Mr. and Mrs. Smith – IAMNOTASTALKER

November 8, 2019November 18, 2019

Cicada from “The Morning Show”

I don’t know what all the hullabaloo regarding The Morning Show being terrible is about. The Grim Cheaper and I trepidatiously tuned in earlier this week and, considering all the jeers reviewers are spewing, were shocked at how much we enjoyed the new Apple TV+ series! We devoured the three episodes that have aired so far in one sitting and literally loved every second! So artfully done and intriguing is the show that it even managed to pull one over on me, locations-wise! Set in NYC, I assumed all filming had taken place there as well. While I did have a few “That looks like L.A.” moments throughout episode 1, it was not until Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) walked up the instantly recognizable split staircase of downtown’s iconic Cicada restaurant at the start of episode 2 that I realized my mistake! A quick look at the drama’s Wikipedia page confirmed that it was largely lensed in Los Angeles, with a few exteriors shot in the Big Apple. Hoping to throw a little love The Morning Show’s way, I figure it is the perfect time to blog about Cicada, a spot I stalked ages ago (while scouting wedding venues prior to my 2010 nuptials!) but somehow have yet to write about.

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Any article about quintessential Los Angeles restaurants will undoubtedly feature Cicada. Initially established as Rex iI Ristorante in 1981, the landmark eatery sits on the ground floor of the Oviatt Building in the heart of downtown. The 13-story structure was the brainchild of James Oviatt, a famous clothier who outfitted the likes of Clark Gable, John Barrymore, and Gary Cooper during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Originally employed as a window dresser at Desmond’s Department Store, Oviatt partnered with fellow employee Frank Alexander in 1911 to open their own haberdashery, the exclusive Alexander & Oviatt. It was an instant success. A 1925 visit to Paris’ International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts (which introduced Art Deco to the world) inspired James to construct a gilded architectural marvel of his own in L.A. Thus the Oviatt Building was born in 1928.

Designed by Albert Walker and Percy Eisen, the exquisite structure featured maillechort detailing, hand-carved wood paneling, more than 30 tons of glass artworks created by René Lalique, and an arcade with an ornate frosted-glass ceiling courtesy of artist Gaetan Jeannin (pictured below).

Sadly, much of both Lalique and Jeannin’s pieces were later sold off and have since been replaced with facsimiles, though some of their original works remain, like the doors below.

The building’s pièce de résistance was easily its street-level salon which housed the new Alexander & Oviatt haberdashery. Gilded, grand and absolutely striking, the boutique featured a large open sales floor flanked by wooden cabinets filled with the finest clothes money could by, a magnificent split staircase, a mezzanine which was home to the women’s department (aka the Salon des Elegances), and an outdoor palm grove, where patrons could experience the wares in natural light.

Though L.A.’s premier place to shop for fine clothing for decades, Alexander & Oviatt saw a decline in patronage in the 1960s and closed its doors in 1967. The once-popular boutique subsequently sat vacant for years. By that time, the building was showing its age. Enter Wayne Ratkovich and Don Bowers, developers who, seeing potential in the once-grand structure, made an offer to buy it in 1977 and subsequently dedicated $5 million into a major renovation. A huge part of that renovation was a reimagining of the former Alexander & Oviatt space, which was transformed into an exclusive eatery courtesy of Mauro Vincenti. Because the Oviatt had been declared a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1978, the nuts and bolts of the boutique’s interior, thankfully, couldn’t be changed, but the Rome-born restauranteur outfitted it with décor and design elements inspired by a dining room from the 1930s-era Italian cruise ship the SS Rex. Mauro dubbed the place “Rex il Ristorante,” which translates to “Rex the Restaurant.” The gorgeous site was soon the spot to dine in L.A.

Vincenti sadly passed away in August 1996 at the untimely age of 53. His widow kept his famed eatery open until the following January when the lease on the site expired. Stephanie Taupin subsequently took over the 14,000-square-foot space and re-located her West Hollywood restaurant Cicada there.

Though the interior was given a bit of a facelift, the ceiling painted with gold leaf and much of the décor swapped out, thanks to its Historic-Cultural Monument status, the former boutique still looks not only much as it did when Rex was in operation but Alexander & Oviatt as well!

It is easily one of the most gorgeous places in L.A.!

I mean!

In the first episode of The Morning Show, titled “In the Dark Night of the Soul It’s Always 3:30 in the Morning,” Corey Ellison (an absolutely brilliant, but utterly unrecognizable Billy Crudup) and Chip Black (Mark Duplass) dine at what is supposedly the Archer Gray Hotel in New York, where they discuss future strategy for their program after one of the hosts, Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell), gets fired for sexual harassment. It is the top screen capture below that gave me that initial “That looks like L.A.” moment while watching and I actually turned to the GC and said, “Wow, that place is the spitting image of Cicada.” Facepalm!

It took Bradley venturing up the staircase and around Cicada’s mezzanine at the top of the second episode, “A Seat at the Table,” for the pieces to fall into place for me.

The Morning Show is hardly the only production to feature Cicada. In fact, the restaurant is practically royalty when it comes to Hollywood! So much so that it would be impossible for me to chronicle all of its cameos here, but read on for a list of some of the more significant.

In easily its most famous appearance, Viviane Ward (Julia Roberts) tosses an escargot shell across the Rex il Ristorante dining room in the 1990 classic Pretty Woman.

Rex also served as a locale in another Richard Gere film – the 1992 thriller Final Analysis. It was there that Heather Evans (Kim Basinger) suffered from an extreme bout of pathological intoxication while out to dinner with her husband, played, ironically enough, by Julia’s brother, Eric Roberts.

David Murphy (Woody Harrelson) confronts Diana (Demi Moore) and John (Robert Redford) outside of Rex in the 1993 drama Indecent Proposal.

Longfellow Deeds (Adam Sandler) takes Babe Bennett (Winona Ryder) on a romantic date at Cicada that ends in a massive fight with other diners in the 2002 comedy Mr. Deeds.

The following year, Cicada popped up as the spot where Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) brought girlfriend Grace Connelly (Jennifer Aniston) to tell her that he was finally given the anchor job in Bruce Almighty.

Charlene Morton (Queen Latifah) teaches Peter Sanderson (Steve Martin) to dance there in the 2003 comedy Bringing Down the House.

John (Brad Pitt) and Jane (Angelina Jolie) share a seductive tango at Cicada in 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Mad Men utilized the restaurant in no less than three episodes. In Season 1’s “New Amsterdam,” which aired in 2007, it was both the restaurant where Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) dined with his wife and her parents . . .

. . . and where he later met clients for a drink.

The following year, Roger Sterling (John Slattery) tried to convince his daughter to have a big wedding over dinner at Cicada in Season 2’s “Three Sundays.”

And Don Draper (Jon Hamm) won a Clio Award at the restaurant in Season 4’s “Waldorf Stories,” which aired in 2010.

George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) overhears some unkind words from Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) while at Cicada in the 2011 film The Artist.

In 2015, the exterior of Cicada, as well as that of the Oviatt Building, portrayed the outside of Hotel Cortez in American Horror Story: Hotel.

Though no filming actually took place inside, Hotel Cortez’s lobby was very closely modeled after the interior of Cicada.

Cicada occasionally masked as the entrance to Lux nightclub during the third season of Lucifer, which began airing in 2017.

Cicada also masquerades as the restaurant where Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) dines while filming on location in Italy in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (which is not yet out on DVD so I am unable to make screen captures of that scene), as well as the bar from which Marvin Schwarz (Al Pacino) calls him (which is shown briefly in the trailer as pictured below).

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Cicada, aka New York’s fictional Archer Gray Hotel from The Morning Show, is located at 617 South Olive Street in downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

March 21, 2011March 19, 2011

The Quality Café

While stalking in Downtown Los Angeles a couple of weekends ago, the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves hungry so I suggested grabbing some lunch at the Quality Café on West 7th Street – a diner that has appeared in countless productions over the years. When we showed up to stalk the place, though, we were shocked to discover that it was completely boarded up. I was even further shocked to discover, once I returned home, that, aside from some brief blurbs about its filming history, I could not seem to find any information about the place online. I was extremely curious if the cafe had ever been an actual working restaurant or if it had only ever existed as a film set. So I contacted fellow stalker Harry Medved, author of one of my very favorite stalking tomes – Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors – who was nice enough to give me the scoop on the former greasy spoon. As it turns out, the Quality Café was indeed a real life restaurant at one point time. It closed its doors a few years back and is now used solely for filming, although word on the street is that the place might re-open as an eatery once again in the near future.

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Being that it is completely boarded up and there is not a whole lot to see while there, the Quality Café does not make for a great stalking venue, but because it has such an incredibly vast filming history, I figured it was worthy of a blog post.

In Catch Me If You Can, it is while dining at the Quality Café that a waiter clues Carl Hanratty (aka Tom Hanks) into the fact that Barry Allen, the alias Frank Abagnale Jr. (aka Leonardo DiCaprio) has been using, is the actual name of the comic book character “The Flash”.

In 1995’s Se7en, Tracy Mills (aka Gwyneth Paltrow) confesses to Detective Lt. William Somerset (aka Morgan Freeman) that she is pregnant with Detective David Mills’ (aka Brad Pitt’s) baby over a cup of coffee at the Quality Café.

Morgan Freeman returned to the Quality Café in 2004 to film the scene from Million Dollar Baby in which his character, Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris, takes Maggie Fitzgerald (aka Hilary Swank) out to celebrate her birthday.

In Gone in Sixty Seconds, the Quality Café is the diner where Helen Raines (aka Grace Zabriskie), the mother of Memphis (aka Nicolas Cage) and Kip Raines (aka Giovanni Ribisi), works.

In Training Day, Detective Alonzo Harris (aka Denzel Washington) and Jake Hoyt (aka Ethan Hawke) meet up at the café on their first day of working together.

In Old School, Mitch Martin (aka Luke Wilson) takes Nicole (aka Ellen Pompeo) to the Quality Café and tries to convince her that he is actually a nice guy.

In Mr. and Mrs. Smith, John Smith (aka Brad Pitt) and Eddie (aka Vince Vaughn) meet up at the Quality Café to discuss the failed assassination attempt of Benjamin Danz (aka Adam Brody).

In 2001’s Ghost World, Enid (aka Thora Birch) and Rebecca (aka a very young Scarlett Johansson) spy on some supposed Satanists while dining at the Quality Café.

In 2009’s The Stepfather, the Quality Café is where David Harris (aka Dylan Walsh) asks Michael Harding (aka Penn Badgley) to be his best man.

In Sex and Death 101, the Quality Café is where Death Nell (aka Winona Ryder) tells Roderick Blank (aka Simon Baker) her life story.

In 2008’s The Midnight Meat Train, the Quality Café is where Leon’s (aka Bradley Cooper’s) wife, Maya (aka Leslie Bibb), works.

In 1993’s What’s Love Got To Do With It, the Quality Café is where Ike Turner (aka Laurence Fishburne) takes Anna Mae Bullock (aka Angela Bassett) out to dinner for the first time.

The Quality Café was the site of a triple murder in the Season One episode of CSI: New York titled “Outside Man”.

In the Season One episode of Mad Men titled “5G”, the Quality Café stood in for the Delight Café where Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm) met up with his half-brother, Adam Whitman (aka Jay Paulson), whom he had been estranged from for years.

Harry Medved also let me know that, according to Marty Cummins, the key assistant location manager for 500 Days of Summer, the Quality Café is where Summer (aka Zooey Deschanel) broke up with Tom (aka Joseph Gordon-Levitt) at the beginning of the flick.

And while the exterior of the restaurant appeared as a local hangout in 2004’s You Got Served . . .

. . . as you can see in the above screen captures, a different restaurant was used for the interior filming.

EMBED-The Quality Cafe in Movies Mash-Up – Watch more free videos

You can watch a fabulous compilation from the Screen Junkies website of several different movies that have been filmed at the café by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Harry Medved for filling me in on the restaurant’s history.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Quality Café is located at 1238 West 7th Street in Downtown Los Angeles. The restaurant is currently closed to the public and is only available for film shoots, so I can’t say that I’d really recommend stalking it as there is just not a whole lot to see.

March 17, 2011April 4, 2020

The Barclay Hotel from “As Good As It Gets”

This past weekend, the Grim Cheaper and I re-watched the movie As Good As It Gets, which I had not seen since it first came out in theatres almost 15 years ago. I am ashamed to admit that I had somehow forgotten what a great flick it is! While watching, I, of course, became a bit obsessed with tracking down some of the Southern California locations featured in it and just about had a heart attack when I read on IMDB’s As Good As It Gets filming locations page that the interior of the Barclay Hotel in downtown Los Angeles stood in for the movie’s fictional Café 24 Heures, where Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt) worked and where Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) dined each morning. So I dragged the GC right on out to stalk the place this past Sunday afternoon. As it turns out, this location proved to be one VERY LUCKY find as it has been used in countless productions over the years.

First built in 1897 and commissioned by L.A. businessman Isaac Newton Van Nuys, the Barclay Hotel was originally known as the Van Nuys Hotel The Beaux-Arts-style building was designed by the architecture firm Morgan + Walls and, with its sprawling lobby, detailed stained glass windows, and phone service in each room, was considered one of the finest hotels of its day. In 1929, the property’s name was changed to the Barclay Hotel and there is supposedly a sign still visible on one of the building’s exterior walls which reads “Van Nuys Hotel, Rooms $1 and Up.” It would have been so incredibly cool to see, but, sadly, I could not find it anywhere. The Barclay has the distinction of being known as downtown L.A.’s oldest continuously operating hotel and is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. It currently serves as a residential hotel which offers affordable housing to its residents, many of whom have lived there for years.

The GC and I were lucky enough to speak with the Barclay’s manager as well as one of the hotel’s longtime residents while we were stalking the place, both of whom could NOT have been nicer! They filled us in on all of the filming that has taken place on the premises over the years and allowed me to take all of the photographs of the interior that I wanted. Yay! The resident that we spoke with was literally like a walking encyclopedia of the hotel’s vast filming history and in some instances was able to tell me not only when filming of certain productions had taken place, but how long the crew was onsite, AND he also knew the names of particular episodes of shows that had filmed on the premises and the exact dates on which those episodes had aired! Speaking with him was like . . . well, it was like speaking with myself, actually. Winking smile

The Barclay Hotel’s actual, working lobby was transformed into the supposed Manhattan-area Café 24 Heures for the filming of As Good As It Gets.

According to the hotel manager, producers not only brought in several booths for the filming;

but they also built a fake waitress station;

and swapped out the lobby’s front windows with French doors, which were then swapped back after filming had wrapped.

The hotel’s real life check-in desk, which is now caged, was used as the Café’s bar in the movie.

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The entire opening scene of the 1998 disaster movie Armageddon takes place in front of the Barclay Hotel and the neighboring Farmers & Merchants National Bank, which were both made to look like they were located in New York City.

In 2002’s Catch Me If You Can, the Barclay was the apartment building/residential hotel from which a young Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) was evicted after having written a series of bad checks to the landlord.

Leo returned to the Barclay for the filming of last year’s Inception, in which the hotel was featured twice. It first showed up towards the very beginning of the movie in the scene in which Cobb (DiCaprio) is dunked into a bathtub. According to the manager, that scene was filmed in one of the Barclay’s second floor hotel rooms.

The Barclay’s lobby was later used as the African casino where Cobb meets up with Eames (Tom Hardy). The hotel’s check-in desk is where Eames cashed in his casino chips in the scene.

The Barclay also stood in for the Columbian hotel where John Smith (Brad Pitt) and Jane Smith (Angelina Jolie) met at the very beginning of 2005’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

A fake bar was set up in the Barclay’s lobby for the filming of that scene.

In 2009’s (500) Days of Summer, the Barclay’s lobby was transformed into the coffee shop where Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) regularly hung out with his friends McKenzie (Geoffrey Arend) and Paul (Matthew Gray Gubler).

The Barclay’s former coffee shop, which is located on the southeast corner of West 4th and South Main Streets, is not currently a working restaurant, but was kept intact in order to be used for filming, which I think is so incredibly cool! Unfortunately, that area is closed to the public so I could only take photographs of it through its front windows.

The cafe was featured in the Season 5 episode of The Closer titled “Tapped Out”, in the scene in which Lieutenants Flynn (Anthony John Denison) and Provenza (G.W. Bailey) are shown eating breakfast and discussing Provenza’s new girlfriend all the while ignoring a crime taking place directly outside.

There is another vacant room located on the eastern side of the hotel that is also often used for filming.

That room was recently dressed to look like a New York bakery in the Season 7 episode of CSI: New York titled “To What End”.

The exterior of the Barclay also appeared a few times throughout the episode.

Most amazing of all, though – to me, at least – is the fact that the Barclay appeared in the pilot episode of the television series Starsky & Hutch way back in 1975, looking almost exactly the same as it does today! As I mentioned above, the check-in desk has since been caged in, but other than that minor detail, the Barclay has remained unchanged in the more than 36 years since filming took place. Love it, love it, love it!

Ironically enough, the Starsky and Hutch movie, which premiered in 2004, was also filmed at the Barclay. The flick’s opening scene took place on the hotel’s roof.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Barclay Hotel, aka Café 24 Heures from As Good As It Gets, is located at 103 West 4th Street in Downtown Los Angeles.

March 25, 2009March 24, 2009

Olvera Street

This weekend I dragged my boyfriend and my parents out to stalk a street that is known as the “birthplace of Los Angeles”. The historic Olvera Street outdoor marketplace has long been a popular tourist attraction and filming location. But its history began over 200 years ago when the area was built by early Spanish settlers. At that time it was the center of Hispanic life in Southern California and consisted of a church, a town plaza, and several adobe homes all surrounding a tiny lane known as Wine Street. In 1877, that small street was lengthened and given its current moniker, Olvera Street, named for Augustin Olvera, the very first Superior Court Judge of Los Angeles County. Beginning in the 1880’s, Olvera street fell into serious disrepair and was a haven for Los Angeles’ poor and disenchanted. It remained that way until the year 1926 when a woman named Christine Sterling came along and vowed to restore it.

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It was Christine’s idea to turn Olvera Street, which at the time was little more than a backstreet alley, into the bustling Mexican marketplace that it is today. She garnered support from Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler and many local businesses and literally took on City Hall to restore the former plaza. Christine’s vision was realized on Easter Sunday of 1930 when the Olvera Street Marketplace opened to the public. She marketed it as “A Mexican Street of Yesterday in a City of Today.” Christine’s marketplace became a virtual overnight success. And amazingly that success has held steady for almost 80 years – today over 2 million tourists a year visit Olvera Street!

Today’s Olvera Street is a bustling Mexican marketplace bursting with colorful displays, authentic restaurants, hanging pinatas, and ancient adobe structures. A visit to Olvera Street also includes a history lesson of sorts – there are twenty-seven historic buildings which line the marketplace, including Avila Adobe, which is the oldest Los Angeles home still in existence. In 1953, Olvera Street and its neighboring plaza, which together are known as El Pueblo de Los Angeles, were named a California State Historic Landmark.

Ever since its opening in 1930 celebrities have flocked to the tiny marketplace. Everyone from Albert Einstein, Gretta Garbo, and Buster Keaton to Ben Kingsley, Oscar De La Hoya, and Art Linkletter in recent years have visited the marketplace. In the early days of Hollywood stars such as Rita Hayworth, Lauren Bacall, and Humphrey Bogart frequented Olvera Street’s many restaurants, which at the time doubled as afterhours nightclubs. Numerous American Presidents and their wives have also shopped at the marketplace, including Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy, Richard and Pat Nixon, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

And, of course, there’s also the movies! Location scouts have been in love with the Mexican marketplace since 1921 when it was featured in the Charlie Chaplin movie The Kid as the location where The Tramp rescues “the kid” from a welfare office.

Olvera Street also popped up in Lethal Weapon 3. It’s the place where Riggs and Murtaugh are assigned to work patrol after inadvertently blowing up a building.

The courtyard of the Avila Adobe stood in for Bogota, Columbia in Mr. and Mrs. Smith in the scene where the two little homewreckers dance at the beginning of the movie. “Not a lot of people get to see a movie where their parents fell in love.” Ugh, spare me, Angelina! LOL

The marketplace has also appeared in Death Wish II, True Confessions, Sea Biscuit, and A Street of Memory.

But Olvera Street’s connection with the movie business doesn’t end there! Located right in the middle of the marketplace is a small shop called Murillo Leather, where owner Armando Murillo (pictured above), a second generation leather craftsman, creates handmade items like bracelets, belts, bags, and saddles. While stalking Olvera Street, my dad stopped into Murillo’s to look for a saddlebag for his Harley (otherwise known as “H”) and, like a moth to a flame, my eyes immediately went to some magazine photographs of Jessica Simpson hanging on the wall.

It turns out that Armando made all of Jessica’s belts and purses for the movie Dukes of Hazzard and sells replicas of them in his shop. Apparently, Johnny Knoxville had long been a fan of the historic leather shop and before filming on Dukes of Hazzard began recommended Armando to the costume team. And the rest is celluloid history. 🙂 You can see Jessica’s belts above. Now I have to say that Jessica Simpson is my least favorite celebrity. I absolutely cannot stand the girl! But, let me tell you, I love her Dukes of Hazzard belt! 🙂

So much so, in fact, that I just had to buy one for myself! 🙂 And I absolutely love it!!! That’s me posing with my new belt in the above pic. 🙂 Besides Dukes of Hazzard, Armando also made the leather items for the movie There Will Be Blood. When his father, Manuel, owned the shop, he made several items for Clint Eastwood that were also worn in movies. If you happen to stalk Olvera Street, a visit to Murillo Leather is a MUST! Armando is THE nicest guy and makes really beautiful belts, cuffs, purses, and even shoes. You can bet I will be going back there regularly to shop! 🙂

I can’t recommend stalking Olvera Street enough. It is a really fun way to spend a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Besides the shops, there are several excellent restaurants located in the marketplace – and they all serve up the BEST taquitos I have ever had!!!!! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Olvera Street is located just off East Chesar E. Chavez Avenue, in between North Alameda and North Main Streets, in Downtown Los Angeles. Murillo’s Leather – maker of the Daisy Duke belts – is located at W-6 Olvera Street. The Mentalist’s CBI Headquarters building is located just across the plaza from Olvera Street at 430 North Main Street.

April 30, 2008February 13, 2009

Mr. and Mrs. Homewrecker

It’s no secret that I am a HUGE Jen Aniston fan and so NOT a fan of Brangelina – but my boyfriend did manage to drag me to see Mr. and Mrs. Smith while it was in theaters. So when I found the address of the house from the movie in my fave stalking book, I just had to stalk it. In the movie, Brad and Angie live in a really pretty white clapboard residence that reminds me a lot of the house from the movie Father of the Bride. And it just so happens that both houses are located in Pasadena.

The restaurant where Brad and Angelina dance in Mr. and Mrs. Smith is called Cicada and can be found in Downtown LA. Cicada is actually an oft used filming location – it was the very same restaurant where Julia Roberts flung an escargot across the room in the movie Pretty Woman. At the time it was known as Rex II Ristorante. Cicada was also featured in Bruce Almighty, Final Analysis and Indecent Proposal. While I have never dined there, I’ve heard that it is absolutely amazing!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Mr. and Mrs. Smith house is located at 1565 San Pasqual Street in Pasadena. The restaurant from the movie can be found in the Oviatt Building in Downtown Los Angeles at 617 South Olive Street.