Helen Hunt – IAMNOTASTALKER

February 22, 2016February 22, 2016

Beeman Park from “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”

I often get asked if I think that someday down the road I might run out of places that I am passionate about stalking. That is like asking if I will ever tire of shopping! The answer is a definitive no! As long as movies and TV shows continue to be made, this girl will continue a’stalking, passionately so! Heck, even if Hollywood did cease churning out new films and television series, my To-Stalk List would remain full. I am constantly discovering new-to-me productions that warrant stalking, not to mention the fact that there are countless locations from films and shows I have long been a fan of that I have yet to visit. Case in point – Studio City’s Beeman Park which was featured in the 1985 romcom Girls Just Want to Have Fun, one of my all-time favorite flicks. Fellow stalker Chas, of the It’s Filmed There site, tracked down the locale a few years back, but, for whatever reason, I failed to stalk it until recently. When I finally did make it out there, though, I could not have been more thrilled and was immediately brought right back to the first time I watched the movie over 30 years ago!

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Beeman Park, which is also known as Studio City Recreation Center, is a very cute little spot that I had never heard of until Chas discovered it, which is actually quite surprising being that it has appeared onscreen numerous times.

The 4.5-acre park features four baseball diamonds, a jogging path with fitness stations, two basketball courts, a picnic area, a playground, four tennis courts, barbeque pits, and an auditorium.

Studio City Recreation Center is a very peaceful space. While we were walking around, we saw couples jogging, adults reading, kids engaging in pick-up basketball games, and fathers and sons playing catch on the various baseball diamonds. Though there were plenty of people on the premises, it was still quite quiet and tranquil – the perfect spot to spend a shady afternoon.

Beeman Park is also quaintly picturesque and it is not hard to see how it has wound up onscreen so many times over the years.

In Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Studio City Recreation Center masks as the unnamed downtown Chicago park where the Dance TV auditions are held. Though it is only featured in one scene, it is a rather prominent scene and several areas of the park are shown.

Those areas are denoted in the aerial view below.

In the beginning of the scene, Jeff Malene (Lee Montgomery) and Drew Boreman (Jonathan Silverman) drive onto the property via an access way on the park’s eastern side located at approximately 4457 Beeman Avenue. The house visible in the background of the segment is located at 4456 Beeman. The residence’s exterior has been altered in recent years, but you can see what it looked like previously via the Google Street View image pictured below, which was taken in July 2007.

A current photograph of the house is pictured below.

Though the access way that Drew and Jeff drove through is still intact, it is no longer accessible to cars.

After entering the property, Drew and Jeff park on a patch of grass located in the southern portion of Studio City Recreation Center, just south of the baseball diamonds. The same area is pictured in the photograph below, albeit from a different angle. It is there that Drew accidentally hits on a young Maggie Malene (Shannen Doherty) and calls her a punk, which, FYI, is not as cool new wave, but is a lot better than preteen!

The building that was visible behind Drew and Jeff in the scene is still there today, although it currently looks a bit different than it did when Girls Just Want to Have Fun was shot.

The colorful (and definitely ‘80s-style) stage where the actual auditions took place was set up on top of the park’s southwestern-most baseball diamond, in the area pictured below.

And come on, fans of the movie – you can’t look at the screen capture below and not have the lyrics to “Dancin’ in the Street” come pouring into your head, am I right? “Callin’ out around the world, are you ready for a brand new beat? Summer’s here and the time is right, for dancin’ in the street. They’re dancin’ in Chicago (dancin’ in the street), and down in New Orleans (dancin’ in the street), in New York City (dancin’ in the street). All we need is music – music, sweet, sweet, sweet music. There’ll be music everywhere – everywhere! They’ll be swingin’, swayin’ and records playin’ and dancin’ in the street!” I digress, but man, just one glimpse of that scene and all the lyrics come flooding right back!

I have always been obsessed with the Bob Fosse-style arm movements that Janey Glenn (Sarah Jessica Parker) employed during her audition, so I, of course, had to re-create them while I was there. (If I only had a stage!) I mean, it’s no wonder that Jeff fell in love with her in that moment.

You can watch a portion of the Girls Just Want to Have Fun audition scene by clicking below.

Studio City Recreation Center was also where Perry Cox (John C. McGinley) and Jordan Sullivan’s (Christa Miller) divorce ceremony was held in the Season 4 episode of Scrubs titled “My New Game,” which aired in 2004.

Beeman Park was the site of a couple of Laire (aka “Live Action Interactive Role-playing Explorers”) events in the 2008 comedy Role Models.

In the movie, it was made to appear as if “The Burger Hole” was located across the street from the park, but, in actuality, the restaurant, which is a Shakers in real life, can be found about 15 miles away at 601 Fair Oaks Avenue in South Pasadena.

Studio City Recreation Center was also where the Annual Pawnee Easter Egg Hunt was held in the Season 1 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Canvassing,” which aired in 2009.

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Beeman Park, aka Studio City Recreation Center from Girls Just Want to Have Fun, is located at 12621 Rye Street in Studio City. From what I have been able to piece together, the stage was set up diagonally in the eastern portion of the park, in the spot denoted with a pink rectangle below, the parking area was in the southern part of the park, in the spot denoted with a blue rectangle below, and the place where Jeff and Drew drove into the park (which is no longer accessible to cars) is located directly across the street from the house at 4456 Beeman Avenue, and is marked with the purple arrow below.

December 10, 2015December 2, 2015

New “L.A.” Mag Post – About the Dresden from “What Women Want”

Be sure to check out today’s Scene it Before post for Los Angeles magazine about the Dresden from What Women Want. My articles typically get published in the early afternoon hours.

November 24, 2015November 23, 2015

Westfield Culver City from “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”

Some filming locations are maddeningly elusive. One that remained a thorn in my side for ages was the mall where Janey Glenn (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Lynne Stone (Helen Hunt) shopped in Girls Just Want to Have Fun, which, for those who haven’t been paying attention over the years, is one of my all-time favorite movies. Thanks to some help from my friends Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, and Michael, of The Brady Bunch’s Golden Spoon fame, I was finally able to stalk the place this past August. As it turns out, the Girls Just Want to Have Fun Mall is none other than Westfield Culver City, aka the former Fox Hills Mall. The road to finding it was quite a long one, though.

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Westfield Culver City was originally established as the Fox Hills Mall in 1975. The complex, which was designed by the Gruen Associates architecture firm, was Los Angeles’ first tri-level indoor shopping center. The site has undergone several name changes and remodels over the years and currently looks a bit different than it did during the Girls Just Want to Have Fun days, though some recognizable elements still exist. Besides its many appearances on the silver screen, the mall boasts another claim to fame – it was at Fox Hills that Gary Coleman famously worked as a security guard in the ‘90s.

In Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Janey and Lynne are shown hanging out in what is a supposed Chicago-area shopping mall. While there, they happen upon the DTV cast doing an autograph signing;

they act goofy by riding an escalator the wrong way;

and they run into Maggie Malene (Shannen Doherty) and Drew Boreman (Jonathan Silverman), who is getting fitted for a tux.

Maggie happens to mention that Drew is renting the tux for Natalie Sands’ (Holly Gagnier) debutante ball which is taking place later that evening. (I blogged about the ball scene location here.) Since Janey and Lynne are seeking revenge on Natalie for numerous past wrongs, they decide to steal Drew’s invitation and make copies of it at the mall’s Big Red Q Quickprint Centers, which they then proceed to pass out to various miscreants on Melrose Avenue.

Back in April, I sent some screen captures of the Girls Just Want to Have Fun mall scene to Owen to see if the complex looked familiar to him. It didn’t, but he kindly decided to help with my quest. He scoured Google images of Los Angeles-area shopping centers and while looking at photos of Westfield Culver City, spotted some elements that matched what appeared in my screen grabs, most notably the escalators. He then did a search to see if anything had been filmed at the mall during the same time period as GJWTHF and saw on Chas’ It’sFilmedThere site that The Boys Next Door had been shot on the premises the very same year! In one of the screen caps featured on Chas’ site (pictured below), he noticed the same diagonal red-striped flooring that was visible in GJWTHF and was pretty sure he had nailed the right spot. As always, we wanted further proof, though. (The huge red staircase visible in the screen capture below was a focal point of Fox Hills’ original design. The shiny glass-and-steel structure rose from the mall’s bottom level to the top. Sadly, it was removed during Westfield’s latest remodel in 2009.)

At around that same time, Michael had tracked down a mall that appeared in an episode of The Brady Bunch. He mentioned his hunt to me and how he had utilized a Shopping Mall Directory from the ‘70s that he found in his local library during his search. While watching the GJWTHF scene, I had identified the signage of three stores in the background – Advance Cutlery, Contempo Casuals and Thom McAn. I asked Michael if he wouldn’t mind looking at an ‘80s version of the directory to see which L.A.-area malls housed those three stores. A couple of days later, he came back to me with an answer – Fox Hills was the only mall with a listing for all three! Eureka! (Though Big Red Q Quickprint Centers is, in fact, a real company, Michael could not find a listing for one at any L.A. mall, so we believe that its appearance in GJWTHF was a matter of product placement.)

Not only did Michael search the directory for me, though, but he also went above and beyond in further determining that Fox Hills was the correct spot. Because The Boys Next Door was lensed the same year as Girls Just Want to Have Fun, he thought a viewing of it might provide further ratification. And it did! Michael rented the flick via Amazon and was able to confirm with 100% certainty that Fox Hills was indeed the GJWTHF mall. At the end of The Boys Next Door, Roy Alston (Maxwell Caulfield) and Bo Richards (Charlie Sheen) are chased into Fox Hills by the police. During the chase, they pass by a Gingiss store. Anyone who lived through the ‘80s and ‘90s is familiar with Gingiss. Growing up, it was THE place to rent tuxes come prom season. It has since been sold to May Department Stores and is no longer a mall staple, though. Michael recognized the Gingiss storefront from The Boys Next Door as being the same formalwear shop featured in Girls Just Want to Have Fun. As he explained, “The weird floor stripe runs into the shop in the same part of the entrance as GJWHF. The store carpet is the same color, and there’s a similar riser in the window. And, there’s even the same(!) bright red tuxedo jacket in the corner of the window and metal light on the other corner of the riser.”

Michael then did a Google search for “Gingiss Formalwear” and came across the company’s logo and made another connection. As he said, “You’ll recognize their stylized ‘I’ from the back wall in GJWHF.” You can check out an old image of a Gingiss store in Florida here in which that same large man-shaped-like-an-I placard is visible on the back wall.

As if that wasn’t enough, Michael kept digging and found further proof! In another email, he stated, ”Since that just about confirms it, it’s probably not necessary to point out the other similarities: the structural poles, shiny metal mirror-like paneling all over the mall (as seen in the first few seconds of the GJWHF clip). And I think you might even be able to see a little bit of the huge red staircase in the GJWHF clip as they’re running into the Quickprint.”

Because I desperately wanted a photo in front of the escalators that SJP and Helen Hunt rode in the movie, Michael did some further investigating. Like I said, he went above and beyond! While watching The Boys Next Door, he was able to determine that a Round Table Pizza . . .

. . . and Regal Shoes were located near Gingiss. More on them in a minute.

Through my own investigations, I discovered that the movie Nightmares had also done some filming at Fox Hills. The 1983 flick is actually an anthology of four different horror stories. The segment shot at Fox Hills is named “Bishop of Battle” and stars Emilio Estevez as video game-obsessed teen J.J. Cooney.

Most of “Bishop of Battle” takes place at the SEGA Center (later renamed Time-Out), an actual arcade that used to be located inside of Fox Hills Mall. Though Nightmares is not available to stream online or for purchase anywhere, segments of it pop up on YouTube regularly. While they are taken down almost just as quickly as they appear, Michael was able to watch several clips of it and piece together where the arcade was formerly located.

Thanks to its diagonal layout and proximity to a ramp leading to a parking area, Michael determined that the storefront now houses Fast Fix Jewelry and Watch Repairs.

Fast Fix is located on the mall’s second level, next door to JCPenny.

I am unsure if the interior of the Nightmares arcade was a set or if scenes were actually filmed inside of the SEGA Center.

In some other (much less clear) Nightmares clips, Michael spotted the same area from GJWHF pop up. He then compared the layout of storefronts shown in Nightmares to a current map of Westfield Culver City and was able to figure out not only where the escalator from GJWTHF is, but also the Gingiss store! As he pointed out in an email, “It looks like Regal Shoes was on a corner.”

He explained further, “It’s hard to say looking at the current-day mall map because it’s hard to visualize the escalator placement, but it seems like Gingiss may have been down near JCPenney. With Regal Shoes being where Zales Jewelers is now (with the distinctive corner), and Gingiss where Love D is. And Qdoba having been Round Table Pizza. You’ll probably be able to figure things out better in person, but at least it’s something to start with.” As it turned out, it was not just something to start with, but was actually spot on!

The Gingiss storefront from Girls Just Want to Have Fun does indeed currently house Love D.

The shop sells affordable shoes, handbags and other accessories.

I honestly could NOT have been more excited to be there!

In The Boys Next Door, a back corridor entrance was visible just to the right of Gingiss. That entrance, now closed off with a door, is still there to this day! You can just barely see it on the very right-hand side of my photo below.

And, as Michael pointed out, the chain of round ceiling lights visible in the corridor outside of Gingiss in GJWTHF are a direct match to the lights that are there now.

The escalators from GJWTHF are located just outside of Love D and lead up to the second level entrance to JCPenney.

I tried to get a matching shot of the escalators from the angle that appeared in the movie, but the kiosk that is now situated outside of Love D blocked my view.

As you can see, though, the shape of the bottom of the escalators and the raised circular markings that run down the center connector match what appeared onscreen.

While it appears that some sort of sunken sitting area was situated behind the escalators in 1985, that is no longer the case.

Today, there is now an indoor playground in that area.

As I mentioned above, Fox Hills/Westfield Culver City has appeared onscreen countless times over the years. In 1977, Carrie Fisher did a promotional interview for Star Wars at the SEGA Center, though very little of the arcade was shown.

You can watch a clip of the interview by clicking below.

Fox Hills was also featured in a fabulously cheesy 1978 commercial for Kinney Shoes starring Ken Berry.

You can watch that ad by clicking below.

In 1983, Fox Hills popped up in the Season 1 episode of Scarecrow and Mrs. King titled “The ACM Kid” as the mall where Mrs. Amanda King (Kate Jackson) takes Aleksei Kalnikov (Meeno Peluce).

Though Aleksei plays in an arcade in the episode, that arcade does not appear to be the SEGA Center. I have a hunch that Fox Hills was used in establishing shots in “The ACM Kid,” but that all actual filming took place on a set.

Thanks to the 80s Film Locations site, I learned that the 1986 movie Thrashin’ was shot in the Fox Hills parking garage.

The round ramp that the kids skate down in the flick is located in the south east section of the mall property, just southwest of where Fox Hills Drive intersects with Hannum Avenue.

In 1991’s Point Break, the Ex-Presidents lead Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) and Pappas (Gary Busey) on a car chase through the Fox Hills parking lot.

In the scene, the cars enter the mall property via Slauson Avenue, just east of where it intersects with Sepulveda Boulevard.

In the Season 2 episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia titled “Charlie Gets Crippled,” Westfield Culver City is where Mac (Rob McElhenney) and Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton) pretend to have polio.

As you can see below, at the time that the episode was shot in 2006, the diagonal brickwork flooring that was visible in Girls Just Want to Have Fun was still intact.

The final scene of the 2007 comedy Superbad was also lensed at Westfield Culver City.

Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) meet up with Becca (Martha MacIsaac) and Jules (Emma Stone) on the mall’s second floor, in front of the escalators near Foreign Exchange and AT&T Spring Mobile.

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

Big, HUGE THANK YOU to fellow stalkers Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, and Michael for tracking down this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Westfield Culver City, aka the former Fox Hills Mall from Girls Just Want to Have Fun, is located at 6000 Sepulveda Boulevard in Culver City. You can visit the mall’s official website here.

June 3, 2015June 2, 2015

The California Bank Building from “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”

Since we’re on the subject of Girls Just Want to Have Fun, I thought I would blog about another locale from the movie that I recently hit up – downtown L.A.’s California Bank Building, which masked as the Dance TV (aka DTV) studio in the 1985 flick. A couple of years back, Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, managed to track down the location via a helpful crewmember, but because nothing about the structure matched up to what was shown onscreen, I was never sold on it being the right place. So a couple of weeks ago, I set out to verify or invalidate the information. When I told Mike, from MovieShotsLA, of my query, his response was, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun? I thought we were done with that movie!” Oh, Mike, we will never be done with that movie! So I quickly got started on the hunt and, though it was quite a lengthy process, wound up discovering that the California Bank Building was, indeed, the right spot.

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The California Bank Building was designed in 1960 by architect Claud Beelman, who was also responsible for The Historic Mayfair Hotel from The Office and The Standard, Downtown L.A. from Fracture. The 300,000-square-foot structure originally served as the headquarters of California Bank. Standing at 18 stories and 267 feet tall, the property was the tallest commercial building in Los Angeles at the time of its inception. This was due in large part to the fact that a 1904 law limiting the height of buildings in Los Angeles to 13 stories or 150 feet was repealed in 1956, shortly before the ground was broken on the new structure.

In its original state, the California Bank Building featured a large, box-like three-story granite base. You can see some photographs of what it looked like in its early days here and here. Sadly, in 2008 the site underwent an extensive renovation that rendered it virtually unrecognizable from its former self. The straight vertical lines that once encased the façade giving it a sleek, towering aesthetic are now broken up by balconies. The edifice of the structure, which was renamed SB Tower, was also painted white and green.

Most jarring of all, though, is the fact that windows were cut into the granite base and a large mural painted over the exterior.

Those portions of the building did not appear in Girls Just Want to Have Fun, though. In actuality, only the entrance area and lobby were shown. But those, too, were rendered unrecognizable during the renovation. In the scene pictured below, Drew Boreman (Jonathan Silverman), best friend of Jeff Malene (Lee Montgomery), is shown selling DTV memorabilia while standing outside of the property, in an alcove that formerly led to the lobby area.

As you can see in my recent photograph of the building’s entrance pictured below, that alcove has been completely removed. So when I first viewed the location via Google Street View, I was convinced it was the wrong place. Never in my wildest dreams did I think the renovation would have included such a major restructuring of the ground floor! As it turns out, I was wrong.

Thanks to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, I learned that Google recently made it possible to view Street View renderings from years past, so I toggled back to 2007 and 2008 and, as you can see below, the alcove was once, in fact, there and does resemble what appeared onscreen. Because the imaging is so grainy, though, I was still not 100% convinced. I needed more proof.

I was able to match a few things up to this historic image of the California Bank Building, though it still was not enough for me to write off on the location. In the image, you can see that a sign was posted on the wall of the alcove in the same place that a placard was situated in the movie (denoted with a pink circle below). The image also shows that the building had some sort of corner detailing on the outside portion of the alcove, which matches what appeared in Girls Just Want to Have Fun (denoted with a pink arrow below).

Another detail that matched up to what appeared onscreen was the SB Tower’s address number. The number “600” was visible behind Drew in the movie and the SB Tower is located at 600 South Spring Street . Still though, I wanted more.

Finally, came the clue I was looking for. While re-watching the movie for the umpteenth time, I was able to make out a sign located across the street from the DTV studio that read “Mi Tierra Restaurant.”

I searched the July 1987 Pacific Bell Street Address Telephone Directory for an eatery by that name and only two listings came up. The first was for “Mi Tierra Restaurant No. Two” located at 1903 West Olympic Boulevard in Westlake. The second was for simply “Mi Tierra Restaurant” at 611 South Spring Street. 611 South Spring Street is located directly across the street from the California Bank Building! Further proof – at 613 South Spring, right next to Mi Tierra, is a listing for Golden Eagle Dry Cleaning Shop.

What was pictured next to Mi Tierra in Girls Just Want to Have Fun? Yep – a dry cleaning shop!

While I am distressed that the structure has changed so drastically and that I never got to see it in its original state, I am thrilled to now be able to say with absolute certainty that the California Bank Building was indeed DTV studio from Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

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

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for finding this location. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: SB Tower, aka the California Bank Building from Girls Just Want to Have Fun, is located at 600 South Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the property’s official website here.

April 2, 2015March 26, 2015

Latest L.A. Mag Post – About My Filming Location Holy Grail

Don’t forget to read today’s Los Angeles magazine post – about the the Girls Just Want to Have Fun apartment building. My articles typically get published in the late morning/early afternoon hours.

March 30, 2015March 30, 2015

The Georgian Ballroom from “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”

Had you asked me last week, I would have told you that I was an expert on both Pasadena and its filming history. But something happened on Wednesday afternoon that rocked me to my stalking core. While writing a blog post for Los Angeles magazine, I got on a bit of a Girls Just Want to Have Fun kick and decided to attempt to track down a few of its unknown locations, one of which was the Lakeview Country Club where Natalie Sands’ (Holly Gagnier) debutante ball was held. As it turns out, the country club scene not only took place in Pasadena, but at a spot I am extremely familiar with – The Langham Huntington hotel! At the time of the filming, the property was known as The Huntington Sheraton. I was absolutely reeling upon making the discovery. Then, while doing further research, I learned something even more shocking – the historic hotel was actually demolished in 1989 and then rebuilt from the ground up! What the wha?

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There’s a lot of ground to cover today, but I thought I’d start with how I made the Girls Just Want to Have Fun discovery. While scouring through the debutante ball scene, I spotted two different signs reading “Georgian Room.” So I did some Googling of the words “Georgian Room” and “Los Angeles” and eventually a listing for a Georgian Ballroom came up. I clicked on it and, lo and behold, it was a link to photos of the Georgian Ballroom at The Langham Huntington hotel.

Amazingly, the intricate gold ceiling pictured in the images was an exact match to the ceiling that appeared in Girls Just Want to Have Fun!

Oddly though, the hallway featured briefly in the scene did not resemble The Langham hallways in any way, shape or form. While GJWTHF was filmed three decades ago and the hotel’s décor bound to have changed during such a lengthy time period, I just could not get over the fact that nothing about the hallway in the movie paralleled the hotel’s actual hallways. Nothing. The hallway pictured in GJWHF was dark and Spanish in style, while The Langham’s hallways are very bright and open and boast a Louis XIV design. So I started doing some research and just about fell over when I read that The Huntington Sheraton was demolished in the late ‘80s. Because The Langham is repeatedly touted as being one of Pasadena’s most historic properties, I was shocked to discover this information. Not to mention the fact that I lived in the Crown City for over a decade and have visited The Langham dozens of times! How did I not know about this??

The Langham Huntington was originally constructed as The Wentworth in 1907. Commissioned by General Marshall C. Wentworth, the hotel had problems from the get-go and was shuttered and declared bankrupt a short five months after opening. In 1911, Henry Huntington stepped in to purchase the site and hired architect Myron Hunt to remodel and expand it. The property reopened three years later under the name the Huntington Hotel. It quickly gained a reputation as Pasadena’s finest lodging.

In 1954, the hotel was sold to the Sheraton Corporation and renamed The Huntington Sheraton. Despite being later purchased by the Kiekyu USA company in 1974, the site continued to operate as a Sheraton through 1985. That year, Kiekyu had seismic testing done on the property and the results showed that it was not structurally sound enough to withstand a major earthquake. The doors of The Huntington Sheraton were shut in October, its future unclear. In December 1987, Huntington Hotel Associates purchased the site and set about plans to demolish it. Despite some major resistance from preservationists, the wrecking ball descended on the structure in March 1989. Miraculously, two portions of the original hotel were left intact, the Viennese Ballroom and, you guessed it, the Georgian Ballroom – which means that the very spot that appeared in Girls Just Want to Have Fun is still standing today! But more on that in a minute.

The new property opened in 1991 as the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel. The exterior was constructed as an almost exact replica of the original. As you can see in the screen capture (which was taken from Disneyland Dream – a 1956 movie that I will talk about later in this post) as compared to a photograph that I took in 2008, while there are some minor differences between the new and old buildings, they are virtually imperceptible.

The hotel sold a couple of times after its reconstruction and, in 2007, was purchased by the Hong Kong-based Great Eagle Holdings and renamed The Langham Huntington.

While the hotel was being reconstructed in 1989, the Georgian Ballroom underwent a restoration. During the process, ten stained glass windows lining the ceiling of the room were discovered behind plaster. They had been covered over at some point in the 1940s. (This explains why there were not visible in Girls Just Want to Have Fun.) Developers removed the plaster and restored the windows to their original glory and they once again line the perimeter of the grand room.

I have stayed at The Langham countless times over the years and thought I had ventured throughout every square inch of the property, but that was obviously not the case as I had never before seen or heard of the Georgian Ballroom. As soon as I made the discovery about the room’s appearance in Girls Just Want to Have Fun, I was tempted to drive right on out to Pasadena to remedy the situation. In a timely stroke of luck, though, I remembered that my mom had a doctor’s appointment in the Crown City on Thursday, so she headed over to The Langham beforehand to snap some pictures for me. My mom currently has a broken foot and is on crutches, but she still managed to go out stalking on my behalf! She is a rock star!

The Georgian Ballroom appeared in one of Girls Just Want to Have Fun’s more memorable scenes in which Janey Glenn (Sarah Jessica Parker), Lynne Stone (Helen Hunt) and Maggie Malene (Shannen Doherty) sabotaged the debutante ball of mean girl Natalie by inviting 150 unwanted (and rather wild) guests to her upscale soiree.

The Georgian Ballroom looks quite a bit different today than it did onscreen in 1985.

As you can see below, though, aside from the addition of the stained glass windows, the ceiling remains unchanged.

At the time of the filming, the Georgian Ballroom had windows and doors that led to the outside of the hotel.

That is no longer the case, though.

I am fairly certain that the exterior of The Huntington Sheraton was used as the exterior of the Lakeview Country Club in the scene, as well. While I have scoured the internet looking for 1980’s images of the hotel’s main entrance taken from the same angle as GJWTHF to use for comparison, I came up empty-handed.

But as you can see below, in the screen capture from Disneyland Dream the exterior of The Huntington Sheraton was covered in vines, as was the building pictured behind J.P. Sands (Morgan Woodward) in Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

The exterior of The Huntington Sheraton was also featured briefly in the 1982 pilot episode of Remington Steele (more on that later) and as you can see in the screen capture below, the front of the hotel was painted white at the time, matching what appeared in GJWHF. You can also check out a photograph of the what the hotel’s entrance looked like in 1989 here. Though not taken from the same angle shown in Girls Just Want to Have Fun, you can see that it does bear a resemblance to the exterior shown in the movie.

During its tenure as The Huntington Sheraton, the hotel popped up quite a few times onscreen. As I mentioned, it was featured in Disneyland Dream, a home movie made by Robbins Barstow who won a trip to The Happiest Place on Earth in 1956 via a contest sponsored by Scotch Tape. During the seven-night vacation, he and his family stayed at The Huntington Sheraton.

You can watch Disneyland Dream by clicking below. The Barstows seem like such a fun family!

As I also previously mentioned, the hotel was used extensively throughout the pilot episode of Remington Steele, which was titled “License to Steele.”

I could not get over seeing the interior of the property in the episode. With its arched openings, beamed ceilings and wrought-iron glass doors, the place bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to The Langham.

I honestly cannot believe how much it has changed!

I was able to spot a few things from Remington Steele that matched up to what appeared in Girls Just Want to Have Fun, which thrilled me to no end. As you can see below, unique fan-shaped lights were visible in both productions.

The carpeting in both is also a direct match.

The hotel stood in for Club Meade in the Season 2 episode of Simon & Simon titled “The Club Murder Vacation” in 1983.

In the episode, a large tree located in front of the hotel is visible. That tree is a match to one that appeared in Girls Just Want to Have Fun. The placement of the lawn-covered center island in Simon & Simon is also a match to what was shown in GJWTHF, further leading me to believe that the exterior of The Huntington Sheraton was used as the exterior of the Lakeview Country Club in the flick.

In the 1985 made-for-TV movie Promises to Keep, The Huntington Sheraton masked as the Westwind Hotel where Jack Palmer (Robert Mitchum) stayed while trying to make amends with the family he abandoned thirty years prior.

The property stood in for the abandoned Cumberland Grand hotel in the Season 3 episode of Scarecrow and Mrs. King titled “The Triumvirate,” which aired in 1986.

The interior of the hotel was also used in the episode.

There are those fan-shaped lights again!

In 1987, the Scarecrow and Mrs. King crew returned to The Huntington Sheraton to film Season 4’s “One Flew East.” In the episode, the hotel masked as the Hospimerica Briarwood Sanitarium.

The renovated Georgian Ballroom also made an appearance in the 2007 film Charlie Wilson’s War.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Langham Huntington Hotel is located at 1401 South Oak Knoll Avenue in Pasadena. You can visit the property’s official website here. Girls Just Want to Have Fun was filmed in the Georgian Ballroom.

March 17, 2011April 4, 2020

The Barclay Hotel from “As Good As It Gets”

This past weekend, the Grim Cheaper and I re-watched the movie As Good As It Gets, which I had not seen since it first came out in theatres almost 15 years ago. I am ashamed to admit that I had somehow forgotten what a great flick it is! While watching, I, of course, became a bit obsessed with tracking down some of the Southern California locations featured in it and just about had a heart attack when I read on IMDB’s As Good As It Gets filming locations page that the interior of the Barclay Hotel in downtown Los Angeles stood in for the movie’s fictional Café 24 Heures, where Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt) worked and where Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) dined each morning. So I dragged the GC right on out to stalk the place this past Sunday afternoon. As it turns out, this location proved to be one VERY LUCKY find as it has been used in countless productions over the years.

First built in 1897 and commissioned by L.A. businessman Isaac Newton Van Nuys, the Barclay Hotel was originally known as the Van Nuys Hotel The Beaux-Arts-style building was designed by the architecture firm Morgan + Walls and, with its sprawling lobby, detailed stained glass windows, and phone service in each room, was considered one of the finest hotels of its day. In 1929, the property’s name was changed to the Barclay Hotel and there is supposedly a sign still visible on one of the building’s exterior walls which reads “Van Nuys Hotel, Rooms $1 and Up.” It would have been so incredibly cool to see, but, sadly, I could not find it anywhere. The Barclay has the distinction of being known as downtown L.A.’s oldest continuously operating hotel and is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. It currently serves as a residential hotel which offers affordable housing to its residents, many of whom have lived there for years.

The GC and I were lucky enough to speak with the Barclay’s manager as well as one of the hotel’s longtime residents while we were stalking the place, both of whom could NOT have been nicer! They filled us in on all of the filming that has taken place on the premises over the years and allowed me to take all of the photographs of the interior that I wanted. Yay! The resident that we spoke with was literally like a walking encyclopedia of the hotel’s vast filming history and in some instances was able to tell me not only when filming of certain productions had taken place, but how long the crew was onsite, AND he also knew the names of particular episodes of shows that had filmed on the premises and the exact dates on which those episodes had aired! Speaking with him was like . . . well, it was like speaking with myself, actually. Winking smile

The Barclay Hotel’s actual, working lobby was transformed into the supposed Manhattan-area Café 24 Heures for the filming of As Good As It Gets.

According to the hotel manager, producers not only brought in several booths for the filming;

but they also built a fake waitress station;

and swapped out the lobby’s front windows with French doors, which were then swapped back after filming had wrapped.

The hotel’s real life check-in desk, which is now caged, was used as the Café’s bar in the movie.

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The entire opening scene of the 1998 disaster movie Armageddon takes place in front of the Barclay Hotel and the neighboring Farmers & Merchants National Bank, which were both made to look like they were located in New York City.

In 2002’s Catch Me If You Can, the Barclay was the apartment building/residential hotel from which a young Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) was evicted after having written a series of bad checks to the landlord.

Leo returned to the Barclay for the filming of last year’s Inception, in which the hotel was featured twice. It first showed up towards the very beginning of the movie in the scene in which Cobb (DiCaprio) is dunked into a bathtub. According to the manager, that scene was filmed in one of the Barclay’s second floor hotel rooms.

The Barclay’s lobby was later used as the African casino where Cobb meets up with Eames (Tom Hardy). The hotel’s check-in desk is where Eames cashed in his casino chips in the scene.

The Barclay also stood in for the Columbian hotel where John Smith (Brad Pitt) and Jane Smith (Angelina Jolie) met at the very beginning of 2005’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

A fake bar was set up in the Barclay’s lobby for the filming of that scene.

In 2009’s (500) Days of Summer, the Barclay’s lobby was transformed into the coffee shop where Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) regularly hung out with his friends McKenzie (Geoffrey Arend) and Paul (Matthew Gray Gubler).

The Barclay’s former coffee shop, which is located on the southeast corner of West 4th and South Main Streets, is not currently a working restaurant, but was kept intact in order to be used for filming, which I think is so incredibly cool! Unfortunately, that area is closed to the public so I could only take photographs of it through its front windows.

The cafe was featured in the Season 5 episode of The Closer titled “Tapped Out”, in the scene in which Lieutenants Flynn (Anthony John Denison) and Provenza (G.W. Bailey) are shown eating breakfast and discussing Provenza’s new girlfriend all the while ignoring a crime taking place directly outside.

There is another vacant room located on the eastern side of the hotel that is also often used for filming.

That room was recently dressed to look like a New York bakery in the Season 7 episode of CSI: New York titled “To What End”.

The exterior of the Barclay also appeared a few times throughout the episode.

Most amazing of all, though – to me, at least – is the fact that the Barclay appeared in the pilot episode of the television series Starsky & Hutch way back in 1975, looking almost exactly the same as it does today! As I mentioned above, the check-in desk has since been caged in, but other than that minor detail, the Barclay has remained unchanged in the more than 36 years since filming took place. Love it, love it, love it!

Ironically enough, the Starsky and Hutch movie, which premiered in 2004, was also filmed at the Barclay. The flick’s opening scene took place on the hotel’s roof.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Barclay Hotel, aka Café 24 Heures from As Good As It Gets, is located at 103 West 4th Street in Downtown Los Angeles.

July 22, 2009July 21, 2009

The Girls Just Want To Have Fun Apartment Building!!

As I sit here writing this I am in shock – absolute shock. This morning at around 10 O’clock I got a phone call from fellow stalker Chas who had some news to share with me, some very big news! Are you all sitting down for this???? Chas was calling me up to tell me that HE HAD FOUND THE GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN APARTMENT BUILDING! No, that was not a major typo, you did just read that last sentence correctly!!!! Chas, who I am now probably going to name my first born after, actually FOUND THE GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN APARTMENT BUILDING!!!! For those who are new to my blog, the large brick apartment building that Sarah Jessica Parker lived at in fave ’80s movie Girls Just Want To Have Fun is for me the absolute Holy Grail of filming locations, the one location I have spent YEARS looking for but could NOT for the life of me find, the one spot that I was sure I would go to my grave still wondering about. And Chas FOUND IT! In record time, too!

I only set Chas on the mission of finding the GJWHF apartment this past Sunday night and being that I have spent YEARS searching for it, it is absolutely unbelievable to me that he located it in a record TWO days! And the guy doesn’t even live in the L.A. area!!!! He has to have ESP or something! It’s a gift, I tell ya! And, oh yeah, did I mention that he has NEVER EVEN SEEN THE MOVIE! LOL After seeing the ONE screen capture of the building I had posted online, Chas got an inkling as to where it might be located. And sure enough, minutes later, he found it – right where he thought it would be! Totally mind-blowing! What’s even more amazing to me is that he recognized the building using aerial images, as the bird’s eye view of it (pictured above) does not look at all like how I pictured it to be. Because of the angle at which the apartment was always shown in the movie, I was under the impression that it was a U-shaped structure surrounding a grassy courtyard.

In reality, though, the GJWHF apartment building is made up of four separate matching buildings which surround a grassy courtyard. The two rear buildings have a large space running in between them which was not visible in the movie.

Pretty much immediately after Chas told me the good news, I ran right out to FINALLY stalk the GJWHF apartment! And I have to say that seeing it in person was heaven – absolute heaven – for me! I honestly never believed the day would come when I would actually be able to STALK THE GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN APARTMENT BUILDING!!! My biggest fear was that the place had been torn down, so, to see it in person today was INCREDIBLE! I honestly could NOT have been more excited!!!!! And while the apartment does look slightly different today than how it appeared in GJWHF, what’s amazing to me is how little has actually changed in the twenty-four years since filming took place!!! For the most part, the building looks EXACTLY the same as it did in 1985 when GJWHF was filmed.

The main changes occured in the building’s courtyard area, where the walkway and foliage now look quite different than how they appeared in the movie. But other than that, the rest of the building looks virtually identical to how it appeared onscreen back in 1985! And it was so very cool to see it all in person!

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This morning, when Chas first told me he had found the much-coveted apartment building, I was in absolute and total shock. My first thought was ‘What in the heck am I going to do with all of my free time?’ LOL You see, for the past year and a half, anytime I’ve had a free moment or two, instead of picking up a magazine or turning on the TV, I’d hop on Google Maps and search for the ever-elusive GJWHF apartment building. And anytime I’d drive through a new neighborhood, I’d crane my neck looking down each and every side street hoping against hope I’d randomly stumble upon it. So, to be honest, seeing that building in person today was a bit of a bittersweet moment for me. As excited as I was, I couldn’t help but wonder (subtle SJP reference there) what in the heck I am going to do with myself now!! LOL LOL LOL I feel like a mountain climber who spends years training to climb Mount Everest, finally makes it to the top, and then wonders ‘Now what?’ The Girls Just Want To Have Fun apartment was my definitely my Mount Everest. 🙂 I have no doubt, though, that it won’t be long before I come up against a new hard-to-find location that will keep me up for many a night! 🙂

Big Huge THANK YOU to Chas for finding this location!!!!!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Girls Just Want To Have Fun apartment building is located at ( WOW I never thought I’d be writing those words!) 511-517 South Mariposa Avenue in Los Angeles.

August 28, 2008July 21, 2009

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

I have been an SJP fan since looooooooong before Sex and the City premiered. Back in grade school, my friend Nat introduced me to a little 80s flick starring Sarah Jessica Parker called Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and from that moment on I have been absolutely obsessed. Along with my other fave 80s movie, License to Drive, I literally think I watched Girls Just Wanna Have Fun at least once a week throughout my childhood. For those who have never seen it, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is a little bit Dirty Dancing, a little bit So You Think You Can Dance, with a little bit of The Cutting Edge mixed in – what more could you ask for? 🙂 The movie is also CHOCK full of stars. Besides SJP, GJWHF co-starred Jonathan Silverman, Helen Hunt and my all time fave, Brenda Walsh herself, Shannen Doherty! So can’t wait for 90210 2.0 to premiere, but I digress. Anyway, I grew up believing that all of GJWHF was filmed in and around the Chicago area. So last week when I discovered that some filming took place at John Marshall High School, I decided to dig a little further to see if I could find some other LA locations from the movie. And I am happy to report that I was successful! 🙂

In the very beginning of the movie, Helen Hunt takes SJP with her on a babysitting job so that the two of them can watch “DanceTV” together. While watching the scene where the girls walk to the house where they are to babysit, I noticed a street sign in the background which said “200 S. Plymouth Blvd”. So I did a little Zillow stalking and it turns out that there IS a South Plymouth Boulevard in Los Angeles. In that scene, the girls walk past a HUGE brick house on a large corner lot before making their way to their babysitting job at the house next door. When I zoomed in on Zillow to see a larger view of the homes on Plymouth Boulevard, I spotted the large brick house the girls walk past! So I immediately hopped in my car and set out to stalk the place in person. 🙂

Pulling up to the house, I could not have been more excited. It’s pretty silly actually, as only one very brief scene took place at this location, but I was floored just the same! I felt like I was one step closer to finding the brick apartment building SJP’s character lived at in the movie – a location I have always wanted to stalk!

I am happy to report that the large brick house looked exactly the same as it did 23 years ago when filming took place. The home is very beautiful in person and it’s easy to see why filmmakers chose to use it in GJWHF as it definitely looks like it would be located in a midwest suburb.

The Plymouth Boulevard street sign that gave me my big stalking clue as to the home’s location is also still in the same exact spot it was during filming. 🙂

After stalking the brick home, I made my way next door to stalk the house where HH and SJP babysat. Although only the front porch area of the home was shown during filming, it was easy to see that it was the same house used in GJWHF. You will notice the house number “217” in the background of the above screen capture. Those same gold house numbers are still there in real life. 🙂

My next stalking mission is to find SJP’s apartment from the movie (pictured in above screen capture). Does it look familiar to anyone?? I have a feeling that this location is going to keep me up at night for the next few weeks. 🙂

For those who have not seen Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, I highly recommend renting it. It is a GREAT 80s movie and just as much fun to watch today as it was in 1985. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The house SJP and HH walk by in the movie is located at 201 S. Plymouth Blvd. in Los Angeles. The house where the girls babysit is located next door at 217 S. Plymouth Blvd.