The Doors – IAMNOTASTALKER

February 13, 2015February 13, 2015

The Whisky a Go Go

I’ve never really been into music. As I have mentioned before, if it’s not sung by Michael Bublé, Britney Spears or Michael Jackson, or was not a top ‘80s hit, chances are I haven’t heard it. But my good friend Kim from Kentucky is a huge music buff, so when she and our good friend Lavonna came out for a visit in November, we made sure to hit up what is arguably one of the most famous rock venues in the world, the Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip.

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Whenever Kim, Lavonna and I do any stalking together, we seem to have miraculous luck. This day was no different. We showed up to the Whisky in the late afternoon only to find it closed. There was a sign on the front door, though, that stated that anyone looking to buy merchandise could call the club’s office during daytime hours. So we did just that, using Lavonna’s twang to full effect, of course. An incredibly nice booking agent named Bekah (that’s her pictured below) let us in and, after Kim and Lavonna purchased pretty much every piece of merchandise available (not joking!), offered to give us on a tour of the place!

We wound up being taken on an epic tour of the venue and, even though I am not into music, I was pinching myself the whole time.

While a sign on the Whisky’s front door specifically states that no photography of any kind is allowed inside, Bekah told us that we could take all of the pics that we wanted, so as you can imagine I was snapping away like a madwoman!

It was so neat to be able to see the Whisky while empty, because come nightfall it is typically packed to the gills with crowds.

It was also amazing to stand in the space and think about the music history that had taken place within the four walls and the many legends who had performed on its stage. Lavonna, Kim and I were walking in the footsteps of some major music legends and it was pretty surreal to contemplate.

Just standing on the Whisky a Go Go stage. NBD. Winking smile

The Whisky a Go Go first opened its doors on January 15th, 1964. The club was founded by Elmer Valentine, a one-time Chicago cop who was the then owner of P.J.’s restaurant in West Hollywood. During a fateful trip to Paris in 1963, Valentine visited a discotheque named Whisky a Go Go and thought the concept would be successful in L.A. Upon returning home, he secured three investors and opened his club inside of a former Bank of America branch. He hired singer Johnny Rivers to be the headliner. The venue was instantly popular, though small – seating capacity was just 500. The space was so tiny, in fact, that there was no room for a D.J. booth. In a 2006 Vanity Fair article, author David Camp states, “Between sets, the audience would dance to records spun by a D.J.—but not just any D.J.: a girl D.J., suspended high above the audience in a glass-walled cage. This faintly ridiculous idea was Valentine’s pragmatic response to the room’s space limitations: the Whisky was not a big club, and the only way he could fit the D.J. booth was to mount it on a metal support beam that ran alongside the performing area.”

As fate would have it, that D.J. box wound up leading to the go-go dancing craze. Prior to the Whisky’s launch, Valentine decided to hold a contest for the D.J. job, but as Camp explains in the Vanity Fair article, “On the very night of the Whisky’s opening, January 15, 1964, the contest winner called Valentine in tears, explaining that her disapproving mother wouldn’t let her take the job. So Valentine pressed his reluctant cigarette girl, a young woman named Patty Brockhurst, into action. ‘She had on a slit skirt, and we put her up there,’ he says. ‘So she’s up there playing the records. She’s a young girl, so while she’s playing ’em, all of a sudden she starts dancing to ’em! It was a dream. It worked.’ Thus, out of calamity and serendipity, was born the go-go girl. Valentine acted fast to formalize the position, installing two more cages and hiring two more girl dancers, one of whom, Joanie Labine, designed the official go-go-girl costume of fringed dress and white boots.” The rest, as they say, is history.

Whisky a Go-Go was also responsible for launching the careers of countless legendary musicians and bands. Just a few who played at the club during their early days include Fleetwood Mac, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Frank Zappa, Mötley Crüe, Metallica, Nirvana, Hole, The Bangles, Guns ‘N Roses, the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Jimi Hendrix, KISS, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, and Limp Bizkit. The Doors and Chicago even served as the Whisky’s house bands for a time before hitting it big. Celebrities could often be found in the audience, as well, including Cary Grant, Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, Steve McQueen, Jayne Mansfield, Jack Paar, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Michelle Phillips, and Cass Elliot.

Perhaps most phenomenal about the Whisky a Go Go is that the place is still a veritable rock institution to this day, over 51 years after its opening.

The Whisky is also a filming location! It is outside of the club that Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) and Elaine Robinson (Katharine Ross) kiss after a very bad first date in the 1967 classic The Graduate.

The venue played itself in the 1991 film The Doors. It was there that Jim Morrison (Val Kilmer) and the group were famously fired after performing the Oedipus section of “The End.”

You can watch an interesting featurette about the filming of that scene by clicking below.

Suzette (Goldie Hawn) gets fired from her Whisky bartending job at the beginning of the 2002 comedy The Banger Sisters.

The Whisky also served as the inspiration for the fictional Bourbon Club in Rock of Ages, but no filming took place there. Though the 2012 musical was set on the Sunset Strip in the 1980s, director Adam Shankman needed to be able shut down traffic for six weeks during the shoot, a scenario that would have been impossible along one of L.A.’s busiest stretches of road. So production instead took place in Miami. For the filming, the intersection of North Miami Avenue & NE 14th Street was transformed into the Sunset Strip and the building located at 10 NE 14th Street was used for the exterior of The Bourbon Club.

The nightclub Revolution Live at 100 Southwest 3rd Avenue in Fort Lauderdale masked as the interior of The Bourbon in the flick.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Whisky a Go Go is located at 8901 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit the venue’s official website here.

June 25, 2014June 24, 2014

The Viper Room from “Entourage”

Once I found the location of Zebra tattoo parlor, on which Jeremy Piven’s name was displayed during the opening credits of Entourage each week (I blogged about it here), I just had to track down the spot where cutie Jerry Ferrara’s moniker was showcased. Upon finally doing so, I was a bit embarrassed that I had not recognized the place beforehand, being that it is one of Hollywood’s most well-known landmarks – The Viper Room in West Hollywood.

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Although arguably most famous for the fact that it was where River Phoenix died of a drug overdose in 1993, The Viper Room had a long, storied history prior to that time. The space was originally the site of a night spot named The Cotton Club, which then became Greenwich Village and then the Rue Angel – all during the first half of the 20th century. When the Rue Angel was burned in a fire in 1950, its doors were shuttered. The site reopened shortly thereafter as The Last Call, a drag show venue, which did not prove fruitful. The Last Call was closed in April 1951 and was subsequently transformed into The Melody Room, a small jazz bar that opened on June 14th of that same year. The Melody Room was successful for almost two decades and was reportedly frequented – and maybe even backed -by mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen.

In 1969, The Melody Room was sold and became Filthy McNasty’s, a live rock ‘n’ roll venue. Sometime during the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, the property’s name was changed once again, this time to “The Central.” By 1993, The Central, which had remained a forum for rock ‘n’ roll acts, was on the verge of closing. When actor Johnny Depp found out, he decided to invest. Along with a few partners (one of whom, Anthony Fox, mysteriously went missing in 2001), he revamped the place and dubbed it “The Viper Room.” It opened to the public on August 14th, 1993, with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers serving as one of the inaugural acts. The Viper Room was immensely popular from the get-go, especially with the young Hollywood set. Just a few of the celebrities who were spotted there during the early years include Christina Applegate, Drew Barrymore, Jen Aniston, Nicole Eggert, Tim Burton, Quentin Tarantino, Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mick Jagger, Johnny Cash, Tommy Lee, Pamela Anderson, Gwen Stefani, Ellen DeGeneres, and Michael Keaton.

Shortly after its opening, The Viper Room would be forever marred by the death of 23-year-old actor River Phoenix, who passed away on the sidewalk just outside the club’s front doors in the early morning hours of October 31st, 1993. Following the tragedy, the venue closed down for a full two weeks.

While stalking The Viper Room recently with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, we were shocked to see a payphone nearby. (I wasn’t aware those things still existed!) After some research, I learned that it was the payphone where Joaquin Phoenix made his now infamous call to 911 following River’s collapse. The phone is located in front of the Sun Bee food mart at 8860 West Sunset Boulevard. And yes, I realize how morbid this subject matter is, but I was absolutely astounded to discover that it was still standing, all these years later, especially considering the fact that payphones are such a rarity in today’s world.

In 2004, in the midst of a lawsuit with his partners, Johnny Depp sold his portion of The Viper Room. Today, the property is owned by Harry Morton, son of Hard Rock Café founder Peter Morton. You can check out some photos of the venue over the years in all of its many incarnations here and you can see some pictures of what the interior of the club looks like today here.

In the Entourage opening credits, Jerry Ferrara’s name was shown in neon lettering above The Viper Room awning. As I mentioned earlier, I am embarrassed to admit that I did not recognize the site during all my years of watching the series. No, it was not until a couple of weeks ago, when I did a Google search for “Terner’s Liquor,” a neighboring storefront visible in the Entourage credits, that I made the connection. In my defense, though, The Viper Room looked quite a bit different in the opening, as you can see below.

You can watch the Entourage opening credits by clicking below.

The Viper Room has been spotlighted onscreen several times over the years. In 1983, when it was still operating as The Central, its interior popped up in the movie Valley Girl as the site of the club where Randy (Nicolas Cage) took Julie Richman (Deborah Foreman) shortly after meeting her. Only the interior of The Central was used, though. The exterior was a bar in Hollywood that has since been torn down.

In 1991’s The Doors, The Central masqueraded as the London Fog where Jim Morrison (Val Kilmer) and the group played in their early days. At the time, the exterior, which has since been painted black, looked considerably different than it does today.

The real life interior of the club also appeared in The Doors.

In 2005’s Be Cool, The Viper Room was where Chili Palmer (John Travolta) heard Linda Moon (Christina Milian) sing for the first time. Only the exterior of the site was used in the shoot.

The interior of the club that appeared in Be Cool is far larger than The Viper Room’s actual interior. I have been to The Viper Room a few times over the years (one of my acting class friends used to date a bouncer there, so we were VIP all the way, all the time! Winking smile ) and the inside of it is tiny. I’m talking tiny. Like I’m pretty sure my apartment has more square footage. I am guessing that the interior of the Be Cool bar was a set. Either that or filming took place inside of a a different Los Angeles nightclub.

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.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Viper Room, from the opening credits of Entourage, is located at 8852 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. You can visit the club’s official website here.

September 23, 2011September 22, 2011

Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood

Another location that has long been stockpiled (or should I say stalk-piled?) in my ever-growing stalking backlog is the original Barney’s Beanery restaurant in West Hollywood, which has been featured in numerous productions over the years and which I visited with fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, this past July. For whatever reason, even though the eatery is a major celebrity hot spot and a veritable Los Angeles institution, in my ten-plus years of living in Southern California I had yet to stalk the place.

Barney’s, which dubs itself as being the third oldest restaurant in Los Angeles, was originally founded by John “Barney’” Anthony, a Los Angeles native who got his culinary start by serving chili burgers and onion soup to his fellow soldiers during World War I. He opened his first men’s-only Beanery in Berkeley, California in 1920, but moved it to its present location on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood in 1927, after deciding that he wanted to live in a warmer climate. The eatery started out as little more than a one-room wooden shack with a small bar, but thanks to its location, which at the time was in the middle of nowhere, on Route 66, it attracted hundreds of travelers who were making their way from the East Coast to California. It became common practice for those patrons to leave their license plates behind at the bar in a symbol of saying goodbye to their previous life. The Barney’s of today is literally wallpapered with hundreds upon hundreds of old out-of-state license plates. When Anthony passed away on November 25th, 1968, a man name Erwin Held purchased the restaurant and promised to keep it in its original form. And despite a few expansions and another change in ownership (today the restaurant belongs to David Houston and Avi Fattal), the ramshackle little roadhouse-style Barney’s Beanery still looks much the same today as it did when it originally opened in 1927. In recent years, David and Avi have opened up four sister eateries and now have Barney’s locations in Old Town Pasadena, Santa Monica, Burbank, and Westwood.

The restaurant’s long-time popularity is largely due to its down-home food. Unbelievably, the menu features over 1,000 items (and no, that is a not a typo!), including 45 different varieties of chili, 20 different burgers with 24 different toppings, 13 types of hot dogs, and 200 varieties of beer. As they say at Barney’s, “If we don’t have it, you don’t want it!” The menu is so large in fact, containing everything from Mexican fare to pizza and calzones, that it is printed in newspaper format and boasts a whopping 12 pages! And while I did not eat at the original location with Chas that day, the Grim Cheaper and I used to frequent the Santa Monica outpost almost weekly when he lived on the West Side and I have to say that the fare is INCREDIBLE! The place serves up comfort food at its finest, including delectable chicken strips (my fave!) and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (SO COOL!). As owner David Houston is quoted as saying on the inmag website, “We’re not concerned about dieting, carb counting and all that because this is where you go to get away from it all.” LOVE IT!

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As I mentioned above, several productions have been filmed at Barney’s. The restaurant appeared almost weekly on the television series Columbo, as the regular hang-out of the show’s eponymous chili-loving Lieutenant Columbo (aka Peter Faulk). It first showed up in 1971 in the the Season 1 episode titled “Ransom for a Dead Man”, in which filming took place at the actual eatery. It next popped up in the Season 1 episode titled “It’s All In The Game” and in numerous later episodes as well, but only the exterior of the restaurant was actually used. The interior was just a set that had been based on the real Barney’s interior.

In 1984’s Body Double, Jake Scully (aka Craig Wasson) grabs a drink at Barney’s Beanery after discovering his girlfriend in bed with another man.

in 1985’s Real Genius, Barney’s stood in for Purgatory, the burger joint where Chris Knight (aka Val Kilmer) and his friends met up with Lazlo Hollyfeld (aka Jon Gries).

Val Kilmer returned to Barney’s in 1991 to shoot a rather disgusting scene for The Doors, in which Jim Morrison relieves himself on the bar. What is odd is that while Barney’s today still looks much the same as it did in Body Double, it does not look the way it did in The Doors, which was filmed some seven years later. I am guessing that producers had the bar dressed for the filming of The Doors to make the place appear as it did back in the days when Jim Morrison actually did hang out there.

In 2003’s Stuck on You, Barney’s Beanery was where conjoined twins Bob Tenor (aka Matt Damon) and Walt Tenor (aka Greg Kinnear) discuss undergoing surgery to separate themselves. The restaurant was also featured in the 1986 flick Out of Bounds, which unfortunately I could not find a copy of anywhere. Fail!

As I mentioned above, Barney’s has long been a celebrity hot spot. Just a few of the stars who have dined there over the years include Clara Bow (Hollywood’s first “It Girl”), Jim Morrison, John Barrymore, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Judy Garland, Lou Costello, Charles Bukowski, Marlon Brando, Bette Davis, Jack Nicholson, Elliot Gould, Bette Midler, Mel Gibson, Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Drew Carey, Rob Lowe, Keefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, John Cusack, Andrew McCarthy, Liza Minnelli, Matthew McConaughey, David Arquette, Chace Crawford, Lauren Conrad, my girl Jen Aniston, my other girl Marilyn Monroe, Ashton Kutcher, Courteney Cox, Josh Stewart, Wilmer Valderrama, Ed Westwick, Jessica Szohr, Adam Sandler, Billy Idol, James Dean, Ronald Regan, and Jean Harlow. Supposedly Quentin Tarantino wrote much of Pulp Fiction while sitting in his favorite booth at Barney’s. And Janis Joplin famously ate her last meal at the restaurant shortly before midnight on October 3rd, 1970. Janis apparently carved her name into the tabletop pictured above which is currently affixed to Barney’s ceiling. Unfortunately though, we could not find that carving anywhere, but the FindaDeath website has a great picture of it, which you can take a look at here.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for taking me to this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Barney’s Beanery, from Body Double, is located at 8447 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood.

March 15, 2010March 15, 2018

The Bar from Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” Video

UPDATE: While I originally thought that the video’s pool hall scenes were also shot at this location, that is not the case. The pool segments were actually shot at the Brunswick Billiard Academy, which was formerly located in the basement of the San Fernando Building at 400 South Main Street in downtown Los Angeles. I’ve amended the post to reflect this. Special thanks to Michael Scaglione for the information!

This past week, after I tracked down the (probable) “Beat It” diner, I asked fellow stalker Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, for his help in locating the bar that also appeared in the iconic 1983 Michael Jackson music video. Chas, who, unlike me, is not afraid of using the telephone ;), immediately called up “Beat It” director Bob Giraldi’s production company in New York City to inquire about the location. Amazingly enough, he got through to an EXTREMELY nice woman who said that she had never been asked that question before, which I find mind boggling! I mean, does no one besides us care about this stuff??? Anyway, the woman looked up the information on her computer and then confirmed with someone in the production office who had worked on the video before telling Chas that the bar scene had been filmed at the Hard Rock Cafe in Los Angeles. When Chas told me the news I was elated that I finally had a definitive answer, but was thoroughly confused as the bar in the video did not look at all like any of the Hard Rock Cafes I had ever visited. So, I, of course, got to cyberstalking and quickly discovered that back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, there was, in fact, a dive bar located smack dab in the middle of Skid Row that bore the name “Hard Rock Cafe”. The bar is, sadly, no longer in operation, but, as fate would have it, is quite well known in the music industry for reasons having nothing to do with Michael Jackson! On a side note, after I started having doubts about the Monte Carlo Restaurant being the cafe featured in “Beat It”, I asked Chas to once again call up Bob Giraldi’s production company to see if someone could confirm whether or not I had tracked down the right place. Unfortunately, though, a very rude woman answered the phone and told him she could not give out that information. UGH!

According to what I was able to dig up online – and it’s quite a story – back in December of 1969, after The Doors photographer Henry Diltz took his now-famous photograph of the band standing inside of the Morrison Hotel, lead singer Jim Morrison announced that he wanted to grab a drink. So, the group headed a few blocks north to nearby Skid Row, saw an establishment named the “Hard Rock Cafe”, which Diltz described as “a little wino bar on the corner”, and pulled over. While the group sipped on beers, Diltz decided he liked the feel of the place and ended up taking a series of photographs of the band hanging out there. Those shots ended up not only being featured on the back cover of the band’s Morrison Hotel album in 1970, but they even named the A-side of that album “Hard Rock Cafe” in honor of the establishment. But the story doesn’t end there. The following year, a restaurateur named Peter Morton decided to open up a dining establishment in London and because he was such a huge Doors fan, contacted Jim Morrison and asked if he could name his restaurant “Hard Rock Cafe” after their recent album. Jim agreed and Morton’s restaurant quickly became a hit with Londoners. Shortly thereafter, the “Hard Rock Cafe” became a wildly popular worldwide chain, not to mention a household name. And to think the whole thing came about because Jim Morrison was thirsty!

Fourteen years later, the Hard Rock Cafe again made music history when it appeared in Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” music video, in the scene in which a group of gang members is shown leaving a bar to head to a fight.

As you can see in the above photograph and screen capture, the front doors which appeared in the Doors photographs from 1969 are a perfect match to those which appeared fourteen years later in “Beat It”.

Also a perfect match are the bar area . . .

. . . and the wall fan seen in the upper right corner of the front of the Cafe.

Sadly, the original Hard Rock Cafe closed its doors about twenty or so years ago and a grocery store named Green Apple Market now stands in its place. But even though the bar is long gone, I still had to run right out to stalk its former location! 🙂 So, this past Friday, on the way home from taking my dad to a doctor appointment in Downtown Los Angeles, the two of us made a little stop in Skid Row at Green Apple Market. Because the market is located in a pretty sketchy area, I was too scared to actually venture inside and instead sent my dad to snap photographs for me, while I waited behind in the car with my doors locked. 😉 As you can see in the above photograph and screen capture, the exterior of the grocery store bears little resemblance to the exterior of the Hard Rock Cafe which once occupied the same space. The location of the front doors and front windows are about the only two things that remain the same.

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The owner of the store confirmed for my dad that a bar had once occupied the space about twenty years prior and that after it closed a salon had moved in. That salon went out of business just recently at which point the Green Apple Market took over. For whatever reason, though, the store is only using a portion of the premises, which, according to my dad measures a good 6000 – 7000 square feet. And while the owner seemed to know quite a bit about the location’s history, she had no idea whatsoever that Michael Jackson had filmed “Beat It” on the premises some 27 years prior! And, sadly, there are no remnants whatsoever of the former Hard Rock Cafe left on the property. I was hoping for some small piece of the bar – i.e. the paint on the walls, the flooring, the shape of the ceiling, etc – to still be visible, but, alas, that was not to be. The owner was apparently very nice, though, and told my dad to feel free to take as many pictures as he wanted. YAY! The above two pictures were taken from the back of the store looking forward towards the market’s left wall. The front door is located just to the right and center of the main counter pictured above.

The above photograph shows the view from the back of the store looking forward towards the front doors. The cashier counter is located to the left of this picture.

The above pictured view was taken from the front of the store, looking towards the back. Because the space is not very deep, my dad believes the back wall is actually a false wall that was added after the Hard Rock Cafe closed its doors.

My dad snapped the picture of this particular wall because I had told him that the “Beat It” bar was partially painted green, but alas it was not the same shade of green that colors the store now. 🙁 The ice machine pictured above is located at the very back, right hand side of the store.

Most of that space where the Green Apple Market is now located is currently empty. The vacant room pictured above is situated to the right of the store’s front doors.

The empty deli case pictured above is located on the back side of that vacant room . . .

. . . and pictured above is what is located just around the corner from the empty deli case in the rear area of the store. I soooo regret not going inside the market with my dad and am seriously thinking of going back to re-stalk the place. He did tell me something that gives me reservations about doing so, though. Apparently while he was inside the store, a man came up to him and asked if he was the owner. My dad said no, but pointed out the real owner to the man, who then took off running towards her screaming, “So, you’re the $%#@ &$@#! I talked to on the phone!” See what I mean – it’s not in the greatest of areas. 🙁 It’s hard to believe Michael Jackson once spent a few days there, especially considering the area was a lot rougher during the 80s, but I guess he wanted “Beat It” to be as authentic as possible, and you can’t get more authentic than actually filming on Skid Row.

On a side note – The photographs of The Doors which appear in this post do not belong to me, but remain the sole property of the band and photographer Henry Diltz.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, for finding this location and to The Doors, without whom there would be no existing photographs of the place.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The old Hard Rock Cafe site, aka the bar from Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” music video, is located at 300 East 5th Street in Downtown Los Angeles, just two blocks east of the Monte Carlo Restaurant, aka the (probable) “Beat It” diner. The old Hard Rock Cafe is currently a Green Apple Market grocery store and is unfortunately not located in the safest of areas, so, if you do choose to stalk it, please exercise caution.