turning 16 and my amazing parents gifted me one on my 16th birthday! I finally found photographs of it yesterday. That’s me (big hair, don’t care!) with one of my best friends Natalie just a few days after I received it. Seriously, Best. Car. Ever.

It should come as no surprise that my fellow celeb-obsessed friend Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, also drove a white VW Cabriolet in her teens, for the very same reason I did. I couldn’t believe it when I found out! We are so kindred spirits!

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’s Filmed There, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Shakey’s Pizza Parlor from License to Drive was formerly located at 19341 Saticoy Street in Reseda. It was torn down and no part of the structure currently remains.

January 13, 2014January 11, 2014

Mercedes’ Friend’s House from “License to Drive”

The third – and last – License to Drive locale that I stalked while visiting L.A. a couple of weeks ago was the Colonial-style residence where Les Anderson (Corey Haim) dropped off his dream girl, Mercedes Lane (Heather Graham), in the 1988 classic. I found the abode thanks to Geoff, from 90210Locations, who, as I mentioned in last Thursday’s post about the License to Drive hospital, has an entire page dedicated to locales from the movie on his website.

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The residence was only used briefly in the flick, in the scene in which Les’ dad, Mr. Anderson (Richard Masur) – aka “Poppa” – picked Les up from school to take him for some driving practice. While they are out and about, Les spots Mercedes and begs his dad to let him “go up to her, circle around, maybe at the least say hello to her, and come right back to you.” After a bit of debate, Mr. Anderson agrees – despite the fact that Les does not, in fact, have a license – and gets out of the car, taking with him the three huge grocery bags full of Pampers diapers that he has just picked up from the store. Things do not go according to plan, though (natch), and Les ends up driving Mercedes to a friend’s house in a different city . . .

. . .leaving his father to walk home – carrying the three large bags of diapers.

It is amazing to me that Mercedes’ friend’s house still looks EXACTLY the same today as it did when License to Drive was filmed 26 years ago.

In real life, the stately home, which was originally built in 1941, boasts four bedrooms, five baths, 4,258 square feet of living space, and a 0.41-acre plot of land. According to my buddy E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, at different points in time over the years the dwelling was lived in by screenwriter Norman Panama and actor Ben Gazzara and his wife, actress Janice Rule. The property last sold in October 1993 for $1,045,000.

I am absolutely in love with the sideways-growing tree pictured in the images below.

On a License to Drive side-note – I would LOVE to track down the Shakey’s Pizza that was featured in the movie – so much so that I acquired a list of every Southern California Shakey’s still in business and viewed them all via Google Maps to compare them to screen captures from the flick. Unfortunately, none matched up. Does anyone happen to recognize the place?

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Mercedes’ friend’s house from License to Drive is located at 661 Woodruff Avenue in Westwood.

January 10, 2014January 9, 2014

The “License to Drive” Party House

Another License to Drive location that I was finally able to cross off my To-Stalk list while visiting L.A. a couple of weeks ago was the house where Les Anderson (Corey Haim), Dean (Corey Feldman) and Charles (Michael Manasseri) attended a birthday party in the 1988 flick, which was one of my all-time favorites. Mike, from MovieShotsLA, actually tracked this spot down ages ago (way back in 2008, shortly after finding Les’ house from the movie, which I blogged about here), but, for whatever reason, it took me over four years to make it out there. Better late than never, though, right?

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Mike found the residence thanks to both an address number of “340” . . .

. . . and a blurry sign from a neighboring street reading “Delfern Drive” that were visible in the background of the party scene.

The residence was only featured once, towards the beginning of License to Drive, in the scene in which Mercedes Lane (Heather Graham) talks to Les for the first time and winds up (sort of) asking him out on a date. In the movie’s DVD commentary, writer Neil Tolkin states that he often drives his kids by the house “to tell them how great things were at one point.” I am unsure of what he means by that exactly, but I absolutely love that he takes his children to stalk the place on a regular basis.

Sadly, the dwelling is a lot less visible from the road now than it was when the movie was filmed. As you can see below, while a tall wall currently surrounds the property, at the time that License to Drive was shot, there was only a small hedge lining the perimeter. Boo!

And while the circular driveway used to be open to the street, it is now secured by a gate at both ends. Again, boo!

You can still catch a small glimpse of the roofline, though, so at least there’s that.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the house was also used in the production. According to the DVD commentary, the party scene actually had to be re-shot at one point because Fox executives thought the extras used in the initial filming looked too old to be high school students.

In real life, the residence, which was built in 1937, boasts seven bedrooms, ten baths, 8,532 square feet of living space, and a 0.95-acre corner plot of land. It last sold in June 1994 for $2,750,000 and, according to the BlockShopper website, once belonged to prolific film and television producer David L. Wolper.

As you can see in the below aerial views, the place is absolutely massive!

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The License to Drive party house is located at 340 North Faring Road in Bel-Air.

September 14, 2010September 14, 2010

Griffith Observatory

A couple of months ago I dragged my parents and my then-fiancé/now husband out to Los Feliz to do some stalking of the Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park – a place which I had never before visited despite having lived in Los Angeles for over a decade. I had actually wanted to stalk the Observatory for close to 18 years – ever since November of 1992, to be exact – thanks to the fact that it was featured in a Season 3 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210. But more on that later.

The land that now encompasses Griffith Park was donated to the City of Los Angeles by Welsh industrialist Colonel Griffith J. Griffith (and no, that was not a typo – the guy’s first name was actually the same as his last!) on December 16, 1896. Griffith stipulated that the donated parcel of land, which measured 3,015 acres, was to be used as a public park. He said, “It must be made a place of rest and relaxation for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people. I consider it my obligation to make Los Angeles a happy, cleaner, and finer city. I wish to pay my debt of duty in this way to the community in which I have prospered.” When Griffith passed away 26 years later, in 1919, he bequeathed the majority of his $1.5 million estate to the city for the purposes of building a theatre and an observatory inside of the park. Construction on the observatory, which was designed by architect John C. Austin and engineer Russell W. Porter, began on June 20th, 1933 and the building opened to the public just under two years later, on May 14, 1935.

The Griffith Observatory, which sits high atop Mount Hollywood, features a 300-seat state-of-the-art planetarium, a 2,700-square foot multimedia theatre, a Zeiss refracting telescope, an exhibit hall, and, as you can see above, views which are nothing short of incredible.

Hollywood location scouts took notice of the property right from the very beginning when it was chosen to appear in the 1935 movie The Phantom Empire shortly after its opening. Since that time, the Observatory has been featured in hundreds upon hundreds of productions – far too many for me to be able to properly catalog here, but I’ll do my best to give my fellow stalkers a broad overview.

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As I mentioned above, the Observatory was featured in a Season 3 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. That episode was titled “Rebel With A Cause” and it was, ironically enough, one of my least favorite episodes in the entire history of the series. The episode centers around the break-up of longtime couple Dylan McKay (aka Luke Perry) and Brenda Walsh (aka my girl Shannen Doherty), immediately after which Dylan puts the moves on Brenda’s best friend Kelly Taylor (aka Jennie Garth). Mind you, Dylan and Kelly had also been seeing each other behind Brenda’s back for an entire summer at that point in the series. Dylan then decides to take Kelly out on a date – just two nights after his break-up with Brenda! – and when Brenda randomly catches the two of them together in a restaurant, she calls Kelly a “bimbo” and Kelly actually has the nerve to be mad at Brenda. I mean, HELLO, Kelly! Not only did you spend an entire summer making out with your BEST FRIEND’S boyfriend, but when said best friend and said boyfriend break-up, it’s not 48 hours later that you are out on a date with him. With friends like that, who needs enemies?? Let me tell you, had that happened to me, I would have been calling Kelly a whole lot worse things than “bimbo”. And yes, I realize Beverly Hills, 90210 is just a television show and that the “Rebel With A Cause” episode aired almost two decades ago, but the whole thing still seriously upsets me! But I digress. Anyway, in the episode, before taking her out to dinner, Dylan brings Kelly to the Griffith Observatory, where they watch a show in the planetarium.

After the show, the two little home-wreckers head outside for a heart-to-heart chat and, even though I was strongly opposed to the whole Kelly/Dylan romance, for whatever reason, it was the location of that chat that I was most interested in stalking.

I had a very difficult time locating the wall where Dylan and Kelly sat, though, as it is not in an easily-visible part of the building. It actually wasn’t until we were heading back to our car that I finally spotted the right place.

As it turns out, Kelly and Dylan’s wall is located in the eastern-most section of the Observatory. It is actually the wall to a ramp which leads to the back of the building and is located on the left-hand side of the Observatory (as you are facing it) and is denoted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view.

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The Observatory’s most famous onscreen appearance was, of course, in the 1955 James Dean classic Rebel Without a Cause, which, amazingly enough, I have never actually seen! In the beginning of the flick, Jim (aka James Dean) and Judy (aka Natalie Wood), along with the rest of their high school class, go on a field trip to the Observatory where they watch a show in the planetarium.

And the very same wall from 90210 also appears in that scene.

Rebel’s final scene also takes place at the Observatory, but I do not want to post any screen caps of that scene as they would spoil the ending.

There is a statue of James Dean on display on the Observatory’s front lawn which commemorates the historic filming that took place there in 1955. So darn cool!

Griffith Observatory was also the site of the climatic scene in 1999’s hilarious comedy Bowfinger, in which renegade, wanna-be movie director Bowfinger (aka Steve Martin) and his ragamuffin film crew secretly tape Daisy (aka Heather Graham) and Kit Ramsey (aka Eddie Murphy) fighting off a fictitious band of aliens.

In the first Transformers movie, Mikaela Banes (aka Megan Fox) and Sam Witwicky (aka Shia LaBeouf) are at the Observatory when they witness a group of Transformers crash landing on earth in the form of meteorites.

In The Terminator, the Observatory is the spot where the Terminator (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger) first emerges from a time warp and begins his mission to kill Sarah Conner (aka Linda Hamilton).

In 2008’s Yes Man, the Observatory is the location of Allison’s (aka Zooey Deschanel’s) weekly jogging/photo class, during which Carl (aka Jim Carrey) crashes after drinking waaaaaaay too many Red Bull energy drinks.

It is also where Carl professes his love to Allison at the very end of the movie.

And it is during that ending scene that Carl and Allison run right by the exact spot where Beverly Hills, 90210 was filmed 16 years beforehand. 🙂

The scene in which Natalie Cook (aka Cameron Diaz), Dylan Sanders (aka Drew Barrymore) and Alex Munday (aka Lucy Liu) discover that Madison Lee (aka Demi Moore) is actually a fallen angel in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle takes place at the Observatory.

The observatory was also featured in the music video for Paula Abdul’s hit single “Rush Rush”, which was an homage to the movie Rebel Without a Cause.

You can watch the full video, which starred Keanu Reeves, by clicking above.

Griffith Observatory has also appeared in the movies Dragnet, Devil in a Blue Dress, The Rocketeer, House on Haunted Hill, Nancy Drew, and Earth Girls are Easy, and in episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles, 24, Star Trek Voyager, Alias, MacGyver, Melrose Place, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Colbys.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Griffith Observatory is located at 2800 East Observatory Road, inside of Griffith Park, in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. You can visit the observatory’s official website here. Admission is free. The observatory is closed to the public on Mondays and Tuesdays.

February 9, 2010February 9, 2010

The “Hangover” House

A few weeks ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, called me up to let me know that he was on the hunt for the main house used in fave movie The Hangover. The two of us both had a pretty good inkling that the residence was located somewhere in the Pasadena area, we just weren’t sure exactly where. Randomly enough during that same conversation, I happened to mention that I had just read on OnLocationVacations – my go-to-stalking guide 🙂 – that 90210 had been filming all week at a large gated home located at 465 South Grand Avenue in Pasadena. Well, it wasn’t five minutes after we ended our call that Mike phoned me up a second time, extremely excited, and said “I found The Hangover house and you’ll NEVER guess where it is!” As it turns out, the house was located just two doors down from the residence where 90210 had been filming! Apparently, while looking at aerial images of the 90210 location, Mike noticed a neighboring property that bore a striking resemblance to the Hangover house. Turns out, it was the Hangover house! 🙂 So, I guess it’s true what Walt Disney once said . . . It really is a small world, after all! Well, when it comes to filming locations, at least. 🙂 So, that same weekend, Mike drove out to meet me in Pasadena so the two of us could do a little Hangover stalking.

In The Hangover, the house pictured above belongs to the parents of Doug’s (aka Justin Bartha’s) fiancé, Tracy (aka Sasha Barrese). The residence is featured several times throughout the film. It first shows up at the very beginning of the movie as the spot from which Doug and his soon to be brother-in-law Alan (aka Zach Galifianakis) leave for the infamous Vegas bachelor party.

And, as you can see in the above screen capture and aerial image, the real life backyard, which is absolutely HUGE, was used in several scenes as well, including the scene in which Phil (aka Bradley Cooper) calls Tracy, while she is sunning herself by the pool, to let her know that the guys have been unavoidably detained in Vegas an extra day.

The movie’s final wedding scene also took place in the home’s real life backyard.

As you can see in the above aerial image, the house has a fairly large covered back porch area. That porch is where Stu (aka Ed Helms) finally breaks up with his belligerent girlfriend Melissa (aka Rachel Harris) while Alan and the rest of the wedding party look on. I am also fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was used in the filming of several scenes, as well.

The Hangover house is absolutely beautiful in person. Although, thanks to its size, calling it a “house” is actually a bit of a misnomer. The place is really more of a mansion. It is absolutely HUGE in person, much bigger than I expected it to be. Even though it did appear quite large in The Hangover, trust me when I say that in real life it is far, far larger – gargantuan actually! I can’t even imagine living there. The 7 bedroom, 7 bathroom house, which was built in 1930, measures a whopping 7,892 square feet. And while the property is gated, I am happy to report that quite a bit of it can be seen from the street. 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location!

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The house from The Hangover is located at 415 South Grand Avenue in Pasadena.