Movie star houses – IAMNOTASTALKER

November 21, 2013November 20, 2013

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s Former West Adams Houses

I just finished reading a fabulous book about one of Hollywood’s first and biggest controversies titled Room 1219: The Life of Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood by Greg Merritt. Prior to reading the tome, I knew little about actor/comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, but had always been fascinated by his rape and murder trial, which rocked Tinseltown to its core. I had actually previously stalked two of Fatty’s former West Adams homes after finding their addresses thanks to fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory, and his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites. My original intent was to blog about them during the month of October, but once I discovered that the pads aren’t reported to be haunted and that the Roscoe scandal did not actually take place on either premises I decided to hold off until November. So here goes!

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The tale of Fatty is a sad one. The robust comedian became Hollywood’s golden boy and one of its highest paid stars in the 1910s, after toiling penniless for years on the Vaudeville circuit. Cut to Labor Day weekend 1921, when Roscoe made the fateful decision to go to San Francisco with two friends. He stayed in Room 1219 of the Saint Francis Hotel (a location that I hope to stalk in the near future) and threw a raucous party. A young actress name Virginia Rappe was in attendance. She drank quite a bit at the soiree and, at some point, ruptured her bladder, dying four days later from peritonitis in a nearby sanitarium. One of Rappe’s friends falsely accused Arbuckle of raping Virginia and causing her death. Despite the fact that doctors found no evidence of a rape, Fatty was arrested for murder. The media had a field day denouncing the comedian and his films were soon banned in most states. His first two trials resulted in hung juries and he was finally acquitted – and given a written apology from the jury – at the third in April 1922. His career never recovered, though, and he was forced to work mostly behind the scenes under a pseudonym for the remainder of his life, which was not long. Roscoe passed away from a heart attack in 1933 at the age of 46.

According to E.J., Roscoe rented the Vienna Secessionist-style mansion pictured below in the late 1910s (although I’ve also heard reports that he lived there after his trials ended). The residence had been commissioned by businessman/real estate developer Lycurgus Lindsay (love the name!) in 1908 and was constructed of hollow hard-burned terra cotta from Western Art Tile Works, a company Lindsay owned. The property was designed by Charles Frederick Whittlesey, who also devised the original Wentworth Hotel in Pasadena, which was later re-built as the Huntington Hotel. In 1908, the home’s grounds measured over four acres, stretched from West Adams Street all the way to West 27th Street, and included three large terraced-pieces of land and a greenhouse. The dwelling, which was considered fire- and earthquake-proof, boasted three stories, a large reception hall with an art-glass window depicting a waterfall, a formal dining room, a butler’s pantry, servants’ quarters, leaded glass windows, a conservatory, and quarter-grain oak and Peruvian mahogany detailing.

According to the Los Angeles History blog, Lindsay lived at the residence, which is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, from the time it was completed in 1910 to 1913.

At some point, the property was obtained by the Our Lady of the Bright Mount Roman Catholic Polish Church and a parish was subsequently constructed in the front yard area, almost completely obscuring the mansion from view. In fact, when the Grim Cheaper and I first went to stalk it, we drove right by the place without even realizing it was there.

It is so sad to me that such a gorgeous edifice has been so obscured. Thankfully though, one of the priests who happened to be on the premises noticed us taking photographs and invited us behind the gates for a better view.

In 1919, Roscoe leased another West Adams-area mansion located about three miles east. The property had originally been commissioned in 1905 by United States Navy Commander Randolph Huntington Miner and his wife, shipping heir Tulita Wilcox Miner. The two-story, twenty-room Tudor revival-style dwelling boasted a drawing room that could hold two hundred people, a gabled roof, a Japanese meditation garden, a koi pond, and stained glass windows. In 1917, the Miners migrated to France and leased out their home to silent film siren Theda Bara. When Theda moved out in 1919, Roscoe and his then-wife Minta Durfee moved in. A short time later, they purchased the pad from the Miners for $250,000.

According to Merritt, Arbuckle spent copious amounts to decorate the place. He writes, “He imported an intricately carved front door from Spain (cost: $12,000) and bought and bought and bought: ornate mahogany paneling, gold-leafed bathtubs, crystal chandeliers, Oriental rugs, marble counters, fine-art paintings, antique china. The red lacquer dining room table with golden-clawed feet was from China. The lanai featured a Hawaiian royal chair. There was a Japanese bridge over the pond. Forever fascinated by technical gadgetry, Arbuckle had his closets and dressers wired with lights that came on when a door or drawer was opened.” The home’s humongous detached garage had space for all six of Roscoe’s luxury cars, including his beloved custom-built Pierce-Arrow. (You can see the spire of nearby St. Vincent de Paul Church, which I blogged about here, on the right-hand side of the top photo below.)

The Virgina Rappe scandal and Roscoe’s ensuing unemployment left the actor virtually destitute. To pay for the trials (which it is rumored cost him $750,000 – and that’s 1920s money!), he deeded his mansion to Joseph Schenck. He continued to live on the premises, though, leasing the property back from the legendary producer. By June 1922, Fatty’s manager Lou Anger and his wife had rented the residence for themselves, allowing Arbuckle, whose own wife had since moved out, to stay there as well. By December of that year, the broke – and broken – comedian was living by himself in a small bungalow in Hollywood. Today, the property serves as a rectory for Congregation of the Mission and is known as the Amat House, named (I believe) in honor of the first bishop of Los Angeles, Thaddeus Amat y Brusi.

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

Big THANK YOU to E.J., of The Movieland Directory, for writing about these locations in his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Fatty Arbuckle’s former homes are both located in the West Adams District of Los Angeles – the Lycurgus Lindsay house can be found at 3424 West Adams Boulevard and the Amat House is located at 649 West Adams Boulevard.

October 24, 2013September 29, 2017

Dan Aykroyd’s Former Haunted House

Another spooky locale that I learned about thanks to fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory, and his fabulous book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites was the longtime home of Ghostbuster Dan Aykroyd and his wife, actress Donna Dixon. The residence piqued my interest due to Aykroyd’s claim of numerous hauntings taking place there over the years. So I, of course, immediately added it to my Haunted Hollywood To-Stalk list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there back in early May.

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Dan Aykroyd is not the first celebrity to live in the two-story, country-style abode. In fact, the property’s tenancy records read like a Who’s Who of Hollywood and include such luminaries as Natalie Wood, Ringo Starr, Alfre Woodard, (possibly) Renee Zellweger, and “Mama” Cass Elliot. According to the book Swans and Pistols, during Cass’ tenure there, the singer encouraged famous guests like Eric Clapton, Ryan O’Neal, David Crosby, and Don Johnson to write notes on a “graffiti” wall in the living room. (How cool would that have been to see?) Dan and Donna purchased the site sometime during the 1980s and it was not long before strange occurrences started taking place.

A 2003 iVillage article quoted Dan as saying, “A ghost certainly haunts my house. It once even crawled into bed with me. I rolled over and just nuzzled up to whatever it was and went back to sleep. The ghost also turns on the Stairmaster and moves jewelry across the dresser. I’m sure it’s Mama Cass because you get the feeling it’s a big ghost.” Dan’s bed must have been a pretty busy place because in 2005 he told ContactMusic.com that the spirit of a man who died at the home in the 1960s bunked with him, as well. That same year he also spoke of the specter in a Huffington Post interview, saying, “Have I personally ever seen a ghost? Not one. Have I ever felt an unseen presence near me? Damn right. In my bed no less when we lived in Mama Cass’s Hollywood estate.” You can watch a video below of Aykroyd talking about selling the Cass residence and the fact that he had to disclose that there had been some “unusual activity” on the premises “that could not be explained rationally or physically.”

And after going through my photographs of the property yesterday, I tend to believe him. The picture below, which gave me the chills when I saw it, has not been altered in any way. Creeeeeeepy!

Aykroyd apparently put the house on the market several times while owning it, but the place never sold. I guess not many people are willing to cuddle up to ghosts. According to The Real Estalker, in 2006, the actor tried to lease it out at the whopping rate of $30,000 a month. It remained on the market for over 450 days, though, until he decided to offer it for sale in November 2007 for $4.2 million.

According to Berg Properties, the estate was finally sold one month later to none other than actress Beverly D’Angelo (of the Vacation movies) for $3.8 million. She, too, has been visited by Mama Cass’ apparition, as she talks about in the below (overly dramatic) clip from a Season 3 episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories.

Sadly, not much of the 4,828-square-foot residence is visible from the street. According to The Real Estalker, the estate, which was originally built in 1951, boasts 5 bedrooms, 5.5 baths, a master bedroom with an attached office and weight room, a library, 6 fireplaces, over one acre of land, a pool, and a motor court. There also seems to be some sort of tree house on the premises, as you can see below. You can check out some interior photographs of the pad – wallpapered kitchen ceiling and all – here.

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

Big THANK YOU to E.J., of The Movieland Directory, for writing about this location in his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Dan Aykroyd’s former haunted house is located at 7708 Woodrow Wilson Drive in the Hollywood Hills.

October 16, 2013September 29, 2017

The Former Site of Mulholland Farm

Another locale that fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory, mentioned in Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites was the spot where Mulholland Farm – the former home of actor Errol Flynn – once stood. And while I knew next to nothing about Flynn at the time I read the book, the blurb caught my eye due to a macabre practical joke that was allegedly played at the property involving John Barrymore (grandfather of Drew), which I thought would interest my friend Ashley, of The Drewseum website. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place way back in mid-February while the two of us were in L.A. for a weekend visit.

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The Tasmanian-born Flynn, who became an overnight sensation and Hollywood’s original bad boy after playing a swashbuckler in 1935’s Captain Blood, purchased an 11. 5-acre plot of land hidden away at the top of a ravine off of Mulholland Drive in 1941 and proceeded to build a two-story, country-style home there. He dubbed the $125,000 property, which he helped design, “Mulholland Farm.” The residence was a virtual den of iniquity, boasting a black marble pool, a tennis court, a barn, circular stables, a casino, a master bedroom with a mirrored ceiling, an obscene mural involving fish genitalia that ran behind a set of humongous fish tanks that lined the walls of his den, and a bar that covered a secret passageway leading to a hidden viewing area overlooking the women’s guest bathroom. The estate became a popular party pad (for obvious reasons) and such luminaries as Charlie Chaplin, Jack Warner, Mickey Rooney, Tyrone Power, and Flynn’s longtime friend and drinking buddy John Barrymore all hung out on the premises. There were also plenty of female visitors. Just a few of the starlets Flynn “entertained” at the home include Hedy Lamarr, Ann Sheridan, Linda Christian, Ida Lupino, Faith Domergue, and Dorothy Lamour. It should come as no surprise that the phrase “In like Flynn” came about thanks to the actor and his propensity for getting women into bed.

Flynn loved practical jokes and legend has it that, on May 29th, 1942, several of his drinking buddies pulled a whopper on him at the Farm. As the story goes, on the night that John Barrymore passed away, Flynn’s friends bribed a mortuary worker to let them “borrow” the corpse for a few hours. They drove it to Flynn’s house where they propped Barrymore up in a chair with a cocktail in his hand. When Errol returned to the Farm later that night after several hours spent drinking, he walked in to find the dead actor sitting in his living room. Of the event, Flynn wrote in his autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, “My God, the light went on and I stared into the face of Barrymore! His eyes were closed, and he looked puffed, white, bloodless. They hadn’t embalmed him yet. I let out a delirious scream.” With friends like that, who needs enemies? Flynn took the experience in stride, though, offering the pranksters a drink and cordially refusing to help them return the body to the funeral home. And while several sources claim that the Barrymore anecdote is pure fiction, it sure makes for one heck of a story!

In 1953, Flynn left Mulholland Farm and moved to Europe in order to avoid paying back taxes to the government and alimony to two ex-wives. At some point thereafter, he lost the property to his first wife, Lili Damita. She sold off some of the acreage, on which new homes were eventually built (one of which, at 7740 Mulholland Drive, is the dwelling featured in the photographs that appear in this post, but more on that later). In 1959, Errol’s former residence and the surrounding 7.5 acres of land were purchased by gospel singer Stuart Hamblen and his wife, Suzy. They lived there for the next twenty years. And while the couple reported no strange goings-on, when pop star Ricky Nelson purchased the site in 1980, his family witnessed all sorts of odd behavior, leading them to believe that the pad was haunted by Errol. I’d venture to guess, though, that it was Barrymore’s ghost who had come back to terrorize the place. Sadly, in 1988, Mulholland Farm was sold to a real estate developer who bulldozed Errol’s former residence and subdivided the remaining land. Helen Hunt purchased one of the parcels (at 3100 Torreyson Place) in 1997 and proceeded to build a mansion on it. She never lived there, though, and in 2002 sold the estate to none other than Justin Timberlake for $8.2 million.

The address of Mulholland Farm during Flynn’s tenure there was 7740 Mulholland Drive, as you can see in this 1942 newspaper article. At the time, his was the only house in the vicinity. (The 11.5 acres that comprised the Farm are roughly denoted by the orange circle below.)

Today, there are seven different residences located on those 11.5 acres. The house which now stands at 7740 Mulholland Drive, on what looks to have been some sort of horse riding arena in Flynn’s day, was built in 1967 on a parcel of land that had been sold off by Lili Damita.

You can watch a video about Mulholland Farm by clicking below. And you can click here to purchase a book written about the property titled Errol Flynn Slept Here.

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

Big THANK YOU to E.J., of The Movieland Directory, for writing about this location in his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Mulholland Farm, Errol Flynn’s one-time home, was formerly located at 7740 Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills.

October 11, 2013September 29, 2017

Peg Entwistle’s Former House

Another location that I learned about thanks to the fabulous Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites book, which was penned by fellow stalker E.J. of The Movieland Directory, was the one-time Beachwood Drive home of Peg Entwistle, the tragic blonde actress who only achieved fame after her 1932 suicide, in which she jumped to her death from the Hollywood Sign. And while I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk the residence just a few days after reading about it, I figured it would be the perfect spot to feature in my Haunted Hollywood postings and held off on blogging about it until now.

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Peg was born Lillian Millicent Entwistle across the pond in London, England in 1908. After her mother passed away suddenly when Entwistle was about eight, she and her father, Robert, packed up and moved to New York in the hopes of starting a new life. While there, Robert remarried and had two sons. Tragically, he was killed about six years later by a hit-and-run driver while walking home from work. Peg’s brothers were then sent to California to live with their uncle, Harold Entwistle, while Peg stayed behind to try her turn at acting. She quickly secured a role in a Broadway production of Hamlet and garnered favorable reviews. It was not long before the petite beauty was acting steadily, earning parts in over ten different Broadway productions. Sadly, most were flops. In 1927, Peg met actor Robert Keith and the two were later married. The union was quickly dissolved, though, when Entwistle discovered that Keith had not only been married previously, but had a son (Family Affairs’ Brian Keith, who also later committed suicide, as did his daughter, Daisy).

In 1931, Peg heard Hollywood calling and moved to the West Coast, originally renting a room at the Hollywood Studio Club. She instantly won a role in the short-lived play The Mad Hopes, which also featured Humphrey Bogart and The Wizard of Oz’s Billie Burke. Stardom was almost within reach shortly thereafter when she landed a part in RKO’s Thirteen Women, but, sadly, when the movie premiered in 1932, it was lambasted by critics and the studio subsequently re-edited it, cutting Peg’s role almost entirely. RKO cancelled her contract just a few weeks later and the actress was forced to move into her uncle’s house at 2428 North Beachwood Drive in Hollywood. Peg then made plans to return to New York and the Great White Way, but, unfortunately, could not come up with the necessary train fare. Times were dire.

On the evening of Friday, September 16th, 1932, Peg informed Harold that she was heading to a local drugstore. Instead, she walked a mile and a half up Beachwood Drive to the Hollywood Sign (which then spelled out “Hollywoodland”), climbed up a maintenance ladder to the top of the 50-foot-tall letter H, and jumped to her death. She was 24. The following morning, her clothing and purse were discovered by a hiker. Inside the purse, was a letter that read, “I am afraid I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E.” (The image below is a screen capture taken from an E! Mysteries & Scandals episode about Entwistle. I am unsure if the letter pictured is Peg’s actual letter or a facsimile.) The hiker gathered the clothes and purse and dropped them on the steps of the Hollywood Police Station anonymously. The next day, detectives located Peg’s remains. Investigators were unable to identify her, so they published the suicide note in the Los Angeles Times in the hopes that someone would recognize the handwriting. Harold did, called the police and later identified the body. Peg was cremated and subsequently interred at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Glendale, Ohio.

Supposedly, a letter from the Beverly Hills Playhouse offering Peg the lead part in a play arrived at Harold’s house shortly following her death. The role? A beautiful woman who commits suicide. I am fairly certain that is just Hollywood lore, though – an anecdote dreamed up to make Peg’s story all the more tragic (especially being that, according to Wikipedia, the Beverly Hills Playhouse was not founded until 1954, over two full decades after Entwistle’s suicide).

Harold’s tiny bungalow, which was originally built in 1913, boasts three bedrooms, one bath, 1,650 square feet of living space, and a 0.16-acre plot of land. The property last sold for $35,000 in November 1974. Zillow estimates its worth today at $980,000. Not a bad return on an investment!

Pictured below is the view from the front of Peg’s former home. I cannot tell you how haunting it was to be standing in front of the residence with the Hollywood Sign looming over us.

You can watch the E! Mysteries & Scandals episode about Peg by clicking below.

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

Big THANK YOU to E.J., of The Movieland Directory, for writing about this location in his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Peg Entwistle’s former home is located at 2428 North Beachwood Drive in Hollywood.

February 14, 2012February 14, 2012

Robert Reed’s Former Home

I (along with cutie Matt Lanter – sigh!) would like to start out today by wishing all of my fellow stalkers a very happy Valentine’s Day! And now, on with the post!

A couple of weeks ago, while doing research on the Nanny and the Professor house, I happened to stumble upon an article on my friend Scott Michaels’ FindADeath website about Robert Reed, the Shakespearian-trained actor who is most famous for having portrayed architect/patriarch Mike Brady on the 1970s television sitcom The Brady Bunch. And, let me tell you, I almost fell right out of my chair when I read the portion of the article which stated that the star had lived the majority of his later years right here in Pasadena. Come again, now? How in the world had I not previously known this information?? Especially considering that The Brady Bunch is one of my favorite shows of all time! I mean, why on earth is this data not posted right there on the homepage of the official City of Pasadena website, or on a plaque on the walls of City Hall itself?? It is a pretty major claim to fame – in my eyes at least! Sheesh! Do I have to think of everything? Anyway, I was so excited about the news that I ran right out to stalk the place later that same week.

According to Zillow, Robert Reed’s former home, which was originally built in 1947 and sits on almost half an acre of land, boasts 3 bedrooms, 4 baths, and 4,400 square feet of living space. There seems to be a bit of a discrepancy somewhere, though, because the Property Shark website has a differing set of statistics which state that the abode measures 4 bedrooms, 5 baths, and 4,010 square feet of living space. And, unfortunately, I am unsure of which information is correct. Either way, I cannot express how incredibly cool I think it is that Robert Reed, who was a household name and an instantly recognizable star at the time, lived in a dwelling that was largely visible from the street. Love it!

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According to his death certificate, which can be viewed on the FindADeath website, Robert Reed passed away at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena on Tuesday, May 12th, 1992, and not at his home as several websites have stated. The actor was 59 years old at the time. His funeral was held at All Saints Church in Pasadena, an oft-filmed-at location that I have yet to blog about, and he is buried at Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie, Illinois. According to a commenter named Rita on the FindADeath site, the home pictured above was not Robert Reed’s first Pasadena-area residence. The star, who was born John Robert Rietz, originally purchased a property located at 1210 South Arroyo Boulevard sometime during the mid-sixties. That gargantuan abode, which boasts 3 bedrooms, 5 baths, a whopping 9,218 square feet, and 0.84 acres of land, is, sadly, not at all visible from the street, though, so I did not attempt to stalk it. Reed sold his original Pasadena residence sometime around 1985, at which point he moved about a half a mile east, into the sprawling Spanish-style home where he would live out the remainder of his years.

Big THANK YOU to Scott Michaels, from the FindADeath website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Robert Reed’s former house is located at 980 Stoneridge Drive in Pasadena. The Cravens Estate, from Commander in Chief and JAG, is located right around the corner at 430 Madeline Drive in Pasadena.

January 3, 2012January 2, 2012

Carrie Fisher’s House

I would like to start off by wishing all of my fellow stalkers a very happy New Year! I hope that 2012 brings each of you joy, laughter, fulfillment, and much good stalking. And now, on with the post! When my good friend, fellow stalker Lavonna, visited Los Angeles back in mid-November, she, along with her daughter Melissa and friends Beth, Kim, and Sandy, attended a taping of The Talk (during which she got a hug from none other than Henry Winkler himself, aka The Fonz!). The guest on that particular day was Carrie Fisher and all audience members were given a copy of the Star Wars actress’ latest book, Shockaholic. Because Lavonna knows how much this stalker absolutely loves herself some celebrity biographies, she kindly passed her copy along to me and I read the 162-page tome in just a few days. And while I did not find it particularly enthralling (it is a very odd, sometimes incoherent, rambling collection of stories), one portion that did pique my interest was when Carrie discussed her current home and its famous former owners, one of whom was the legendary Academy-Award-winning costume designer Edith Head (on whom the character of Edna in the 2004 movie The Incredibles was based). Of the property, and the fact that it is supposedly haunted, Carrie said, “ . . . if Edith did happen to roam her once-beloved home, she never floated past me. Nor did I spot any visions of Bette Davis, who sold the property to Edith, or Robert Armstrong, King Kong’s captor in the original film, who built the house and sold it to Bette.” Well, believe you me, once I read those words and learned of how much the property was steeped in Hollywood history, I became just a wee-bit obsessed with stalking the place. Thankfully, a simple input of the terms “Carrie’s Fisher’s house” on Google yielded a link to a page on fave website Virtual Globetrotting which featured the home’s location. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it the very next weekend.

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Carrie’s 4-bedroom, 4-bath, 4,210-square-foot home, which sits on over 2.5 acres of land, was originally built in 1933 for actor Robert Armstrong, as I mentioned above. According to Zillow, Carrie purchased the property in May of 1993 for a cool $13,745,454. Sadly though, as you can see above, aside from the gate, no part of the house is visible from the street. There are some rather quirky signs posted on the gate, though, which made me LOL. The signs read, “Dear Crossing”, “Beware of Crabs”, and “Public Telephone Within”. I was a bit tempted to ring the buzzer to ask if I could use said public telephone, but the GC ixnayed that idea real fast.

As you can see in the above aerial views, Carrie Fisher’s hacienda-style home is nothing if not private. The residence sits far back at the end of a long driveway and is surrounded by huge trees and tall hedges. According to fave book Movie Star Homes: The Famous to the Forgotten, the property was even more secluded in its early days when it encompassed 5 acres of land, but Edith Head had the lot subdivided sometime during the 1950s. Thankfully, Carrie showed off the dwelling in the November 2004 issue of Architectural Digest, allowing us stalkers an insider’s peek. Aside from Edith Head, Bette Davis, Robert Armstrong, and Carrie Fisher, singer James Blunt also lived on the premises, in Carrie’s guest house, for a time. He even recorded a song in one of the property’s bathrooms – yes, in a bathroom. Apparently, Carrie has a stand-up piano on display in one of her lavatories because, as she says, “We had no place else to put it and the room has good acoustics.”

As I mentioned earlier, I did not particularly enjoy Shockaholic, but there was one section that I did absolutely love and would be remiss by not referencing here. In the beautifully-written chapter titled “The Princess and The King”, Carrie discusses her friendship with Michael Jackson and, as you can imagine, I was absolutely drooling while reading it. One particularly poignant paragraph really hit home for me and I found myself wishing I had written it myself. The paragraph reads, “The thing is, though, I never thought Michael’s whole thing with kids was sexual. Never. Granted, it was miles from appropriate, but just because it wasn’t normal doesn’t mean that it had to be perverse. Those aren’t the only two choices for what can happen between an adult and an unrelated child spending time together. Even if that adult has had too much plastic surgery and what would appear to be tattooed makeup on his face. And yes, he had an amusement park, a zoo, a movie theater, popcorn, candy, and an elephant. But to draw a line under all that and add it up to the assumption that he fiendishly rubbed his hands together as he assembled this giant super spiderweb to lure and trap kids into it is just bad math.” I couldn’t agree more, Carrie, I couldn’t agree more! (The photograph pictured above, from Shockaholic, is of MJ reading Carrie’s 2008 book Wishful Drinking. The caption reads, “President Harry Truman playing golf on island of Kailua, Hawaii. June 1911.” Um, OK. See what I mean about the book being very odd, sometimes incoherent, and rambling? )

A big THANK YOU to my good friend, fellow stalker Lavonna for gifting me with her copy of Shockaholic!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Carrie Fisher’s house is located at 1700 Coldwater Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills. Please keep in mind that the home is private property and do not trespass.

December 22, 2011December 21, 2011

Arthur Abbott’s House from “The Holiday”

Another location from the 2006 movie The Holiday that I set out to track down last week for my Christmas-themed stalking posts was the large Mediterranean-style abode where Arthur Abbott (aka The Misfits’ Eli Wallach) lived. Thanks to the flick’s production notes, I knew that the property was located somewhere in Brentwood and that it “reflected the glamour of old Hollywood”. So I spent quite a few fruitless hours searching aerial views of the area before coming up completely empty-handed. Enter Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who so graciously offered up his stalking services and spent almost the entire day scouring Brentwood streets looking for the house. And I am very happy to report that he did, indeed, find the place – without the help of a crew member or knowledge of an address number to guide him. Whoo-hoo! Thank you, Mike! So, I, of course, ran right out to stalk the residence this past weekend.

Amazingly enough, while we were stalking the place, not only was the front gate standing open, affording us a small peek at where filming of The Holiday had taken place, but two different super-nice neighbors also happened to walk by and informed us that the property has belonged to comedienne Phyllis Diller for over forty years now! How incredibly cool is that? And, in an ironic twist, fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, wrote to me yesterday morning after seeing my post on Miles’ house from The Holiday to let me know that he was fairly certain he knew where Arthur’s abode was located – he thought it might just be Phyllis Diller’s residence in Brentwood. As it turns out, E.J. has a good friend who formerly lived near Phyllis and when E.J. watched The Holiday for the first time over five years ago, he recognized the home immediately. As I responded in my email to him yesterday, “Where the heck were you last week when we were looking for the place???” LOL

In real life, Arthur Abbott’s home, which was originally built in 1914, boasts 8 bedrooms, 5 baths, 9,266 square feet of living space, and a 1.23-acre plot of land.

And, as you can see in the above aerial view, it also features an incredibly cool central courtyard that I am undeniably in love with!

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In The Holiday, Iris Simpkins (aka Kate Winslet) befriends Arthur Abbott, the elderly man who lives next door to the house where Iris is spending a two-week Christmas vacation thanks to a home swap with Amanda Woods (aka Cameron Diaz). (I blogged about Amanda’s residence way back in June of 2010.) As Iris soon discovers, Arthur is an accomplished Hollywood screenwriter and he winds up changing her life and infusing her with “gumption”, a trait that she had somehow lost along the way.

The neighbors that we spoke with also informed us that filming at the property took about three weeks to complete, which leads me to believe that the real life interior was used in the production.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Arthur Abbott’s house from The Holiday is located at 163 South Rockingham Avenue in Brentwood.

November 30, 2011November 29, 2011

Kathy Griffin’s House from “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List”

When fellow stalkers Lavonna, Melissa, Beth, Kim, and Sandy came to town from Ohio for a little stalking vacay two weeks ago, they scored four tickets to the November 14th taping of The Ellen DeGeneres Show and invited me to tag along. A few days before the episode was set to film, though, Lavonna learned that not only would the cast of The Twilight Saga flicks be Ellen’s guests for that particular show, but that the entire audience would be treated to a free screening of the series’ latest installment, Breaking Dawn. Because I am in no way, shape or form a Twi-Hard, I decided to sit this one out, as did fellow non-Twi-Hard Sandy, and the two of ended up spending the day together stalking from one end of Los Angeles to the other. One of the places we stopped at was the hilltop abode that belongs to comedienne Kathy Griffin and that is featured regularly on her Bravo reality series Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List. The only problem was that, as you can see above, I had the incorrect address written down in my trusty “To-Stalk” notebook and Sandy and I wound up stalking the wrong house! Not kidding! As Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, would say, “FAIL!”

I was informed of this location by a fellow stalker named Melissa (not the same Melissa visiting from Ohio), who had stalked the dwelling way back in the summer of 2009 and had emailed to tell me about it. Melissa is a huge fan of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List and had scoured the internet looking for the comedienne’s home prior to a visit to Los Angeles. And while she could not find its exact address, she did manage to track down some photos of the house on a blog in which the street name was mentioned. She searched through the many pictures featured on the blog and, in true stalker fashion, keenly spotted an address number of “2968” on the wall of a neighboring residence. Love it! When Melissa emailed me to let me know about the property, she said that it was “across from 2968 Passmore Drive in the Hollywood Hills”. My blondeness must have been in full effect when I copied the information to my “To-Stalk” list, though, because I somehow failed to take note of the “across from” part, and Sandy and I wound up taking pictures in front of the house numbered “2968”. Doh! After realizing my mistake later that same week, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on back out to the Hollywood Hills so that I could stalk the right place.

Kathy’s 4-bedroom, 5-bath, 8,098-square-foot home was originally built by a former Los Angeles City fireman/actor named Bernard Subkoski and his wife, Celeste Dickinson. The couple purchased the half-acre vacant plot of land on which the dwelling now sits sometime during the late 1990s and construction on it took four years to complete.

Bernard and Celeste dubbed their residence “Wings”, as, according to Bernard, it very closely resembled a bird in flight. Due to medical issues, though, the couple was forced to put their dream home on the market shortly after it was completed and in April of 2004 it was purchased by Kathy for a cool $2.85 million. Kathy later sued Bernard and Celeste over some structural problems with the dwelling.

As you can see above, located just outside of the main gate is some sort of statuary that was built to resemble the house. I originally thought that the structure was a mailbox, but upon closer inspection it did not seem to have any sort of a mail slot, so I am unsure of what it actually is.

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The home, which in this stalker’s never-to-be-humble opinion is strictly A-List, is featured weekly on Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List.

The interior is also shown regularly. Kathy temporarily moved out of the property in the Season 6 episode of the show titled “Toddlers and Remodelers” due to a massive remodel she had just commissioned.

The home was also featured in an April 2009 OK! Magazine photo shoot in which Kathy posed in a bikini. And it also popped up in the February 2006 issue of W Magazine, in the August 8th, 2005 issue of In Touch Magazine, and in an episode of MTV Cribs.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Kathy Griffin’s house from Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List is located at 2955 Passmore Drive in the Hollywood Hills.

November 3, 2011September 29, 2017

Halloween at Dick Van Dyke’s House

While doing research on the Strode House from Halloween a couple of weeks back, I came across a blog post about the extravagant yard haunt that actor Dick Van Dyke hosts every Halloween at his home in Malibu. And while you wouldn’t think it would be possible, being that I have lived in Southern California for well over a decade, have spent countless hours stalking, and am obsessed with all things Halloween and all things celebrity, until reading that post I had never before heard anything about it! And, let me tell you, I just about had a heart attack a few minutes later when I discovered that Dick Van Dyke lives inside of the gated Serra Retreat community because some of our good friends just (like literally weeks ago!) moved into that very same community! I immediately texted said friend to ask if she lived near Dick Van Dyke or knew him at all and started hyperventilating when she wrote back that not only are they next-door neighbors, but that the Grim Cheaper and I were welcome to come to his Halloween party! Talk about fate! I mean, do these things actually happen??? Days later, as I sit here typing this, I am still in a bit of shock and can’t quite believe that I was actually at Dick Van Dyke’s house for Halloween! And that right there is why I LOVE L.A. – one simply never knows what unthinkable adventure is waiting just around the corner! (The GC refused to dress up as Dylan again after already dressing up on Saturday night, which is why I am dressed like a flapper above. I am now thinking of changing his nickname to the “Grim Grumper”, by the way. )

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About two seconds after we arrived at our friends’ house on Halloween night, some trick-or-treaters knocked on the door and I just about died when I realized it was none other than James Cameron, dressed as a pirate, and his family! I kid you not! I was absolutely DYING inside as he introduced himself to our friends and welcomed them to the neighborhood. Like really? As I said above, does this stuff actually happen??? Oh, what I would not give to live in the ‘Bu and have James Cameron trick-or-treat at my door! HOW INCREDIBLY COOL! I did not ask James for a photograph as I figured it would have been a bit awkward, but I am kind of kicking myself about it now. As my girl Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, constantly admonishes me, when an opportunity presents itself, always, always ask for a picture! Ah well, maybe next Halloween! Anyway, shortly after James left, we all headed over to Dick Van Dyke’s house and, let me tell you, it was nothing short of AMAZING! For this Halloween-obsessed stalker, being there was the ultimate experience!

Dick had decorated the entire front of his property – like every single square inch of it – with a myriad of Halloween displays and contraptions and, let me tell you, it was like nothing I had ever seen! The whole thing was like being in the middle of a horror movie set! We were there for well over an hour and I still do not think I saw everything. The spooktacular was comprised of animatronic mannequins, some of which would jump out at people from hidden corners;

a talking statue, a la the talking statues in the graveyard at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion;

a Pee-Wee Herman lookalike who was controlling an animatronic wolf that would jump out to “attack” each passerby;

and a video-rigged front door that had both a picture of Dick Van Dyke that would change from normal to scary depending on where you were standing and a “window” to an insane asylum in which an inmate with an ax tries to break her way out.

You can watch a video of the door by clicking above. Notice the marks that show up on the door when the inmate hits it with the ax! Simply incredible!

My favorite part of the whole thing, though, had to be the graveyard, which consisted of a myriad of tombstones, some of which moved and had animatronic corpses coming out of them. There was also an invisible screen set up at the back of the graveyard on which was projected a video of cartoon skeletons doing the “Thriller” dance! SO INCREDIBLY COOL! Sadly, the GC could not get a good picture of the video, nor could he get a photograph of the glow-in-the-dark monster footprints that had been painted in the street out in front of Dick’s house. AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING!

Because so many celebrities live in Serra Retreat, I was keeping my eyes peeled the entire time we were there and was beyond excited when I spotted Camille Grammer from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. As I have mentioned several times before on this blog, I absolutely LOATHE RHOBH star Kyle Richards (“hot, heaping hunks of hate!” as Jerry Stiller would say), and I don’t much like her sister Kim or their friend Taylor Armstrong, either. And while I used to like Lisa Vanderpump, after her high-school-like mean-girl behavior in the recently-aired “The Opposite of Relaxation!” episode, I don’t really care for her either. The only two on the show that I like are Adrienne Maloof-Nassif and Camille Grammer. So seeing Camille was especially exciting!

So I, of course, just had to ask her for a pic. I am very happy to report that Camille was a total sweetheart and even told me that I was beautiful!!! How nice is that? And she is absolutely gorgeous in person, far prettier even than she appears to be on TV. Love her!! Ironically enough, fellow stalker Chas later told me that Camille had been featured in an interview on TMZ TV on Halloween night in which she was asked what Halloween party she would be attending. Her response? “Dick Van Dyke’s and his is the best.” LOVE IT!

Shortly after I took the pic with Camille, Dick Van Dyke walked outside and I just about died. I, of course, also asked him for a photo and he happily obliged. Unfortunately, I did not get to talk to him at all, though, as he was extremely busy and had hoards of neighbors coming up to him, all wanting to say hi. All in all it was a magical evening and I still cannot quite believe it all happened! As I said yesterday, between meeting Matthew Lillard on Friday, dressing up as Brenda and Dylan on Saturday, and then spending Halloween night at Dick Van Dyke’s house, this was quite simply the Best. Halloween. Ever.

During the party, I also just had to run around the corner to get my picture taken in front of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline’s former house. 🙂

You can read a great blog post about decorating Dick Van Dyke’s house written by one of his Halloween crew members on the Disney Travel Babble website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Unfortunately, because Dick Van Dyke lives inside of Serra Retreat, a gated community that is not open to the public, there is no stalking location for this one.

November 1, 2011September 29, 2017

Joan Crawford’s Former Home

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about the house where Joan Crawford (aka Faye Dunaway) lived in Mommie Dearest, I have become just a wee-bit obsessed with the 1981 film as well as the 1978 autobiography of Joan’s daughter, Christina Crawford, on which it was based. The book is a fabulous, fabulous read, by the way – whether you believe the abuse allegations or not, and apparently many people do not – and after finishing it, I decided I just had to stalk the actual home where Christina grew up and where the alleged events of her tumultuous childhood took place. I, of course, found the address of Joan’s former mansion in fave book James Dean Died Here: The Locations of America’s Pop Culture Landmarks by Chris Epting and while in the Brentwood area a few weeks ago, ran right out to stalk it. Sadly, the Grim Cheaper was not with me at the time so I was not able to get a photograph of myself out in front. Ah well, I guess that just means I will have to go back sometime soon for a re-stalk.

When Joan first purchased the 9-bedroom, 7-bath, 8,103-square-foot mansion in 1929, while married to first husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr., it was Mediterranean in style, as pictured above.

The couple, who dubbed their new home “El DoJo” – a combination of both of their names – immediately set about gutting the property in order to turn it into a New-England-style dwelling, the result of which is pictured above. And while Joan supposedly again remodeled the residence’s interior after divorcing Fairbanks in 1933, and after each subsequent divorce as well (there were three in total), the exterior was left largely unchanged. It was at the home that Joan not only kept her famous and extensive doll collection, but also accepted her 1946 Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Mildred Pierce. Apparently, Joan did not want to face the possibility of losing, so she stayed home on the evening of the ceremony, feigning the flu. When it was announced that she had won, the award was immediately delivered to her house and the actress invited the press inside to take photographs of her with it in bed. Joan lived at the Brentwood residence for over 26 years, until 1956 when she married Pepsi Cola CEO Alfred Steele and moved to New York City. When Alfred passed away in 1959, he left the actress with a large accumulation of debt and she was forced to sell the property. You can see some interior photographs of the abode at the time that Joan owned it on the Legendary Joan Crawford website here.

Sadly, Joan Crawford’s former home was extensively remodeled by some new owners beginning in 2003 and is no longer recognizable from the days when the screen legend lived there. Not that it matters much, though, because as you can see above, due to a massive amount of foliage which currently surrounds the property, barely any of it can be seen from the street.

Only a small portion of the garage area and a second-story window are visible.

And it appears from looking at aerial views that even the backyard of the home was given a facelift. As you can see above, the kidney-bean-shaped pool appears to be have been just recently built. You can catch a glimpse of what the backyard looked like in Joan’s day here and you can also check out some great pictures of the property being remodeled on the Find A Death website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Joan Crawford’s former home, aka the real life Mommie Dearest house, is located at 426 North Bristol Avenue in Brentwood. The Fresh Prince of Bel Air house is located just two blocks south at 251 North Bristol Avenue, also in Brentwood.