Penny Marshall – IAMNOTASTALKER

April 29, 2015April 29, 2015

Liz’s House from “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”

There are two kinds of people in this world – those who can watch movies over and over and over again and those who cannot. I am in the former category. During my teens and twenties, my parents owned a condominium in Hawaii. We would vacation there every summer, along with other families who owned units in the same community. Our condo was the kids’ hang-out spot (we had a VCR and large movie library) and, for reasons that no longer remain known to me, somehow a tradition began in which all of the youngsters would gather (usually a good four of five of us piled into the pull-out sofa bed) to watch Jumpin’ Jack Flash our first night together in Hawaii each and every year. (Our second night’s viewing was always Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.) Because of this, the film holds a very special place in my heart. So when my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, emailed me recently to let me know that one of his readers had asked for some help in tracking down the house where Liz Carlson (Annie Potts) lived in the movie, I ecstatically offered to lend a hand.

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He wound up not needing my help. While watching Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Owen spotted an address number of “515” on the curb in front of Liz’s house. Though the 1986 comedy was lensed in both New York and Los Angeles, he decided to start his hunt in L.A. and did Google Images searches for numerous permutations and combinations of “515” and “Los Angeles.” When he eventually got to “515 Dr. Los Angeles, CA,” the very first picture to pop up was of Liz’s house! The photo was attached to a Redfin page which listed the address as 515 North Bundy Drive in Brentwood. Prior to finding the dwelling, Owen had asked me if I thought it was in California or New York, and I told him that my inclination was New York. Ironically though, I kept having a nagging thought that the home looked a lot like Casa Walsh from the pilot episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. I should have listened to my gut because the two properties turned out to be located about a mile away from each other.

In real life, the 1938 home was designed by Welton Becket, the prolific L.A. architect who also gave us the Cinerama Dome, the Capital Records Building, the Los Angeles Music Center and the Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport. Becket used the property as his primary residence through the 1940s.

The property boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 3,800 square feet, a 0.28-acre lot, 4 fireplaces, beamed ceilings, wood built-ins, French doors, a bonus art studio space and a kitchen with both a dining area and an office.

The residence appears twice in Jumpin’ Jack Flash (which just so happens to be the first movie Penny Marshall ever directed). It first pops up in the scene in which Liz explains to Terri Dolittle (Whoopi Goldberg) that the man she is trying to save is being chased by the KGB.

In a later scene, Terri goes to Liz’s house to ask her for more help, only to find the place vacant.

Thanks to the photos posted on Redfin, I learned that the real life interior of the home was also used in Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Though the kitchen has since been updated, it is still recognizable from its appearance. (That’s Life Goes On’s Kellie Martin in her big screen debut pictured below.)

The living room was also featured in the movie (love those built-ins!).

The Dutch doors are also pretty amazing!

The dining room also made a brief appearance in the film.

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

Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Liz’s house from Jumpin’ Jack Flash is located at 515 North Bundy Drive in Brentwood.

July 6, 2012July 29, 2012

Elijah Wood’s Former House

As I have mentioned many times before on my site, this stalker absolutely loves herself some L.A. Magazine – especially “L.A. Story”, one of the publication’s newer columns in which, each month, a different SoCal-bred celeb shares his or her experiences growing up in La La Land. This month’s column was written by The Lord of the Rings actor Elijah Wood, who moved to Southern California from Iowa when he was just seven. In the article, Elijah wrote, “For five or six years we lived on Hesby Street, and it was the first house of ours that felt truly like home. When we were buying it, I was shooting a movie called North with director Rob Reiner. He overheard a conversation about the house and said, ‘I used to live on Hesby.’ Turns out he and Penny Marshall had lived in the same house—our house!—back in the ’70s.” Well, believe you me, once I read those words, I became just a wee bit obsessed with tracking the place down (I mean, hello, Elijah Wood, Penny Marshall AND Rob Reiner???), which, thankfully was not too hard to do.

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In a definite stalker maneuver, I looked up the name of Elijah’s father (Warren) and then inputted “Warren Wood” and “Hesby Street” into a Google search and was directed right to this page on the BlockShopper website which stated that Warren Wood had once owned a residence at 12247 Hesby Street in Valley Village. Voila! And, not ten minutes later, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place. Sadly though, as you can see below, not much of it can be seen from the street. The one-story abode, which was originally built in 1936, boasts three bedrooms, two baths, and 1,937 square feet. The Woods purchased the dwelling in April of 1993, after Elijah had already become quite famous from his roles in Radio Flyer, Avalon and Forever Young. While living there, his career further skyrocketed and he starred in such hits as The Good Son, Flipper, The Ice Storm, Deep Impact, and The Faculty. In his “L.A. Story”, Elijah also said of the home, “For me it’s where I became a teenager. I learned to drive at that house, and with that I learned Laurel Canyon was the gateway, the connective tissue, between the Valley and basically the rest of L.A.” Elijah’s mom, Debra, who had since divorced Warren, sold the property in October of 1999, a little over six years after purchasing it.

While searching for the exact location of the home, I came across a tweet from @Praeriedikter which said, in response to @MovieElijahWood sending out a link to Elijah’s “L.A. Story”, “Thanks for sharing! Wonderful article. Wonder how many fangirls will be cruising Hesby Street looking for his old house? LOL” And here I thought I was the only one. Winking smile

According to my buddy E.J., over at The Movieland Directory website, Rob Reiner and Penny Marshall owned the residence in 1973. While researching the place, I happened to find a 1992 Los Angeles Times article about Rob Reiner in which his Castle Rock Entertainment partner Andy Scheinman, who spent six or seven nights a week at the property, had this to say, “It was almost like a fraternity house. Albert Brooks was there every day. Jim Brooks was there a lot. And you didn’t even call or knock on the door. You just opened the door. Sometimes Rob and Penny weren’t there. I’d come in there and Albert would have his head in the refrigerator and someone else would be watching TV. But we were all in our 20s. We all went to college in the ’60s, so it was a very free and open kind of approach to things.” Amazingly enough, up until reading Garry Marshall’s new book, My Happy Days in Hollywood: A Memoir (which was fabulous, by the way), a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea whatsoever that Rob and Penny had once been married! And I call myself a stalker!

In “L.A. Story”, Elijah also mentioned living at the famous Oakwood Toluca Hills Apartments, which is a place that I have long been dying to stalk. Countless celebrities have called Oakwood home over the years, including Jennifer Love Hewitt, Michelle Williams, Kirsten Dunst, Jessica Stroup, Michael C. Hall, and Kurt Cobain. In her Revealed with Jules Asner special, Katie Holmes talked about living at the complex and running down to the WB lot every morning to try to catch a glimpse of George Clooney, who was filming ER at the time. Zac Efron once filmed a pilot at the site, while Corey Haim tragically died there in March 2010, as did Rick James in August 2004. The place is just teeming with Hollywood history and I am dying to get in! You can read a fabulous EW article about the Oakwood Toluca Hills complex here.

On an Elijah Wood side-note – while researching this post, I discovered that a seven-year-old Elijah was featured in Paula Abdul’s “Forever Your Girl” music video! How I did not previously know that information is absolutely beyond me!

You can watch the “Forever Your Girl” music video by clicking below.

Elijah Wood in “Forever Your Girl” Video

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here and you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my latest post about pedicures on my new blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Elijah Wood’s former home is located at 12247 Hesby Street in Valley Village/North Hollywood.

April 26, 2012April 27, 2012

The Hollywood Show!

This past Saturday morning, I headed out to Burbank to attend the quarterly Hollywood Show, formerly known as the Hollywood Collectors Show. For those who have never heard of the event (like me, up until just recently), let me break it down for you. The Hollywood Show is a convention in which celebrities of yesteryear grant autographs and photo-opportunities, for a fee, to the fans who loved, and still love, them. As Chris Mann stated in his February 2010 Los Angeles Times article, “The quarterly autograph and memorabilia show — a retro nirvana for TV Land, VH1 and Turner Classic Movies fans and celebrity signature collectors — unites vintage Tinseltown idols and survivors with the people who made them as-seen-on-TV commodities.” Or as my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, likes to say, “It’s where celebrities go to die.” LOL Harsh, but kinda true. The show works like this – fans pay an entrance fee (of about $20, depending on how many days you want to attend the event and how early you want to be allowed in) to gain admittance to the convention hall, where they will find row upon row of fold-up card tables behind which celebrities are waiting to be paid anywhere from $10 to $150 for an autograph and/or posed picture. It all makes for a very weird, almost depressing set of circumstances and meeting the actors turns out to be more of a business transaction than a personal experience, but nevertheless where else can you find Susan Olsen from The Brady Bunch, the Von Trapp kids from The Sound of Music, and Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams from Laverne & Shirley all under the same roof?

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Pinky had been trying to convince me to stalk the Hollywood Show with her for months, but I was not too keen on the idea. That is until I saw that Aileen Quinn, aka “Annie” from the 1982 musical of the same name, was going to be there. Growing up, Annie was my movie! To this day, I can still quote the entire thing backwards and forwards. I watched the flick so often, in fact, that my VHS copy of it got warped and is now unwatchable. I even entered an Annie lookalike contest shortly after the movie was released and came in second place! Needless to say, you would be hard-pressed to find a more diehard Annie fan out there. So when I saw that Aileen would be attending the show I just about did a cartwheel right there in my living room and told Pinky to count me in! Joining us at the event were our friends Anushika, from the Mike the Fanboy website, and Cody. Being that my head was about to explode from excitement, the four of us hit up Aileen’s table immediately upon arriving at the show and I am very happy to report that she could NOT have been nicer. She was highly amused over how excited I was to meet her and how much I loved Annie growing up.

Aileen was nice enough to pose for two photographs, a close-up and a full-length shot, both of which Cody snapped for me. Thank you, Cody! I could NOT get over how recognizable Aileen still was from Annie, over three decades later!

At the Hollywood Show, celebrities have a stack of various 8×10 headshots at their tables that fans can choose from to be signed. Sometimes though, the actor will also have books, programs or memorabilia that can be signed in lieu of a headshot and, let me tell you, I just about died when I saw that Aileen had the original 1982 program from Annie at her table. Not only is the program a must-have collector’s item for any fan, but it also contains a plethora of behind-the-scenes information and an entire chapter on the movie’s LOCATIONS! Um, yes, please! Needless to say, this stalker was in absolute heaven! Not only did I get to meet one of my childhood idols, but I scored a fabulous piece of vintage memorabilia in the process. Aileen even drew me a little cartoon Annie on the program, to boot. Smile LOVE IT! All in all, meeting Aileen was a FABULOUS experience for me and I really felt like I shared a personal, intimate moment with her, despite the chaos that was going on around us.

Because one could easily spend upwards of $300 at the Hollywood Show, I had made the decision prior to walking through the front doors that I was only paying for a picture with Aileen. But I had an absolute blast accompanying Pinky, Anushika and Cody to the tables of the various celebs that they had come to meet. Pinky was dying to get a photograph with Penny Marshall (pictured above) and Cindy Williams, as Laverne & Shirley was her favorite show growing up. You can read her write-up of the event and see her pictures here.

Anushika was there for the Von Trapp kids from The Sound of Music (you can read her write-up of her experience on the Mike the Fanboy website here) and Cody was dying to meet Tanya Roberts from That ’70s Show. I think it is so incredibly cool that we were all there (and were all beyond excited) to meet such different celebrities!

And I should mention here that while some parts of the Hollywood Show are awesome, some are most-definitely odd. There are several booths set up where one can buy movie memorabilia, props and costumes, which I loved. (That’s the Bride of Chucky puppet pictured above.) My friend Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, who was dragged to the show under duress by our mutual friend Duggan, showed me a very cool booth that was selling vintage magazines, some from as far back as 1983, which I also loved. But there were also some seriously random, Twilight Zone-worthy booths. Directly next to the Bride of Chucky table, a woman was selling fake Louis Vuitton purses out of a plastic crate, Canal Street-style. I kid you not! It was beyond weird, not to mention the fact that all of the purses were in really bad shape. Most had these odd red stains on them or had large tears through the fabric. I never did know quite what to make of that. All in all, though, I loved being there and am definitely signing up for the next show.

And we even spotted a few random celebrities while we were walking around, one of whom was Daniel Roebuck, from Lost, Matlock and The Fugitive, who was attending the show as a fan. Daniel was incredibly nice and happily posed for a pic with each of us.

When we were leaving, we also saw singer Jason Mraz who was rehearsing in a studio nearby. Jason was also incredibly nice and posed for photographs with our entire group. I was especially excited to meet him because “I’m Yours” was my wedding song with the Grim Cheaper. Smile

Big THANK YOU to Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, for convincing me to come to this event! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: There is no stalking location for this one, but you can visit the Hollywood Show website here. The next Burbank show will take place on August 5th and 6th. If you are planning to attend, bring cash as credit cards and checks are not accepted.

May 11, 2011May 11, 2011

Laverne & Shirley’s Apartment Building

Back in August of last year, fellow stalker Don emailed me to inquire if I knew the location of the supposed Burbank-area apartment building where best friends Laverne DeFazio (aka Penny Marshall) and Shirley Feeney (aka Cindy Williams) lived during the final three seasons of the hit 1970’s television series Laverne & Shirley. Sadly, because I had never really watched the show, I had no idea where the apartment building might be located. As fate would have it, though, I was scheduled to take a tour of Paramount Studios the day after receiving Don’s email and, because Paramount had produced the show, I thought one of the studio tour guides might know of the apartment’s location. Well, let me tell you, I spoke to anyone and everyone I could that day, but not a one of ‘em knew anything about the apartment building. Not only that, but they all told me they had never before been asked about that particular location! How that is possible, I’ll never know. Anyway, I gave Don the sad news after I got home from my tour and figured that would most likely be the end of the quest. So imagine my surprise when I awoke last Tuesday morning to find an email in my inbox from Don with the news that he had found the building! Yay! So I dragged the GC right on out to stalk the place this past Saturday morning.

In the first episode of the series’ Sixth Season, which was titled “Not Quite New York”, Laverne & Shirley, seeking a fresh start after losing their bottle-capping jobs at Shotz Brewery, leave their hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and head to Southern California. At the very beginning of the episode, the girls are shown moving into a typical 1970’s-style apartment building that was supposedly located at 113 1/2 Laurel Vista Drive in Burbank.

The apartment building was then shown regularly each week in both establishing shots and during the opening credits of each show.

I am EXTREMELY happy to report that the building still looks very much the same today as it did three full decades ago when the series was originally filmed. So incredibly cool! There are two trees which now block the view of the home from the street, but, other than that, remarkably little has changed over the years. Love it, love it, love it!

Even the apartment building next door still looks very much the same as it did on the series! Smile

Laverne & Shirley–Burbank Apartment Building Clip

You can watch the opening credits of the Sixth Season of Laverne & Shirley, in which the apartment complex is featured, by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Don for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The “Burbank” apartment building from the last three seasons of Laverne & Shirley is located at 419/421 North Sierra Bonita Avenue in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles. Google Maps and the GPS in my car both recognize this location as being in West Hollywood, though, so keep that in mind when printing out a map of the building or inputting its address into a navigation system.