Scott Caan – IAMNOTASTALKER

May 23, 2011May 20, 2011

The “Ocean’s Eleven” House

One location that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk last weekend while vacationing in Palm Springs was the supposed-Las-Vegas, Nevada-area residence where Reuben Tishkoff (aka Elliot Gould) lived in the 2001 heist movie Ocean’s Eleven. I had absolutely fallen in love with the mid-century-modern-style residence while first watching the film just about a decade ago and was shocked to discover, thanks to a free Map of the Stars’ Vacation Homes that I once picked up at the Palm Springs Visitors’ Center, that it was located in the Coachella Valley. And while I had actually dragged the GC out to stalk the dwelling once before quite a few years back – long before I ever started my blog – because I had only taken one photograph of it, I decided the place was definitely worthy of a re-stalk.

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Reuben Tishkoff’s house popped up twice in Ocean’s Eleven. It first appeared in the scene in which Danny Ocean (aka George Clooney) and Rusty Ryan (aka cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater Brad Pitt) try to convince the millionaire hotelier to put up the money to fund their proposed casino heist.

It later showed up as the spot where Danny pitched his plan for robbing the Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand casinos to his band of cohorts including Frank Catton (aka Bernie Mac), Livingston Dell (aka Eddie Jemison), Yen (aka Shaobo Qin), Saul Bloom (aka Carl Reiner), Linus Caldwell (aka Matt Damon), Basher Tarr (aka Don Cheadle, who, interestingly enough, had an uncredited role in the film), and brothers Virgil and Turk Malloy (aka Casey Affleck and Scott Caan, respectively). Quite a bit of the house was featured in the movie including the front gate and the front door areas (both are pictured above);

the backyard;

. . . and the living room.

And while not a lot of the property can actually be seen from the street, this is one location that I would still definitely recommend stalking as it is just so unique. According to IMBD’s Ocean’s Eleven trivia page, the abode was designed in 1959 by Archibald Quincy Jones, the same architect who gave us the Palm Springs Tennis Club, Campbell Hall Episcopal School in North Hollywood (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s alma mater) and the once popular, but now-defunct restaurant Romanoff’s On the Rocks. According to the Ocean’s Eleven production notes, which I found online, director Steven Soderbergh and production designer Phil Messina wanted the residence of the “old school” Tishkoff character to be a “throwback to the 1950s and 60s”. Messina says, “We looked for sweeping, low line, mid-century homes in Las Vegas and discovered that that architecture doesn’t exist there anymore. I had a book on modern houses in Palm Springs and that’s where we ended up filming Tishkoff’s house.” IMDB also states that the homeowners were paid a whopping $200,000 for the property’s onscreen appearance! Yowza, now that’s what I call a paycheck! In real life, the one-story residence boasts 3 bedrooms, 6 baths, 6,307 square feet of living space and sits on a 1.2-acre corner plot of land located just about a mile away from the heart of Downtown Palm Springs.

As you can see in the above photographs, the house also boasts some amazing views of the San Jacinto Mountains.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Ocean’s Eleven house is located at 999 North Patencio Road in Palm Springs. Here is a Bing map link to that location.

April 11, 2011June 16, 2011

Fred 62 from “Commander in Chief”

Me on Ellen! 🙂

Before I begin today’s blog, I thought I would post a clip of the game I played on The Ellen DeGeneres Show last week. I just have to say here, too, that going to see the show was a FABULOUS experience and I highly recommend doing so if you are in the area. I would also like to thank my friend and fellow stalker, Beth, for inviting me to tag along with her to watched Ellen being filmed. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Beth! Smile And now, on with the post!

The Grim Cheaper and I recently sat down to watch the 2005 series Commander in Chief in its entirety. The short-lived show about a female president, Mackenzie Allen (aka Geena Davis), sadly only lasted one season with a scant 18 episodes ever being broadcast. I had originally been interested in watching the series because it starred cutie Matt Lanter (aka Liam Court on 90210) as the First Son, Horace Calloway, but, as it turned out, both the GC and I absolutely LOVED it! I am beyond shocked that the show was cancelled after such a short time period. There’s no accounting for taste, I guess. Anyway, while watching one of the episodes, I recognized a location that I had actually stalked almost a decade prior – Fred 62 restaurant in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. The GC’s best friend, Chris, had taken us there for a late lunch one afternoon back in 2001 and at the time I had no idea the place was a filming location. So once I saw it pop up on Commander in Chief, I immediately dragged the GC right on out to re-stalk it. And thankfully Fred 62 was just as great as I remembered it.

Fred 62 was originally founded in 1997 by two men named Fred who were both born in the year 1962, hence the name. Nightclub designer Fred Sutherland, who fashioned everything from The Palladium in New York City to Deep in Hollywood, created the look of the diner, while his friend, chef Fred Eric, of Olive, Vida, and Airstream fame, was responsible for the fare. The restaurant became a hit right of the bat and, due to its distinct retro-look, also became an instant favorite with area location scouts. Besides being a filming location, though, Fred’s is also something of a celebrity hot-spot and such stars as Drew Barrymore, Britney Spears, Cameron Diaz, Heather Graham, Shane West, Dax Shepard, Johnny Knoxville, Kristen Bell, Kirstie Alley, Samantha Ronson, Lindsay Lohan, Katy Perry, Russell Brand, Mandy Moore, Kate Bosworth, Naomi Watts, Cam Gigandet, and Ben Stiller have all been spotted there. Ironically enough, as we were leaving Fred 62 we saw Archie Panjabi, who plays investigator Kalinda Sharma on The Good Wife, which is another show the GC and I just recently started watching. She was dining a few doors down from Fred’s at Figaro Bistro and I just about had a heart attack upon spotting her as Kalinda is my favorite character on the series. Smile

The Fred 62 menu is quite extensive and offers a selection of everything from typical diner fare like burgers and hot dogs (with homemade potato chips, no less!) to Japanese entrees like udon and soba noodle soup to Mexican favorites such as tacos and burritos. I opted for the S.W.S. Southwestern Pacific Railroad Salad with chicken fingers (pictured above) and it was OUT OF THIS WORLD! There was literally not one scrap of lettuce or droplet of ranch dressing left on my plate when I got done with it! The GC had a roast beef sandwich which he also devoured. I honestly cannot say enough good things about Fred 62 – great food, fab atmosphere! I loved, loved, loved the place and cannot wait for a re-stalk!

Fred 62 popped up in the Season 1 episode of Commander in Chief titled First Disaster as the supposed Washington, D.C.-area diner where First Daughter Rebecca Calloway (aka Caitlin Wachs) goes on a date with schoolmate Mike Fleming (aka Matt Barr).

As fate would have it, the GC and I ended up sitting in pretty much the exact same spot where Rebecca and Mike sat in the scene.

After finishing their meal, the two get mobbed by a crowd of people while standing on the street just outside of Fred’s and wind up having to be rescued by the Secret Service.

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Fred 62 was also featured in the 2006 flick Friends With Money as the spot where Mike (aka Scott Caan) and Olivia (aka my girl Jen Aniston) go out on a blind date.

Mike and Olivia sat in the second booth in from Fred’s front door while on their date.

The restaurant also popped up a few times in 2009’s Spread, which has honestly got to be one of the WORST movies I have ever seen in my entire life!! I should say “half-seen”, as I turned it off about halfway through. Anyway, it first pops up as the spot where Nikki (aka Ashton Kutcher) grabs breakfast and while doing so meets and becomes obsessed with his waitress, Heather (aka Margarita Levieva).

Nikki later takes his friend Harry (aka Sebastian Stan) to the diner and has him pretend to be his assistant in the hopes that it will make him more attractive to Heather, but he only ends up making a fool of himself and getting a parking ticket, to boot.

Fellow stalker Chas, of the ItsFilmedThere website, let me know that Fred62 also appeared in the Season 1 episode of Charmed titled “That ‘70s Episode” in the scene in which the Charmed Ones – Prue (aka Shannen Doherty), Phoebe (aka Alyssa Milano), and Piper Halliwell (aka Holly Marie Combs) – travel back in time to March 24th, 1975 to visit their deceased mother, Patty (aka Finola Hughes), at the restaurant where she then worked.

In the episode, Prue and Piper sat in the booth closest to Fred’s front door.

And Phoebe got into a fist fight with Nicolas (aka Andrew Jackson) on the sidewalk out in front of Fred’s.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Fred 62 is located at 1850 North Vermont Avenue in Los Feliz. The restaurant is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can visit Fred’s official website here.

February 17, 2009February 17, 2009

Meet Me At 3rd and Fairfax!

My boyfriend has some amazing celebrity karma! He pretty much sees a movie star of some sort or another everywhere he goes. And for some odd reason it seems his celebrity karma is especially strong when I am not with him. It drives me nuts!! Just a few of his celeb encounters that I somehow missed – he ate dinner once next to Calista Flockheart and Harrison Ford – and he didn’t even look to see what, if anything, Calista ate!!, he shopped for CD’s right next to Britney Spears at a Circuit City store, he sat next to Julia Louis Dreyfus during an outdoor theatre performance, and, my personal favorite, he stood behind Jennie Garth in line at a deli in San Ysidro. Ugh!!! Not that I am bitter about it or anything. 🙂 But I must say that the place where my boyfriend most often has a celeb sighting – I mean virtually EVERY SINGLE time he is there – is the Los Angeles Farmers Market located at the corner of 3rd and Fairfax (pictured above – that’s me and my good friend Stephanie in the pic).

So the other night, while my mom and I were walking through the Farmers Market after dinner, I told her to keep her eyes peeled for celebs. “Here???” my mom asked me in disbelief pointing to the numerous outdoor tables and metal folding chairs. “Yes!”, I told her. “No, here????” she asked me again. LOL She could not believe that the popular, but by no means upscale or fancy, outdoor market was a celeb hot spot. And wouldn’t you know it, just as we were having this little tete-a-tete, who should we walk by but Scott Caan – star of the Ocean’s 11 movies and son of movie star James Caan! Due to my thrill over seeing him in person and the flurry over our slighty ill-timed conversation, I got just a bit flustered and immediately walked right into the men’s room which happened to be located straight ahead of me. LOL! I’m not kidding! After I recovered from walking into the wrong restroom, I just had to ask Scott if he wouldn’t mind taking a pic with me. He was super nice and friendly (even though he is not smiling in the above pic) and said he would be happy to pose for a photo. After I got my pic and Scott walked away, I told my mom who she had just taken a picture of and she just about spazzed out at the fact that it was James Caan’s son. LOL See what I mean, you’ve gotta keep your eyes open!

The Farmers Market (no apostrophe) was the brainchild of businessmen Roger Dahlhjelm and Fred Beck who in 1934 proposed creating an open air market on a vacant 30 acre parcel of land owned by oil tycoon Earl Bell Gilmore. During its early days local area farmers would pay 50 cents a day to park on Gilmore’s land and sell goods directly out of their trucks. Those tailgate food stands became enormously popular and it wasn’t long before permanent stalls had to be created and, thus, the Los Angeles Farmers Market was born. Today the Market is an L.A. institution, housing over 70 permanent stalls and shops, employing more than 700 clerks, and serving up over 16 different varieties of native foods to an average of 3 million yearly visitors! Somewhere along the way someone coined the phrase “Meet me at 3rd and Fairfax” and it became almost as famous as the Market itself. 🙂

A few of you have been asking me lately for some information on the best place to spot celebs in L.A. – and I promise to do a post on that subject very soon. But for the time being let me suggest the Farmers Market, which the Los Angeles Times recently called “the number one place in L.A. to spot stars!” If you are visiting Los Angeles and want to see a movie star, this is definitely one of the top places I’d stalk. 🙂 On a recent trip there I spotted the ENTIRE Wayans Family and on my last visit I saw David Edwards who starred in the Real World: San Francisco! Also spotted at the Market and at the nearby Grove Shopping Center: my girl Jen Aniston, Jay Leno, Lauren Conrad and Steven Colletti, Jessica Simpson, Rihanna, Mischa Barton and Brandon Davis, Teri Hatcher, Will Ferrell, Drew Barrymore, and (sigh!) Luke Perry. The Market has had some historical brushes with celebrity, too. Supposedly on the morning of September 30, 1955 James Dean ate his last meal there. And legend has it that Walt Disney did some of his original sketches for what would later come to be known as Disneyland while sitting at the Market’s circular tables. Besides being a celeb hang out, the Market has also been featured in a few productions, including Body Double, Stigmata, an episode of Diagnosis Murder, and in the Season One episode of my fave The Hills entitled “Somebody Always Has To Cry”.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Farmer’s Market is located at 6333 West 3rd Street, at the corner of Third and Fairfax, in Los Angeles. I highly recommend eating at DuPars while visiting. Tyra Banks, Teri Garr, and He’s Just Not That Into You author Greg Behrendt are all fans of the 70 year old restaurant. For dinner you just can’t beat their “Beat the Clock” menu – a special menu where everyday between the hours of 4 and 6pm, the hour you arrive is the price you pay for your meal. Yes, that means that if you arrive at 5:30pm, your meal (not including a drink) costs $5.30! And the food is really good! For slightly more money, head on over to Monsieur Marcel – a superb restaurant with great food and even better service.