LA Confidential – IAMNOTASTALKER

June 10, 2009June 10, 2009

The Pantages Theatre

As promised earlier in the week, I thought I would dedicate today’s post to the historic Pantages Theatre in Hollywood where I saw Dirty Dancing – The Classic Story On Stage last Tuesday night . And let me tell you, the Pantages Theatre is a site to see, in and of itself! The Art Deco landmark was built in 1930 by vaudeville theatre mogul Alexander Pantages for a whopping $1.25 million – and we’re talking 1930’s money!!!! It was designed by architect B. Marcus Priteca, who conceived most of the theatres in the Pantages chain. But, in an ironic twist of events, when the theatre first opened to the public on June 4, 1930, it was not opened as a Pantages, but instead under the Fox Theatre name. In 1929, while the Pantages was being built, Alexander was knee-deep in a scandal involving another of his many theatres. It seems Alexander, who was in his sixties at the time, was accused and found guilty of raping one of his sixteen year old female ushers at his theatre in Downtown Los Angeles. After being sent to jail, he was forced to open his new Hollywood theatre under a different name. In 1931, Pantages appealed the case and was awarded a new trial. His defense in the second trial maintained that rival theatre company RKO along with Joseph Kennedy (yes, that Joseph Kennedy) had framed him in order to purchase his theatre chain at a low price. Since the broom closet where the rape had supposedly occured was too small a space for two people to fit in, the jury acquitted him and Alexander was released from prison. But Pantages never regained his luxor in Hollywood. Alexander Pantages passed away only two months after his release from prison, broke and broken.

The Pantages has gone through a succession of owners during its almost eighty year history. In 1949, Howard Hughes purchased the theatre and renamed it RKO Pantages. His offices were located above the theatre on the building’s second floor. During the RKO years, from 1949 to 1959 , the Pantages hosted ten Academy Awards ceremonies. It was also home to the Emmy Awards through 1977. In 1967, the Pantages was taken over by Pacific Theatres, who in 1977 joined forces with the Nederlander Theatre Organization to refurbish the property and turn it into a live theatre venue. In October of 2000, Disney opened its hit show The Lion King at the Pantages, which ran for over two years and almost 900 performances. Just prior to The Lion King’s opening, the Pantages underwent a painstaking $10 million renovation process, bringing the theatre back to her original splendor. Since that time, the theatre has been home to over 45 live stage productions including Mama Mia, Annie, Rent, Cats, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

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The Pantages is an absolutely beautiful theatre and a stunning example of Art Deco architecture.

From its sweeping staircases . . .

. . . to its sparkling Art Deco chandeliers, I was absolutely mesmerized by the architectural detail throughout. The Pantages is truly a wonder and I HIGHLY recommend stalking it, if you get the chance!

The Pantages is no stranger to the silver screen, either. It was featured in The Bodyguard, as the site of the Academy Awards ceremony where Whitney Houston was a presenter;

the exterior of it shows up very briefly in The Black Dhalia, as Josh Hartnett makes his way into the Frolic Room which is located right next door;

and in L.A. Confidential, as Kevin Spacey does the very same thing;

and its stage was featured in Michael Jackson’s music video for the song “You Are Not Alone”. The Pantages also showed up in Season Two of Ugly Betty (it’s the “New York” theatre where Henry takes Betty to see the musical Wicked), Paparazzi (it’s the site of Cole’s movie premiere at the very end), Ed Wood, The Jazz Singer, Money Talks, and Batman Forever.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Pantages Theatre is located at 6233 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. You can visit their website here. Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story On Stage is currently running at the Pantages now through June 28th. Upcoming shows include Legally Blonde: The Musical and How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

May 8, 2009May 7, 2009

Hollywood Center Motel

A few weeks ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, called me up to ask me if I knew that my latest Hollywood crush, Simon Baker, had one of his earliest acting roles in the 1997 movie L.A. Confidential. And I almost fell out of my chair! Even though I’ve seen that movie about a hundred times, I never realized that SB had acted in it. The then-unknown Mentalist star had the small, but pivotal role of homosexual actor/prostitute Matt Reynolds in the film. That’s him in the above screen capture. I can’t believe how young he looks!!!!

Mike also told me the address of the location where SB’s character meets his untimely demise towards the middle of the movie – Room 203 of the Hollywood Center Motel. So, of course, since I was in the area yesterday, I just had to stalk it. 🙂

In the scene filmed at the Hollywood Center Motel, Hush-Hush magazine editor Sid Hudgeons (Danny DeVito) and Detective Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) set up a sting operation to catch the Los Angeles District Attorney in an illicit rendevous with homosexual prostitute SB.

But, at the last minute, Jack has a change of heart and shows up at the motel early to warn SB of the set-up.

Unfortunately, he is too late, and when he enters the seedy motel room he finds SB’s character dead on the floor. 🙁 Poor Simon!

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Hollywood Center Motel is an odd little place, with what appears to be a large central guesthouse surrounded by small motel rooms. I am guessing that most of the motels’ guests live there full time. Aside from a change in paint color, the Hollywood Center Motel looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did twelve years ago when it appeared onscreen in L.A. Confidential. Unfortunately, other than the fact that it was built in the 20’s, I couldn’t find out much information about the small motel online. And I can’t say that I’d really recommend stalking the place, as it is pretty seedy and run-down. But being that it definitely has that Old Hollywood vibe to it, it’s easy to see why producers chose to use it in their film about a 50’s era Los Angeles.

While I was stalking the motel, the manager happened to be outside sweeping the parking lot, so, of course, I had to ask him what other productions had been filmed on the premises. He looked at me like I was absolutely out of my mind, laughed, and then walked away without saying a word. LOL LOL LOL I am fairly certain, though, that, due to its historic and unique look, the motel has to have been used in other productions besides L.A. Confidential. I am going to have to keep my eyes open for it from now on. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Hollywood Center Motel is located at 6720 West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

April 13, 2009November 24, 2013

The L.A. Confidential Liquor Store

Got an email a few weeks back from fellow stalker Tracey who gave me the address of a film location that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I had been trying to find for months – the liquor store from the 1997 movie L.A. Confidential! Mike and I had known from doing some online research that the liquor store featured in the movie was not actually real. Instead, producers had built a fake liquor store inside of a real storefront somewhere in the L.A. area. According to this film locations book, that storefront was located somewhere on Larchmont Avenue, but as so often happens with location books, that information was not correct. Mike and I had actually driven up and down Larchmont Avenue several times one day looking for the storefront without any luck. We even stopped in and spoke with the editor of the Larchmont Chronicle to see if she knew where the filming of the liquor shop scenes had taken place. LOL It wasn’t long before we figured out that the L.A. Confidential liquor store was not actually located on Larchmont Avenue and for a while the two of us put the liquor store quest on the back burner.

So you can imagine how excited I was to receive an email from one of my readers named Tracey, who, after several years of being on the prowl for the elusive liquor store, had finally located it! Turns out she had taken a surface street to work one morning hoping to avoid freeway traffic and, lo and behold, drove right past the liquor store and recognized it immediately! Yay! It’s amazing how often that actually happens. You spend hours upon hours seaching high and low for a location, only to randomly drive by it one day. In this city, you’ve just gotta keep your eyes open! 🙂 In real life the L.A. Confidential liquor store is a furniture repair store named Ramon’s Cane Shop. And it looks like it has been around forever. (In the above photo I am actually standing in front of the wrong storefront. I’m such a blond! Although in real life both storefronts are occupied by Ramon’s Cane Shop, in L.A. Confidential only the middle storefront was used.)

The liquor store shows up twice in L.A. Confidential. It is first featured in the scene when Bud White, while picking up some liquor for a Christmas party, first lays eyes on Veronica Lake lookalike Lynn Bracken.

After leaving the liquor store, Bud spots Pierce Patchett’s car with what appears to be a very beat up Susan Lefferts inside. A brief fight ensues before Lynn Bracken walks outside and explains that all is not as it seems. In the scene, Pierce’s car was parked in the driveway of a parking lot located just to the left of Ramon’s Cane Shop.

The liquor store pops up once again a bit later on in the movie, when Bud White stops by to try to dig up some information on Lynn Bracken.

I must say it was VERY cool to be stalking the L.A. Confidential liquor store, especially since – aside from the fact that it’s not really a liquor store – it looks pretty much exactly the same as it did onscreen. Sadly, though, the shop was closed when we were stalking it, and since the windows were completely covered, I didn’t get to peek inside. Looks like I’ll have to take another stalking trip out there!! Big, big THANK YOU to Tracey for tipping me off to this location. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The L.A. Confidential liquor store, aka Ramon’s Cane Shop, is located at 1279 South Cochran Avenue in Los Angeles. The area where Pierce Patchett’s car was parked when Bud White confronts him is located just to the left of the cane shop.

November 18, 2008December 6, 2013

The Formosa Cafe

This past weekend I dragged my boyfriend out to West Hollywood to grab drinks at a Los Angeles staple that I had yet to stalk – the legendary Formosa Cafe. The small cafe, located on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Formosa Avenue in West Hollywood, was opened up in 1925 by former prizefighter Jim Bernstein. The original restaurant, which served only lunch, was built inside a former Red Line trolley car and went by the name of “The Red Spot”. In 1932 Bernstein partnered up with a man named Lem Quan, expanded his little cafe, and changed the name to its current moniker – “the Formosa Cafe”. Due to its close proximity to what at the time was known as the Pickford-Fairbanks Studios (now the studio is simply called “The Lot”) which was located right across the street, the Formosa quickly became host to a bevy of Hollywood stars. Today the restaurant, now owned by Vincent Jung (grandson of original partner Lem Quan), is still popular today with many Hollywood A and B listers.

Just a brief list of those who have frequented the Formosa over the years: everyone from movie stars of yesteryear like Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, James Dean, Clark Gable, Bugsy Siegel, Mickey Cohen (the outline of a safe he used to keep in the floor of the restaurant is still visible to this day), Johnny Stompanato, Elizabeth Short aka the Black Dhalia, Eva Gardner, Natalie Wood, and Jane Russell, to the celebs of today like Laura Flynn Boyle, Luke Perry, Shannen Doherty (who used to be a regular), Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Jodie Foster, Johnny Depp, Matthew Perry, James Woods, and Christian Slater (who is reportedly a bad tipper). Literally anyone whose anyone has eaten at this tiny cafe. The Formosa has also been the site of a few celebrity scandals. It was just outside the Formosa that Eddie Murphy picked up a transvestite prositute on the night of May 2, 1997. Just minutes before Eddie had been hanging out at Jones, a club across the street, when he spotted Ken Atison Seiuli just outside the Formosa Cafe and decided to give her/him a ride. Shannen Doherty also had a run in with the law outside the famous cafe when she was arrested for hitting a fellow patron’s car with a beer bottle in the Formosa parking lot a few years back. Besides being a celeb hot-spot, the Formosa has also appeared in several movies, the most famous of which being the “A hooker cut to look like Lana Turner is still just a hooker” scene in L.A. Confidential. The Cafe also appeared in Swingers, The Majestic, and Still Breathing.

I absolutely LOVED being at the Formosa. The restaurant has managed to preserve an old Hollywood vibe and you can feel it the second you walk through the doors. It’s like magic! All I could think while sitting in that old train car was that Marilyn Monroe had once sat in the very same restaurant. I was absolutely mesmerized looking at the 250 plus signed black and white headshots which wallpaper the restaurant. It’s amazing to think about all the history held within the red painted walls of the small hang-out. I must say that the food was excellent, too – especially the chicken pot-stickers! The service was also great, too, without any of the typical L.A. pretentiousness.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Formosa Cafe is located at 7156 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit their website here.

August 26, 2008February 13, 2009

Lynn Bracken’s House

Thanks to E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, I was able to do a bit more LA Confidential stalking this weekend. As I mentioned in a previous post, LA Confidential is one of my mom’s favorite movies of all time. She has always been in love with the houses and bungalows used in the movie and has requested several times that I stalk them for her. In fact, when my family first moved to LA she told our real estate agent that she wanted an “LA Confidential house” and that’s pretty much exactly the type of house we moved into. 🙂

So when E.J. gave me the address to Kim Basinger’s character’s house from the movie, I of course had to run right out and stalk it. Lynn Bracken’s house shows up several times in the film, especially the front door and front porch area, and from what I can tell from watching the movie, it appears that both the interior and the exterior of the home were used for filming. The house is a very cute little 1950’s style Spanish bungalow and it’s pretty easy to see why producers chose to use it in the movie as it looks like it came straight out of the 1950’s.

I must admit that when we first arrived at the house, I didn’t immediately recognize it. The way the movie was filmed was somewhat deceiving and the layout of the house appears much different in person than I’d remembered it looking onscreen. In the movie, Russell Crowe spends many hours in his car staked out in front of Lynn’s home watching her greet and say goodbye to her many “houseguests”. But in real life the front door is located on the side of the home and is not immediately visible from the street which made me not entirely sure I was stalking the correct house. But when I got home and popped in my LA Confidential DVD it was easy to see that the two houses matched perfectly! 🙂 Thanks, EJ!

I highly recommend stalking Lynn’s house if you are at all a fan of LA Confidential or 1950’s California architecture.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Lynn Bracken’s house is located at 501 Wilcox Avenue, right where Wilcox meets Rossmore, in Los Angeles. It is just around the corner from the American Idol and SYTYCD apartment which is located at 445 N. Rossmore.

August 13, 2008February 13, 2009

LA Not So Confidential

For years my mom has been begging me to do some stalking of one of her favorite movies, LA Confidential. Ever since the movie came out back in 1997 she has been obsessed with finding the various houses used during filming, but none more so than David Strathiarn’s character’s beautiful, ultra modern hillside abode. Luckily, the house was a snap for me to find as the address was given right on imdb’s LA Confidential filming locations page. 🙂 In the movie David Strathiarn plays Pierce Patchett, a very wealthy businessman who runs a high class prostitution ring, where all of the prostitutes are made up to look like famous actresses. Supposedly, the ring was based on a real brothel that truly did exist back in the hey dey of Tinseltown. In the movie, Pierce lives in an amazing modern looking manse built right into the side of a hill. In real life that house is called the Lovell Health House and it is just as breathtaking in person as it appears onscreen. The Lovell Health House, or Lovell House, was commissioned by doctor Philip Lovell and built by architect Richard Neutra. Construction began in 1927 and was completed in 1929. Health-nut Lovell was completely obsessed with diet and exercise and he wanted the house to be built in such a way as to benefit the health of its occupants, which is how the house came to be called the “Lovell Health House”. Included in the home was a swimming pool, an exercise room, an eight foot tall food cooler, a water purification system, juicing equipment and plenty of windows to allow the occupants to be close to nature. The unique home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. Amazingly the Lowell family only lived in the house for one year before selling it to a different family.

Both the interior and the exterior of the house show up several times in LA Confidential and the home looks much the same in person as it did on the big screen. Unfortunately you can’t see a whole lot of the home from the street. If you want a more in depth view, I recommend renting the movie for your very own up close and personal private tour of the home.Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂 Stalk It: Pierce Patchett’s house can be found at 4616 Dundee Drive in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. To see the garage area, where filming also took place, just drive a bit south of the house to the large concrete driveway and you’ll see the garage.