Movie Locations – Page 27

August 21, 2009August 21, 2009

The “Twins” Mansion

Another day, another Twins location. 🙂 Unbelievably, before writing my post about the Twins house yesterday, I had yet to actually see the movie. For some reason, even though we own a copy of it on DVD, I had never sat down to watch it. Until yesterday, that is. But, as often happens to me when watching a movie for the first time, I got more absorbed in the locations and behind-the-scenes information than the actual storyline. I kept having to pause the movie to run to my computer to look things up. LOL One of the locales that I became a bit obsessed with finding yesterday was the mansion belonging to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito’s father in the movie. Ironically enough, while doing some cyberstalking of the home, I came across this post on fave website ’80s Movie Rewind and was SHOCKED to see the location of the house listed with a special thanks to none other than my good friend Mike, from MovieShotsLA. LOL LOL LOL It’s such a small stalking world, isn’t it?? Granted, I’m sure Mike had told me the address of the Twins mansion before, but when the two of us get to talking about locations I get so excited that half of what he says doesn’t even register. I’ll ask him about a movie locale months later and he’ll say “I ALREADY told you where that was!” LOL Needless to say, the Twins mansion address is one of the bits of information that, for whatever reason, my brain didn’t store.

Anyway, as soon as I had the address yesterday, I ran right out to stalk the house. And I am very happy to report that – over TWO DECADES later – the Twins mansion looks pretty much EXACTLY the same today as it did when the movie was filmed! I mean, even the paint color is still the same! LOVE IT! In fact, the only differences I noticed were some very minor changes in foliage. Movie location owners really need to take lessons from the people that live in this house! LOL

The Twins mansion shows up very briefly in the scene when Arnold is out looking for infomation about his mother who passed away in childbirth. He winds up at this home and ends up meeting his father for the very first time. A scene takes place in the front yard of the house and then, later, in the father’s study. And, from how it looked in the movie, I believe a real room inside the house was used as the study.

The Twins mansion, which in real life is known as the A.L. Garford House, was built in 1916 by the prominent Pasadena architectural firm of Marston & Van Pelt. Sylvanus Marston built over 1,000 residences in the Pasadena area throughout his twenty-two year career, including America’s first ever bungalow motor court apartment complex, and has even been called “Pasadena’s Quintessential Architect”. Marston built homes and buildings in an eclectic array of styles ranging from English Tudor to Imperial Chinese. The Garford House was actually one of the first Pasadena area homes to be built in the elaborate Churrigueresque, or Spanish Baroque, style, and, according to this article, was the first ever Spanish style home to have a painted stucco exterior. It truly is a very beautiful and absolutely ginormous home!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito’s father’s house from Twins, aka the A.L. Garford House, is located at 1126 Hillcrest Avenue, on the Northeast corner of Hillcrest Avenue and South Oak Knoll Avenue, in Pasadena.

August 20, 2009August 20, 2009

The “Twins” House

A few weeks ago, fellow stalker Owen asked for my help in locating Danny DeVito’s Mediteranean style home from the 1988 comedy Twins. Owen had already done quite a bit of stalking legwork on this one and had managed to contact one of the movie’s crew members who told him that the house was located on a numbered street near Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Unfortunately, though, due to the fact that many of the numbered streets in Santa Monica aren’t featured in Google Maps Street View, Owen was not able to cyberstalk the home. Which is where I came in. 🙂 Because I am in the Santa Monica area quite frequently, I offered to drive around the numbered streets to see if I could locate the elusive Twins house. From watching the movie, Owen knew that the home had an address number of 323 and that the neighboring house was numbered 327, which narrowed down our search parameters quite a bit. So, a few weeks ago, with a screen capture of the house and those few bits of information in hand, I dragged my fiance out to find the Twins house. And find it, we did! 🙂

Amazingly enough, the house was actually located on the very first street we drove down. When I realized we had found it, I turned to my fiance in shock and said “Could it really have been this easy?” LOL Sadly, though, the Twins house looks MUCH different today than it did back in 1988 when the movie was filmed. While still recognizable, it looks as if quite a bit of remodeling has been done to it in recent years. I guess I really shouldn’t be all that surprised that the house has changed so significantly, though, after all the movie was filmed more than two decades ago!

Besides adding on a whole second story, the homeowners also removed the enclosed front porch area and popped out the home’s entry way and front door by a good couple of feet, as you can see in the above photograph and screen capture. A large tree which covers the front window has also since been planted.

But the most significant – and odd – change to the house has to be the complete removal of the driveway. Owen and I have actually been over the driveway removal issue ad nauseam and still can’t figure out the reasoning behind it. I mean WHY ON EARTH WOULD SOMEONE REMOVE THEIR DRIVEWAY? LOL It’s absolutely BIZARRE! My fiance brought up the point, though, that it’s quite possible the city refused to grant the homeowner’s remodeling permits unless they agreed to do away with their driveway. Santa Monica is known as something of an “alley city” – numerous homes in the area don’t have driveways and the garages are reached via a back alley – so it’s actually a pretty good possibility that my fiance hit the nail on the head about why that driveway is no longer there.

Ironically enough, the neighboring house, which shows up briefly in Twins, still looks EXACTLY the same as it did when the movie was filmed.

Even though the Twins house looks quite different today, it was still extremely exciting to be stalking it. And a little bit of movie trivia for you – a very young Heather Graham had a brief, uncredited role in Twins as Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mom. David Caruso also had a small role in the movie as parking attendant Al Greco. His voice is so different in the flick, though, that I literally almost didn’t recognize him!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Danny DeVito’s house from Twins is located at 323 11th Street in Santa Monica.

August 19, 2009August 20, 2009

The Wedding Singer Bakery

A few weeks ago, fellow stalker Owen asked for my help in locating the bakery featured in one of his all time favorite movies, the 1998 comedy The Wedding Singer. Owen had actually contacted one of the movie’s crew members who happened to remember that the bakery where filming took place was located somewhere in Montrose, a small town in the San Gabriel Valley where quite a few scenes from The Wedding Singer were filmed. Because Owen does not live in the area, he sent me out on a mission to stalk all of the bakeries located in the tiny town in the hopes that I would eventually find the right one. So, early one morning last week, I dragged my parents out to Montrose to hopefully stalk the Wedding Singer bakery.

And, sure enough, it was the very first bakery we walked into!! Ironically, I had ALREADY STALKED this location just last month while visiting some sites from the Will Ferrell comedy Old School. It turns out that the exterior of the Wedding Singer bakery was also used as the restaurant in Old School where Luke Wilson and his “brothers” have a meeting about saving their fraternity! I didn’t immediately recognize the place from my previous stalking trip because, due to the fact that only the exterior of the bakery was featured in Old School, I never ventured inside. But while walking by last week, I peeked in the window and immediately recognized the pink sign pictured above which reads “This is the same ol place”. That sign was featured pretty prominently in the Wedding Singer bakery scene, so as soon as I saw it I knew I had found the right spot. It was at that point that I pretty much started screaming “This is it! This is it! This is it!” to my parents right there on the street out in front of the shop! While I had figured that the bakery featured in the movie would still be around, never in a million years did I think it would still look EXACTLY the same today as it did when the Wedding Singer was filmed over a decade ago! YAY!

Montrose Home Bakery and Sandwich Shoppe actually pops up during my very favorite part of The Wedding Singer – at the beginning of the Drew Barrymore/Adam Sandler falling in love montage set to the Hall & Oates song “You Make My Dreams Come True”. 🙂 In the scene, Drew Barrymore and friends are first seen looking at wedding cakes in the bakery’s glass display counter. You can even see the bakery’s striped awning behind actor Allen Covert in the above screen capture.

Drew and friends then proceed to feed each other wedding cake in the scene. Although the bakery is only featured for a few brief moments, thanks to the awesome ’80s song playing in the background, it’s quite a memorable little part of the movie.

While stalking the bakery, I happened to start up a conversation with the owner who really could NOT have been nicer to us! He answered a whole bunch of my silly questions and told me to take all the pictures I wanted. It turns out that the Montrose Home Bakery and Sandwich Shoppe has been used for quite a bit of filming over the years. Besides The Wedding Singer and Old School, the shop was also featured in several episodes of the now-defunct television series Dirty Sexy Money. There is even a photograph of the owner and Donald Sutherland taken during the filming posted in the shop’s front window. Apparently, he used to have a picture of himself with Drew Barrymore in that same window, but it is now stored at his home. He told me that if he posted all of his celebrity photographs from all of the filming that has taken place at his little shop, his entire front window would be covered up! LOL LOL LOL LOVE IT!

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Montrose Home Bakery and Sandwich Shoppe is a super cute little place and I HIGHLY recommend stalking it. The shop smelled absolutely delicious inside, but, unfortunately, because I am diabetic, I wasn’t able to sample any of the sweets. 🙁 I am seriously thinking about having them make the cupcakes for my wedding, though. How fitting would it be to get my wedding cupcakes from the Wedding Singer bakery???? 😉

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Wedding Singer Bakery, aka Montrose Home Bakery and Sandwich Shoppe, is located at 2325 1/2 Honolulu Avenue in Montrose. The shop houses both a bakery and a restaurant, and, from what I’ve heard, the restaurant serves up a GREAT breakfast.

August 17, 2009August 17, 2009

The “Mr. Deeds” Soda Fountain

A few weeks ago, while giving my good friend Kerry and her husband a stalking tour of the Pasadena area, we happened to drive by South Pasadena’s Fair Oaks Pharmacy and Soda Fountain, which was used in the 2002 Adam Sandler comedy Mr. Deeds. When I pointed out the corner drugstore to Kerry and told her of its cinematic history, she got so excited that she just about had a heart attack right there in my car!!!! LOL It was then that I realized that I had yet to blog about the tiny restaurant and that I really needed to do so. So, here goes!

Fair Oaks Pharmacy and Soda Fountain has been a South Pasadena tradition ever since it first opened up its doors way back in 1915! Yes, you read that right!!! When the tiny corner drugstore originally opened almost 95 years ago it was named the South Pasadena Pharmacy and it quickly became popular with the hundreds of visitors and tourists travelling down the legendary Route 66 highway. In the ’20s, the drugstore’s name was changed to the Raymond Pharmacy, but it still enjoyed the same popularity and success with highway motorists. In the 1990’s, a new set of owners took over, changed the drugstore’s name to Fair Oaks Pharmacy and Soda Fountain, and restored the little soda shop to its original state, complete with vintage honeycomb tile floors, authentic pharmacy fixtures, and antique tin ceilings. An authentic old time soda fountain was even brought in, transported all the way from the Me Gee Pharmacy in Joplin, Mississippi. Fair Oaks Pharmacy is still as popular amoung tourists and South Pasadena residents today as it was back in 1915. In recent years, Sunset Magazine even named it “Best Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor in the West” and, according to the Los Angeles Times, it serves up the “Best Ice Cream Sundae”.

In Mr. Deeds, Fair Oaks Pharmacy and Soda Fountain stood in for the corner drugstore in Westchestertonfieldville, Iowa that Winona Ryder supposedly frequented as a child. In an early scene in the movie, when describing her hometown, Winona says that she used to walk down to the corner drugstore to get malted milkshakes. So, when Adam takes Winona back for a surprise visit to her supposed hometown, their first stop is the soda fountain, where the townspeople mistake her for a hunchbacked little girl they used to call “Quasimodo”. LOL After leaving the Westchestertonfieldville corner drugstore, Adam and Winona head to her childhood home, which I blogged about on Friday.

I actually saw the Mr. Deeds corner drugstore scene being filmed back in 2001. Well, sort of. My mom and I used to get our nails done just down the street from the Pharmacy and we happened to drive by on the very day that filming took place. Well, of course, I took one look at those white trucks out front and immediately made my mom pull the car over so that I could ask what was being filmed. Sadly, though, we had arrived too late, as filming had already wrapped for the day and the production crew was just finishing its clean up. 🙁 So, unfortunately, I never got to see Adam Sandler or Winona Ryder!!!! Such a bummer! But I did ask the employees on duty about the stars and they said that both Adam and Winona were very nice and that Adam had actually stopped to pose for photographs and sign autographs for every single person who asked him. SO COOL! Oh, how I wish I had been there!!!!

Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I actually stopped by the Pharmacy a few weeks ago to grab a bite to eat. Whenever we spend a stalking day together, we, of course, always try to eat lunch at a restaurant that is also a filming location. 🙂 Anyway, I am happy to report that Fair Oaks Pharmacy serves up some GREAT food! I highly recommend stalking it – and ordering one of their homemade cherry cokes! 🙂 Besides being a real Pharmacy and a restaurant, the shop also sells a wide arrangment of tchotckes, including greeting cards, jewelry, retro memorabilia, vintage candy, make-up, home decor, and gifts. During the holiday season, the owners really go all out with their decorations. If you’re in the area in October, November or December, I highly recommend stopping by. 🙂 It’s worth a trip for the decorations alone!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Fair Oaks Pharmacy and Soda Fountain, aka the Mr. Deeds soda fountain, is located at 1526 Mission Street in South Pasadena. They are open Monday through Saturday from 9 am to 9 pm, and Sundays from 10 am to 7 pm. You can visit their website here.

August 14, 2009August 13, 2009

The “Mr. Deeds” House

One location that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, has being dying to stalk for ages now is Winona Ryder’s red-doored childhood home from the 2002 Adam Sandler comedy Mr. Deeds. Mike had asked for my help in tracking down this location a couple of months ago, but, for some reason, even our two heads working together couldn’t seem to find it. So, this past week, I enlisted the help of fellow stalkers Chas and Owen, and, incredibly, it wasn’t more than a couple of hours later that I got a text from Chas saying he had found the house! 🙂 I’m telling you, there’s nothing he can’t find!!! Thank you, Chas!

Even though in the movie Winona says that she grew up in the fictional town of Westchestertonfieldville, Iowa, Mike and I were fairly certain that her childhood home was located somewhere in the Pasadena area. And, sure enough, we were right!! 🙂 So, of course, once I had the address I immediately ran right out to stalk it. And I am happy to report that, aside from a pretty big difference in paint color, the house is still very recognizable from the film. The home is absolutely adorable in person and it’s not at all hard to see why producers chose to use it as Winona’s idyllic, small town childhood home.

The Mr. Deeds house only shows up in one very brief scene in the movie. In the scene, Adam Sandler takes Winona, who is posing as school nurse Pam Dawson, to what he thinks is her former childhood home in what he thinks is her former hometown. Pam had described her childhood home in Westchestertonfieldville as being “a big Victorian right off Main Street, with blue shutters and a big red door and a tire swing in the front yard.” Adam spots the house pictured above and – even though it doesn’t look at all Victorian to me LOL – assumes it is the one she had described.

Adam then proceeds to knock on the home’s red door and tells the three children who currently live there that Winona grew up in their house. Shocked, one of the kids says “My daddy built this house with his bare hands six years ago” to which Winona replies “Well, your daddy is a liar!” LOL LOL LOL Sadly, in real life the front door of the home is blue, not red, but I am guessing that the entire home was most likely repainted for the filming and then changed back to its original coloring after the production wrapped. If I was the homewoner, I so would have left the filming paint on the house, as I think it looked a lot prettier in the movie than it does now. 🙂

The filmmakers actually “cheated” quite a bit in the filming of this scene. When Adam and Winona first walk down her former street, they are supposedly walking on the sidewalk across the street from her childhood home. In actuality, though, they are walking in front of the home located directly next door to the Mr. Deeds house. While stalking the place, I immediately recognized the wooden fence pictured above, which actually surrounds the neighbor’s property. LOL

Making matters even more complicated is the fact that the home Adam and Winona stop in front of in the scene, which supposedly stands directly across from the Mr. Deeds house, is actually located about three houses down and across the street. Confused yet? So was I! 😉

Pictured above is the home that is actually located across the street from the Mr. Deeds house. I guess it didn’t have the look the producers were going for in the scene, but wow, it sure seems like a lot of trouble to go to to film one very brief scene that barely took up thirty seconds of the movie. LOL

Big THANK YOU to Chas for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Mr. Deeds house is located at 989 South Madison Avenue in Pasadena. The house that is supposedly located across the street from the Mr. Deeds house can be found at 1026 South Madison. The home with the wooden fence that Adam and Winona walk in front of is located at 999 South Madison.

August 13, 2009August 13, 2009

A Peek Inside the Pink House from “13 Going On 30”

As I mentioned in Monday’s post, this past weekend, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I actually got to GO INSIDE the pink house featured at the end of fave romantic comedy 13 Going On 30. Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I absolutely LOVE 13 Going On 30 and that Jenna’s pink Craftsman style home is one of my very favorite filming locations of all time! Mike actually found this location for me back in May of 2008, after what seemed like MONTHS of me begging him to track it down. LOL But even though Mike was the one who actually located the house, he had yet to stalk it himself. So, I just HAD to take him there on Saturday while the two of us were in the area.

As fate would have it, when I first blogged about Jenna’s pink house back in May of 2008, the real life homeowner, an AMAZINGLY NICE woman named Mimi, happened to stumble upon my site and was amazed to see a post dedicated to her residence. LOL Mimi ended up leaving me a comment where she mentioned that after the filming of 13 Going On 30 had been completed, she and her husband asked the production crew who were repainting the house back to its original color to leave one brick pink in memory of the movie. HOW COOL IS THAT???? So, when I took Mike to stalk the place on Saturday, the two of us stood there on the sidewalk for quite some time, scrutinizing every square inch of the house looking for that brick. LOL Well, Mimi happened to see us through her front window and came outside to say hello. She recognized me from my site and said “Do you want to see the pink brick?” Well, as you can imagine, I just about DIED. I had been itching to see that brick ever since I first read her comment over a year ago! 🙂

The brick is actually located on the rear side of a post in the driveway area of the home and I could NOT have been more excited to be seeing it in person!!!!! I can’t tell you how cool it is that Mimi and her husband left that one brick pink! I SO SO SO LOVE IT! Mimi is truly a woman after my own heart! 🙂 Except, knowing me, I probably would have left the whole house pink! LOL 🙂

Then, just as I was about to die of excitement over seeing that brick, Mimi asked us if we wanted to come inside to see the living room area where they had also filmed!!!! DID WE WANT TO COME INSIDE????? DID WE WANT TO COME INSIDE?????? LOL OF COURSE WE DID! Well, it turns out that the mantle area shown in the movie was a fake that was built solely for the filming in what is really Mimi’s dining room. The production crew covered over the large window pictured above with a fake wall, a fake fireplace, and a fake mantle. Mimi said that the crew spent about a week building one fireplace, only to have the producers not like it. So, they ended up having to rip it out and build a new one entirely from scratch. She said it was an amazingly intricate fireplace made out of tile, but, ironically enough, after what amounted to two weeks of construction on two different fireplaces, neither one was ever seen in the movie. LOL LOL LOL In the scene when Jenna is unpacking photographs, the camera never shows anything below the top right corner of the mantle area. So, all of that fireplace construction was pretty much for naught. Only in Hollywood, I swear!

Adding to the irony is the fact that there is already a fireplace and a mantle in the house that could have been used in the scene! LOL Too funny!

I can’t tell you how exciting it was to be able to see the interiors of the home in person and to hear all of the behind-the-scenes info! Truly a once in a lifetime! All in all, filming at the house took two weeks to complete, including the painting and construction time. The actual filming of the scene between Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo took less than one day to shoot. LOL And, amazingly enough, the pink house scene wasn’t the movie’s original ending, but a re-shoot that was filmed after the first ending didn’t fare well with test audiences.

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Mimi’s house has also been featured in a commercial and the Season 2 episode of Cold Case entitled “Who’s Your Daddy”.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The pink house from 13 Going On 30 is located at 1965 Fletcher Avenue in South Pasadena, just a few doors down from the Step by Step house, which is located at 2011 Fletcher. The house from Kelly Clarkson’s Because Of You video is located across the street at 2006 Fletcher Ave. Please respect the owner’s privacy and don’t trepass, knock on the door, or ask to be let inside. Mike and I were extremely lucky to be invited inside the house, but as this is not common practice, please don’t bother the owner about doing it yourself.

August 12, 2009August 12, 2009

The “Never Been Kissed” Prom

A couple of weeks ago, thanks to fellow stalker Chas, I was able to stalk the location of South Glen South High School’s prom from the 1999 movie Never Been Kissed. Chas and I both knew that the prom interiors had been filmed at the Ebell of Los Angeles – a women’s educational and philanthropic club which has a long and storied film history and which I promise to blog about in the near future – but the exterior scenes had actually been filmed at another location entirely. It was that exterior location that I asked Chas to find during my Never Been Kissed stalking kick a few weeks back. Ironically, he told me that it was the one location from the movie that he didn’t think he would be able to track down. Well, I guess he just doesn’t realize how good he really is because a few hours later he emailed me back with an address and, sure enough, it was the spot!! YAY!

Ironically enough, the exterior Never Been Kissed prom location can actually be found just a block and a half away from the Ebell. Why the two different locations you ask? Well, my best guess is that producers wanted to shoot Drew and the gang’s entrance to the dance at a building with a large drop-off area, which the Ebell unfortunately doesn’t have. So, when they found a suitable building located just two short blocks away, they decided to film the entrance scene there instead. Just another example of the magic of Hollywood at work! 🙂

For some odd reason I could not find much information about the Never Been Kissed prom location online, even though it looks like it could be some sort of historic structure. I’m actually very surprised that it is not on the National Register of Historic Places, as it is a truly beautiful place. The only information I was able to discover is that the Mediterranean style building, which used to be a private residence, was converted to commercial office space in 1981. While it is currently vacant, in the past the building housed the Metropolitan Talent Agency and, most recently, a wedding coordination company named the Ahn Gallery. You can see interior photographs of the building on its leasing website here.

Big THANK YOU to Chas for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Never Been Kissed prom site is located at 4526 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Note – if you search this location using Google Maps, the building will not show up. You have to move about a block to the West to see it. 🙂 The Ebell of Los Angeles, where the interior prom scenes were filmed, is located just down the street at 743 South Lucerne Boulevard. Unfortunately, both properties are currently closed to the public.

August 10, 2009June 16, 2011

The “Rumor Has It” House

Out of the blue last week, fellow stalker Owen and I became a bit obsessed with finding the white clapboard colonial style home used in the 2005 Jen Aniston movie Rumor Has It. For some extremely odd reason, neither Owen (who is also a HUGE JA fan) nor I had ever tried to locate the house before. I didn’t especially love the movie, though, in spite of the fact that it starred my girl Jen, so that’s probably why I never sought it out. But, last week, when Owen mentioned the movie to me, we both got the exact same thought in our head at the exact same time – “We have GOT to find that house!” LOL And find it, we did! Well, he did, actually!

Even though the movie supposedly takes places in Pasadena and even though the house looks like a very typical Pasadena area home – there’s a white clapboard colonial on practically every corner here – I was convinced that, in typical Hollywood fashion, the house would most likely be located elsewhere. Because Pasadena stands in for pretty much every city in pretty much every state in pretty much every movie LOL, it seemed only fitting that when a production called for a Pasadena area home, the location scouts would find it in a city other than Pasadena. LOL

So, imagine my surprise when Owen texted me to let me know that he had found the house exactly where the movie said it would be. While searching the IMDB Rumor Has It message boards he found a thread entitled “White Colonial In Pasadena Used As Movie Set” where a man had written the following entry: “It was quite a shock seeing Rumor Has it while flying back to Boston. I suddenly recognized the home my grandfather built in Pasadena at 717 South Hudson Avenue in 1920 and that I lived in briefly in 1946-47 while my father built a new home near the Annandale golf course. Not often that one sees one’s childhood home used as a movie set — and sees Shirley MacLaine walking out the front door or Kevin Costner arriving.” So, Owen googled the address and, sure enough, it was the house!! THANK YOU, IMDB!

So, of course, as soon as I had the address, I immediately ran right out to stalk the house! 🙂 Surprisingly enough, I had actually parked RIGHT in front of the Rumor Has It house just two weeks prior while stalking the Dickie Roberts house, which is ironically located just two doors down!!!! I felt like such an airhead for not recognizing the house at the time, but, in my defense, it actually looks quite different in person than it did in the movie. The paint color has been changed from white and forest green to more muted tones and, sadly, the house just isn’t as charming in person as it was in Rumor Has It. Don’t get me wrong, the house is cute, it’s just not AS cute as it was in the movie. But there was also something else that looked quite different to me that I just couldn’t put my finger on – until I got home.

In person, the house seemed much smaller than it did in Rumor Has It and I couldn’t figure out why until I was able to compare screen captures from the movie to the photographs I had just taken. As you can see in the above screen capture, producers actually put large hedges over the real driveway of the home and extended the curb and grass area on the sidewalk in front of the driveway, making the front yard appear much larger than it actually is.

In the scene when Jen Aniston’s father pulls up to the house, he actually parks in the real life home’s neighboring driveway (pictured above)! LOL Why go to all of that trouble just to give the illusion that the house is larger than it actually is? Why not just film at a bigger house? As I mentioned above there are houses similar to this one on practically every Pasadena street corner. LOL Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

But even though the house looked quite different in person than it did in the movie, I was still absolutely floored to be stalking it! It was soooo exciting to think that my girl Jen – and Shirley MacLaine and Kevin Costner – had once stood on the very same sidewalk that I was now standing on. 🙂 LOVE IT!

Had to do it! 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Rumor Has It house is located at 717 South Hudson Avenue in Pasadena, just two houses down from the home used in Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star.

August 6, 2009August 5, 2009

The Jerry Maguire House

A couple of months ago, I gave Mike, from MovieShotsLA, the mission of locating Dorothy Boyd’s house from the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire. From a quick internet search, Mike was able to ascertain that Dorothy’s tiny yellow house was located in an area of Manhattan Beach known as the “Tree Section”. The home’s exact location, though, was not mentioned anywhere online and since Google Maps Street View is not available in Manhattan Beach, we were unable to locate the house using the internet. So, two weeks ago, Mike and I set about to stalk Manhattan Beach’s Tree Section in person. Our plan was to literally drive up and down each street in the neighborhood until we found Dorothy’s house. But, thanks to a very lucky twist of fate, it never actually came to that.

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The Tree Section of Manhattan Beach is thus named not because of an abundance of trees as one might guess, but because the vast majority of streets in the area are named after different types of trees, such as Palm, Walnut, Oak, and Elm. It is said that the Tree Section is one of the most sought after areas to live in Manhattan Beach due to its rural neighborhood feel which has been maintained thanks to extremely narrow streets, lack of sidewalks, tiny houses built in the ’40s and ’50s, and proximity to the beach. Oddly enough, though, when Mike and I arrived in Manhattan Beach, we could not find the Tree Section anywhere. After driving around in what seemed like circles for quite some time, we pulled over to ask a random woman to point us in the right direction. The woman immediately asked us, “Well, is there a particular street you are looking for?” We both pretty much started laughing and told her we had NO idea what street we were looking for. Thinking we were probably crazy, she then said “Well, what is it you are trying to find?” Figuring she would have absolutely NO IDEA what were talking about, we told her we were looking for the Jerry Maguire house. Well, lo and behold, she started laughing and said “Oh my God, one of my good friends from high school lived across the street from that house during the filming. I know exactly where it is!” Honestly, what are the odds???? The stalking gods must have been watching out for us that day, because of all the people in Manhattan Beach to ask for directions, we find the one who knows exactly where the JM house is! Our new best friend then gave us detailed directions to the house and Mike and I were on our way! YAY!

Before arriving at the house, Mike was worried that it may have been remodeled, as sadly that is fairly commonplace with the older Tree Section homes. So, we were both absolutely FLOORED when we pulled up and saw that the house looked EXACTLY- and I do mean EXACTLY – the same today as it did over thirteen years ago when the movie was filmed. It is absolutely incredible to me that virtually no part of the house has been changed in the almost decade and a half since filming took place. The paint color, the landscaping, even the house number plaque all the look exactly the same. HOORAY!

The only difference that I noticed was the tree in front, which used to have a second limb that crossed in front of the house. That limb has since been removed.

The Jerry Maguire house shows up numerous times throughout the movie, most notably in the scene when Jerry takes Dorothy out on their first date.

And I believe the real backyard of the home was also used for the filming of several scenes, including both Jerry and Dorothy’s wedding ceremony and their subsequent break-up.

And from what we could see of the inside of the house from the street, it definitely looks as if the home’s real life interior was also used in the film, most notably for the many “Divorced Women’s Group” meetings. A little bit of movie trivia for you – Winnie Holzman, the creator of fave show My So-Called Life, was one of the members of that “Divorced Women’s Group” (pictured above).

Which is extremely ironic to me, because in Jerry Maguire, Dorothy and Jerry have what I’ve always referred to as “their My So-Called Life moment” in the middle of the street out in front of Dorothy’s house. LOVE IT!

I highly recommend stalking the Jerry Maguire house for any fans of the movie, as, thanks to the aweome fact that its appearance has not been changed in recent years, it is one of the most recognizable movie locations I’ve ever been to! On a very sad side note, though, I drove by the 90210 house the other day and almost had a heart attack when I saw that it had been painted an entirely different color! It’s almost unrecognizable now! UGH! Such a tragedy!!!!! 🙁 That stuff should not be allowed to happen!!!!!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Jerry Maguire house is located at 527 23rd Street in the “Tree Section” of Manhattan Beach.

August 5, 2009August 4, 2009

Paul Rudd’s House From “I Love You, Man”

One location I have been trying to find for quite some time now is the Mid-Century Modern style abode where Paul Rudd and Rashida Jones lived in fave romantic comedy I Love You, Man. I was dying to stalk the house not only because of its incredibly unique architecture, but also because I was such a big fan of the movie. It’s hilarious! Well, I happened to mention my quest in an email to fellow stalker Owen last week and it wasn’t ten minutes later that he had emailed me back with an address! Sure enough, it was the right house! YAY! So, of course, I ran right out to stalk it! 🙂

Ironically enough, the I Love You, Man house is exactly where the movie purports it to be – in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. Not only that, but the scenes where Paul Rudd drives to and from his home in the movie were really filmed along the actual streets one would take to get there in real life. On my way to stalk the house yesterday, I was amazed to realize that I was actually passing by some of the very same buildings that Paul drove by in the movie, which was shocking to me as most driving scenes in movies are not filmed anywhere near the places where the characters are supposedly leaving from or heading to. LOL

I am very happy to report that the I Love You, Man house looks exactly the same in person as it did in the movie. And I absolutely loved seeing it! The house is extremely unique in its appearance and even though, as I have mentioned many times before on this blog, the modernist style isn’t really my thing, I truly love this house! I am not at all surprised that producers chose to use it as the home of a young, fairly successful Los Angeles real estate agent and his fiance.

My favorite part of the house has to be the dual staircases leading up to the front door. I just love the juxtaposition of the rounded and straight stairway, which you can sort of see in the above photograph. So cool and, as I said before, just so unique!

Ironically enough, the man who lives across the street from the I Love You, Man house pulled up while I was stalking the place. I was really hoping I’d get the chance to talk to him and ask him all sorts of questions about the filming, but instead he gave me a look like I was absolutely out of mind for taking photographs of a random house in L.A. and immediately went inside his home. LOL I so should have left a note on his door saying “You obviously don’t realize this, so I really feel it is my duty to tell you – you live right ACROSS THE STREET from the I Love You, Man house!” LOL Sheesh, some people!

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The I Love You, Man house is located at 3959 Franklin Avenue in Los Feliz, just around the corner from John Marshall High School, aka the Girls Just Want To Have Fun high school.