Kathryn Joosten – IAMNOTASTALKER

Two weekends ago, Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, invited me and the Grim Cheaper to do a little stalking of the wrap party for the hit ABC television series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition at a venue in Culver City. The GC was not at all happy to receive Pinky’s invite, of course, but once I heard that former Bachelorette Jillian Harris was going to be in attendance, there was no way in heck I was missing the thing. I absolutely loved Jillian both as a contestant on Season 13 of The Bachelor and then when she later starred on Season 5 of The Bachelorette, and I was absolutely dying to get a picture with her. So, much to the GC’s chagrin, the two of us found ourselves heading out to Culver City at around 6 p.m. two Saturdays ago to get our Extreme Makeover stalk on. One of the first celebs to arrive on the scene was Kathryn Joosten who plays Karen McCluskey on fave show Desperate Housewives. Kathryn immediately spotted Pinky’s new dog, Sammy, while walking up to the venue and asked if she could hold him in the pictures she took with us. Like I told Pinky last week, that dog was the best thing to ever happen to her stalking career, as he attracts attention, especially of the celebrity kind, wherever he goes. I have yet to see a star turn down Pinky for a photograph request when she’s holding Sammy. Note to self: get a cute dog, stat, or at least find one to borrow for celebrity events! Winking smile

[ad]

Jillian Harris arrived at the party pretty early on and I have to say that the girl could NOT have been cooler or more down-to-earth. As you can see, she also wanted to hold Sammy in our pictures. She even asked me to take a picture of her posing with Sammy on her iPhone. How cute is that?

Jillian was absolutely HILARIOUS and stayed around to talk with me and Pinky for quite some time. Chatting with her was like chatting with an old friend and after she left Pinky jokingly said, “Would it be weird if I slipped her my number? I so want to be her bestie!” Smile The thing is, Jillian was so cool that had Pinkie done that, I bet she would have called her up and asked her to hang out sometime.

Also in attendance was Dijon Talton, who played New Directions member Matt Rutherford during the first season of Glee;

Sterling Beaumon, who played Young Ben on Lost;

and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition designers Tracy Hutson . . .

. . . and Paige Hemmis, who is SO much taller in person than I expected her to be.

All in all it was a great night and all of the celebrities in attendance were super nice. I wanted to mention here, though, for those stalkers hoping to visit the LA area and get photographs with celebrities, that doing so requires countless hours of waiting around and a tremendous amount of patience. I do not just show up to events and filmings, get my pics in five minutes and then leave. Pinky, the GC, and I were at the Extreme Makeover wrap party for a good four hours. And while it was a success, I can promise you that not every event I attend is all sunshine and roses. I have had some TREMENDOUS fails. One of them just the other day, in fact. Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, and I had set out to do some stalking of the filming of True Blood at the Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles and at first things seemed extremely promising. The main security guard on duty was SUPER nice and told us we could hang out and watch the shoot as long as we did not take any photographs of the set or of the actors while they were filming, which we respected. She also told us exactly where to stand to catch the actors leaving the set and said that they were all usually very nice and more often than not posed for pictures with fans. So we waited. And waited. Then, after about five hours, actress Fiona Shaw walked outside and we asked her for a photograph. Well, not only did she turn us down flat, but she immediately walked over to the policeman on duty and told him to kick us off the property! And that was the end of that! I guess the show had had some problems earlier in the week with people posting spoiler photographs from the set, but still! We had been respectful the whole time, stood quietly off to the side of the filming, told the security guards exactly why it was we were there, and followed all of their requests, so to get kicked off, by Fiona Shaw of all people!!!, was a serious shame. But you win some, you lose some. Which comes to my point. The moral of the story is this – if you are coming to the LA area and are hoping to get photos with a star, be prepared to wait around for long periods of time, be prepared for your request to get turned down, and be prepared to go home with nothing. Chances are, if you are respectful of the crew and the filming, you will be successful, but I just didn’t want my fellow stalkers to think that stalking was always a walk in the park. Winking smile (Pictured above is the only photo from the True Blood set that I got that day. Stephen Moyer is pictured below the pink arrow.)

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: There is no stalking location for this one, but you can catch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition each Sunday night on ABC. You can visit the show’s official website here.

As I mentioned a few weeks back, because of my love for Matt Lanter, the Grim Cheaper and I recently purchased and sat down to watch the first – and only – season of the short-lived television series Commander in Chief, on which the cutie actor portrayed the role of First Son Horace Calloway. I absolutely fell in love with the show and immediately started creating a list of locations to stalk from it, the most important being Pasadena’s former Cravens Estate, now the American Red Cross’ San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters, which was used several times to stand in for the White House on the series. And as soon as the GC and I finished watching the final episode, I dragged my dad right on out to stalk the place. I have actually written about the Cravens Estate once before, back in July of 2008 just a few months after I first started my blog, but it was a very brief post and did not include any photographs of the interior of the property. So, I figured the place was definitely worthy of a re-post.

The Cravens Estate was originally built in 1930 for Mr. John S. Cravens and his wife Mildred and was designed by San Francisco-area architect Lewis P. Hobart, who was also responsible for constructing the City by the Bay’s Grace Episcopal Cathedral and the Crocker Building on Market Street. After migrating to Pasadena in 1900, the Cravens first commissioned an English-style mansion to be built on a 16-acre plot of land on what was then known as “Millionaires’ Row”. Three decades later, after vacationing in France, the couple decided to tear down their existing abode and build a new one based upon the design of the the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte, located just south of Paris. That new manse became known as the Cravens Estate and it cost a whopping $310,000 to construct, making it one of Pasadena’s most expensive homes at the time. After the Cravens, who had no children, passed away in the 1940s, the property went through a succession of owners until finally being donated to the American Red Cross in 1962, whereupon it became their San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters. The mansion is both a Pasadena Cultural Landmark and a Landmark of Historical Significance. In 2010, it was chosen to be used as the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, whereupon numerous designers came in and completely restored the property, which had lost a bit of its luster over the years, back to its original grandeur.

When I originally dragged my dad out to stalk the estate, I was hoping that we might be allowed to take a quick peek at the interior of the property and snap a few pictures. Well, imagine my surprise when the SUPER-nice receptionist said that if we were interested we could schedule a full-blown tour of the building. If we were interested? IF WE WERE INTERESTED??? Um, heck yes, we were interested!!! So I immediately scheduled a tour and dragged my dad back out to the estate once again just a few days later. What we ended up being given, though, was not what I had expected at all. Our SUPER-nice tour guide was extremely excited over how much I already knew about the estate and my enthusiasm for its filming history, so she wound up taking us on a TWO-AND-A-HALF-HOUR excursion through the property during which she showed us its every nook and cranny, including the attic area, the servants’ quarters and the basement. I can honestly say that it was one of the best stalking experiences of my life! Even my dad enjoyed it! The estate, which boasts four levels, 50 rooms, and just under 20,000 square feet of living space, is an absolutely remarkable piece of property! Pictured above is the entryway, which features hand-painted murals depicting the grounds of the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte.

Our tour included the Cravens Estate’s reception room;

dining room;

Mrs. Cravens’ former sitting room;

a sun room;

the media room;

one of the original bathrooms;

the upstairs balcony;

the bridal room;

Mrs. Cravens’ original closet;

and the back side of the estate.

The area of the home that I was most excited about seeing, though, was the kitchen, which stood in for the White House Residence’s kitchen on the first few episodes of Commander in Chief.

The Cravens Estate kitchen was actually remodeled in 2010 for the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, but thankfully, as you can see above, it still looks very much the same as it did on the series.

We also got to see one of the property’s upstairs rooms . . .

. . . which was featured on Commander in Chief as the office of First Gentleman Rod Calloway (aka Kyle Secor).

And we were shown the central stairwell and glass-plated dome area . . .

. . . which popped up in the series as a White House stairwell in the episode titled “The Price You Pay”.

I just about died when our tour guide said I could pose for a picture on that very same stairwell. LOVE IT!

The exterior of the Cravens Estate also appeared in “The Price You Pay” episode as a supposed Washington, D.C.-area restaurant where President Mackenzie Calloway (aka Geena Davis) and her husband, Rod, take Attorney General nominee Carl Brantley (aka Alan Arkin) and his wife, Sue (aka Elizabeth Dennehy), out for dinner.

The Cravens Estate was also used extensively as Dalton Academy during this past season of Glee – a show which has gotten so bad that I can hardly bear to watch it anymore. Anyway, it first showed up in the Season 2 episode titled “Never Been Kissed” in the scene in which Kurt Hummel (aka Chris Colfer) spies on a rival Glee club known as the Warblers. Kurt later transfers to Dalton and joins the Warblers, after which time the estate was featured regularly on the series. Areas of the estate which appeared on the show include the central staircase;

the entryway;

the reception room;

and the dining room.

The Cravens Estate was also featured weekly as the supposed Falls Church, Virginia-area JAG headquarters on the television series of the same name. According to the official Cravens Estate website, JAG producer Donald P. Bellisario used to regularly receive letters from fans stating that they had searched high and low for the property while on stalking expeditions in Falls Church, Virginia, not realizing that it was actually located right here in Pasadena.

[ad]

The Cravens Estate was also used extensively as the Silverberg & Blake law firm where Robert Clayton Dean (aka Will Smith) worked in the 1998 thriller Enemy of the State. Areas which appeared in the movie include the exterior;

the dining room;

the central stairway;

and the same upstairs room that was used as Rod Calloway’s office on Commander in Chief.

In the 2001 movie Swordfish, the estate was where Stanley Jobson’s (aka Hugh Jackman’s) daughter, Holly (aka Camryn Grimes), went to school.

The back of the estate stood in for the French Consulate where a limo was bombed towards the beginning of the 2007 flick Rush Hour 3.

The estate’s reception room also appeared in Rush Hour 3.

According to the book The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, the above-pictured scene from the 2001 movie Traffic, in which Robert Wakefield (aka Michael Douglas) is briefed by the White House Chief of Staff (aka Albert Finney), was filmed in a room at the Cravens Estate, although because only a tight shot of it was shown, I am not able to verify this or make a guess as to the exact room where filming took place.

The estate was also where Chauncey Gardiner (aka Peter Sellers) and Eve Rand (aka Shirley MacLaine) attended a cocktail party in the 1979 movie Being There.

The estate also stood in for the University of Minnesota dorm where Brenda Walsh (aka Shannen Doherty) briefly lived in the Season 4 episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “So Long, Auf Wiedersehen” and “The Girl from New York”.

In the Season 5 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Look Into Their Eyes and You See What They Know”, the estate stood in for Beecher Academy, where Edie Britt’s (aka Nicolette Sheridan’s) son Travers (aka Stephen Lunsford) attended school. After Edie’s death, the women of Wisteria Lane – Bree Hodge (aka Marcia Cross), Lynette Scavo (aka Felicity Huffman), Gabrielle Solis (aka Eva Longoria), Susan Mayer (aka Teri Hatcher), and Karen McCluskey (aka Kathryn Joosten) – travel to the school in order to bring Edie’s ashes to Travers.

The entryway of the Cravens Estate was transformed into a restaurant in the Season 3 episode of Mad Men titled “The Gypsy and the Hobo” for the scene in which Roger Sterling (aka John Slattery) takes Annabelle Mathis (aka Mary Page Keller, who, ironically enough, also had a recurring role on Commander in Chief) out for dinner.

Fellow stalker/Jennifer Love Hewitt-aficionado Owen also let me know that the estate appeared as Parkdale Academy in the Season 4 episode of Ghost Whisperer titled “Delusions of Grandview”.

Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used quite extensively in the episode.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The American Red Cross’ San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters, aka the Cravens Estate from Commander in Chief, is located at 430 Madeline Drive in Pasadena. Here is a map link to the location. You can visit the property’s official website here. If you would like a tour of the estate, please call to schedule an appointment first.

Tag: Kathryn Joosten

The “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” Wrap Party

The Cravens Estate from “Commander in Chief”