Joe DiMaggio – IAMNOTASTALKER

February 25, 2014February 24, 2014

The Wrong-Door Raid Apartments

One of the most infamous (and humorous) scandals to ever rock Tinseltown involved my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe and her second ex-husband, legendary baseball player Joe DiMaggio. (Their relationship wasn’t always sunshine and roses.) Known as the Wrong-Door Raid, it occurred in the late night hours of November 5th, 1954, but did not become public knowledge until almost a year later. I stalked the apartment building where the raid took place – at 8122 Waring Avenue in West Hollywood – last summer, initially planning to blog about it as a Haunted Hollywood locale. As I got to researching the events of that evening, though, I realized they were far more comical than scary and decided to postpone the post until now.

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After a scant 274 days of marriage, Joe and Marilyn divorced on October 27th, 1954. Convinced the starlet was finding solace in another man’s arms (namely her voice coach, Hal Schaefer), DiMaggio hired private detective Barney Ruditsky to tail her. On the night of November 5th, Ruditsky gave DiMaggio some news – Marilyn had just arrived at an apartment building on Waring Avenue in West Hollywood, quite possibly to meet up with a paramour. Joltin’ Joe was dining at the Villa Capri with close friend Frank Sinatra at the time and, hoping to catch Marilyn in the act, the two men rushed out of the restaurant and headed over to West Hollywood. (What they planned to do when they “caught” her is unclear.) On the sidewalk outside of the building, they met up with Ruditsky and a second private eye named Philip Irwin. Some other cohorts were also apparently on the scene, but reports vary as to who. Camera (as well as, supposedly, an ax) in hand, the men broke down the back door of one of the building’s ground floor units shortly after 11 p.m. and stormed inside. They did not find Marilyn, though. Instead, they surprised a spinster named Florence Kotz, who had been asleep in her bed. The group had somehow mistakenly entered the wrong apartment. Marilyn was in an upstairs unit with her friend Sheila Stewart (and quite possibly Schaefer as well, although that has not been proven) during the incident.

Florence immediately called the police, but the perpetrators had already run off, disappearing into the night. Not much was made of the events and the poor woman was left wondering why a group of strange men had broken down her door and taken a photograph of her in bed. Then in September 1955, Confidential magazine published an article telling the true story behind the raid. The sh*t quickly hit the proverbial fan. Frank was eventually served a subpoena on February 16th, 1957 at his Palm Springs home via two detectives who, in a karmic twist, knocked on his front door at 4 a.m., waking him up. Ironically, he filed a complaint. He later testified that he was a participant in the Wrong-Door Raid, but had never entered Florence’s apartment, choosing instead to stay behind in the car. His version of events was largely disputed, though. No one was ever prosecuted for the crime, but Florence did sue the group for $200,000, eventually settling for $7,500.

All I can think when reading about the events of the Wrong-Door Raid night is, ‘What a bunch of morons!’ Love makes people do crazy, ridiculous things, I guess. As Amanda Peet said in fave movie A Lot Like Love, “If you’re not willing to sound [or act, in this case] stupid, you don’t deserve to be in love.”

Years later, Schaefer came forward and “confessed” that he had been with Marilyn in Sheila’s apartment that night. I tend not to believe him, though. While he might well have been in Sheila’s home, I highly doubt it was because Monroe had any romantic interest in him. The guy seems like a total creeper – especially in the video below when describing the events that took place in the hospital with Marilyn following his suicide attempt.

There are several differing reports as to which unit DiMaggio and Sinatra actually broke into and which unit Marilyn was actually in during the raid, but according to the book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites, written by fellow stalker E.J. of The Movieland Directory, Florence’s apartment was the one located at 754 North Kilkea Drive.

And Sheila’s apartment was the one at 8122 Waring Avenue.

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!

Stalk It: The Wrong-Door Raid apartments are located at 8120/8122 Waring Avenue/754 N. Kilkea Drive in West Hollywood.

February 14, 2014February 14, 2014

Parisian Florist – The Flower Shop Joe DiMaggio Used to Send Roses to Marilyn Monroe’s Gravesite for 20 Years

As a child, I remember often hearing about the weekly delivery of roses that Joe DiMaggio sent to the grave of his former wife, Miss Marilyn Monroe, for two full decades. This was long before my obsession with the blonde bombshell had taken hold, but the gesture stuck with me as an extraordinary act of love, the ultimate valentine, if you will – especially considering that The Yankee Clipper was married to the starlet for less than a year. So when I recently came across the address of the florist that supplied those roses in the book Marilyn Monroe Dyed Here, I figured there was no better time to blog about the place than today, and ran right out to stalk it.

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Parisian Florist has been standing at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and North Sierra Bonita Avenue since it first opened in 1924 (yep, ninety years ago!). Brothers Louis and Max Alhanati purchased the business in 1960, becoming its third owners. It is still run by the Alhanati family to this day. Thanks to its location and plethora of luscious blooms, the shop became popular with the Hollywood set from the outset. Just a few of the luminaries who regularly ordered from Parisian Florist include Jackie Gleason, Clifton Webb, Raymond Burr, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, Robert Mitchum, Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Janet Gaynor, Rock Hudson, Charles Laughton, and Telly Savalas. The site was also a favorite of Marilyn’s. So, on August 7th, 1962, Joe contacted Parisian Florist and asked Louis to design a casket blanket for the starlet’s funeral. He also ordered several floral wreaths, hearts, and crosses to be placed at her crypt. Louis’ designs were the only arrangements Joe allowed at the ceremony.

Shortly following the funeral, Joe again contacted Louis and asked that six roses be delivered to Marilyn’s final resting place thrice weekly. His original order stated, “Six fresh long-stemmed red roses, three times a week . . . forever.” For the next twenty years, a half dozen French Baccara blooms were placed each Monday, Wednesday and Friday at Marilyn’s crypt at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park, for which Joe was billed annually. (Amazingly, Louis never once raised the price on him.) According to this Ellensburg Daily Record article, for unknown reasons DiMaggio requested that the deliveries be reduced to twice weekly in early 1962 (every Tuesday and Saturday). Shortly thereafter, he cancelled the order altogether. Per this Lakeland Ledger article, the last six flowers were sent to Marilyn’s grave on August 31st, 1982. Of the halt, Louis said, “I really don’t know why it was 20 years. He gave me no reason.” More than 18,000 roses were delivered in all over the twenty-year period. As I said, it was the ultimate valentine.

Blonde that I am, when I walked into Parisian Florist I asked the woman working if I was indeed at the shop that had supplied Marilyn’s gravesite roses. She smiled and pointed upwards. While I typically consider myself to be an observant person, I must have been wearing a bag over my head that particular day because I somehow missed the huge display above the main desk commemorating DiMaggio’s weekly deliveries.

The people at Parisian Florist could NOT have been nicer and the woman I spoke with (whom I believe is Alhanati’s daughter) even brought out a baseball that Joe had signed for Louis. I literally just about passed out upon seeing it! The autograph reads, “To Louis, the Flower Man. Best Wishes, Joe DiMaggio.”

Parisian Florist had the most gorgeous hydrangeas on display when I was there (I am a sucker for hydrangeas and peonies). Sadly, because I was going to be out and about for several hours that day, I was not able to purchase any. If we still lived in the L.A. area, though, I sure know where my Valentine’s Day flowers would be coming from. Winking smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Parisian Florist, where Joe DiMaggio ordered weekly flowers for Marilyn Monroe’s gravesite for twenty years, is located at 7528 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. You can visit the florist’s official website here.

May 31, 2012December 6, 2013

The Sand Acre Estate – Where Marilyn Monroe is Rumored to Have Vacationed

A few weeks ago, while doing research on Seward Johnson’s “Forever Marilyn” statue, which I blogged about yesterday, I came across a press release posted on the Visit Palm Springs website and just about passed out over the mention of a desert-area MM location that I had never before heard of! The press release stated, “Marilyn Monroe has many legendary ties to Palm Springs. To name a few, she was photographed and “discovered” by Johnny Hyde from the William Morris Agency at Charlie Farrell’s Racquet Club. She was also rumored to have frequented a Movie Colony estate with Joe DiMaggio, currently known as the Sand Acre Estate, and owned a 1950’s bungalow-style house in Las Palmas.” While I had stalked and blogged about both Charlie Farrell’s Racquet Club and Marilyn’s Las Palmas home, I had somehow never before even heard of the Sand Acre Estate! So I immediately added the place to my To-Stalk list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there this past Friday afternoon while visiting my parents in the desert.

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When we pulled up to the Sand Acre Estate, which is located in Palm Springs’ Movie Colony neighborhood (LOVE that name!), I was shocked to discover the sheer enormity of the place! As you can see below, it is absolutely gargantuan! And I was even more shocked to discover that the manse is located directly across the street from Cary Grant’s former desert home, which I stalked back in July of last year. How in the heck had I not known about this place??

The Sand Acre Estate, which is currently a vacation rental and special events venue, is surrounded by a tall stucco wall that is topped by even taller hedges making the place extremely private and hidden from view. The stalking gods were definitely smiling down upon us that day, though, because the front gate happened to be standing wide open when we arrived, affording us a tiny peek at the site’s magnificent grounds.

The 3,434-square-foot Spanish-style dwelling, which was originally built in 1933 and recently underwent a year-long restoration, boasts 5 bedrooms, 6 baths, exposed beam ceilings, a media room, a large gourmet kitchen, a carriage suite complete with its own bedroom, a tennis court, a pool and Jacuzzi, numerous en-suite wood-burning fireplaces, a gym, and a 1.02-acre corner plot of land.

As you can see below, the property also boasts some breathtaking views of the San Jacinto Mountains. You can check out some fabulous interior photographs of the home here.

The rumors of Marilyn and Joe vacationing at the Sand Acre Estate are, sadly, just that – rumors. Because there is nothing concrete to prove that the couple ever set foot on the premises, Larry Rener, who manages the property, is quoted as saying, “We go with the rumor.” The tower-shaped area pictured below is the room where Marilyn and Joe are purported to have stayed during their frequent visits. And while I am not sure what the starlet’s link to the property was, if one ever even existed, it is definitely easy to picture her vacationing there, unwinding by the pool with her new husband while protected from the prying eyes of the ever-present and hounding media. Besides Marilyn, the Sand Acre Estate also has another Hollywood connection – Linda Gray, Donna Mills, and Morgan Fairchild once posed for a photo shoot there for the cover story of Palm Springs Life magazine’s January 2009 issue.

And on a very exciting side-note – fellow stalker Lavonna texted me on Friday afternoon to let me know that my fan question for Colin Egglesfield on Extra had finally aired! Whoo hoo!

As you can see below, I had quite a bit of fun watching the filming, especially when Colin showed us his AMAZE-BALLS Tom Cruise impersonation. Big THANK YOU to Lavonna for telling me about the episode and for making the screen captures that appear in this post.

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here. And you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Sand Acre Estate, where Marilyn Monroe is said to have vacationed with Joe DiMaggio, is located at 953 North Avenida Palmas in the Movie Colony neighborhood of Palm Springs. You can visit the property’s vacation rental website here. Cary Grant’s former desert home is located right across the street at 928 North Avenida Palmas.

March 22, 2010March 21, 2010

Marilyn Monroe’s Former Doheny Drive Apartment Building

Another day, another Marilyn Monroe location. 🙂 Last month, fellow stalker and major Drew Barrymore aficionado Ashley, from The Drewseum website, tipped me off to The Marilyn Monroe Collection Blog which had just published a post about an apartment building where my girl had lived at two separate times during the 1950s and 1960s. Amazingly enough, for whatever reason, I had never heard of that particular apartment building in relation to Marilyn Monroe before and I immediately added the address to my list of must-see locations! So, while were out in Hollywood doing some Oscar Weekend stalking earlier this month, I finally dragged my fiancé right over to Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills to stalk Marilyn’s former residence. YAY!

I was especially excited to stalk this particular former residence of Marilyn’s because The Marilyn Monroe Collection Blog had posted a photograph of the actress which had been taken while she was parked in front of the building! So darn cool! As you can see in the photographs above, while there have definitely been some changes to the property since the picture of MM was taken – including the addition of garage doors and the removal of the vent-like structures above the carport area – the building is still very recognizable from the time when the actress lived there. Love it!

Marilyn first moved into the Doheny Drive apartment building, which had been constructed just one year prior, in 1953 and lived there for about a year before marrying baseball legend Joe DiMaggio on January 14, 1954. The actress, who was already wildly popular at the time thanks to starring roles in both Niagara and Gentleman Prefer Blonds, lived in Unit #3 of the building, a one bedroom, one bathroom dwelling which measured a scant 648 square feet! It is incredibly hard to imagine one of the world’s most popular movie stars living in such tiny digs, but she must have liked the place because in April of 1961, after her divorce from playwright Arthur Miller was finalized, the actress left New York and once again leased the very same unit in the very same building. She stayed there until March of 1962, at which point she moved into the Brentwood area home she had purchased a few months prior, the same home in which she would sadly pass away on the night of August 4th, 1962 (or in the early morning hours of August 5th, 1962, depending on which report you believe). Marilyn’s former apartment building is now a made up of individually owned condominium units.

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According to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, Marilyn’s former building, the front entrance of which is pictured above, is no stranger to celebrity. Other stars who have lived on the premises include actor James Coburn, pinup girl Jeanne Carmen, French actress Bella Darvi, and actress Viola Mertz.

Big THANK YOU to Ashley from The Drewseum for tipping me off to this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Marilyn Monroe’s former apartment building is located at 882 North Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills. The actress lived in unit #3.

October 12, 2009December 6, 2013

The St. Regis Hotel

Last year while visiting Manhattan, I dragged my boyfriend out to the posh St. Regis New York hotel on 55th Street. I had wanted to see the St. Regis not so much because it is an oft-used filming location, but because my girl Marilyn Monroe stayed there back in 1954 while on location in New York filming favorite movie The Seven Year Itch. I found this spot thanks to favorite Manhattan stalking book New York: The Movie Lover’s Guide, which claimed that the hotel was the site of a monumental fight between Marilyn and her then-husband Joe DiMaggio. According to the book, and just about everything else ever written about The Seven Year Itch, Joe and Marilyn’s relationship was not in a good place at the time of the filming. Things came to a head on September 15, 1954 – the night Marilyn filmed the famous subway grate scene. Joe was on hand for the shoot that night and became absolutely irate at the fact that 5,000 spectators had showed up to catch a glimpse of his wife’s unmentionables. Legend has it that the fight between Marilyn and Joe started out on the 52nd street set and continued all the way back to their suite at the St. Regis Hotel, where their screaming awakened the entire floor! Now, I’m not sure if the story about the St. Regis brawl is true or not, but I just had to stalk the hotel regardless. 🙂

The St. Regis New York was built in 1904 by millionaire businessman John Jacob Astor IV and at the time was considered to be the finest hotel in all of Manhattan. Today it is considered to be one of the finest hotels in all of the world. Astor’s goal was to build a hotel where guests would not only experience the utmost in luxurious accommodations, but at the same feel as if they were staying in a private home. To give his hotel that “home away from home” feel, each of the St. Regis’ 229 rooms (164 regular rooms and 65 suites) featured a doorbell. 🙂 At the time of its opening each room also boasted such state-of-the-art amenities as personal thermostats, fire alarms, central air conditioning, telephones, Steinway pianos (yes, each room had its own Steinway piano!!!!), and – my personal favorite – a centralized vacuum system. Rather than lugging around vacuum cleaners all day long to each and every room, the housekeeping staff had only to attach a small hose to sockets that were located in the hotel walls and the dirt would simply be sucked away. My former boss had a centralized vacuum system in his house and, let me tell you, it’s just about the COOLEST THING EVER! The fact that the St. Regis had one back in 1904 is mind-boggling to me! In today’s world, the St. Regis name has become synonymous with luxury, splendor, and the utmost in hospitality. The amenities of 2009 include a spa, a fitness center, a business center, and twenty-four hour butler service!! The St. Regis New York has won countless awards over the years, including most recently “Top 75 Hotels in the United States” by Conde Nast Traveler, “World’s Best” by Travel & Leisure Magazine, the “Five-Star Award” by the Mobil Travel Guide, and – for the past fourteen years in a row – the “Five Diamond Award” by AAA! The above photographs were taken during last year’s New York vacation in a sitting room located just off of the St. Regis lobby. As you can see, the hotel is absolutely BEAUTIFUL inside and I just love visiting it. I would also LOVE to stay there sometime, but being that rates start at around $600 per night, there is no way in heck the Grim Cheaper would ever go for that!

The exclusive St. Regis has long been a celebrity haven. Besides Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, past guests of the hotel include Humphrey Bogart, Salvador Dali, Russian Prince Colonel Serge Obelensky, Marlene Dietrich, Rex Harrison, Alfred Hitchcock, Ernest Hemingway, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, John Huston, Joseph Pulitzer, William Paley, and Gertrude Lawrence, just to name a few. In more recent years Demi Moore, Nathan Lane, Pierce Brosnan, Sean Penn, Victor Garber, Scarlett Johansson, Tara Reid, Thora Birch, Courteney Cox, and Martin Short have all been spotted at the hotel.

And, of course, the St. Regis is also a filming location! 🙂 The hotel’s King Cole Bar showed up in fave movie The First Wives Club, as the location where Goldie Hawn lamented over being asked to play the character of “Monique’s mother” – instead of “Monique” – in her next movie. The King Cole is famous in and of itself thanks to the massive Maxfield Parrish mural of Old King Cole and his knights flanking the bar. In 1906, John Jacob Astor IV paid $5,000 for the commission of the eight foot by thirty foot mural and first hung it in another of his hotel properties, the Knickerbocker. When the Knickerbocker closed its doors in 1932, the mural was brought over to the St. Regis and hung above the bar, where legends about it abound – two in particular. The first story states that the face of King Cole in the painting is actually that of the hotel’s owner, John Jacob Astor IV. Legend also has it that the reason behind the King’s mischievous expression in the mural is that he has just passed gas. I’m not kidding! LOL And yet another legend asserts that the King Cole Bar is where the first ever Bloody Mary was served on U.S. soil. 🙂

The King Cole Bar was also featured very briefly in the movie The Devil Wears Prada as the location where my love Simon Baker gave Anne Hathaway the unpublished manuscript for the 7th “Harry Potter” book. I so LOVED The Devil Wears Prada, by the way. The movie is worth seeing just for Anne Hathaway’s wardrobe alone! 🙂

The St. Regis also popped up in the 1976 movie Taxi Driver as the location where Cybil Shepherd caught a ride with cabbie Robert De Niro.

In 2000’s Miss Congeniality, Michael Caine and Sandra Bullock dined at the St. Regis’ now-defunct Lespinasse Restaurant.

Joe Jackson’s (not MJ’s father) music video for his 1982 song ‘Steppin’ Out’ was also filmed at the hotel. And Woody Allen has shot no less than THREE movies on location at the St. Regis – Anything Else, Hannah and Her Sisters (the hotel was the site of Michael Caine and Barbara Hershey’s illicit affair), and Radio Days (Mia Farrow was a cigarette girl in the King Cole Bar).

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I honestly can’t recommend stalking the St. Regis New York enough. It is a truly beautiful, truly unique hotel. And I’d also recommend stalking the King Cole Bar – if you can get a seat, that is. My fiancé and I have tried to grab a cocktail there countless times on each of our numerous trips to New York, but have never been able to get a seat in the popular bar. 🙁

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The St. Regis New York hotel is located at 2 East 55th Street, at Fifth Avenue, in Manhattan. You can visit their website here.

May 1, 2009December 6, 2013

San Francisco City Hall

I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’ve read just about every biography on my girl Marilyn Monroe that’s ever been published. So, imagine my surprise when I came across an article the other day which stated that the starlet married her second husband, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, at San Francisco City Hall. How in the heck did I not know this before??? I grew up in San Francisco for Pete’s sake! City Hall was pretty much right in my own backyard! In fact, I even stalked the place back in October, during my last trip to the City by the Bay. I had yet to blog about it, though, because it was extremely windy the day I was there and I only got out of the car long enough to take one photograph – the one pictured above. Check out my hair! LOL So, the other day, after reading about Marilyn’s San Francisco wedding, I sent my good friend Nat, who lives in the area, on a stalking mission to take photographs of City Hall for me, so that I could finally blog about it. 🙂 Here goes!

San Francisco City Hall was built in 1915 by architect Arthur Brown, Jr., who also designed Coit Tower, the War Memorial Opera House and Pasadena City Hall. The Beaux-Arts style building that stands today is actually San Francisco’s second City Hall. The first, which was built in 1899 and stood at the corner of Grove and Larkin Streets where the public library is now located, was completely destroyed during the 1906 earthquake. Rescue workers were able to salvage the statue that stood atop of the original City Hall’s dome and planned on placing it on the new building. Unfortunately, the statue fell off the back of a flat bed truck while being transported to its new location and was destroyed. LOL LOL LOL How’s that for irony?? The current City Hall measures over 500,000 square feet, takes up two entire city blocks, and cost over $3.5 million to build! Over ten acres of marble were used in the construction. The building’s dome stands at 307.5 feet tall, trumping Washington D.C.’s Capital Building’s dome by 14 inches.

Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio’s wedding took place on January 14, 1954 in the third floor chambers of Judge Charles S. Perry, who was a close friend of Joe’s. DiMaggio’s other good friend Reno Barsocchini and his former manager Lefty O’Doul were the couple’s only guests. Sadly, the marriage was short-lived. Marilyn filed for divorce only 274 days later. City Hall is also the location where Mayor George Moscone and County Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot to death by Dan White on November 27, 1978.

San Francisco City Hall has been featured in countless movies and television shows over the years. The interior of the building’s rotunda showed up at the very end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where it stood in for the Washington D.C. building where Indiana Jones agreed to let Marion Ravenwood buy him a drink (pictured above). City Hall was also used in Bedazzled, The Rock, A View to a Kill, Dirty Harry, Milk, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, The Towering Inferno, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dharma and Greg (in the “Much Ado During Nothing” episode), Foul Play, and Bicentennial Man, just to name a few!

I highly recommend stalking San Francisco City Hall. It is an absolutely beautiful building and just seeing the dome alone in person is worth a drive by! And, although I didn’t venture inside while I was stalking the place, the first floor area is open to the public. Free tours are also given three times daily, Monday through Friday, at 10 a.m., 12 p.m., and 2 p.m. San Francisco City Guides also offers free interior tours of City Hall every Thursday at 11:00 a.m. You can visit their website for further details.

Big THANK YOU to my surrogate stalker Nat who took all of the above photos. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: San Francisco City Hall is located at 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place in San Francisco.

November 3, 2008September 29, 2017

Halloween 2008

For Halloween this year, I desperately wanted my boyfriend and I to dress up like Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio. I know, total shocker. 🙂 It all ended up coming together quite perfectly, too, as earlier this summer I found a white dress a la Marilyn’s subway grate ensemble, that was super inexpensive. I also happened to have an appointment to get my hair cut on Halloween morning, so I asked my amazing hair stylist, Martina, if she could do me up Marilyn style. She happily obliged and even offered to do my make-up for me. Without even looking at a picture of the starlet for reference, she was able to whip my hair into a full-on Marilyn ‘do and apply my make-up perfectly! I was shocked! When I asked her how she did it without using a photo, she said “Honey, that’s what I do!” LOL I actually think the effect may have been too good, though, because I had FIVE people stop me and say “Has anyone ever told you that you look EXACTLY like Marilyn Monroe.” Even though it was Halloween, no one seemed to realize I was wearing a costume – they thought I just looked like Marilyn naturally. LOL That actually might be good news, though – as maybe someday I’ll get to play MM in a big screen biopic of the star. 🙂

Anyway, since we couldn’t find anything to do in L.A. for Halloween (we were literally all dressed up with no place to go!), I dragged my boyfriend to Downtown Palm Springs. We spent the evening walking around Downtown, barhopping, hanging out, and watching all the other people in costumes. We had a blast! And I even got stopped by a Japanese tourist who wanted her photo taken with me. 🙂

We ended up spending most of our evening at the Palm Springs Riviera Resort & Spa – a legendary Palm Springs hot spot from back in the 50s and 60s. The resort recently underwent a complete rennovation and has been closed down for the past year. It only just reopened two weeks ago and it is a very cool, very hip spot to hang out. The hotel has a 50s-modern style vibe to it, made complete with a large picture of Marilyn made out of Guatemalan coins hanging in the lobby, so, of course, I had to snap a photo of it. 🙂 And the Riviera is even a filming location! It was featured as the hotel where Connie Stevens stayed in the 1963 flick Palm Springs Weekend.

The poolside Bikini Bar, where we hung out all night, is fabulous with its large firepits and ultra-comfy lounge chairs. While there we ran into 90s actor Jeff Prettyman, who is currently retired and living in Palm Springs. Jeff acted in the movies Young Guns and Cheerleader Camp, so of course I had to take a pic with him. 🙂

The following morning, I was reading a Palm Springs magazine in our hotel room and I happened to spot a photograph of Marilyn Monroe posing at the Racquet Club of Palm Springs (pictured above), a place I had never heard of. So, of course, on our way out of town I had to drag my boyfriend to stalk it.

But unfortunately, when we arrived there wasn’t much to see as the area is currently a large constuction zone. The once legendary resort and Hollywood playground is currently closed and undergoing a $50 million rennovation with the surrounding land being turned into luxury condominiums and lofts. That was the plan, anyway. In 2004, architect Van Scott Jones and financial handler Michael Mueller purchased the land with big plans to restore the resort to its former grandeur. However, just a few days ago the property went into forclosure and the fate of the Racquet Club is now left up in the air. I truly hope someone comes in to rescue this piece of Hollywood and Palm Springs history. Oddly enough, for some reason the construction area was not entirely fenced in, and since there weren’t any “no trespassing” signs posted, my boyfriend and I ventured in for a little looksie.

It was very, very cool to be walking around a piece of property that holds so much history. While there, I could just imagine the screen legends of the day lounging poolside under the desert sun. You can see the now empty pool behind me in the above photograph.

The Palm Springs Racquet Club was opened up on Christmas Day of 1933 by actors Ralph Bellamy and Charlie Farrell, who wanted a place in the desert where they could play tennis. The resort became enormously popular with the celebs of the day – a playground to the stars, compete with tennis courts, a large swimming pool and a legendary bar named the Bamboo Lounge. The bloody mary cocktail was actually first concocted in that lounge. Apparently, Racquet Club guests needed a little “hair of the dog” each morning to cure their budding hangovers, so the Lounge chefs mixed together a few ingredients and, voila, the bloody mary was born. The owners of a New York bar named the 21 Club often stayed at the Racquet Club and fell in love with the new cocktail. They ended up bringing the drink back to their New York bar and the rest, as they say, is history. The Racquet Club didn’t fare quite as well as the cocktail created there, though, and due to dwindling profits, it was sold several times and quickly fell into dilapidation and disarray.

Among the stars who hung out at the Racquet Club in its heyday – Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Jane Russell, Bob Hope, Jayne Mansfield, Gregory Peck, Errol Flynn, John Kennedy, Bing Crosby, Lana Turner, Frank Sinatra, Spencer Tracy, Audrey Hepburn, Doris Day, Ronald Regan, and, of course, my girl Marilyn Monroe, who spent New Years of 1948 there with her agent Johnny Hyde (pictured above). Rumor has it that Marilyn was actually discovered by photographer Bruno Bernard while lounging poolside at the Club, but I am not sure how true that story is.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Raquet Club of Palm Springs is located at 2743 North Indian Canyon Drive in Palm Springs. The Palm Springs Riviera Resort & Spa is located at 1600 North Indian Canyon Drive, also in Palm Springs. If you need your hair styled like Marilyn – or if you just need a new ‘do in general – you can visit Martina Maina at T-Birds Salon, located at 1808 West Olive Avenue in Burbank. You can visit T-Birds website here. T-Birds is located right across the street from an oft used filming location – the Safari Inn – which was featured in True Romance and Apollo 13 .

July 11, 2008December 6, 2013

Marilyn Merlot

I am still very much in the throws of my Marilyn Monroe obsession, and it is definitely true what they say – the more you think about something, the more you attract that thing to you. My father happened to be going through his wine collection last week and discovered a bottle of “Marilyn Merlot” wine that he had purchased almost a decade ago. No one in my family has ever been a big Marilyn fan, so it was a fairly random purchase. My dad says he came across the wine one day many years ago in a grocery store and he grabbed it thinking it might one day be a collector’s item. Due to my recent obsession, he of course gave the bottle to me and I quickly put it on display in my kitchen. Flash forward to this past weekend, when my parents were vacationing in Monterey, California. They made a visit to their favorite wine shop there, Terranova Fine Wines, and lo and behold, sitting on a shelf in the store was a vast collection of the Marilyn Wines, including the one my father had just given me. It’s present day worth? $225!! Guess he was right about it one day being a collector’s item. 🙂

Bob, the owner of Terranova, filled my dad in on the history of the Marilyn Wines. Apparently, in 1985 two Napa area brothers gained exclusive rights to Marilyn’s name and certain images of the starlet and decided to use them on bottles of wine. Beginning in ’85, the brothers released a new vintage of Marilyn Merlot each year on her birthday – June 1 – each with a different photograph of the screen legend. The wine was not extremely popular until its fourth vintage when it caught the attention of a Japanese businessman who formed a partnership with the brothers. They agreed that 60 percent of each year’s vintage would be sold exclusively in Japan, as Marilyn is still a huge icon there. They also agreed to only release a limited quantity of each year’s wine, so as to prevent overflooding of the market. Today the wines are hugely successful, with some vintages costing upwards of thousands of dollars. The brothers have branched out and now also produce Marilyn Cabernet, Norma Jeane Wines, the Velvet Collection, and Blonde de Noirs, their latest creation of sparkling wines. All royalties from the sales of the wines go to Anna Strasberg, the wife of Marilyn’s beloved acting coach, Lee Strasberg, to whom Marilyn left everything in her will. Anna allocates the money to the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and the Anna Freud Fondation in London.

That same day that my parents learned the history of the Marilyn Wines, my boyfriend and I were actually stalking the Beverly Hills home Marilyn shared for a few short months with husband Joe DiMaggio. Monroe and DiMaggio rented the house in April of 1954 while Marilyn was in town filming There’s No Business Like Show Business. The home, which is most often referred to as Joe and Marilyn’s honeymoon home, is a very cute, but nondescript Elizabethan style house. It is amazing to me to that she lived in such a normal home at the height of her career.

On October 6, 1954 a distraught Marilyn held a press conference on the front lawn of this home announcing her divorce from Joe DiMaggio. The press were out in force that day, camped out in Marilyn’s front yard, to document the event. Marilyn vacated the home shortly thereafter. You can see a slide-show of the press conference that took place that day here. Although it is a very long slide-show, there are quite a few photographs where you can see the home in the background.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Marilyn and Joe’s honeymoon home is located at 508 North Palm Drive in Beverly Hills, just off Santa Monica Boulevard. Terranova Fine Wines is located at 315 Calle Principal in Monterey, California. If you visit the store, be sure to ask for Bob, who has a vast knowledge of Marilyn Monroe and the Marilyn Wines. You can also visit the Terranova website here.