Natalie Portman – IAMNOTASTALKER

March 2, 2015March 1, 2015

Hotel Angeleno from “Heat”

The Grim Cheaper and I travel back and forth to L.A. so often that sometimes I feel like I live in a hotel – which is not a bad thing, I ADORE hotels. One that we checked into recently that I absolutely loved was the Hotel Angeleno. Not only is the place’s architecture unique, vibe spectacularly retro and views breathtaking, but it is also a filming location! I mean, come on now! What’s not to love?

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Hotel Angeleno was originally constructed in 1970 as the Holiday Inn Brentwood/Bel-Air. Its cylindrically-shaped configuration was a popular one for the hotel chain. The first of its kind was designed by architect Leonard Lundgren and still stands overlooking Lady Bird Lake in Austin, Texas. Lundgren went on to design several similarly shaped structures for the Holiday Inn company, including the Brentwood/Bel-Air outpost.

During its tenure as a Holiday Inn, the property offered mid-level lodging. In April 2005, it was taken over by the Joie de Vivre hospitality company and a massive renovation process was started. The site re-opened in February 2006 as the much more upscale Hotel Angeleno.

Thankfully though, its unique exterior was left largely untouched.

The 17-story structure sits above the Interstate 405, just north of the Sunset Boulevard exit. Each room features a private balcony (as well as complimentary parking and free Wi-Fi), most of which offer amazing views. Our room boasted views of the freeway and it was fascinating to watch traffic start accumulating on the northbound side at around 2 p.m. and remain at a standstill until well past 10.

Our room also had a spectacular view of the Getty Center.

Not to mention a vertigo-inducing view of the street below. The GC is not a fan of heights and he couldn’t even bring himself to step out onto the balcony.

Occupying the top floor of the Angeleno is the circularly-shaped restaurant West.

We had the pleasure of dining at West while staying at the hotel and not only is the food spectacular, but the views are simply uh-ma-zing.

The Holiday Inn Brentwood/Bel-Air was most notably featured in the 1995 action classic Heat, as the spot where Lt. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) moved upon leaving his wife. Very little of the hotel can actually be seen in the movie, though.

In the Season 1 episode of Starsky and Hutch titled “Death Ride,” which aired in 1975, Det. Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson (David Soul) and Det. Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) stopped by the Holiday Inn to pick up a witness named Andrew Mello (Jeff Corey).

Thanks to the Dear Old Hollywood blog, I learned that the 1976 film Two-Minute Warning opened with a scene of a sniper taking a shot from a balcony at the Holiday Inn Brentwood/Bel-Air.

The hotel’s interiors were also shown in the movie, including a room;

a hallway;

the lobby;

and the front desk.

In the 2004 hit Sideways, Miles (Paul Giamatti) drove by the Holiday Inn on his way to pick up Jack (Thomas Hayden Church).

There was even some filming going on when we were staying there! Just as we were checking out, my mom spotted Justin Jedlica, aka the “Human Ken Doll,” filming a segment for a reality show. So I, of course, just had to ask for a pic.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Hotel Angeleno, from Heat, is located at 170 North Church Lane in Brentwood. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

May 3, 2012May 2, 2012

Steff’s House from “Pretty in Pink”

This past Saturday afternoon, a fellow stalker named “Pookie” posted a comment on my site in which she mentioned that the mansion where Steff (James Spader) lived in 1986’s Pretty in Pink was located just up the street from the the Residence of the Los Angeles British Consuls-General where Kate Middleton and Prince William stayed in July 2011, which I blogged about last month. As it turns out, Pookie’s parents live right around the corner from the Pretty in Pink dwelling and she was lucky enough to have witnessed some of the filming of the iconic 80s flick when it took place back in 1985. Well, as you can imagine, I was extremely excited about learning the location of Steff’s house, and, since we were only a few miles away at the time, asked the Grim Cheaper to take me right on over there to stalk the place.

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In real life, Steff’s house is absolutely stunning and looks like it belongs in a neighborhood somewhere on the East Coast and not in the heart of Los Angeles’ Hancock Park. The French chateau-style property, which was originally designed in 1927 by the Webber, Staunton & Spaulding architecture firm, boasts seven bedrooms, a whopping eight baths, 7,140 square feet of living space, over half an acre of land, four fireplaces, original chandeliers and wall sconces, formal gardens, a reflecting pond, a three-car garage, a separate guest apartment, and (according to a comment left by Evan on The Houses of Hancock Park blog) a third floor that inexplicably houses a disco. The mansion was recently sold, in May of last year, for a cool $5 million. You can check out the real estate listing here.

One odd thing I noticed about the house, though, was that one of its windows has been completely cemented over, as you can see below. Even odder still is the fact that the cemented-over space still remains flanked by shutters.

Most odd of all, though, is the fact that the window even appears to have been covered over way back in 1985 when Pretty in Pink was filmed. Why in almost three decades worth of time did the homeowners not remove the shutters? Or re-install the window? Very, very strange.

Steff’s mansion, which is supposedly located in Elgin, Illinois, shows up three times in Pretty in Pink. It first pops up towards the beginning of the movie in the scene in which Andie Walsh (Molly Ringwald) and Duckie (John Cryer) are shown driving through a ritzy neighborhood late at night. As Andie stops to admire the residence, she announces that it is her favorite on the whole street and then poignantly says, “ You know what the really sad thing is, though? I bet the people that live there don’t think it’s half as pretty as I do.“

The mansion next shows up in the scene in which Blane McDonnagh (Andrew McCarthy) brings Andie to a party at his best friend Steff’s house.

As you can see from the screen captures and photographs (which I got off of the property’s real estate listing) below, the home’s actual interior was used in that scene, as well. It is amazing how little the residence has changed over the past 27 years. Love it!

It even appears that the very same headboard that was used in the movie is still there in real life! So incredibly cool!

Finally, the mansion’s library area popped up towards the end of Pretty in Pink in the scene in which Steff tells Blaine that he will stop being friends with him if he continues to date “trash” like Andie. As you can see in the screen capture and photograph below, the very same curtains, chair, desk, and stool which appeared in the movie are still there in real life. INCREDIBLE!

Thanks to the Scarecrow and Mrs. King forum, I learned that Steff’s house also appeared extensively in the Season 1 episode titled “Waiting for Godorsky” as the supposed Washington, D.C.-area mansion of Princess Sophia Valosky (Hildegard Knef).

As you can see, the window was even covered over way back in early 1984 when the episode was filmed.

The interior of the mansion also appeared briefly in Scarecrow and Mrs. King.

Back in June 2010, the Before the Trailer website mentioned that Dior was filming at the residence and, after doing some digging online, I discovered that the filming was actually for the Miss Dior fragrance campaign that starred actress Natalie Portman. Ironically enough, while the spot was supposed to take place in Paris and the vast majority of it was, in fact, lensed in the City of Light, a small portion of it was shot at Steff’s mansion! As you can see below, the awning and wading pool which appeared in the Dior commercial match up exactly to those which can be seen on the home’s real estate listing, although a fountain was added to the pool for the shoot.

The statues affixed to the plant pots that can be seen in the background of the shoot also match up to the statues that appear in the listing.

And finally, the large swan statue that is visible in the background of the ad matches the one that appears in the home’s listing.

You can watch the Dior ad by clicking below.

Natalie Portman Dior Ad Filmed at Steff’s Mansion from “Pretty in Pink”

On a Pretty in Pink side-note – my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, and I were lucky enough to meet James Spader a couple of weeks ago after we randomly spotted the star leaving a movie theatre. And while we had heard that he could be unfriendly, I am very happy to report that he was extremely nice and seemed quite amused at our excitement over seeing him.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Steff’s mansion from Pretty in Pink is located at 366 South June Street in Hancock Park. The Erle M. Leaf House, aka the Residence of the Los Angeles British Consuls-General where Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, stayed in July 2011, is located right down the street at 450 South June Street.

March 1, 2011April 21, 2011

Stalking the 2011 Academy Awards

As I have mentioned countless times before on this blog, Oscar Weekend is, hands down, my favorite weekend of the entire year. Hollywood just seems to come alive during Oscar Weekend and I honestly cannot get enough of it. And this year was no different. My Oscar stalking began early this past Saturday morning and continued on through late Sunday night and I think it is safe to say that the poor Grim Cheaper is absolutely beat. Winking smile Thankfully though, some good friends and fellow stalkers – Beth, Mary, Debbie, and Carol – were in town from Louisville, Kentucky and they let me tag along with them all weekend, so the GC did get somewhat of a reprieve. And while this year was, sadly, not as great as previous years due to the fact that hotels have seriously beefed up their security and many would only let actual guests through their front doors, we still managed to have an absolute BLAST! We started out our 2011 Oscar stalking adventure Saturday morning when we hit up the blue carpet at the Independent Spirit Awards – and yes, the event does actually feature a blue carpet. The Spirit Awards are held in a tent directly next to the beach in Santa Monica and, let me tell you, this year the weather was absolutely FREEZING – and I mean that literally! It actually SNOWED in many parts of Los Angeles this past weekend (not kidding!) and the GC and I witnessed it firsthand at one point, which I am fairly certain he was more excited about than any of the celebs that we encountered.

When we arrived at the Spirit Awards, there was already a HUGE group camped out along the blue carpet, but we still managed to snag a pretty good spot in which to stand. While there, I ran into celebrity stalker extraordinaire Pinky Lovejoy (pictured above), from the Pinky Lovejoy Blog, whom I had met at Alec Baldwin’s Star Ceremony a few weeks back. Smile

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We had an absolute blast stalking the red carpet and just a few of the stars who were on hand include Jason Isaacs – aka “Lucius Malfoy” from the Harry Potter movies;

Warren Beatty;

Annette Bening;

Jennifer Lawrence;

Amanda Peet, who is absolutely ADORABLE in person;

Anthony Mackie;

Terrance Howard;

director Danny Boyle;

Diego Luna;

John Hawkes;

Sarah Steele from Spanglish;

Greta Gerwig from Greenberg;

Samuel L. Jackson;

Liev Schreiber;

Aaron Eckhart, who is GORGEOUS in person;

one of fellow stalker Owen’s favorite actors, Paul Rudd;

Malin Ackerman;

Amber Tamblyn;

David Cross;

Erika Christensen;

Jane Lynch (YAY!);

(I absolutely LOVE that the GC managed to snap a picture of Jane making one of her famous Sue Sylvester faces!);

Eva Mendes;

Jesse Eisenberg (he did not turn towards the crowd when he arrived, so we only got a picture of the back of his head);

Jeremy Renner;

Rainn Wilson (aka Mr. Dwight Schrute!);

Jamie Foxx;

Ben Stiller;

Rosario Dawson;

Joel McHale (LOVE, LOVE, LOVE him!);

and Nicole Kidman (who is STUNNING in person) and Keith Urban.

I LOVE the picture of Nicole above, which my friend Carol snapped. So cute!

Natalie Portman tried to sneak in behind Nicole and Keith, but thankfully the GC still managed to get some pics of her. Smile

After the Spirit Awards arrivals wrapped up, the GC and I headed on over to the Kodak Theatre to do some stalking of the Academy Awards’ red carpet. Sadly though, everything was blocked off this year and we were not allowed to walk on the red carpet or to get very close to any of the set-up, which was incredibly disappointing.

We did spot the above-pictured Oscar statue being hauled from the Renaissance Hotel to the Kodak Theatre, though, which I thought was absolutely hilarious.

We then headed over to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (where the first Academy Awards ceremony was held) to see if anything was going on there. As fate would have it, the E! channel was running rehearsals for their Oscar coverage show in the lobby of the hotel and we were lucky enough to be able to watch. As you can see in the above photographs, Kris Jenner was on site rehearsing for the show.

As was Ross Mathews, from Chelsea Lately.

As luck would have it, Kris wound up leaving the hotel at the exact same time we did and she was nice enough to pose for a photo with me on her way out, which I could NOT have been more excited about. I have actually never been a fan of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, but I will always have a special place in my heart for the series due to the fact that anytime someone encounters my family for the first time, they invariably say, “You guys need your own reality show! You are funnier than the Kardashians!” My good friend Nat keeps threatening to secretly videotape us and send the result to the E! channel. LOL I guess I can see where people are coming from, though. Case in point – this past Friday afternoon the GC downloaded and then proceeded to spend a good ten minutes showing me an app in which one, while in a store, can scan the barcode of an item along with its price using the camera on their iPhone and the phone will then subsequently spit back a list of places where you can purchase said item for less money. Not kidding! I totally thought he was joking with me, but sadly he wasn’t. Not only is that app real, but the GC fully expects me to USE it! Oh, the things I have to put up with!

On Sunday evening, while doing some more hotel stalking, I spotted Doris Roberts, from Everybody Loves Raymond and Christmas Vacation fame. My grandma absolutely LOVES Doris, so I just had to ask her to pose for a photograph with me and thankfully she obliged, which I could NOT have been more excited about. Smile Other celebs that we spotted out and about this weekend, but didn’t get photographs of were Mark Wahlberg, Lou Diamond Phillips, Bai Ling, Frances Fisher, Gary Busey, Ed Asner, Pat Boone, Meat Loaf, Charo, Caroline Herrera (on her way to the Oscars in an absolutely STRIKING dress), Tara Reid, Brenda Strong (aka Mary Alice from Desperate Housewives), Gloria Allred, Noah Wyle, Taylor Armstrong from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Jessica Stroup (aka Silver from 90210), Glee’s Chris Colfer and Matthew Morrison, Jennifer Lopez (who is absolutely STUNNING in person!), Renee Zellweger, Russell Brand, Kirk Kerkorian, Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, Harvey Weinstein, Chace Crawford, Cate Blanchett, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen (who are sooooo tiny in person it was almost unbelievable), Ron Jeremy, Jeffrey Ross, Fred Willard, Sofia Milos, Pierce Morgan, Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey, Jude Law, George Hamilton, Reese Witherspoon, Timothy Olyphant, Elton John, Craig Robinson (aka Darryl from The Office), Joanne Worley, and Antonio Sabato Jr.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Oscars are held each year at the Kodak Theatre, which is located at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. The Grim Cheaper and I usually drive up and down Sunset Boulevard during Oscar weekend, stopping into various hotels along the way to spot celebs. A few of the hotels we usually stalk include The Mondrian, which is located at 8440 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which is located at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel, which is located at 1755 North Highland Avenue in Hollywood, and the Chateau Marmont, which is located at 8221 West Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

October 27, 2010September 29, 2017

Mountain View Cemetery from “The Office”

Since my favorite holiday, Halloween, is fast approaching, I thought it would only be appropriate to devote the next few blog posts to some filming locations of a spookier nature. So, this past Sunday morning, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, the Grim Cheaper, and I went on a joint stalking venture up to Altadena to stalk Mountain View Cemetery which appeared in the Season 4 episode of The Office titled “The Chair Model”, among countless other productions. I first found out about this locale from my parents’ neighbor, Julie, who owns The Coffee Gallery in Altadena – a location which was also used in “The Chair Model” episode and which I blogged about this past July. According to Julie, while scouting locations for the “Chair Model” episode, location managers sought out a coffee shop that was in close proximity to Mountain View Cemetery where they were also shooting scenes, which is how they came to use her cafe. Like the old saying goes, it’s all about location, location, location. 😉 Anyway, once Julie told me about the place, I started doing some research on it and discovered that Mountain View Cemetery has been featured in hundreds upon hundreds of productions over the years. Apparently, the 60-acre cemetery is used for filming an average of 150 days out of EACH AND EVERY year, which is absolutely incredible to me! Upon finding out that fact, I promptly informed both Mike and the GC that Mountain View Cemetery was the ONLY place I wanted to be buried. Spending my hereafter at a site that is in use as a filming location almost half of each year sounds like absolute heaven to me (pun intended). Mike jokingly said that if I did end up being buried there, my tombstone should read, “Lindsay Blake, from IAMNOTASTALKER –Still Stalking Filming Sites From Beyond the Grave”. 🙂

Mountain View Cemetery, which is one of the oldest cemeteries in the San Gabriel Valley, was first established in 1882 when a man named Levi W. Giddings designated a plot of his family’s land to be used as a site for burials for the citizens of Pasadena. His descendants still own and operate the cemetery to this day, over 128 years later. Mountain View, which as the name implies does boast picturesque views of the San Gabriel Mountains, is an absolutely enormous and quite beautiful property, with sprawling lawns, stately trees from all over the world, an art collection, two chapels, and two mausoleums. Besides being a filming location, Mountain View is also the final resting place of several notables, including actor George Reeves, who played TV’s original Superman in the 1950s television series of the same name. George is entombed in the cemetery’s Pasadena Mausoleum. Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe, one of the original founders of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and builder of the Mount Lowe Railway, is also buried at Mountain View, in the cemetery’s Royal Oak’s section.

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The yet-to-be released show Franklin & Bash was setting up to do some filming while we were stalking the cemetery on Sunday, and as you can see in the above photographs, had fake tombstones, floodlights, a generator, and a mock funeral assembled, which was very cool to see.

There was also a fake crypt set up on the property, which none of us actually realized was a fake . . .

. . . until we got around to the back of it and saw the prop door. So, of course, I just had to get inside of it to snap a quick picture. 🙂 I am not sure if the fake crypt was a prop for Franklin & Bash or for Wicked Literature: A Halloween Theatre Festival – a Halloween-themed live theatre event which is running at the cemetery now through the end of October. But being that Franklin & Bash is a series about a law firm, I am going to go out on a limb and guess that the crypt was set up for the Wicked Literature show.

In “The Chair Model” episode of The Office, Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) falls in love with a chair model whom he sees in an office supply catalog. He sends Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) on a recognizance mission to track down the model and is crushed when he learns that she was recently killed in a car accident. Dwight and Michael later visit the cemetery where she is buried in order to pay their respects. While there, they break into a rousing rendition of the song “American Pie”.

While stalking Mountain View on Sunday, I was absolutely dying to find the exact spot where The Office had been filmed. Unfortunately though, I was unable to figure it out at the time. It wasn’t until after I got home and re-watched “The Chair Model” episode that I was able to discern the correct location. So, bright and early yesterday morning, I dragged my dad out to re-stalk the place so that I could get some photos of the spot where Michael and Dwight had mourned, ahem, sang. That spot can be found in the northeastern section of the cemetery.

In the Season 1 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “There Won’t Be Trumpets”, Mountain View was the site of Mama Solis’ (aka Lupe Ontiveros’) funeral. In the scene filmed at the cemetery, Gaby Solis (aka Eva Longoria Parker) flies into a rage after discovering that her destitute husband Carlos (aka Ricardo Antonio Chavira) has purchased a large crypt for his dead mother. It was during the filming of that scene that Eva Longoria Parker accidentally (and hilariously) got the heel of her stiletto stuck in the cemetery’s grass. Some paparazzi who were on hand managed to snap pictures of the event and those pictures later made their way onto the pages of US Magazine, but unfortunately I cannot find copies of those photographs anywhere online.

While watching the “There Won’t Be Trumpets” episode, I was convinced that Mama Solis’ crypt had been a prop put into place for the filming. As I discovered yesterday morning, though, her burial site is an actual crypt belonging to the Buckley family. So darn cool! I would like to let it be known here and now that, upon my death, filmmakers have my permission to use whatever it is I end up being buried in – whether it be a crypt, a mausoleum, or a simple grave – whenever and in as many productions as they so desire! 😉

The cemetery was also used in the Season 8 episode of Seinfeld titled “The Foundation” as the final resting place of Susan Ross (aka Heidi Swedberg), George Costanza’s (aka Jason Alexander’s) former fiancé, who died after ingesting toxic glue while licking the envelopes of their wedding invitations.

Mountain View also appeared in the Season 11 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Shock Waves” as the site of the funeral of Officer Franklin Clark (aka Reggie Von Watkins), during which a bomb explodes. Fave website Altadenablog was on hand during the filming of that episode and took some great photographs of the crew setting up the extensive rigging for the explosion scene.

The cemetery also popped up in the pilot episode of the HBO series Six Feet Under as the site of the funeral of Nathaniel Fisher (aka Richard Jenkins).

The cemetery was also used in Ozzy Osbourne’s video for his 2010 song “Life Won’t Wait” . . .

. . . which you can watch by clicking above.

Ironically enough, after visiting the cemetery, I had a feeling that it might have been the very cemetery used in fave movie A Lot Like Love, so after I got home I re-watched the flick and noticed the large, open-air grave-marker located in the background behind Oliver Martin (aka Ashton Kutcher) in the scene pictured above.

I could also just make out the last name “Holmes” written on the marker. So, yesterday morning, while re-stalking the cemetery with my dad, I walked around to see if I could spot that open air crypt.

And, amazingly enough, I did! As it turns out, the filming of A Lot Like Love had taken place just due west of where The Office had filmed. The grave where Emily Friehl’s (aka Amanda Peet’s) mother was buried in the movie was a fake that was put into place solely for the filming. In real life, her grave is just empty space. Ironically enough, Ashton Kutcher returned to the cemetery once again this past May to film scenes for the yet-to-be released comedy No Strings, along with co-star Natalie Portman. You can check out some photographs of them filming here. The 2007 remake of the classic horror film Halloween was also filmed at Mountain View Cemetery.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Mountain View Cemetery is located at 2400 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Altadena. The area which appeared in The Office is in the northeastern portion of the cemetery and is denoted with a pink circle and a pink “X” in the above aerial views. A Lot Like Love filmed just due west of where The Office was filmed in the area of the cemetery numbered 4474, which is denoted with a purple circle in the above aerial views. Desperate Housewives was filmed in front of the Buckley crypt, which is located in the section of the cemetery numbered 4386, directly across from the Vista Del Monte mausoleum, which is denoted with a blue circle and a blue arrow in the above aerial views.

May 12, 2010May 12, 2010

The “Beautiful Girls” Houses

As I remarked last week, one of my very favorite films of all time is the 1996 flick Beautiful Girls. But, being that no one that I’ve mentioned the movie to as of late has ever even heard of it, I’m guessing it was pretty much a sleeper hit, despite its all-star cast. Nevertheless, I’ve absolutely loved the film ever since it first came out almost fifteen years ago and have probably seen it no less than thirty times. So, when I found out that my dad had been accepted to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, a light bulb immediately went off in my head, as I had a somewhat vague recollection that Beautiful Girls had been filmed in the North Star State. A quick visit to the movie’s IMDB filming locations page confirmed my beliefs – the entire thing had been shot on location in the Land of 10,000 Lakes! So, I immediately called upon “the Team” – aka fellow stalkers Owen, Chas from Itsfilmedthere, and Mike, from MovieShotsLA – to see if they could help me track down some of the locales featured in the flick, which they, sure enough, did. Amazingly enough, just a few days later, Owen sent me an email with an attachment and, let me tell you, I just about died upon opening it. Somehow he had gotten his hands on the master location list from the movie – a document which detailed EACH AND EVERY LOCATION WHERE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS WAS SHOT! I’m not kidding! I was so excited I just about had a heart attack right then and there! I had hoped that one of the Team would be able to track down the homes belonging to Willie (aka Timothy Hutton) and Marty (aka Natalie Portman) in the flick, but never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I’d be able to stalk pretty much every location which appeared in the movie. THANK YOU, OWEN! 🙂

For those who have yet to see Beautiful Girls – which I am rapidly discovering is most people! – the movie centers around a young piano player named Willie Conway, who returns to his hometown, the fictional Knights Ridge, Massachusetts, in order to attend his high school reunion and to make some life-changing decisions about his future. While home, he spends time with his old high school buddies and meets his new next-door neighbor, a precocious thirteen year old named Marty, whom he immediately befriends. According to Wikipedia, screenwriter Scott Rosenberg came up with the idea for Beautiful Girls while spending time in his hometown of Boston while waiting for a response from Disney about a little script he had just submitted to them titled Con Air. He said, “It was the worst winter ever in this small hometown. Snow plows were coming by, and I was just tired of writing these movies with people getting shot and killed. So, I said, ‘There is more action going on in my hometown with my friends dealing with the fact that they can’t deal with turning 30 or with commitment’ – all that became Beautiful Girls.” Director Ted Demme said of the setting of the film, “[I] wanted to make it look like it’s Anytown, USA, primarily East Coast. And I also wanted it to feel like a real working-class town.” Demme found his Anytown, USA in the city of Stillwater, Minnesota, where most of the sites from the movie are located, including the two I most wanted to stalk – the homes belonging to Willie and Marty.

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I am very happy to report that Willie’s house, which is pictured above, looks very much the same today as it did back in 1996 when Beautiful Girls was filmed – minus the snow, of course. As fate would have it, the owner of the property happened to be outside when we arrived to stalk the place and he truly could NOT have been nicer. And, although he didn’t purchase the home until 2005, long after Beautiful Girls had been filmed, he knew quite a bit about the movie and what areas of the house had been used in it.

As you can see in the house’s real estate listing from 2005, the interior scenes were not actually filmed on the premises. The home’s real life interior is absolutely gorgeous, while its onscreen counterpart was pretty dismal and dreary. In the movie, Marty comments to Willie, “It’s a lonely house, you don’t mind me saying.” And I have to say that the set dressers and production designers did an excellent job of building a set which did, indeed, look very lonely.

According to the now-owner, the only “interior” of the house that was used in the movie was the second story window, from which Willie talks to Marty late one night in a set-up which Marty describes as “Romeo and Juliet – the dyslexic version.” 😉

Marty’s house is located right next-door to Willie’s, and it, too, looks much the same as it did in the movie.

The only difference I noticed is that the fence which surrounded the property in the movie is not there in real life.

And, of course, I just had to re-create the scene in Beautiful Girls is which Marty is shown “mashing snow” in her side yard – even though there was no actual snow for me to mash. 🙂

And I was SUPER excited to discover that the little space under the house where Marty stored her sled in the movie was there in real life, too. So darn cool! I can’t tell you how heartwarming it was for me to stalk these two residences, as almost all of my favorite scenes from Beautiful Girls took place there. If you are at all a fan of the movie, I highly recommend stalking the houses as they are sure to bring back some great memories.

On a side note – my absolute favorite scene from Beautiful Girls was the ice-skating scene with Marty and Willie, which you can watch by clicking above. And while I did not get to stalk the lake where that scene was filmed, I do know its location, thanks to Owen. For those who are interested, Marty and Willie’s ice skating lake is Lake William, which is located on Minnetonka Boulevard in Shorewood, Minnesota.

BIG, HUGE THANK YOU to Owen for finding this – and every other Beautiful Girls – location for me! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Willie Conway’s house from Beautiful Girls is located at 1337 2nd Street South in Stillwater, Minnesota, about 25 miles east of Minneapolis. Marty’s house is located right next-door at 1341 2nd Street South.