James Spader – IAMNOTASTALKER

April 7, 2015April 6, 2015

Hamburger Hamlet from “Parks and Recreation”

Halfway through writing this post, I realized I probably should have saved it until February. At that point, though, it was too late to start over, so I figured c’est la vie. Here goes. A few years ago, when I first saw the “Galentine’s Day” episode of Parks and Recreation, I recognized the restaurant featured in it as the Hamburger Hamlet in Pasadena. I used to dine at the eatery fairly regularly when I lived in the area and immediately recalled its signature red leather seating, brick walling and dark wood accents while watching P&R. It was not until a couple of a months ago that I decided to do any research on the locale, though, and when I got to comparing images of it to screen captures from the episode, I realized that, while similar, quite a bit did not match up. I quickly surmised that “Galentine’s Day” had most likely been lensed at another of the Hamburger Hamlet chain’s many outposts and, sure enough, eventually discovered that filming had taken place at the Sherman Oaks location.

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The Hamburger Hamlet chain was established by actor Harry Lewis and his wife, Marilyn, in 1950. The first outpost stood on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Hilldale Avenue in West Hollywood and served comfort food and gourmet hamburgers. It was insanely popular from the get-go.

It was not long before HH outposts were cropping up all over Los Angeles, as well as in other states. In its heyday, 23 sister restaurants dotted the country. The L.A. locations were known as being celebrity hot spots, attracting such legendaries as Lucille Ball, Frank Sinatra, Diahann Carroll, Bette Davis, Danny Thomas, Mel Brooks, Warren Beatty, Ronald Reagan, Elizabeth Taylor, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Curtis, Florence Henderson, Elton John, Betty White, Nancy Sinatra, and Dean Martin.

Harry and Marilyn sold the chain, as well as their Beverly Hills eatery Kate Mantilini, for a whopping $30 million in 1987. They later ended up buying Kate Mantilini back and subsequently opened up a sister location in Woodland Hills. Both were also insanely popular with celebrities (I once dined next to Reese Witherspoon at the Beverly Hills outpost) and non-celebrities alike, but have since, sadly, closed.

Recent years have not been kind to the Hamlet. Though the eateries were still bustling with business most days, news of closures popped up regularly. When the Pasadena outpost was shuttered in January 2014, the only HH left in the L.A. area was in Sherman Oaks. It, too, wound up closing in June of last year, but was, thankfully, acquired by Kevin Michaels and Brett Doherty, the restaurateurs behind Killer Shrimp in Marina del Rey – another popular filming location that I I blogged about here. The duo reopened the site, keeping many of the Hamlet’s menu staples intact, in September.

I have been a huge fan of the Hamlet ever since I first moved to Southern California and am happy to report that the re-opened Sherman Oaks location did not disappoint. As always, the food was great and the service friendly. Supposedly, the space will be undergoing a remodel at some point this year, though, so if you want to see it in its current state, I wouldn’t wait.

In the Season 2 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Galentine’s Day,” which aired in 2010, Hamburger Hamlet was where Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) took her girlfriends out for their annual Galentine’s Day breakfast. For those who did not watch P&R and are confused as to what exactly Galentine’s Day is, I’ll let Leslie explain – “Every February 13th, my lady friends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home and we just come and kick it breakfast-style. Ladies celebrating ladies. It’s like Lilith Fair, minus the angst . . . plus frittatas.”

Leslie and the girls returned to the Hamlet in 2012 to film another Galentine’s Day breakfast scene for Season 4’s “Operation Ann.”

Oddly though, a different place – Villa restaurant from Must Love Dogs, which I blogged about here – was used for the establishing shot of the restaurant in the episode.

Fellow stalker Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, also informed me that the Sherman Oaks Hamburger Hamlet was used in the Season 8 episode of The Office titled “The List” as the spot where Robert California (James Spader) took a select few Dunder Mifflin employees for lunch.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Hamburger Hamlet, aka the Galentine’s Day restaurant from Parks and Recreation, is located at 4419 Van Nuys Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

June 2, 2014January 8, 2020

Chez Jay from “A Single Man”

The April issue of Los Angeles magazine (for which I wrote my very first print article ever – you can read it here) featured a Time Frame image of one of Santa Monica’s most historic restaurants, Chez Jay, reminding me that while I had stalked the watering hole ages ago, I had yet to blog about it. So here goes!

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Chez Jay was originally founded by a Connecticut-born struggling actor named Jay Fiondella. During the 1950s, Jay was working as a bartender at Sinbad’s on the Santa Monica Pier and, before his shifts, he would often grab a bite to eat at a nearby coffee shop named Dawn’s Cafe. He learned through his regular visits that Dawn’s was struggling financially and one fateful day the owner offered to sell the place to him for the bargain price of $1. Fiondella laid down the bill and the eatery became his. He named the place “Chez Jay,” in honor of Chez Joey, the restaurant owned by Frank Sinatra in the 1957 movie Pal Joey. (In a fateful twist, Sinatra would later become a Chez Jay regular.) The new eatery opened for business on July 4th, 1959. For the grand opening fete, Jay brought in showgirls and an elephant. Yes, an elephant! (You can see a photograph of it here.) Legend has it that the animal slammed its trunk on the bar at one point in the evening, denting it, and that that dent it still visible to this day.

The tiny space, which boasts a scant 10 tables, 12 bar stools and a 150-square-foot kitchen, quickly became popular with everyone from locals to the Hollywood set. Just a few of the luminaries who have dined there over the years include Ava Gardner, Vivien Leigh, Peter Sellers, Angie Dickinson, Chris Penn, Bronson Pinchot, Warren Beatty, Hugh Hefner, Robert Mitchum, my girl Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, Marlon Brando, Judy Garland, Cary Grant, Jim Morrison, Michael Caine, Fred Astaire, John Belushi, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Dennis Hopper, Steve McQueen, Natalie Wood, Henry Kissinger, Leonard Nimoy, Cher, Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger, Kiefer Sutherland, Mick Jagger, Tony Bennett, Joan Baez, Lee Marvin (legend has it that he once rode his motorcycle right up to the bar and ordered a drink), Julia Roberts, Sean Penn, Quentin Tarantino, Drew Barrymore, and Kevin Bacon. Frank Sinatra and other members of the Rat Pack would dine there weekly before their regular poker game. David E. Kelley and Michelle Pfeiffer even met there for the first time during a dinner party. And Matt Damon and Ben Affleck worked on their Oscar-winning screenplay for Good Will Hunting in the establishment’s back room. Not too shabby of a clientele!

Legend has it that Chez Jay was also the inspiration for the Regal Beagle, local Santa Monica hangout of Jack Tripper (John Ritter) and the gang, on Three’s Company.

Jay Fiondella passed away in 2008 at the age of 82 and the iconic restaurant is now run by his son, Chaz, daughter, Anita, and longtime business partner, Michael Anderson. The eatery’s future became uncertain shortly after Jay’s death when the City of Santa Monica began demolishing an adjoining parking lot to build what is now Tongva Park. During construction, city officials decided that Chez Jay did not fit in with their vision and hoped to demolish the place to make room for an open-air, family-friendly establishment. Thankfully, preservationists stepped in and the historic watering hole was given landmark status in late 2012. Chez Jay’s future is still somewhat uncertain, though, as the restaurant may be forced to undergo a remodel or an add-on. You can read a more in-depth history of the site here and here.

Despite having stalked Chez Jay on more than one occasion, the Grim Cheaper and I have never actually eaten there. It’s not for lack of trying, though. The place is always packed to the gills and typically doesn’t even have any standing-room-only space.

Thanks largely to the fact that little of Chez Jay has been changed over its 55-year history, the place has been featured onscreen several times. In the 1990 film Bad Influence, the restaurant was where Alex (Rob Lowe) took Michael Boll (James Spader) for a beer shortly after meeting him.

The interior of Chez Jay was also shown briefly in the scene.

In the 2009 drama A Single Man, Chez Jay popped up twice as The Starboard Side bar. It first appeared in the flashback scene in which George (Colin Firth) remembered first meeting his longtime boyfriend, Jim (The Good Wife’s Matthew Goode).

While the interior of the bar was also used briefly in the scene, not much of it was visible. The large amount of people shown packed inside it is a pretty accurate depiction of what the place is like in real life, though.

In a later scene, George runs into a student named Kenny (Nicholas Hoult) while at Chez Jay and the two have drinks.

The interior is shown in that scene, as well.

Chez Jay is also where Mark Callan (Wilson Bethel) meets with one of his father’s cronies in the Season 1 episode of All Rise titled “What the Constitution Greens to Me.”

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Chez Jay, from Bad Influence, is located at 1657 Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

May 3, 2012May 2, 2012

Steff’s House from “Pretty in Pink”

This past Saturday afternoon, a fellow stalker named “Pookie” posted a comment on my site in which she mentioned that the mansion where Steff (James Spader) lived in 1986’s Pretty in Pink was located just up the street from the the Residence of the Los Angeles British Consuls-General where Kate Middleton and Prince William stayed in July 2011, which I blogged about last month. As it turns out, Pookie’s parents live right around the corner from the Pretty in Pink dwelling and she was lucky enough to have witnessed some of the filming of the iconic 80s flick when it took place back in 1985. Well, as you can imagine, I was extremely excited about learning the location of Steff’s house, and, since we were only a few miles away at the time, asked the Grim Cheaper to take me right on over there to stalk the place.

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In real life, Steff’s house is absolutely stunning and looks like it belongs in a neighborhood somewhere on the East Coast and not in the heart of Los Angeles’ Hancock Park. The French chateau-style property, which was originally designed in 1927 by the Webber, Staunton & Spaulding architecture firm, boasts seven bedrooms, a whopping eight baths, 7,140 square feet of living space, over half an acre of land, four fireplaces, original chandeliers and wall sconces, formal gardens, a reflecting pond, a three-car garage, a separate guest apartment, and (according to a comment left by Evan on The Houses of Hancock Park blog) a third floor that inexplicably houses a disco. The mansion was recently sold, in May of last year, for a cool $5 million. You can check out the real estate listing here.

One odd thing I noticed about the house, though, was that one of its windows has been completely cemented over, as you can see below. Even odder still is the fact that the cemented-over space still remains flanked by shutters.

Most odd of all, though, is the fact that the window even appears to have been covered over way back in 1985 when Pretty in Pink was filmed. Why in almost three decades worth of time did the homeowners not remove the shutters? Or re-install the window? Very, very strange.

Steff’s mansion, which is supposedly located in Elgin, Illinois, shows up three times in Pretty in Pink. It first pops up towards the beginning of the movie in the scene in which Andie Walsh (Molly Ringwald) and Duckie (John Cryer) are shown driving through a ritzy neighborhood late at night. As Andie stops to admire the residence, she announces that it is her favorite on the whole street and then poignantly says, “ You know what the really sad thing is, though? I bet the people that live there don’t think it’s half as pretty as I do.“

The mansion next shows up in the scene in which Blane McDonnagh (Andrew McCarthy) brings Andie to a party at his best friend Steff’s house.

As you can see from the screen captures and photographs (which I got off of the property’s real estate listing) below, the home’s actual interior was used in that scene, as well. It is amazing how little the residence has changed over the past 27 years. Love it!

It even appears that the very same headboard that was used in the movie is still there in real life! So incredibly cool!

Finally, the mansion’s library area popped up towards the end of Pretty in Pink in the scene in which Steff tells Blaine that he will stop being friends with him if he continues to date “trash” like Andie. As you can see in the screen capture and photograph below, the very same curtains, chair, desk, and stool which appeared in the movie are still there in real life. INCREDIBLE!

Thanks to the Scarecrow and Mrs. King forum, I learned that Steff’s house also appeared extensively in the Season 1 episode titled “Waiting for Godorsky” as the supposed Washington, D.C.-area mansion of Princess Sophia Valosky (Hildegard Knef).

As you can see, the window was even covered over way back in early 1984 when the episode was filmed.

The interior of the mansion also appeared briefly in Scarecrow and Mrs. King.

Back in June 2010, the Before the Trailer website mentioned that Dior was filming at the residence and, after doing some digging online, I discovered that the filming was actually for the Miss Dior fragrance campaign that starred actress Natalie Portman. Ironically enough, while the spot was supposed to take place in Paris and the vast majority of it was, in fact, lensed in the City of Light, a small portion of it was shot at Steff’s mansion! As you can see below, the awning and wading pool which appeared in the Dior commercial match up exactly to those which can be seen on the home’s real estate listing, although a fountain was added to the pool for the shoot.

The statues affixed to the plant pots that can be seen in the background of the shoot also match up to the statues that appear in the listing.

And finally, the large swan statue that is visible in the background of the ad matches the one that appears in the home’s listing.

You can watch the Dior ad by clicking below.

Natalie Portman Dior Ad Filmed at Steff’s Mansion from “Pretty in Pink”

On a Pretty in Pink side-note – my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, and I were lucky enough to meet James Spader a couple of weeks ago after we randomly spotted the star leaving a movie theatre. And while we had heard that he could be unfriendly, I am very happy to report that he was extremely nice and seemed quite amused at our excitement over seeing him.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Steff’s mansion from Pretty in Pink is located at 366 South June Street in Hancock Park. The Erle M. Leaf House, aka the Residence of the Los Angeles British Consuls-General where Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, stayed in July 2011, is located right down the street at 450 South June Street.