James Denton – IAMNOTASTALKER

September 27, 2011September 26, 2011

The 3rd Annual “Get Lucky for Lupus” Celebrity Poker Tournament

Last Wednesday evening, my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, invited me to do a little stalking of the 3rd Annual “Get Lucky for Lupus” Celebrity Poker Tournament, which benefited Lupus LA, the West Coast division of the S.L.E. Lupus Foundation. Well, once I head the word “lupus”, I knew that I had to attend as I had a pretty strong feeling that one of my very favorite actresses, Kellie Martin, would be there. Kellie’s younger sister, Heather, tragically passed away from lupus in 1998 at the tender age of 19 and the actress has been a very vocal advocate for research on the disease ever since. (You can read an article that Kellie wrote about her sister’s battle with lupus for the September 1999 issue of Jane Magazine here.) And, sure enough, about ten minutes after the Grim Cheaper and I arrived on the scene, who should walk up but Kellie! And, let me tell you, I just about had a heart attack I was so excited to meet her! Life Goes On was one of my very favorite television shows growing up, so seeing Becca Thacher in person was almost most than I could bear. Kellie was very sweet and happily posed for a picture with me, but seemed truly surprised that anyone had recognized her, which shocked me!

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Next to arrive was Melissa Joan Hart, from Sabrina, the Teenage Witch fame, whom I had been dying to get a picture with for over a decade!

When I moved to Los Angeles way back in early 2000, one of the first things I did was register for background work at Central Casting. The same day that I registered, I was fortunate enough to get hired as an extra in the Season 4 episode of Just Shoot Me titled “Fast Times at Finchmont High”. As it turned out, the scenes I was in were with special guest star Melissa Joan Hart in which I played one of her cheerleader friends. That’s me in the above screen captures – in the first capture, I am standing to the right of Melissa and in the second, I am standing in between Melissa and the other cheerleader. Melissa could not have been sweeter to me or more professional to work with even after I accidentally gave her a flat tire (i.e. stepped on the back of her shoe, causing it to come off) while we were filming! I am a huge klutz by nature and the director, who as it turns out was Steven Levitan (the creator of Modern Family whom I just met two weeks ago at a pre-Emmy party), had asked me to stay as close to Melissa as possible while walking down the hall. Well, I stayed so close to her that I ended up stepping on the back of her shoe and pulling it off. She did not miss a beat, though, and kept right on shooting. I was highly embarrassed over the whole thing, but Melissa was a complete and total sweetheart and, when I apologized to her afterwards, she said, “Oh my gosh, don’t worry about it at all!” All in all, I could not have asked for a better first Hollywood experience and it was largely due to the kindness of Melissa.

Me on “Just Shoot Me”! 🙂

You can watch the clip of me on Just Shoot Me by clicking above.

Other celebrities who attended the “Get Lucky for Lupus” Celebrity Poker Tournament (and who were ALL so nice and laid back) included James Denton, from Desperate Housewives;

Aaron Hill, from Greek;

Verne Troyer;

Roger R. Cross, from 24;

George Costanza himself, Jason Alexander, who was so incredibly friendly and nice it was almost unbelievable;

Jamie Gold, the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event champion;

singer Ryan Cabrera;

Camryn Manheim – SUCH a sweetheart and absolutely GORGEOUS in person;

Michael Trucco, from Battlestar Galactica;

Ben Lyons, from E!’s The Daily 10;

poker player Tiffany Michelle;

Josh Altman, from Million Dollar Listing;

Karina Smirnoff, from Dancing with the Stars;

Slash, from Guns N’ Roses, who really did not want to pose for a photo, but was somehow magically talked into it by Miss Pinky Lovejoy;

and Derek Mears, who played Jason Voorhees in the 2009 remake of Friday the 13th.

Derek was so nice that he actually took two pictures with me as he was not sure he looked “scary enough” in the first. Love it!

I also ran into Jermaine Jackson this past Saturday afternoon and he was SUPER nice and happily agreed to pose for a photo with me. So, factoring in the Emmys, I guess you could say that it was a pretty INCREDIBLE week for this particular stalker. Smile And I have no idea how I am going to write my Emmy post at this point in time, by the way, as it is looking to be a pretty daunting undertaking. I think I am going to have to break it up into several different columns, as it will just be FAR too long otherwise. But I do promise to write it soon. Smile

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, for inviting me to this event.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: There is no stalking location for this one, but you can find out more about lupus and lupus research by visiting the official Lupus LA website here.

May 4, 2011May 3, 2011

Teri Hatcher’s Red Carpet Charity Yard Sale

This past Sunday morning, Miss Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, called me up to let me know that she had just found out about a celebrity fundraising event in Santa Monica that was being hosted by actress Teri Hatcher. So, much to the Grim Cheaper’s chagrin, I immediately hopped right out of bed, ran a brush through my hair, threw on some make-up, grabbed my car keys, and dragged him right on over to the West Side to stalk it. To say that my life has changed for the better since meeting Pinky this past Valentine’s Day would be a rather gross understatement! I have met more celebrities and gone to more celebrity events in the past three months since knowing her than in the previous ten-plus years that I have lived in Los Angeles put together! And I have made a great friend in the process, to boot!

Teri’s fundraiser, which took place at the Tiato Market Garden Café, was a celebrity yard sale benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (my girl Jen Aniston’s favorite charity) and the RockSTAR music education program, and featured for sale “gently used” clothing, handbags, and furnishings formerly owned by such celebrities as Dancing with the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba, actress Goldi Hawn, Glee’s Jayma Mays, and reality star Kourtney Kardashian. The yard sale was a very relaxed, low-key event and while there were several journalists on hand to document the goings-on, the only stalkers in attendance were me, Pinky, our friend Mike, from the Mike the Fanboy website, and his friend Erica. The autograph hounds, or the “graphers” as Pinky likes to call them, were thankfully nowhere to be found, which meant that I did not get pushed or shoved once the entire morning! Yay!

The first celeb to arrive on the scene was reality star Bob Guiney, who was a contestant on Trista Rehn’s season of The Bachelorette in 2003 and then later starred on the fourth season of The Bachelor. Bob was SUPER nice and remembered Pinky from when he had met her a few months prior and even joked with her about how he had kissed too many women during his Bachelor stint.

Next up was James Denton whom I have heard on countless occasions is one of the nicest celebrities out there and I am very happy to report that he did NOT disappoint! James was an absolute sweetheart and was very outgoing and friendly. Love, love, love him!

The next celeb to arrive was Mark Moses, aka Desperate Housewives’ Paul Young, and he was also SUPER nice and friendly in person, which was quite the shock to my system being that his character is so completely cold and devious. My brain almost could not process talking to him because he had a smile on his face the whole time which was such a huge departure from how I am used to seeing him on TV.

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Also in attendance was Tamra Barney from The Real Housewives of Orange County . . .

. . . who was GORGEOUS in person (she reminded me a lot of Emily Maynard from this past season of The Bachelor);

Natasha Alam from True Blood, whom I met a couple of weeks ago at the Decisions Movie Premiere and Celebration of Corey Haim’s Life event;

and Estella Warren from the 2001 Planet of the Apes re-make . . .

. . . whose dress I was absolutely obsessed with! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE dresses that have pockets!!!! And the color! Sigh! So incredibly adorable.

Teri Hatcher came out to walk the red carpet towards the end of the media portion of the event and she was ABSOLUTELY MOBBED by photographers and journalists, making it impossible to get close enough to her to ask for a picture. She was STUNNING in person, though, and SO INCREDIBLY TINY!

After about thirty minutes of watching Teri get mobbed by media people everywhere she went, Pinky and I resigned ourselves to not getting a photograph with her. But, as fate would have it, when we stepped inside of the restaurant to use the bathroom before leaving the event, we encountered Teri standing all by herself! Pinky and I each quickly posed for a pic with her and then she was off! Talk about your perfect timing! Had we been five seconds earlier or five seconds later we would have missed her entirely. This was one celebrity photograph that was definitely meant to be! Smile

I also randomly ran into Josh Sussman, who plays blogger/Rachel-Berry-lover Jacob Ben Israel on Glee, this weekend just after hitting up a Starbucks in Burbank. Unlike all of my other encounters with actors from Glee, Josh truly could NOT have been nicer and happily posed for a pic with me and even waited patiently while I dug around in my purse trying to find my camera. Yay! All in all, it was definitely a FABULOUS weekend. Smile

On a stalking side note – Marci, the SUPER sweet owner of Lula Mae, my very favorite store, just gifted me with the notebook pictured above, which I think is just about the cutest thing ever! I stop by Lula Mae at least four times a week (what can I say, I am addicted to the place!) and spend quite a bit of time chatting with Marci about my various stalking adventures, so while she was out shopping this past weekend she spotted the “Actors I Met and Liked” notebook and immediately thought of me. Love it, love it, love it! I think I am going to have to add an “Actors I Met and Disliked” section to the book, too, as there are quite a few of those, as well. Winking smile

Big THANK YOU to Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, for telling me about this event!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Tiato Market Garden Café, where Teri Hatcher’s Red Carpet Charity Yard Sale was held, is located at 2700 Colorado Boulevard in Santa Monica. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

March 25, 2011March 25, 2011

Paty’s Restaurant from “Desperate Housewives”

To continue on with this week’s restaurant theme, today I thought I would write a post about an eatery that the Grim Cheaper and I stalked back in January – the historic Paty’s Restaurant in Toluca Lake, which first opened for business just a little over a half century ago in 1960. I had become a wee bit obsessed with tracking down the restaurant a few weeks beforehand while watching the Season 7 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Assassins”. At the very beginning of that episode, Mike Delfino (aka James Denton) is shown eating at a supposed Alaska-area diner whereupon he receives a phone call from Felicia Tilman (aka Harriet Sansom Harris) who accuses him of having shot his neighbor, Paul Young (aka Mark Moses). While watching the scene, I had noticed a wall displaying what looked like autographed celebrity headshots in the background behind Mike and my stalking radar immediately went on high alert because, let’s face it, any restaurant that has a wall full of celebrity headshots is undoubtedly my kind of place!

Because Desperate Housewives is filmed at Universal Studios, I had a hunch that the restaurant was most likely located in Universal City or in one of its neighboring communities. So I immediately started using Google to search for diners in different areas of the San Fernando Valley, beginning in Universal City and working my way outwards. It wasn’t very long before I came to the Toluca Lake district and, amazingly enough, when I inputted the words “diner” and “Toluca Lake” into the Google search bar, Paty’s Restaurant was the first item to pop up. And, sure enough, it was the right place – celebrity headshots and all! So I dragged the GC right on out to stalk it that very weekend. And I have to say that we were NOT disappointed. Paty’s menu is quite extensive and the food they serve up is nothing short of EXCEPTIONAL! I opted for the Southwest Chicken Salad entrée which featured an array of chicken strips – my favorite food – atop a large serving of lettuce and avocado. And, let me tell you, it was A-MA-ZING! The ranch dressing was simply out of this world, as were the chicken strips! For a stalker like myself, finding Paty’s was like a dream come true! A restaurant that not only serves comfort food, but is a celebrity hangout AND a filming location – what more could a girl ask for? Love it, love it, love it!

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As the headshots on the wall can attest to, Paty’s Restaurant has been a major celebrity hangout pretty much from the time of its inception just over five decades ago. A few of the stars who dined there in the early years include Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, all of the Brady Bunch kids, James Garner, Jane Russell(!), Ed Asner, Roy Rogers, Debbie Reynolds, and Jonathan Winters.

Most amazing of all, though – to me at least – was the fact that, according to the waitress that I spoke with, a young Michael Jackson, along with other members of his family, had once dined at the eatery during the heyday of the Jackson 5! So incredibly cool!

In more recent years, such stars as Nick Jonas, Joe Jonas, Hilary Duff, Haylie Duff, Zac Efron, Miley Cyrus, Jennie Garth, Peter Facinelli, Ashley Tisdale, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Shia LaBeouf, George Clooney, Ron Howard, Kevin Costner, Lorenzo Lamas, Leah Remini, Tim Allen, John Travolta, and George Lopez have all stopped by Paty’s to grab a bite to eat.

Our waitress also informed us that one of Paty’s regulars is George Barris, an automobile customizer who has designed numerous cars for television shows, most notably the Batmobile from the original Batman television series.

And while George did not design the DeLorean from the Back to the Future movies, he did apparently build a replica of one and often drives it to the restaurant, which is how the above photograph came to be taken.

While we were dining I noticed an autographed photograph of the cast of The Office displayed on one of Paty’s walls. When I inquired about it, one of the waitresses told me that a few episodes of the series had been filmed on location at the restaurant, but she was unsure of exactly which episodes.

Because the restaurant did not look familiar to me from the show, I called upon fellow stalker David in Spain who just recently started watching the series from the beginning. Since the show was fresh in his mind, I was hoping he might remember which episode had been filmed at Paty’s and, sure enough, he did! David emailed me back almost immediately to let me know that Paty’s was the spot where Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) sat down with Jan Levinson (aka Melora Hardin) and told her he wanted to take over management of Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch in the Season 3 episode titled “The Coup”.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker David for figuring out which episode of The Office was filmed at Paty’s!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Paty’s Restaurant is located at 10001 Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

December 22, 2010December 21, 2010

The Smoke House Restaurant – Where Jim and Pam Held Their Rehearsal Dinner on “The Office”

This past weekend, while out doing some Christmas shopping with the Grim Cheaper, the two of us found ourselves in the Burbank area absolutely ravenous. For whatever reason, though, I could not think of a good place to eat, so the GC suggested we grab a bite at that “old Burbank restaurant across from Warner Brothers Studios”. Because my blondness was in full force that day, I had no idea what on earth he was talking about and just about died when he pulled into the parking lot of the Smoke House Restaurant – the very spot where Jim Halpert (aka John Krasinski) and Pam Beesly (aka Jenna Fischer) hosted the rehearsal dinner for their wedding in the Season 6 episode of fave show The Office titled “Niagara”. And although I have actually stalked this location once before and have even blogged about it, because it was long before The Office had shot there and long before I was even a fan of the show, I decided the restaurant was worthy of a repost.

The original 46-seat Smoke House restaurant first opened in 1946 at the corner of Pass and Riverside Avenues in Burbank. The eatery was a hit with the Hollywood set from the very start, with such stars as Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra (who even has a steak named after him on the Smoke House menu), Judy Garland, Milton Berle, Jack Parr, James Dean, Burl Ives, Walt Disney, and Errol Flynn stopping in regularly to grab a bite to eat. Due to its promise of serving up “fine food at fair prices”, the restaurant became such a Burbank staple that its owners were quickly forced to expand. They started looking for a larger building to move into and, as fate would have it, found one in actor Danny Kaye’s recently constructed Red Coach Inn. Due to city regulations and the Up In Arms actor’s busy filming schedule, Kaye was unable to open the restaurant/night club and in 1949 he sold the never-been-used property to the owners of the Smoke House. The establishment is still located in that very building to this day. And, six decades later, the place is still going strong. In more recent years, such stars as Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, Megan Fox, Andy Garcia, Miley Cyrus, Tish Cyrus, and the entire cast of Friends (who used to stop by regularly after filming) have all been spotted dining there.

George Clooney is such a fan of the place that he named his production company “Smokehouse Pictures” in honor of the legendary restaurant. The actor also did a photo shoot at the eatery in the booth pictured above.

One look at the Smoke House interior and it’s not very hard to see why it has succeeded for over sixty years. With it’s dim lights, dark red booths, and wood-paneled walls, stepping inside the eatery definitely brings one back to a forgotten era. It’s exactly the type of place I’d imagine Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. hanging out at back in the heyday of Hollywood.

Oh, and did I mention the food? During this particular visit I ordered the restaurant’s Cobb Salad and it was easily the biggest salad I’ve ever seen in my entire life! I didn’t even get through one third of it and I was literally STARVING when we showed up at the restaurant. On our previous visit, the GC and I ordered up the eatery’s famous “World’s Greatest Garlic Bread” and I can honestly say that the restaurant wasn’t being arrogant when they conceived that name. It literally was the best garlic bread I’ve ever had in my life! Smile Truth be told, though, all of the Smoke House food is FABULOUS, but be forewarned, their portions are ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS! The restaurant’s staff is also INCREDIBLY nice and, even though the place was pretty packed at the time, everyone I spoke with took the time to answer all of my silly questions about the filming that has taken place there over the years.

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In the “Niagara” episode of The Office, the Smoke House stood in for the supposed Niagara Falls-area restaurant where Jim and Pam held the rehearsal dinner for their wedding. The majority of that scene was filmed in the restaurant’s back room, which, luckily enough, was being set up for a private party while we were there, so I was able to snap a bunch of photographs while the room was empty!

Some filming also took place in the restaurant’s bar area.

The Smoke House’s side room was used in the scene in which Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) and Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) are shown eating breakfast the morning following the rehearsal dinner.

The Smoke House was also featured in the Season 1 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Move On”, in the scene in which Susan Mayer (aka Teri Hatcher) sings a deeply personal rendition of the song “New York, New York” to her ex-husband Karl (aka Richard Burgi) while at a local karaoke bar.

The Desperate Housewives scene was filmed on the stage located in the restaurant’s bar area.

You can watch Susan’s karaoke scene by clicking above.

The eatery has also appeared in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Cold Case, and in a Season 2 episode of the reality series The Two Coreys, but I cannot for the life of me figure out which episode and it is driving me absolutely crazy! Does anyone out there know?

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Smoke House Restaurant, where Jim and Pam hosted their rehearsal dinner in the “Niagara” episode of The Office, is located at 4420 West Lakeside Drive in Burbank. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.