The Brady Bunch – IAMNOTASTALKER

September 30, 2019September 29, 2019

The House from “The Bradys”

Today we are gifted with another stellar guest post penned by my friend Michael, whom you may remember from the myriad other columns he has written for IAMNOTASTALKER over the years. Like many of those, this one is Brady Bunch-related and, let me tell you, I am here for it! So, without further ado, take it away Michael!

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My guest posts have traditionally focused on previously unknown or unpublicized locations. Well, consider that paradigm thrown out the window of a 1950s split level, as this post is about one location that is certainly not without publicity—the Brady house. Its address has been long known, many an article has been written about it, and heck, there’s even a current television program centered around its iconic status.

When the house went up for sale in 2018, HGTV purchased it with the goal of altering the structure, so that not only would the exterior match 50-year old The Brady Bunch establishing shots, but the interior would also align with the show’s sets that were only ever a reality on the soundstages of Paramount. A Very Brady Renovation, currently airing on HGTV, documents the overhaul, complete with help from a slate of HGTV personalities, the original surviving Brady Bunch cast, and impressively exacting and talented project managers.

In order to properly Brady-ize the house, some architectural elements of the façade needed to be altered. With so much focus on making the old new(ly old) again, I thought it was time for a look back at the house pre-renovation and how it relates to Brady canon—specifically, the 1990 television drama The Bradys.

An hour-long weekly drama, The Bradys premiered in early 1990 following the success of the late-1988 television movie A Very Brady Christmas. Nearly the entire cast reprised their roles, with only Leah Ayres portraying Marcia for this incarnation. Like the preceding series, Mike and Carol’s home was prominently featured, and while the set remained architecturally the same, the interior décor was updated to a more contemporary pastel color story. Going without an update, however, were the exterior establishing shots of the Brady residence. The same shots filmed in the late-60s and 70s for the original series and recycled throughout most of the show’s iterations were dusted off again for the earliest episodes of The Bradys. The Brady kids may have grown, but the palm tree by the front door apparently never gained a frond.

Even though The Bradys was canceled after only six episodes, a wide variety of establishing shots were used—eventually including updated views of the house. In the third episode of the series, “A Moving Experience,” Mike and Carol nearly lose their house to freeway construction. Thanks to last-minute inspiration from Marcia’s son and his Legos, Mike and Carol decide to have the house moved to a new lot.

A live-action scene was optically produced on Paramount’s backlot to depict the move. Greg’s son, played by a young Jonathan Taylor Thomas, was swept from harm’s way as something vaguely resembling the Brady house—balancing like a teeter-totter on a flatbed truck—paraded through the city streets. Now, of course, this seems a little much, but as an 8-year-old when it first aired, I was fascinated by this scene.

The move also allowed for a charmingly vintage CGI shot of the house on its ‘new lot.’

After ‘the move,’ new establishing shots of the house were filmed. Since the real home never budged an inch, more 90s CGI was used to replace the familiar Studio City background with new skyscapes. Mike and Carol must have paid a fortune for all of the mature foliage—I suppose after living with an AstroTurf lawn, and a palm tree that hadn’t grown for 30 years, they didn’t want to take any chances.

Though never addressed on the show, the changes in paint color, windows, roof, and landscaping could have been explained away as post-move touchups.

As was done for the original establishing shots, a window (albeit sized and placed differently than the 60s/70s version) was added to the front gable of the house. Until HGTV’s recent project, the home never had a window on its front peak. It did, however, have a large window near the front door. This window was covered in the original establishing shots, but left alone for the 90s updates. HGTV’s crew recently closed off this ground-floor window to honor the original establishing shots.

The ornate wooden doors, not original to the vintage establishing shots, were also left on the house, even though they also didn’t match those on The Bradys soundstage set. These doors were also recently replaced with new blue doors at the actual home to match the style from the original establishing shots and the color from the first season of The Brady Bunch.

Viewers got an even better look at the now displaced window in the fifth episode of the series, “Bottom’s Up,” when a pixilated Marcia and her kids walked to a car in front of the house. This scene also has the historic privilege of elevating the Brady house from an establishing shot into a full-fledged filming location.

After six episodes, The Bradys halted production and was subsequently canceled. Airing opposite ABC’s TGIF lineup up of Full House and Family Matters, my 8-year old allegiances were tested from the first episode. Although far from the target audience, I faithfully set my VCR each week, while spending my Friday nights with Urkel and the Tanner family.

For me, the fun of filming locations, other than solving the mystery of where they’re located, is comparing what they look like in person to the perception gleaned from their time on the screen. Some places look exactly as you’d expect, and others surprisingly different. Until recently, pulling up to the Brady house meant seeing something familiar yet different—a fence, a warmer paint color, larger trees, missing windows, extra windows—not quite the Brady Bunch house tucked away in your memory, but close enough.

Having grown accustomed to the residence more closely resembling its stint on The Bradys rather than The Brady Bunch, I went by the house in May and was excited to see the exterior work progressing through its very Brady transformation. Imagination is no longer needed to match the house up with your mind’s eye thanks to the tremendous amount of effort HGTV has put into both the interior and exterior of this project, as evidenced each week on A Very Brady Renovation. Now, the question is, what will become of this 70s throwback after the program concludes?

[Editor’s Note – Thank you, Michael, for another fabulous – and fabulously retro – post! I have yet to see an episode of The Bradys or A Very Brady Renovation (I know, I know), but now you have me chomping at the bit to watch both!]

Stalk It: The house from The Bradys is located at 11222 Dilling Street in Studio City . Note: The residence now more closely resembles the 1970s exterior seen on The Brady Bunch and there is currently a temporary privacy fence surrounding the property.

September 30, 2016February 17, 2017

The House from “The Brady Brides”

I’m sad to say that we’ve arrived at the final day of my friend Michael’s guest post week. I have thoroughly enjoyed all of his fabulous articles (you check them out here, here, here and here – as well as his prior The Brady Bunch-related guest articles here, here, here and here.). Today we are coming full circle with a return to The Brady Bunch franchise. So without further ado, here’s the story of a lovely location . . .

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Now that I’ve done a few non-Brady Bunch guest-posts, it doesn’t mean that I’ve abandoned the grooviest of sitcom families. In 1981, a Brady Bunch spin-off, The Brady Brides, was launched with a multi-part television movie, The Brady Girls Get Married. The telefilm, in which Marcia and Jan are married to Wally Logan and Phillip Covington, is also notable in that it’s the last Brady enterprise to feature the entire original cast.

In the first episode of the The Brady Brides, Carol, now a realtor, shows Marcia and Wally a home that she’s trying to sell. Jan loves it, too…and well, the opening theme song (sung to the tune of the The Brady Bunch theme) explains it best.

A house was too expensive for each couple,
The only way to buy would they decide,
Is to share the cost by moving in together,
That’s the way that they became the Brady brides,
The Brady brides,
The Brady brides,
That’s the way they became the Brady brides.

By the end of the first episode, the four had purchased the house and moved in together. Add one nosey neighbor, an occasional cameo by Carol or Alice, and the comedic hijinks write themselves. Or maybe not; the sitcom was canceled after only ten episodes.

Establishing shots of a home were sprinkled through the series and the program’s opening titles show Marcia, Wally, Jan, and Phillip standing, on location, in its yard.

I stayed at The Garland last winter and took a number of walks around Studio City, North Hollywood, and Valley Village. From those walks I had a hunch that the Brady Brides house might be located in Valley Village where I’d seen many similarly styled homes. As luck would have it, I happened upon the house pretty quickly while looking through aerial maps of the area. And when I was last in Los Angeles, I Ubered out to Valley Village to have a look for myself.

I was excited to see that the house looks nearly identical to when it was filmed 35 years ago. Even the decorative iron columns are still standing in the same spot. And although the tree near the driveway has grown, you can still recognize it.

My apologies for the poor quality screen grabs. The Brady Brides hasn’t cornered the syndication market like its progenitor and is one of the few Brady-related properties not currently available on DVD.

Editor’s Note – Poor-quality screen grabs or not, this post was exceptional, per usual! I honestly cannot thank you enough, Michael, for sharing these locations – and your locations expertise – over the past week with us. I’m already eagerly awaiting your return!

Stalk It: The Brady Brides house is located at 11813 Hartsook Street in Valley Village.

June 6, 2016February 17, 2017

“The Brady Bunch” MegaPost

My friend, fellow stalker Michael, is proving to be a true Brady Bunch virtuoso! Here he is yet again gifting us with yet another fabulous post about the 1969 sitcom – this one a round-up of nine different locales featured on the series! Take it away, Michael!

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I know, I know. Yet another Brady guest post foisted upon you. I swear, I do know how to find non-Brady locations. However, I had compiled a bunch of Brady Bunch establishing shot sites that I hadn’t seen posted anywhere online, and asked Lindsay if she’d be up for a catch-all post to at least get these addresses out there, and save anyone interested from duplicating research efforts. Note, as is frequently the case, while these establishing shots were filmed on location, the scenes with the actors were filmed on a Paramount soundstage.

Davey Jones’ Royal Towers Hotel

Wilshire Regent

I thought I’d start with a location I happened upon by accident. This winter, I was in Los Angeles riding down Wilshire Boulevard when I looked ahead and saw a building that I thought had been used in a Brady Bunch episode. I snapped a couple quick pics and found their match when I got home.

In the third-season episode, “Getting Davy Jones,” Marcia (in drag) and Greg sneak into Davy Jones’ hotel room in an effort to coax him into performing at the Fillmore Junior High prom.

The establishing shot of of the fictional Royal Towers Hotel was in reality the Wilshire Regent, a luxury co-op built in 1963. The section of Wilshire Blvd where it stands, known as the Wilshire Corridor, is now filled with high-rises, but the Wilshire Regent was one of the first apartment towers built in the area. And lucky for us, the exterior of the building looks remarkably unchanged.

Stalk It: Wilshire Regent, aka Davy Jones’ Hotel, aka Royal Towers Hotel is located at 10501 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Mr. Dimsdale’s Recording Studio / Mercola Building

Fred Hayman Building

In keeping with the musical theme, the next location comes from an establishing shot in the third-season episode, “Dough Re Mi.” The Brady Kids, ready to share their musical stylings with the world, get in hock against their collective allowances to rent studio time from Johnny Dimsdale’s father so they can record a demo of Greg’s latest, “We Can Make the World a Whole Lot Brighter.” However, Peter’s cracking voice jeopardizes the venture and their “$150 non-refundable dollars.”

One would think with a name slapped on the facade, it’d be a cinch to track down this location. Nevertheless, to this day, I haven’t found any other references to the Mercola Building (if anyone out there has, let me know!). As it turns out, I ended up running across this location by accident.

Last year, I walked through Beverly Hills on my way to meet up with a friend for coffee, and as I meandered down Canon Drive I couldn’t help but notice the bright yellow Fred Hayman Building. But, no sooner did I start to reflect on the difference between Giorgio yellow and Bijan yellow (iconic Beverly Hills boutiques known for their use of the color), then my attention was caught by another structure in the area and I forgot all about the Fred Hayman Building.

Researching that neighborhood when I got home, I found myself on Google Street View. Randomly turning my virtual self around, I saw the Fred Hayman Building again and realized it was a Brady location I’d looked for in the past.

Other than a paint job, the structure still looks remarkably similar to its appearance on The Brady Bunch. What looks to be a parking lot on the right of Brady clip is now home to Spago Beverly Hills, and the exterior of the shorter annex building has been remodeled numerous times, most recently housing a restaurant.

Stalk It: Fred Hayman Building, aka Mr. Dimsale’s Recording Studio, aka Mercola Building is located at 190 (& 184) North Canon Drive in Beverly Hills.

Daily Chronicle Newspaper Building

Marfay Building

In the first-season episode, “Father of The Year,” Marcia sneaks out of the house to mail an essay submitting Mike for the local newspaper’s father of the year competition. Later in the episode, an office building is used to establish a scene set in the publisher’s office.

I stumbled across this building while looking through the massive archive of architectural photographer Julius Schulman that The Getty Research Institute has posted online.

As soon as I saw the photo, I knew that it had been seen on The Brady Bunch. It took me a while longer to home in on the specific episode. A quick web search found that the structure—known as the Marfay Building—was built in 1949 by Welton Becket and Walter Wurdeman. You may know Becket’s and Wurdeman’s work from many classic mid-century buildings throughout Los Angeles—Pan-Pacific Auditorium, Capitol Records Building, Cinerama Dome, and the Century City master plan just to name a few.

The building’s facade was drastically overhauled in 1987, still you’ll notice the structure next door has maintained its integrity from the days of Brady.

Stalk It: Marfay Building, aka Daily Chronicle Newspaper Building is located at 5657 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Encino Medical Tower Dentist Office

Sometimes I luck out and an establishing shot does the work for me. Such is the case in the fourth-season episode titled “Love and the Older Man.” The Brady’s regular dentist has a new associate, Dr. Stanley Vogel, and Marcia is gaga, so much so that she fantasizes of a future replete with a dental chair in her living room. “Imagine me, Mrs. Marcia Dentist,” she dreamily exclaims.

The Encino Medical Tower looks much the same as it did in the 1970s, however some of the charmingly retro arches have unfortunately been remodeled.

Stalk It: Encino Medical Tower is located at 16260 Ventura Boulevard in Encino.

Gilbert’s Books

Another Brady location that didn’t camouflage its real-world name can be seen in the first-season episode, “The Hero.” It also happens to be another episode where we find Marcia envisioning her future. This time she writes in her diary, “My dream of dreams is to be Mrs. Desi Arnaz Jr.” Unfortunately, Cindy accidently donates said diary to charity resulting in a mortified Marcia. The family forms a search party to scour LA’s used bookstores in an attempt to track down the journal; Mike and Cindy stop at Gilbert’s Book Shop.

The Hollywood Boulevard-located bookstore is sadly no more, the building has been razed, and the W Hollywood occupies its former footprint (and then some). Fortunately, the Taft Building—the first high rise office building in LA, built in 1923—a sliver of which is visible in the Brady clip to the right of Gilbert’s, is still holding its own.

Stalk It: Gilbert’s Book Shop was located at 6278 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.

Valley Drug

In the second-season episode, “The Not-So-Ugly Duckling,” when Jan’s crush, Clark Tyson, is more interested in Marcia, she decides that her freckles are “making her a social outcast,” and heads to the drug store to look for a quick fix. The establishing shot again makes no attempt to hide its name; Valley Drug in bold script is emblazoned above the doorway.

A quick web search provided a present-day Valley Drug & Compounding in Encino. Although the Encino business’ logo matched the Brady clip, the structure did not.

After digging through newspaper archives, phone books, and verifying addresses against old Los Angeles building permits I was able to confirm that the drug store shown in the establishing shot was located on the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Magnolia Blvd.

Pharmacist, Sidney Simmons purchased Valley Drug at 5161 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in 1955 and in the early 1990s relocated the business down the road to 4800 Laurel Canyon Boulevard. In 1998, he sold the store to the Rite Aid chain and opened up the specialty pharmacy in Encino. An archived building permit shows the original drug store and its distinct chamfered corner entrance.

Sadly, the structure is long gone and the land now provides additional parking for a Jon’s Marketplace. At least a present-day Jan wouldn’t have to go far to find a lemon for her at-home freckle treatment.

Stalk It: Valley Drug was located at 5161 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood.

Television Studio (and Ballet Studio)
Metromedia Square

Shown in a number of episodes, now-razed television and film studio, Metromedia Square was a popular Brady-establishing-shot location. The Hollywood-constructed lot was originally known as Nassour Studios and built in the 1940s. The Times-Mirror Company purchased the facility in the 1950s and Metromedia took over the studio in the late 1960s. In the 1980s Metromedia started leasing the lot to News Corporation and the name was again changed to Fox Television Center. Finally, Metromedia sold the land in 2000 and the studio was torn down and Helen Bernstein High School was built on the property.

Establishing shots of Metromedia Square were used in a number of fifth-season Brady episodes, but the site is first seen in the forth-season episode “Amateur Nite.” Mike and Carol’s anniversary is coming up and the kids decide to buy them a silver platter. Unbelievably, Jan isn’t as familiar as most teens in the byzantine methods by which engraving is priced and can’t cover the cost of the customized platter. The kids naturally turn to song in an effort to pay their debts. Dubbing themselves “The Silver Platters,” they perform (in matching jumpsuits) on a local television show competition.

The exterior is next see in the episode “You Can’t Win ‘Em All.” Cindy becomes a prima donna when her test scores qualify her to help represent Clinton Grammar School on a local television station’s quiz show. Cindy’s inflated ego has no bounds, even turning down Alice’s cooking with a terse, “A star can’t go on television all fat and broken out.” When at the television studio, Cindy freezes with stage fright the moment the red light on the camera glows.

The exterior is shown again in “Adios, Johnny Bravo.” The Brady Kids—no longer strangers to the television studio—are taping a performance and Greg is pulled aside by a couple of quick-talking record producers hoping to mold him into the newest pop sensation because he literally “fit the suit.”

The last we see of Metromedia Square is in the episode “Try, Try Again,” where it’s inconsistently used to establish a scene set in the girls’ ballet class.

Although, I knew the establishing shots were of Metromedia Square, I wanted to figure out where exactly the shots were filmed. Strangely, I couldn’t find many photos of the lot, so I started with a contemporary aerial photo [below in color] and one photographed when the studio was still in existence [below in black & white]. I was also lucky to come across a few maps of the lot in my go-to resource, the LA building permit archives.

From those, I was able to home in on the area that was shown in the Brady clips. The direction in which the roads intersected proved to be a helpful guide, and the corner of an “Audience Parking” sign in the Brady clip confirmed that I’d zeroed in on the correct part of the lot. The orange arrows on the aerial photos and map above mark the location of the camera and the approximate angle used for the establishing shots. I was also surprised to find that the corner of a building at Fernwood Avenue and North Van Ness Avenue, formerly across the street from Metromedia Square, is still there. It’s the KTLA building at Sunset Bronson Studios and still looks the same as it did in the Brady clip. Interestingly, the current Sunset Bronson Studios was the original Warner Bros. lot, purchased by the young studio in 1920, and the current KTLA building originally housed Leon Schlesinger Productions (of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies fame). Warner Bros. purchased Schlesinger’s interest in the animation company in 1944, and in 1953 they sold the entire lot to Paramount; KTLA moved into the old Schlesinger building thereafter. You can see a vintage photo of Schlesinger’s building with its distinctive quoining here. At least a little sliver of history from the Brady clip still remains.

As you can see, Metromedia Square is no more and its buildings seen in the Brady clips have been replaced with the school’s basketball courts.

Stalk It: Metromedia Square Audience Parking was located on North Van Ness Avenue at Fernwood Avenue in Hollywood.

Drive-In Theatre

Gilmore Drive-In

The Gilmore Drive-In is another establishing shot location that was used in more than one Brady episode. In the forth-season episode “Greg Gets Grounded,” as a punishment for driving on the freeway while reading the back of a new record album, Greg’s family-car privileges are taken away for a week. After irking Carol and Mike with another misdeed, he narrowly avoids further punishment on a technicality by claiming that he followed their “exact words.” Predictably, Mike and Carol later hold Greg to his “exact words” and force him to cancel a date and bring Bobby and Peter to a frog jumping competition (naturally). After the competition, the young masters Brady absentmindedly leave their frogs in Greg’s car. Unfortunately for Greg, in a rush to pick up his date for a drive-in movie, Croaker and Spunker’s presence goes unnoticed until it’s too late.

And in the fifth-season episode “Peter and the Wolf,” Greg has a date with Sandra, but unless he can find a date for her cousin Linda, she’ll have to cancel. Enter Linda’s new date, a faux mustachioed Peter, alias Phil Packer, “Some swinging guy from another high school.” Need I write more? Obviously, nothing but comedy gold can come from a setup like that.

The establishing shot as it’s seen in the episode is rather dark (as evening is wont to do), but with a quick digital adjustment, a few clues to the drive-in’s location were unveiled. The detailing on the screen tower along with the larger panel to its right seemed unique to the Gilmore Drive-In in Los Angeles. My suspicions were confirmed when the lightened image also revealed the Park La Brea Apartments in the distance.

In the 1880s, Arthur Fremont Gilmore bought hundreds of acres of farmland around what is now Fairfax Avenue. In the early 1900s he struck oil on the property and transitioned from farming to the oil business. In 1918, his son Earl Bell Gilmore took over the family business and by the 1940s had sold the majority of their original acreage. He however kept a few dozen acres which housed Gilmore Stadium, Gilmore Field, the Farmers Market, and of course the Gilmore Drive-In.

Built in 1948, the theatre reportedly had a 650-vehicle capacity and was designed by architects William Glenn Balch and Louis L. Bryan. The asymmetric panel that helped me identify the theatre, upon further research, turned out to be an enlarged light shield built in 1955. By the 1970s the theatre had fallen into disrepair and demolition permits were issued in 1979. Today, The Grove shopping center, specifically Nordstrom, sits in the screen’s former location, leaving the Farmers Market as the only remaining original Gilmore-related enterprise in the area. The former site of the Gilmore Drive-In is outlined in orange below, with an arrow pointing in the direction of the former location of the screen.

CBS purchased Gilmore Stadium in 1950 and built CBS Television City on the land. Later in the decade, CBS expanded their studio onto the former site of Gilmore Field. Their website has some great aerial photos of the area, and many include the drive-in. Cinematreasures.org also has a nice selection of photos of the road-facing side of theatre’s screen tower.

Stalk It: The Gilmore Drive-In was located at 6201 West 3rd Street in Los Angeles.

Rose Bowl Stadium

In the fifth-season episode “Mail Order Hero,” Bobby’s in a pickle when after claiming to know Joe Namath, the football player is in town and Bobby’s friends call his bluff. In an effort to help her brother, Cindy puts pen to paper and speciously writes a letter to Namath on Bobby’s behalf, beginning with, “I’m writing to you because I’m very very sick.”

Inspired by the letter, the football player stops by the Brady residence, Bobby plays sick, Cindy plays nursemaid, and Mike and Carol, out of the loop from Cindy’s letter, shock Namath with their lack of concern over their dying son—“Well when you have six kids, something like this is bound to happen to one of them.”

A scene set at the stadium office with Namath is established with a shot of the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena. The entrance area to the 1922-built stadium has recently undergone some renovations, but the structure itself still matches the Brady shot.

The angle from which the establishing shot was filmed obscured the Rose Bowl logo with some tress, but if you look carefully, you can still make out the corners of the signage.

Stalk It: The Rose Bowl Stadium is located at 1001 Rose Bowl Drive in Pasadena.

And there you have it, nine locations for the price of one. If you’ve made it to the end, congratulations and thanks for sticking with me! As always, many thanks to Lindsay for generously offering up her forum for another very-Brady post. (Editor’s note – a big THANK YOU to you, Michael, for yet another scintillating and fastidiously-researched article! Smile )

April 22, 2016February 17, 2017

Smart Set Beauty Salon and Shopping Center from “The Brady Bunch”

While I originally intended to be filling this week with locales from my recent New York trip, I had a family emergency that landed me out of state since Monday. At this point, I’m not sure when I will be returning home, so posts might be on the light side in the coming days and weeks. Thankfully, though, my friend Michael, the fellow stalker who gifted us with the two fabulous Brady Bunch write-ups about The Golden Spoon Café and the Downtown Christmas Shopping District, has swooped in and saved the day by penning yet another guest post about yet another BB location. Thank you, Michael! So without further ado . . .

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In the final episode of The Brady Bunch, “The Hair-Brained Scheme,” Bobby, in the midst of a get-rich-quick venture, convinces Greg to tame his mane (in preparation for graduation) with some reasonably priced Neat & Natural Hair Tonic. Not unsurprisingly, the hair product turned plot-device quickly transforms Greg’s hair into something resembling a wig you might find in Harpo Marx’s hatbox. Eveready for a comedic crisis, Carol whisks Greg off to her beauty parlor (that specializes in groovy lady-mullets, no doubt) for a quick dye job. Lucky are we—the filming-location-loving audience—that their visit to the beauty shop is prefaced by two sequential establishing shots, providing us with a couple distinct looks at the location. First we are shown a wide shot of an outdoor shopping center, complete with a packed parking lot and a beauty shop nestled among a strip of storefronts.

After the commercial break we are treated to a close-up of the building as the camera pans up from the parking lot across much of the signage displayed along the facade.

The interior scenes with the actors were, as usual, filmed in a Paramount soundstage, but the clips of the exterior were filmed away from the studio. And with all the visible store names, I figured that it wouldn’t be difficult to pinpoint where the establishing shots were filmed. Famous last words.

First I concentrated on the wide shot. The larger storefront on the left had a row of shopping carts outside suggesting that perhaps a grocery store was nearby. Christmas trees with the words “Holiday Greetings” were tacked onto the light posts. And, although blurry, I could make out the name of the beauty parlor: Smart Set Beauty Salon. Unfortunately, my perfunctory web search for Smart Set was to no effect, and without a grocery store name it was time to look a little closer.

The next thing I noticed was the unique roofline on the building. It reminded me of the double-sloped mansard roof on the marina boathouse in my hometown, so I started thinking of water-side cities. And that maybe those decorations on the light posts weren’t Christmas trees at all; suddenly those trees were looking a lot more like sail boats. I then tried to make out the names of the other businesses. First was The Mariner Barber Shop (which worked with the marina-style roof), a barely legible ice cream shop, and the ridiculously named Posh Pourri. It was clear as (a sunshine) day that such a unique name was my best bet to zero in on the shopping center.

Researching Posh Pourri, I first came across an expired trademark that had been registered in Marina del Rey and an article about the actor Herb Rudley. Rudley, along with his wife and a business partner, opened Posh Pourri in Marina del Rey in late 1967. He mentions in the article that they also considered the name “Port Pourri,” but ended up going with his wife’s suggestion since they hoped to provide a “potpourri of elegance.” I may never forgive him for not choosing “Port Pourri”—I love a pun.

Unfortunately, neither the article nor trademark application listed an address for the gift shop. But, by looking at the history of Marina del Rey—a charming seaside community in the west side of Los Angeles—and the layouts of the malls in the area, I was pretty sure it was located in a shopping center that was originally known as Marina Waterside. Unfortunately, the center—now known simply as Waterside—has been remodeled twice since it opened in 1967, first in 1990 and again in 2005. To make matters worse, I couldn’t initially find any photos from its original look, and only a couple from the first renovation.

Present-day aerial photography then came to the rescue. Looking at a bird’s-eye view of Waterside showed that new facades on the front of the building had replaced the original roof style, however on the backside of the building the roof was left partially intact and it matched the style seen in the Brady clip.

Nearly positive I’d found the right spot, I still wanted more evidence linking Posh Pourri to Waterside, so off to my trusty library I went. A quick look in the US Shopping Center Directory from 1974 confirmed my suspicions. Not only was Posh Pourri listed, but so was Carol and Greg’s Smart Set Beauty Salon, Mariner Barber Shop, Brookdale Ice Cream, Suds ’N Duds Laundromat, Bon Marche Shirt Laundry, and Boy’s Market. Finally, proof that Carol was heading out of the Valley in order to maintain her far out ‘do.

In December, I found myself in Marina del Rey and had to see the shopping center in person. Although it’s been significantly remodeled, and is filled with new businesses, it’s still easy to picture how the current-day layout translates to the Brady clips.

I took a walk around the back of the complex and was happily surprised that a little bit of the old mansard roof was poking just far enough up for me to still see.

The mall was last remodeled in 2005 by developer Caruso Affiliated who is better known for creating The Grove shopping center in Los Angeles.

Although I’m always disappointed when renovations have significantly changed the look of a filming location, I’m afraid it was a necessity in this situation. The shopping complex’s 1990 remodel looked terribly dated and I can’t imagine that the facility would be thriving as successfully today (or even still exist) without some redevelopment over the past 49 years.

So there you have it. Smart Set Beauty Salon may be long gone, however a Dry Bar now sits near the old Posh Pourri location. So, should you ever end up suffering the effects of Neat and Natural Hair Tonic, they might not be able to do anything about your sherbet-colored hair, but a least they’ll be able to smooth it out for you.

Thanks once again to Lindsay for providing me a platform to prattle on about a 40-something year old Brady location. (Editor’s Note – Big THANK YOU to you, Michael, for another fabulously and meticulously researched post! Smile )

Stalk It: Waterside Shopping Center, aka Marina Waterside Shopping Center aka Carol Brady’s Smart Set Salon is located at 4700 Admiralty Way in Marina del Rey.

December 21, 2015February 17, 2017

Downtown Christmas Shopping District from “The Brady Bunch”

Today’s Christmas-themed post comes, once again, courtesy of Michael, the fellow stalker who gifted us with the fabulous write-up about The Golden Spoon café from The Brady Bunch back in November. While visiting L.A. last week, Michael tracked down and stalked another BB locale, this one with a holiday slant. After returning home to Minnesota, he asked if I would be interested in having him write a second guest post about said locale and I very enthusiastically replied yes! (I’d also be interested in a third, a fourth and a fifth guest post, if the mood ever strikes you, Michael! Winking smile ) So without further ado . . .

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Fully cognizant that this may now typecast me as the very Brady guest blogger, I’m back with another Brady Bunch location…a very merry Brady location. In the first season episode of The Brady Bunch, “The Voice of Christmas,” Cindy asks Santa Claus for a laryngitis-struck Carol to get her voice back in time to sing the solo at Christmas church services. Before the department store scenes with Santa (filmed on a soundstage at Paramount), brief establishing shots of an outdoor shopping area are shown.

After looking at the establishing shot more carefully, I noticed that the name on the building, although obscured, read “Radio Shack.” Even though the the shot was assumedly framed to emphasize the Christmas trees and Toyland sign in the windows, garland and bow on the lamp post, and children hauling a Christmas tree down the street, I knew Radio Shack was my best bet for tracking down the address.

Last week, while on vacation in Los Angeles, I stopped at the Central Library to search through their archived Western Los Angeles phone books from the 1970s. Letting my fingers do the walking, through the 1975 edition, I found less than 20 Radio Shack locations. Thinking that the establishing shot was of a pedestrian mall, the first listing that caught my eye was for the Golden Mall, in downtown Burbank. Perhaps Mike really was being accurate when he told Carol, “We’re going to go downtown and finish the shopping.”

I then started researching the Golden Mall, and came across a postcard that showed the same unique cane-shaped lampposts with glass globes as in the Brady Bunch clip. Fairly convinced I was on the right path, it was just a matter of finding out more about this shopping district. [Postcard scan courtesy of San Fernando Valley Blog]

In the 1960s and 70s, many downtown areas closed off vehicular traffic to their major shopping streets and created pedestrian malls in an effort to help compete with the growing popularity of suburban shopping centers. Burbank followed suit, and in 1967 closed off six blocks of San Fernando Road, from Magnolia Boulevard to San Jose Avenue. Then, removed of cars, the street was landscaped with grass, angular paths, modern playground equipment, benches, fountains, hexagonal planters, and public restrooms. [1973 photo courtesy of Burbankia]

By the 1980s, the mall was showing its age. There isn’t one definitive reason for the decline of the mall, but some oft-repeated theories involve business owners leery of updating the appearance of their stores only to have the city gobble up their properties as part of a City Centre Redevelopment Project, customers finding parking at the mall to be a chore, and the popularity of more modern nearby regional shopping centers siphoning shoppers away. [1985 photo courtesy of Burbankia]

In an effort to revitalize the shopping district, in October of 1989, the mall was reopened to traffic, and in 1991, Media City Center (now named Burbank Town Center) opened at Magnolia and San Fernando, abutting the former Golden Mall.

Since the Radio Shack address listed in the phone book—100 S Golden Mall—no longer exists, I tried searching for its present-day equivalent—100 S San Fernando Boulevard. Much to my surprise, I came up with a listing for Radio Shack at that address. A recent Google Street View showed a Bank of the West branch in that spot, but archived Street Views showed Radio Shack in its place as recently as 2011.

Worried that everything fell into place too easily, I contacted the good folks of the website, Burbankia. They quickly helped me confirm that the Radio Shack was indeed at that site from the 70s into recent years.

A May 1969 advertisement trumpets the grand opening of the Golden Mall Radio Shack. Seeing as this episode of The Brady Bunch aired in December of 1969, Radio Shack would have been in the midst of its first holiday season during the filming of the establishing shot. According to a recounting posted on Burbankia, this Radio Shack was located in the Gregg Building, which prior to the electronics retailer, housed a drug store.

Metal panels over the second story windows—a mid-century technique to modernize traditional brick buildings—have since been removed, ostensibly leaving the structure closer in appearance to when it was built in the early 1900s.

Although the facade has had some superficial changes over the years, I was happy to notice one similarity between my photos and the establishing shot—the placement of the bus bench along Olive Avenue.

After enjoying breakfast at nearby Frank’s, it was time to check out the former Radio Shack for myself. Although it was a Sunday morning, I’m happy to report that the restaurants lining the former Golden Mall were bustling, and Burbank Town Center was abuzz with families visiting Santa. One can only assume his wish-granting powers are as strong as in ’69.

Thanks again to Mike and Wes at Burbankia. If you’re interested in seeing more photos from the Golden Mall, or learning more about Burbank’s history, I highly recommend their website. Thanks also to the always informative San Fernando Valley Blog for sharing your photos of the mall. And, of course, a BIG thank you to Lindsay for giving me the opportunity to write another Brady-centric post. [Editor’s note – a BIG thank you to you, Michael, for the fabulous write-up! Here’s hoping for more in 2016!]

Stalk It: Bank of the West, aka the former Golden Mall Radio Shack, aka Downtown Christmas Shopping District from The Brady Bunch is located at 100 South San Fernando Boulevard in Burbank.

November 2, 2015February 17, 2017

The Golden Spoon Cafe from “The Brady Bunch”

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My best friend, Robin, is currently in town with his girlfriend for a week visiting from Switzerland, so I will not be blogging about this year’s Halloween activities until next Tuesday. I will also be taking most of this week off, though I will, as always, have an article on Los Angeles magazine on Thursday. Today, we have a very special guest post written by my friend, fellow stalker Michael, who lives in Minnesota. Michael and I first connected a couple of years ago when he wrote to ask for help researching a location. Michael and I started corresponding regularly and he has helped me track down several locales, namely Haskell’s Ice Cream Hut from The Brady Bunch and the Griffith Park spots featured in both the opening credits of Full House and the Girls Just Want to Have Fun dance montage. (He also recently helped me find another GJWTHF location, but that’s a different story for a different post.) Through our correspondence, I came to admire Michael’s tenacity in getting things right when it comes to filming locations. He is as tenacious and fastidious as I am about reporting the truth and his researching skills are like nothing I have ever seen. So when he informed me of his quest to right an incorrect locale from The Brady Bunch that had been reported on a few websites, I told him I would be happy to help in any way I could. Turns out he didn’t need much assistance from me. Michael was able to figure things out on his own and the story behind his quest is pretty incredible. I am so glad he was willing to share it here. So Michael, take it away!

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When I was in elementary school, I would watch reruns of The Brady Bunch every day when I got home, and thanks to its healthy dose of establishing shots, it’s one of the first shows that got me curious about filming locations. Consequently, I’ve always gotten a certain nostalgic satisfaction tracking down and seeing locations that I’ve been familiar with since I was little. For those—unlike me—who escaped childhood without the compete works of Sherwood Schwartz engrained in their brains, in the fourth season episode of The Brady Bunch, titled “Goodbye, Alice, Hello,” Alice quits when the Brady Kids start giving her the cold shoulder after they believe she tattled on them to Mike and Carol about a series of wholesome misdeeds. Alice’s friend Kay replaces her, and as the Brady Kids learn the error of their ways, Kay fills the kids in on where Alice now works: The Golden Spoon, at 4th and Oak.

While the interior was created on a soundstage at Paramount, the exterior is shown in a quick establishing shot. Other than looking like the type of location I’d like to visit—the quintessential roadside diner—the location has always piqued my interest since, unlike most establishing shots, extra effort was taken in the script to give it both a name and location.

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Over the years, a number of websites have posted a selection of specious locations for The Golden Spoon, but until recently, all were all easy to rule out. That changed when Chas from It’s Filmed There posted a new Golden Spoon address: 3200 Cahuenga Blvd W, surmising it to be the former home of the Freeway Cafe. He suspected the defunct restaurant, listed at 3222 Cahuenga Blvd W in a Brady-era city directory, had changed its address to 3200 at some point. I thought that the building at that site looked properly aged, but the architecture didn’t seem to match up, nor did the power lines, lampposts, or background terrain.

However, there were a number of things that looked promising; the concrete fencing from the Hollywood Freeway was identical to that seen behind the Golden Spoon, cars zooming through the Cahuenga Pass on the freeway would help explain the traffic reflected in the canopy ceiling in the establishing shot, and the 3222 address would jibe if the last digit were removed, for whatever reason, before filming.

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Pulling up historic aerial photos, I could see that there was once a structure to the northwest (left) of the 3200 building. [Editor’s note – the structure is denoted in pink and placed on a present-day map below.] And although the aerial photo was blurry, the layout seemed to match that of The Golden Spoon: a square building with a gable roof, a small addition extending left, and a larger addition extending right. Furthermore, in the historic aerial, the 3200 building seemed to match the present-day aerial, meaning it probably hadn’t been renovated much in the last 40 years, and its address most likely hadn’t changed. It was then that I started working under the hypothesis that it was indeed the Freeway Cafe that was shown on The Brady Bunch, but that the Freeway Cafe was not located at the present-day 3200 Cahuenga—it was next door, in what is now a parking lot. But, without stronger proof, I didn’t feel comfortable declaring this the definitive location.

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This summer, while vacationing in Los Angeles at the Millennium Biltmore, I thought I’d walk over to Figueroa Plaza to visit the Los Angeles Building Records Department and see if I could find something that would confirm my suspicions. After a brisk walk on a particularly sunshiny day—as the Brady Kids would sing—I arrived at the records office, took a number, and filled out an information request form. Once my number was called, a very helpful clerk pulled the records for the location. While she read through the various permits for that address, I heard her mumble the word “canopy.” Jumping on that, I asked to see a copy of that file. Lucky for me, it was a 1962 Freeway Cafe permit for the addition of an aluminum canopy and screened patio. Better yet, it included a drawn diagram that matched The Golden Spoon perfectly, right down to the cinderblock fence in front of the right patio and notch taken out of the left patio.

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All that was left was to confirm the location of the Freeway Cafe. Unfortunately, that confirmation also proved that the building has since been razed. In September of 1989, Mobil, the owner of the cafe property and gas station next door (to the left), obtained three demolition permits for the gas station, its canopy, and the cafe. Mobil then built a new gas station and canopy, but the restaurant wasn’t rebuilt. There’s not a lot of space on that plot of land, and I can see why the the gas station may have wanted to sacrifice a small aging restaurant for some overflow and driveway space for those waiting for a turn at the pumps. Looking at the demolition map, it seems the original restaurant and left screened patio added a few feet in the rear since the 1962 canopy permit.

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After doing a quick digital mashup of the 1989 demolition map, and a contemporary permit map of that plot of land, I was able to accurately determine where exactly the Freeway Cafe once stood—very close to where I’d suspected when I’d compared the vintage aerial photo with the present day map a few months prior.

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New map in hand, I took the Metro Red Line to its penultimate stop: Universal City. From there, I walked under the freeway and down Cahuenga Blvd to the Mobil parking lot.

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Although the cafe is no longer there, it was easy to line things up thanks to the concrete covering the tanks being a different color than the rest of the dark asphalt lot. According to the overlaid maps, the left-most edge of the cafe would have nearly abutted the separation between the light and dark pavement.

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Plus, the terrain across the freeway, lamppost location (that would have been behind the right canopy), power wires, and stylized concrete freeway fence are are still recognizable from The Brady Bunch.

Try as we might, Lindsay and I have found that online references to the Freeway Cafe are rare. According to city records, the original 18×20 building housed a shoe repair shop in the 1940s, and in 1958 was converted into a restaurant. The 1963-5 Los Angeles city directories list the name of the cafe as Bib N Cuff, but by 1966, a new name—Freeway Cafe—is listed. A 1973 edition of The Van Nuys News reports the Freeway Cafe as being owned by Herbert and Louise David of Canoga Park, and a 1976 edition names Jamal Ghassem of Inglewood as the proprietor. Lastly, in a 1988 edition of Orange Coast Magazine, written just a year before the cafe was demolished, they note that although it’s “an old wooden stand overlooking the Hollywood Freeway…don’t let the exterior fool you. This is not a pit stop, but a palace for the connoisseur of ground beef.”

More recently, this selection of the Hollywood Freeway has been in the news, as Universal Studios expansion plans may result in the removal of the southbound Barham Blvd exit, which now routes traffic next to the Mobil station.

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Many thanks to Chas at It’s Filmed There for posting about the Freeway Cafe and getting me quite a bit closer to 4th and Oak. And of course, a HUGE thank you to Lindsay for all her help researching this location and for the opportunity to write about it here. [Editor’s note – a HUGE thank you to you, Michael, for sharing the story behind the hunt with us AND for correcting all the erroneous Golden Spoon information.]

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Mobil Gas Station parking lot, aka the former Freeway Cafe, aka The Golden Spoon from The Brady Bunch, was located at 3222 Cahuenga Boulevard West in Los Angeles.

May 16, 2014May 15, 2014

Haskell’s Ice Cream Hut from “The Brady Bunch”

I have been a The Brady Bunch fanatic since I was about three years old. Growing up, I wanted nothing more than to be Cindy Brady (Susan Olsen) and don blonde pig tails on a daily basis. Too bad my hair was brown, curly and far too short for pig tails. As an adult, I still love the show and in recent years have stalked many of its locations. Being that the vast majority of the series was shot on the Paramount backlot, though, and that very few non-studio locales were used, I figured I had pretty much visited them all ages ago. So I was floored when a fellow stalker named Michael recently alerted me to a new one – Haskell’s Ice Cream Hut from the Season 5 episode titled “Marcia Gets Creamed.”

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In “Marcia Gets Creamed,” Marcia (Maureen McCormick), Jan (Eve Plumb) and Peter (Christopher Knight) get jobs at the local ice cream shop. A rather tight establishing shot of the parlor, in which the signage was cut off, was the only view of the exterior shown in the episode, so, try as he might, Michael could not figure out where filming had taken place.

Then fate stepped in. While randomly watching the Season 7 episode of My Three Sons titled “TV or Not TV” a few weeks back, Michael spotted the very same exterior. This time, though, the sign, which read Cherry House Ice Cream, was fully visible.

As it turns out, Cherry House was a real ice cream parlor/coffee shop located at 13701 Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. The establishment has long since been shuttered, but the building that once housed it still looks very much as it did when it appeared on The Brady Bunch in 1973. The site is currently home to an amplifier and guitar store named the Amp Shop.

Shockingly, I cannot find any information about Cherry House Ice Cream parlor online, other than the fact that it was established sometime in the 1950s. You can check out some photographs taken of the shop in 1952 here.

Only the exterior of Cherry House was used on The Brady Bunch. The pink-hued interior of Haskell’s Ice Cream Hut was a set built inside of a soundstage at Paramount. You can watch the “Marcia Gets Creamed” episode – in which Marcia fires Peter for being a “Capital G Goof Off” – here.

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

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Michael for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Amp Shop, aka the former Cherry House Ice Cream parlor, aka Haskell’s Ice Cream Hut from The Brady Bunch, is located at 13701 Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks.

February 14, 2012February 14, 2012

Robert Reed’s Former Home

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

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

May 3, 2011May 3, 2011

The Julien’s Auctions Hollywood Legends Exhibition

This past Saturday afternoon I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk the Hollywood Legends exhibition currently being hosted by Julien’s Auctions, a Beverly Hills-area auction house which specializes in entertainment memorabilia, celebrity artifacts, and high-profile estates. Prior to each auction it hosts, Julien’s opens up its exhibition hall to the public offering them a free and extremely rare opportunity to view unique and priceless Hollywood memorabilia in an exceptionally up-close-and-personal manner, which I think is just about the coolest thing ever! For those who have been reading my site for a few years, you will remember that back in April of 2009 my father and I attended the Michael Jackson: The Collection of the King of Pop exhibit which was put on by Julien’s Auctions at the former Robinsons-May building on Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills. To say that my dad and I both absolutely LOVED the MJ exhibit would be a gross understatement. Seeing all of the King of Pop’s Neverland Ranch effects laid out in the same exact manner in which they were once laid out in his actual home was one of the coolest experiences of my life. So when I heard that Julien’s would be hosting a Hollywood Legends exhibition featuring items once belonging to Marilyn Monroe, Lady Diana, and Lucille Ball and props and memorabilia from such productions as Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Batman & Robin, The Brady Bunch, and Heroes, I jumped at the chance to stalk it.

And I have to say that I was NOT disappointed. The people at Julien’s Auctions truly could NOT have been nicer and the GC and I were invited to wander quite freely around the exhibit hall and take all of the photographs of the place that we wanted. Quite a bit of the auction is made up of items of clothing once owned by legendary Sunset Boulevard actress Gloria Swanson. Most of the outfits were purchased by Swanson during the 1930’s and it was absolutely amazing to me to see how stylish they still are to this day, over eight decades later!

There were several ensembles I could even see myself wearing, including the black Givenchy cocktail dress pictured above and to the left. Which just proves that some things, no matter how old, never go out of style!

Also on display was a vintage, early-20th-century, flat-top Louis Vuitton steamer trunk that once belonged to Swanson, which I just about died upon seeing! Oh, what I wouldn’t give to own one of those trunks!!!

Two of Lady Diana’s dresses are featured at the forefront of the exhibition, which I was BEYOND thrilled to see. The gown on the left, which was designed by Diana’s longtime fashion designer Catherine Walker, was worn by the Princess while on a state visit to India in 1992. You can see a poster of Diana wearing the dress in the photograph that is pictured above and to the left.

The gown on the right-hand side was also designed by Catherine Walker and was worn by the Princess on three occasions – first to the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, then for a 1987 portrait sitting with photographer Terrance Donovan, and finally to a September 1989 performance of Miss Saigon at the Theatre Royal in London. The two chairs pictured in front of the dresses were used during the 1937 coronation of King George VI (aka the man upon whom the movie The King’s Speech was based).

There were also several of Prince Charles and Lady Diana’s Christmas cards on display.

The clothing that I was most excited to see, though, was that which formerly belonged to Miss Marilyn Monroe, including the dress pictured above which the actress wore to a party at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 1958.

The dress was made famous thanks to that fact that a photograph of Marilyn wearing it was used as the cover of Michael Ventura’s 1997 book Marilyn Monroe: From Beginning to End.

Also on display was a black mohair sweater vest once owned by the actress;

a swimsuit worn by MM in an unknown Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production;

a two-piece silk jersey ensemble designed by Pucci, one of Marilyn’s favorite designers, and a satin slip;

a white umbrella that the starlet used as a prop during a 1949 photoshoot with famed photographer Andre de Dienes, which you can see a picture from here;

and a tan corduroy skirt. Because Marilyn is always described as being “curvy”, it was shocking for me to see how tiny her clothing actually was. While I am a small girl, I am fairly certain that there is no way in HECK I could fit into the skirt pictured above, which means that the actress had to have been much smaller in real life than she was typically conveyed.

Another huge portion of the Hollywood Legends auction is made up of memorabilia from fave show The Brady Bunch, which I was absolutely floored to see!

Included in the display was Cindy Brady’s (aka Susan Olsen’s) costume from the pilot episode of the series titled “Honeymoon”;

the dress Cindy wore to Mike (aka Robert Reed) and Carol’s (aka Florence Henderson’s) wedding;

Cindy’s jacket from “The Voice of Christmas” episode;

Bobby Brady’s (aka Mike Lookinland’s) Silver Platters costume from my FAVORITE episode of the series ever, the Season 4 episode titled “Amateur Night”;

performance outfits worn by Bobby and Cindy . . .

. . . which most fans will recognize from the “It’s a Sunshine Day: The Best of The Brady Bunch” album cover;

and the outfits worn by Bobby and Cindy during their American Bandstand performance in 1972.

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There were quite a few Lucille Ball items featured at the exhibit, as well, including a 12-piece vanity set once owned by the actress;

a set of four ashtrays that the actress had on display at her Manhattan apartment, which can be seen in the May 1984 Architectural Digest issue about her home;

an unfinished gown that was being made for her at the time of her death and the tartan blazer she wore in the 1949 film Sorrowful Jones.

Other movie memorabilia included the Edith-Head-designed straw hat worn by Audrey Hepburn during the “How Long Has This Been Going On?” number from the 1957 movie Funny Face;

Alicia Silverstone’s Batgirl costume from Batman & Robin;

a shirt worn by the T-1000 (aka Robert Patrick) during the chase scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day;

one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s costumes from Terminator 2 . . .

. . . which has a damaged pant leg from the Terminator’s liquid nitrogen truck accident, which I thought was SO cool to see;

a prop head from Terminator 2, which was SO incredibly lifelike;

Angelina Jolie’s costume from Girl, Interrupted . . .

. . . which, as you can see, is so incredibly tiny that it does not even fit the ultra-teensy mannequin on which it is displayed;

countless set pieces from Cleopatra;

Tom Cruise and John Voight’s costumes from the first Mission: Impossible movie;

the 35-carat diamond necklace Angelina Jolie wore to the Seoul premiere of Salt in 2010;

an original drawing by James Dean, which was sketched on a napkin while the actor was at his favorite restaurant, Googies Coffeeshop, which was sadly demolished in 1989;

and an incredibly realistic-looking “frozen” prop safe which appeared in the Season 3 episode of Heroes titled “Dual”.

I honestly cannot recommend stalking the Julien’s Auctions Hollywood Legends exhibition enough! I had an absolutely FABULOUS time while there and, amazingly enough, the GC even found a few items that piqued his interest, as well.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Julien’s Auctions Hollywood Legends Exhibition is taking place now through Friday, May 6th at 9665 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 150, in Beverly Hills. It is free to attend. The actual auction will take place on Saturday, May 7th and Sunday, May 8th. You can learn more about the auction on the official Julien’s Auctions website here.

February 24, 2011February 24, 2011

Paramount Studios – The Fifth Time Around

This past Tuesday, my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry and her daughter Jen and I embarked on a tour of Paramount Studios in Hollywood. While it was Kerry and Jen’s very first time visiting the historic lot, it was actually my fifth – I had previously been on three paid tours and one wedding venue tour. Yes, yes, I know – I just can’t seem to get enough of the place! Sadly though, this tour was easily my least favorite of the bunch and if it had been my first visit to the lot, I doubt I would have ever returned. Our tour guide was painfully, painfully slow and quite boring to listen to and she, sadly, made the tour boring, which is quite a feat being that the lot is so extremely fascinating and has such a vast filming history. Worst of all, while she spent the majority of our tour showing us the exterior of various soundstages and telling us what had been filmed inside of them over the years, we only got to spend about ten minutes in the New York backlot area (my favorite part of the lot) and were only shown the perimeter of it. But we still managed to have fun and, even though I feel like I know the lot like the back of my hand now and could probably host my own tours of the place Winking smile , I still learned a few new things that I thought I’d share with my fellow stalkers.

When arriving on the lot for a Paramount Studios tour, groups are always first led to the Studio Store to purchase their tickets.

I was EXTREMELY excited about stalking the Store, which also doubles as a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, because I had recognized it pop up as the Lima Bean Café in a few recent episodes of Glee! (I love that producers dubbed their faux café Lima Bean, by the way, being that the show is set in Lima, Ohio! LOL LOL LOL)

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The Studio Store first appeared in the Season 2 episode of Glee titled “The Sue Sylvester Shuffle”, in the scene in which Blaine Anderson (aka Darren Criss – who I just found out graduated from the very same high school I did!!!!), Kurt Hummel (aka Chris Colfer), Rachel Berry (aka Lea Michele), and Mercedes Jones (aka Amber Riley) discuss the recent problems with the McKinley High football team.

The store also appeared multiple times in the Season 2 Valentine’s Day-themed episode of Glee titled “Silly Love Songs”, as the regular hangout of Kurt and Blaine.

And it was featured twice in this week’s episode of the show which was titled “Blame It on the Alcohol”. It was first used as the spot where Blaine and Kurt discuss the fact that Blaine might actually have a crush on Rachel.

And it next appeared in the scene in which Rachel kisses Blaine to see if the two have any chemistry.

After purchasing our tickets, our tour guide spent over 25 minutes (not kidding!) hosting a getting-to-know-you session, which seemed just slightly excessive being that the entire tour is only scheduled to last two hours. Sad smile Because that ate up such a significant portion of our time, the rest of the tour was quite harried and rushed and we did not get to see a whole lot. We were first driven by the site of the studio’s former film vaults, which, as you can see in the above photographs, have sadly just recently been demolished.

You can see what the vaults used to look like in the above photographs.

My dad was quite obsessed with the vaults when we took our wedding venue tour of Paramount back in July of 2009 and he managed to snap the above picture of the inside of one. Even though the vaults had not been used in years, due to the fact that because they lacked air conditioning films were apt to melt while inside, it is incredibly sad to me that they are no longer standing.

We were then taken to the Lucy Park area, where we were shown a cement block that Woody Harrelson and Ted Danson had christened with their hand and footprints – a la the famous hand and footprint forecourt outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood – in 1989 while they were filming Cheers. And while Ted Danson just signed his name on the block, Woody’s inscription reads, “Woody Harrelson was here (naked)”. Apparently Ted had dared Woody to run around the lot naked one day and while he was doing so, the two happened upon a block of wet cement and decided to make their mark on it. LOL

Lucy Park is also the site of the famous tree where Grey Brady (aka Barry Williams) smoked his first cigarette in the Season 2 episode of fave show The Brady Bunch titled “Where There’s Smoke”. So I, of course, just had to get my pic taken in front of the tree. Winking smile

Our tour guide informed us that the very same tree and surrounding area were also used in the Season 2 episode of The Brady Bunch titled “A Fistful of Reasons”, in the scene in which Buddy Hinton (aka Russell Schulman) teases Cindy Brady (aka Susan Olsen) about her lisp.

The tree was also where Peter Brady (aka Christopher Knight) beat up Buddy later in that same episode, knocking out his tooth and causing him to then lisp. Ah, if only things worked out in the real world as they did in Brady world!

Lucy Park also appeared in the Season 1 episode of Community titled “The Science of Illusion”, in which Shirley Bennett (aka Yvette Nicole Brown) and Annie Edison (aka Alison Brie) chase Jeff Winger (aka Joel McHale) after catching him with frog-sized mariachi band costumes (yeah, I don’t really get it either Winking smile ).

Lucy Park was also used regularly as Jefferson High School on the television series Happy Days, although that area looks quite a bit different today than it did back in the 1970’s when the series was filmed.

You can see Greg’s tree from The Brady Bunch in the screen captures pictured above, though.

Next, we headed over to the exteriors of Stage 27 and 30, where the hit series Community is filmed. The interior and exterior of both soundstages are used in the filming of the show. As you can see above, the exterior of Stage 30 is used as the Greendale Community College Library (the sign of which is missing the letter “Y” – love it!);

while the exterior of Stage 27 stands in for the campus’ Borchert Hall.

We were then taken inside of the two soundstages to tour a few of the sets used in Community and, even though I have never seen an episode of the show, the sets were extremely cool to see. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any photographs while inside, but we were shown the Greendale Community College Library;

the Dean’s Office;

and the cafeteria/game room – which was quite possibly one of the biggest sets that I have ever seen in my entire life!

By this time we were already an hour and forty minutes into the tour and only had twenty minutes left. So we spent a brief ten minutes driving around the New York Street backlot area. While there, we were shown the practical set pictured above, which has appeared in several productions, including Spiderman 3 which I blogged about in one of my previous Paramount Studios posts.

On this tour I found out that the same spot was also the café where Indiana Jones (aka Harrison Ford) and Mutt Williams (aka Shia LaBeouf) met for the first time in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

I also finally got to stalk the stoop where Naomi Clark (aka AnnaLynne McCord) and Liam Court (aka Matt Lanter –sigh!) sat during their Junior Prom in the Season 1 episode of 90210 titled “Zero Tolerance”.

The last time I embarked on the tour, I snapped a photo while sitting on what I thought was Liam and Naomi’s stoop, but as it turns out I was sitting a few stoops too far to the right. So, this time I made sure to get a pic in the right spot, which I could NOT have been more excited about! Smile For those who would also like to take a picture where Liam and Naomi sat, their stoop is located on the Lower East Side portion of New York Street and is the stoop located closest to Washington Square.

After that, we drove by Stage 15 where NCIS: Los Angeles is filmed and I was able to get some great shots of the façade used as the exterior of the NCIS headquarters.

The last stop on our tour was the Paramount Theatre, the inside of which, our guide informed us, was used as Jeff’s former law office in the Season 2 episode of Community titled “Accounting for Lawyers.

And while we did not get to view the inside of the theatre on this particular tour, I snapped the above photographs on one of my previous tours.

The interior of the theatre was also used as an opera house in the Season 7 episode of Frasier titled “Out With Dad”, although it was heavily decorated in that episode and is largely unrecognizable.

The exterior of the theatre was also used as Brooks Memorial Hospital, where Pierce Hawthorne (aka Chevy Chase) was admitted, in the Season 2 episode of Community titled “Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking”.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Paramount Studios is located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Tours are given daily, Monday through Friday, at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 2 p.m. and cost $40 per person. Reservations can be made by calling (323)956-1777. Parking for the tour costs $7 per car and the tour lot is located on Bronson Avenue, directly across the street from the studio’s main entrance. I recommend booking your tour at least a week in advance, as they tend to sell out quickly. You can find out more information about the Paramount Studios Tour here.