things to do in Los Angeles

April 5, 2012April 4, 2012

The Historic Mayfair Hotel from “The Office”

Fellow stalker John Bengtson, from the SIlent Locations blog, sent me an email last week after reading my post on Red Studios Hollywood from The Artist (a location that I had learned about from his website) informing me that he had tracked down some locales from Season 7’s “The Search” episode of The Office that I might be interested in stalking, most notably The Historic Mayfair Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles where Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and Holly Flax (Amy Ryan) shared a rooftop kiss. Ironically enough, my good friend, fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, had also sent me this location on February 4th of last year, the day after the episode had originally aired, along with a list of all of the other places featured in “The Search”. And while I did stalk a few of them – Kung Pao China Bistro and Larry’s Chili Dog – for whatever reason, I never made it out to The Mayfair. So, this past weekend, I decided to change that and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there. (I am not sure what happened with the above photograph, but somehow it turned out a bit wonky and neither the GC nor I realized it at the time.)

The Historic Mayfair Hotel was originally designed in 1927 by Alexander E. Curlett and Claud W. Beelman, the same architecture team who gave us the Park Plaza Hotel near MacArthur Park (an extremely popular filming location that I have stalked, but have yet to blog about), the Cooper Arms condominium building in Long Beach, and the Los Angeles Board of Trade Building in Downtown L.A. The 13-story hotel, which at the time was named simply The Mayfair, was commissioned by Texas oil tycoons and was constructed at a cost of $1.5 million – and we’re talking 1920’s dollars! In its heyday, the luxury property hosted such luminaries as Mary Pickford and John Barrymore. Raymond Chandler even wrote and set his 1939 short story “I’ll Be Waiting” at The Mayfair, although he dubbed the place the “Windermere Hotel” in the tale.

The property, which originally boasted 350 rooms, but now has just 304, was the largest hotel west of the Mississippi at one time and featured an immensely popular supper and dance club known as the Rainbow Isle Room, from which George Eckhardts, Jr. and the Rainbow Isle Orchestra would broadcast a live radio show each night. In 2004, after suffering from a long period of neglect, the structure underwent a massive and much-needed $40 million renovation, at which point it was renamed The Historic Mayfair Hotel. You can check out some great photographs of the place during its early days on The Mayfair’s Facebook page here.

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In “The Search” episode of The Office, after being stranded at a supposed Scranton, Pennsylvania-area gas station, Michael Scott goes on a walkabout which ends on the rooftop of The Historic Mayfair Hotel. When Holly finds him there and Michael tells her how much he has missed her, the two finally kiss, ending several years worth of will-they-or-won’t-they-get-together storylines and allowing audiences to finally breath a long-overdue sigh of relief. Not surprisingly, the roof area of The Mayfair is closed to the public, so I was unable to snap any pictures of it.

Mike, from MovieShotsLA, figured out that The Mayfair stood in for the supposed Chicago, Illinois-area The Addison Hotel where Beth Cappadora (Michelle Pfeiffer) attended her 15-year high school reunion in 1999’s The Deep End of the Ocean.

It was from the lobby of The Mayfair that Beth’s 3-year-old son, Ben Cappadora (Michael McElroy), was kidnapped.

As you can see above, despite the renovation, the lobby still looks very much the same today as it did back in 1998 when The Deep End of the Ocean was filmed.

The super-nice front desk clerk that we spoke with while we were there informed us that both the interior and the exterior of the property had also appeared in 1994’s True Lies, as the supposed Washington, D.C.-area Washington Mayfair Hotel where Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger), on horseback, chased motor-cycle-riding religious zealot Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik) through a lobby.

The Mayfair lobby was actually one of three different lobbies used in that particular scene. Harry is first shown chasing Salim across the length of The Mayfair’s lobby.

The two then turn a corner and are magically transported to the now-defunct The Ambassador hotel, the same lobby of which was used as the Regent Beverly Wilshire in 1990’s Pretty Woman.

The duo then heads outside, “across the street” and into The Westin Bonaventure Hotel. In reality, when the Ambassador was still standing, it was located a good two miles away from The Bonaventure. Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

Thanks to the Richard Dean Anderson Website, I learned that The Historic Mayfair Hotel was also used in the 1986 Season 1 episode of MacGyver titled “The Assassin”.

I am fairly certain that only the exterior of the property appeared in the episode, though, and that all of the interior hotel scenes were filmed on a set. And while IMDB states that The Mayfair was also featured in 2009’s Don’t Look Up, I scanned through the flick yesterday while doing research for this post and did not see it pop up anywhere.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalkers John Bengtson, from the SIlent Locations blog, and Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for telling me about this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for informing me of its appearance in The Deep End of the Ocean! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Historic Mayfair Hotel, from “The Search” episode of The Office, is located at 1256 West 7th Street in Downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

February 23, 2012February 22, 2012

The Milbank Mansion – aka Chapman Academy Preschool from “Daddy Day Care”

A couple of weeks ago, Tony, my friend and fellow stalker who has the fabulous On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream (seriously, it’s amazing – go check it out!), asked me for some help in tracking down the ginormous Mediterranean mansion that stood in for the prestigious Chapman Academy Preschool in the 2003 comedy Daddy Day Care. Tony had informed me that the residence was used regularly for filming and that it had also been featured recently in the Season 10 episode of fave show CSI: Miami titled “By the Book”. So I started doing some research on oft-filmed-at Mediterranean estates in Los Angeles and, amazingly, fairly quickly came across a photograph of a gorgeous Country Club Park property named the Milbank Mansion that, sure enough, was the right spot. So, while Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I were out doing some stalking in the area this past Monday morning, we stopped by the place. And I have to say that it is pretty darn incredible in person! Not to mention pretty darn huge!

The Milbank Mansion was originally built in 1913 for prominent local businessman Isaac Milbank and his wife, Virginia. The 12-bedroom, 5-bath, 10,059-square-foot home, which sits on 1.79 acres of land, was designed by G. Laurence Stimson, the very same architect who also gave us the legendary Wrigley Mansion, now the Tournament of Roses House, in Pasadena. The estate is located in the heart of Country Club Park – a historic 250-acre neighborhood situated on the site of the original Los Angeles Country Club, which closed its doors in 1905. The area was developed and subdivided by none other than Isaac Milbank himself, along with a business partner named George Chase, beginning in 1906. The Milbank Mansion, which, according to a June 1988 Los Angeles Times article, is “considered to be the most substantial surviving estate built for a single family in the city of Los Angeles before World War I”, became a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument on December 13, 1989. You can see some interior photographs of the property here.

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In Daddy Day Care, both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the Milbank Mansion were used as the Chapman Academy Preschool.

In the Season 10 Halloween-themed episode of CSI: Miami titled “By the Book”, the mansion stood in for the island estate where a female body that had been entirely drained of blood was found hanging upside down.

The interior of the estate was also used in the episode.

In the 1929 silent film Wrong Again, the exterior of the Milbank Mansion was used as the residence where stable hands Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy mistakenly returned a horse named “Blue Boy” thinking they would be able to collect on some reward money being offered for a missing painting also known as “Blue Boy”.

In the 1975 film noir Farewell, My Lovely, both the interior and the exterior of the Milbank Mansion stood in for the brothel belonging to “L.A.’s famous madam” Francis Amthor (Kate Murtagh). Of the estate, detective Phillip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) says, “It was an old house, built as they once built them and don’t build them anymore. Fitting and proper for housing the world’s oldest profession.”

In 2006’s Running with Scissors, the interior of the mansion stood in for the home where Dr. Finch (Brian Cox) lived with his crazy family – wife Agnes (Jill Clayburgh) and daughters Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood). The property was dressed rather heavily for the production, though, and is virtually unrecognizable onscreen.

As you can see above, for the exterior of Dr. Finch’s mansion a different location was used.

The Milbank Mansion was also supposedly featured in Harold Lloyd’s 1922 silent film Dr. Jack, the 1971 movie Hit Man, and the reality series Beauty and the Geek, but unfortunately I could not find copies of any of those productions to verify that information. And while several websites have stated that the property also appeared in the 2001 biopic Ali, I scanned through the movie yesterday while making screen captures for this post and did not see it anywhere.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Tony for asking me to find this location! You can check out Tony’s FANTASTIC On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Milbank Mansion, aka the Chapman Academy Preschool from Daddy Day Care, is located at 3340 Country Club Drive in the Country Club Park section of Los Angeles.

February 9, 2012February 8, 2012

Charlie Babbitt’s Apartment from “Rain Man”

A couple of weeks ago, I read on fellow stalker Lisa’s Finding the Famous blog that the apartment building where Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) lived in the 1988 movie Rain Man was located somewhere in the Hollywood Hills. I, of course, immediately started trying to track down the building’s exact location and fairly quickly found the information I was seeking thanks to my buddy E.J. over at The Movieland Directory. E.J.’s website has actually been on a “hiatus” since January 8th of this year, while it is being updated from its previous database of 20,000 movie locales and celebrity addresses to one of over 90,000. And while that all sounds well and good, this stalker has been simply lost without the website, as I use it almost daily as a resource. When I emailed E.J. to tell him of my plight, he immediately sent over an extremely large Excel spreadsheet containing all 90,000 of his extensively-researched addresses for me to refer to at will. Um, how do I even begin to say thank you for that??? Needless to say, the gesture was GREATLY appreciated. And while I have to admit that I am, for whatever reason, supremely Excel-challenged, I have been using his database regularly and was able to find the location of the Rain Man apartment building with sufficient ease. Thank you, “Ctrl-F” and thank you, E.J.! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place this past weekend.

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Charlie Babbitt’s apartment building shows up only once, and very briefly, towards they end of Rain Man, in the scene in which Charlie brings his newly-found autistic brother, Raymond Babbitt (Dustin Hoffman), home to Los Angeles after a long road trip across America. It is at the building that Raymond freaks out after setting off the fire alarm while attempting to cook Eggo Waffles in a convection oven.

The area of the apartment building shown in Rain Man is not the front exterior, but the west side, which, thankfully, still looks much the same today as it did when the movie was filmed in 1988, despite the fact that almost two and a half decades have since passed. The only difference I could spot is that the chain link fence which once surrounded the pool has since been replaced with a wooden fence. But otherwise, the place looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen. So incredibly cool!

The front exterior of the building is pictured above. According to fave website Zillow, the dwelling was originally constructed in 1926 and measures 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 2,201 square feet. And while I could not find much information about the place online, I am guessing that it is comprised of 3 separate apartment units. I also learned from E.J.’s extensive files that actor Brad Pitt once lived on the premises sometime during the ‘90s, so the property has quite an extensive claim to fame!

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the building was also used in the filming of Rain Man, although I, unfortunately, could not find any interior photographs of the place online with which to verify that hunch. And, legend has it that a lithograph of Tom Cruise, that was given to him during the production, still hangs in the property’s laundry room to this day. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to get in there to see that!

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Lisa, from the Finding the Famous blog, for informing me of this location and to my friend E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, for tracking it down. Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Charlie Babbitt’s apartment building from Rain Man is located at 8800 Evanview Drive/1599 Sunset Plaza Drive in the Hollywood Hills. The area of the building that was shown in the movie can be seen from Evanview Drive, just west of where it intersects with Sunset Plaza Drive.

December 5, 2011December 4, 2011

The Daily Grill at LAX from “Friends With Benefits”

While watching Friends With Benefits this past July, I just about fell out of my theatre seat when I realized that one of the flick’s more pivotal scenes had been filmed at the Daily Grill restaurant inside of the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport – an eatery that I am very familiar with. As I have mentioned previously on this blog, my best friend, Robin, lives in Switzerland and comes to visit me just about once a year. He always flies in and out of LAX and every time we take him to the airport for his return flight, we grab one final cocktail together at the Daily Grill. The eatery long ago came to be known as “the sad restaurant” in my family’s lexicon, as, knowing that the hour to say good-bye is near, we are all invariably in tears by the time the check arrives. Flash forward to this past November when, as I mentioned three weeks ago in my post about The Grill on Main in La Quinta, Robin’s mom, Doina, who is my mom’s best friend, flew out to America to surprise my mom on her 60th birthday. At the end of her eight-day visit, we made our regular pilgrimage to the Daily Grill (that is me and Doina pictured above), which I was extremely excited about as it meant that I could finally blog about the place.

The Daily Grill at LAX, which opened its doors in January 1997, is actually the largest full-service airport restaurant in the entire United States (it measures 8,300 square feet!!!) and features a full bar, a private dining room, and what are easily the best chicken strips I have ever eaten in my entire life! In fact, on this particular visit, we ordered three servings of them (!!!!) as we could just not seem to get enough. Best of all, unlike other airport eateries where a single slice of take-out pizza can cost upwards of $7, the Daily Grill is very reasonably priced. (On a random side-note – while doing research for today’s post, I discovered that there are SEVEN Starbucks stores located inside of LAX! SEVEN! According to the Expect Delays travel blog, Starbucks outposts can be found inside of Terminals 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8! Now, that’s my kind of place! Winking smile )

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In Friends With Benefits, the Daily Grill appeared in the scene in which Dylan (aka Justin Timberlake) and his father, Mr. Harper (aka Richard Jenkins), grab a bite to eat – sans pants – shortly after Mr. Harper arrives at what is supposedly Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. It is actually pretty ironic that the Daily Grill masqueraded as an East Coast location in the flick, as Friends With Benefits poked quite a bit of fun at movies that try to pull one over on their audience by having locales in Los Angeles stand in for those in New York.

In the scene, Dylan and Mr. Harper dine in the northeastern-most section of the restaurant in the area overlooking the ticketing counters.

That area is pictured above.

And I, of course, just had to pose for a pic in the spot where Dylan and Mr. Harper sat in the flick. Smile

Our super-nice waitress answered all of my silly little questions about the filming of Friends With Benefits and even informed us that the filmmakers had covered over one of the Daily Grill’s overhead lights during the shoot and had forgotten to uncover it afterwards. As you can see above, it is still covered over today! So incredibly cool!

According to the Friends With Benefits production notes, the scene in which Jamie (aka Mila Kunis) hops on a baggage carousel and starts handing out luggage to various travelers was also shot at LAX, although I am unsure of exactly where.

Our waitress also informed us that a scene from the 2005 flick Rumor Has It involving my girl Jen Aniston had been filmed on the escalators located just outside of the Daily Grill, which I could NOT have been more excited about. Our waitress was working during the time the scene was filmed and said she watched Jen ride up and down those escalators for pretty much an entire day! How incredibly cool is that? I would have absolutely DIED!

The escalators have been remodeled since the time Rumor Has It was filmed and no longer have palm trees planted in between them, but otherwise look much the same as they did onscreen.

And I, of course, just had to pose for a pic in the spot where my girl stood in the movie. Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Daily Grill, from Friends With Benefits, is located at 380 World Way in Los Angeles, on the Mezzanine Level of the Tom Bradley International Terminal inside of the Los Angeles International Airport. It is located outside of the security checkpoint, so you do not have to be traveling to dine there. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

November 29, 2011November 28, 2011

Willy Beachum’s House from “Fracture”

Back in early November, a fellow stalker named Eileen posted a comment on my site challenging me to find the residence where Willy Beachum (aka cutie Ryan Gosling) lived in the 2007 thriller Fracture, which is one of my all-time favorite movies. In an extremely ironic twist of fate, at the exact moment that my site sent me an email alerting me to Eileen’s comment, I was sitting in front of the TV watching Fracture and thinking that I should try to track down the hilltop abode! Talk about synchronicity! So I set right out to find the place that very night. I am leery to admit, though, that I actually “cheated” a wee bit in locating it.

Based on the views of Downtown Los Angeles shown from Willy’s home in the flick, I figured that the property was most likely located in the Echo Park area and spent more than a few fruitless hours searching for it there. Because this stalker is nothing if not impatient, though, after coming up completely empty-handed I decided to rent the film on Blu-ray as I had noticed a blurry street sign visible in the background of one of the scenes and hoped that I might be able to make out the name printed on it via high-definition. Now, don’t get me wrong – I love a good hunt as much as the next stalker, but sometimes I just want to just find the place already and call it a day! This was one of those times. Smile

And thankfully my hunch panned out. As you can see in the screen capture pictured above, “Minnesota St” is clearly visible on the street sign shown in the Blu-ray version of the movie. Yay! Once I learned the street name, finding the exact location of the house was a snap and I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place later that same week.

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The exterior of Willy Beachum’s home shows up quite a few times in Fracture.

It is most notably featured in the scene in which District Attorney Joe Lobruto (aka David Strathairn) speaks with Willy, his former deputy district attorney, about returning to the D.A.’s office. Oddly enough, while all of the other Fracture filming locations are talked about extensively in the flick’s production notes, nothing is said about Willy’s residence. I figured there would, at the very least, be a mention of the dwelling’s spectacular views, but, for whatever reason, filmmakers remained silent on the subject. The production notes did state, “[Fracture director Gregory] Hoblit likes to make movies that look as though they are set in Anywhere, USA so that audiences can more easily identify with the characters. He credits production designer Paul Eads and location managers Richard Davis and Mike Fantasia with helping to make that happen.” I found that sentiment to be a bit ironic, though, as, in this stalker’s never-to-be-humble opinion, Willy’s house in the movie could not have been more “L.A.” With its stunning views, hilltop location, and detached garage, the place just screamed “Los Angeles” to me. But what do I know? Winking smile

Because very few sets were built for the filming of Fracture, I would venture to guess that the actual interior of the property was also used in the flick, but, sadly, I could not find any interior photographs of the place to verify that hunch.

According to the Redfin website, the 3-bedroom, 1-bath, 1,248-square-foot home, which was originally built in 1904, sold this past February for $307,000. And I am happy to report that it looks very much the same in person as it did in Fracture.

As do the views, which are nothing short of spectacular!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Willy Beachum’s house from Fracture is located at 3101 Minnesota Street in the Lincoln Heights area of Los Angeles.

September 22, 2011September 21, 2011

The Old Plaza at El Pueblo de Los Angeles from “90210”

Last week, after reading my post on the Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank in which I mentioned that I had actually stalked the iconic restaurant way back in November, fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, sent me a text asking, “If you did not stalk ever again, how many blogs could you write before you ran out?” My response, “I don’t know . . . but A LOT!” If I had to guess I would say there are at least 200 locales stored away in my stalking back log. In fact, there are still quite a few spots from my trip to the Pacific Northwest last May that I have yet to post. So not to worry – even if I were to never stalk again, I would still be cranking out posts for a very long time to come! Smile Anyway, Chas’ text got me to thinking about all of the locations that I have pushed to the back burner in recent months – one of which was The Old Plaza at El Pueblo de Los Angeles, which appeared in the Season 3 episode of fave show 90210 titled “The Enchanted Donkey” and which I had dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk back in July. Speaking of 90210, I would just like to state here, for the record, that I am NOT AT ALL happy about the latest developments in the “Lannie” saga. But I digress.

El Pueblo de Los Angeles, or the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District as it is also called, is the oldest surviving section of the city and serves as a monument to L.A.’s September 4th, 1781 founding. On that day, at a site located along the L.A. River just northeast of the Plaza, eleven families, consisting of 22 adults and 22 children, arrived from the Gulf of Mexico and established a small pueblo with mud huts and a village square. In 1815, a flood washed away that original settlement and it was later rebuilt in 1825 at its current location, which sits on higher ground. The Plaza immediately became the social, commercial, and cultural center of Los Angeles and remained that way throughout most of the 19th Century. By the 1920s, the area had sadly fallen into serious disrepair and was set to be largely demolished to make way for a railway station. Thankfully, a woman named Christine Sterling came along in 1926 and, with help from Harry Chandler and several local businesses, transformed the site into a bustling marketplace and popular tourist attraction. Today, the 44-acre property, which is considered to be the “birthplace of Los Angeles” and is a State Historic Monument and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, consists of five separate museums, a church dating back to 1861, the Mexican marketplace known as Olvera Street, 27 historic buildings, including L.A.’s oldest firehouse, and a central plaza, aka The Old Plaza.

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In “The Enchanted Donkey” episode of 90210, The Old Plaza stood in for the supposed-Cabo-San-Lucas-area marketplace that Annie Wilson (aka Shenae Grimes) and Liam Court (aka my love, Matt Lanter – sigh! Winking smile ) visited while in Mexico during Spring Break. It is there that Annie gets bitten by a rabid monkey which lands her in the hospital. Because the BEST Mexican restaurants in all of Southern California can be found there, the GC and I have visited El Pueblo de Los Angeles countless times over the years. So when The Old Plaza popped up on 90210, I recognized the place immediately.

In “The Enchanted Donkey” episode, the rock that the monkey is sitting on is located in the northern-most section of The Old Plaza, under one of the site’s four historic Moreton Bay Fig trees. Ironically enough, as you can see above, that rock bears a plaque which reads “Los Angeles Plaza”, which, being that the scene was supposed to have taken place in Mexico, explains why it was covered over with a blanket for the filming, . Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

While watching the scene, I also immediately recognized the leather clip that Annie was wearing in her hair as being from Murillo Leather, a store that is located about twenty feet from the Old Plaza and that I mentioned in my post about Olvera Street way back in May of 2009. I have visited the shop, which is owned and operated by Armando Murillo, who made all of the purses and belts worn by Jessica Simpson in the movie The Dukes of Hazzard, countless times over the years and even have a belt that was made by the second-generation leather craftsman.

So while we were there I just had to stop by to ask Armando if my hunch about Annie’s barrette had been correct. He confirmed for me that not only did his hand-crafted hair clip appear in the episode, but that Shenae Grimes herself had come into his shop to pick it out. I was literally drooling hearing Armando talk about meeting Shenae and how incredibly sweet she was. (This was before I was fortunate enough to meet the actress myself this past August.) And while I SO wanted to buy a Shenae-style hair clip while we were there, the GC immediately ixnayed the idea, noting that my hair was far too short to ever be able to get any use out of it. Hmph!

As I mentioned in my post about Olvera Street back in May 2009, The Old Plaza was also featured in Lethal Weapon 3 as the spot where Martin Riggs (aka Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (aka Danny Glover) were assigned to work patrol after being demoted for blowing up a building. It is there that Riggs and Murtaugh threaten to shoot a man for jaywalking and also witness an armored-car robbery.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Old Plaza at El Pueblo de Los Angeles, from “The Enchanted Donkey” episode of 90210, is located at 1 Olvera Street, across from Union Station, in Los Angeles. In the episode, Annie and Liam stood in front of the large rock located under the huge Moreton bay fig tree in the northern-most section of The Old Plaza, in the area depicted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view. Murillo Leather, where Annie’s hair clip was made, is located just up the street from The Old Plaza at 6 Olvera Street in Los Angeles.

June 10, 2011June 14, 2011

The Figueroa Hotel from “90210”

A couple of years ago, while perusing through an issue of AAA’s Westways Magazine, I spotted an article about Southern California’s nicest most reasonably –priced hotels and, because I was dating the Grim Cheaper at the time, I figured I’d best read through it. Of the ten properties featured in the column, the Moroccan-themed Figueroa Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles immediately caught my eye and I dragged the GC right on over there to grab a cocktail just a few nights later. The two of us pretty much fell in love with the place’s unique architecture and exotic décor on sight and have returned there a couple of times over the years to grab a drink or just hang out. So imagine my surprise when the Fig, as it is commonly referred to, popped up on fave show 90210 as the Cabo San Lucas resort where Liam Court (aka cutie Matt Lanter – sigh!), Annie Wilson (aka Shenae Grimes), and the rest of the West Beverly gang spent their Spring Break in the recently-aired Season 3 episode titled “The Enchanted Donkey”. Because I had not taken many pictures of the hotel during our past visits, I immediately added the place to my Re-Stalk list and dragged the GC right on back over there this past weekend.

The Figueroa Hotel, which was designed by Stanton, Reed, & Hibbard at a cost of $1.25 million, was originally built in 1925 by the YWCA as a hotel/residence for businesswomen and their families. Shortly following the Great Depression, the 12-story, 409-room structure was turned into a public hotel and it later served a brief stint as housing for troops during World War II. The property fell into disrepair in the years following, until the late 1990s when it was purchased by Uno Thimansson, who immediately set about renovating the place, giving it a Moroccan theme. And, let me tell you, he did an incredible job. Walking through the hotel’s front doors, one is quickly transported from the busy streets of Downtown L.A. into a Casablanca-esque oasis. Every time I am there, I half expect to see Sam tickling the ivories while Bogie puffs away on a cigarette somewhere nearby. True to Westways Magazine’s word, despite the hotel’s fabulous ambiance and location directly across the street from Staples Center and L.A. Live, it still boasts extremely reasonable room rates. And while the reviews on Trip Advisor and Yelp are quite mixed, in this stalker’s never-to-be-humble opinion, the Figueroa looks like an extremely cool place to vacation. Not to mention that the poolside bar is something of a celebrity hotspot, with everyone from Keanu Reeves to members of Depeche Mode dropping by for a cocktail throughout the years.

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The Figueroa Hotel was used quite extensively in “The Enchanted Donkey” episode of 90210 in which it masqueraded as the “Hotel Burro Encantado” (aka the Enchanted Donkey Resort) in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Areas of the hotel which appeared in the episode include the main entrance;

the poolside bar, where Teddy Montgomery (aka Trevor Donovan) met up for drinks with former schoolmate Tripp Wallison (aka Alan Ritchson);

and the pool area . . .

. . . behind which producers had an image of the Cabo San Lucas skyline superimposed. In reality, the Figueroa Hotel pool boasts views of several massive Downtown L.A. skyscrapers. I was literally cracking up taking the above photograph while envisioning the way the pool appeared on 90210. Winking smile

And while I had assumed that one of the hotel’s real life hallways had been used in the episode, the GC and I ventured upstairs to take a look at one and, as you can see above, it does not at all match up to what appeared onscreen. It seems that producers built a fake hallway set for the filming.

I had also assumed that some of the Figueroa’s actual rooms had been used in the episode, as well, but as you can see on the hotel’s website, that does not seem to be the case.

The super-nice front desk clerk also informed us that the Figueroa’s lobby restaurant, the Fig Street Café, stood in for a supposed Cuba-area eatery in the Season 7 episode of fave show CSI: Miami titled “The Deluca Motel”.

The hotel was also featured in the Season 4 episode of Chuck titled “Church Versus the Seduction Impossible” as the Marrakesh, Morocco-area hotel where Chuck Bartowski (aka Zachary Levi), Colonel John Casey (aka Adam Baldwin), and Sarah Walker (aka Yvonne Strahovski) were sent to rescue Roan Montgomery (aka John Larroquette).

In the Season 2 episode of Make It or Break It titled “Worlds Apart”, the Fig stood in for the Rio de Janeiro-area hotel where Kaylie Cruz (aka Josie Loren) and the rest of her teammates stayed during the World Gymnastics Championships.

In the Season 2 episode of NCIS: Los Angeles titled “Harm’s Way”, the Figueroa stood in for the Blue Oasis Hotel in Sana’a, Yemen, where Sam Hanna (aka LL Cool J) and G. Callen (aka Chris O’Donnell) stayed while trying to capture the leader of a terrorist group.

One of the hotel’s real life rooms – one that the GC, randomly enough, just so happened to snap a photograph of – also appeared in the episode.

I find it highly ironic that NCIS: Los Angeles filmed at the Figueroa as I have always thought that the hotel’s lobby bears a striking resemblance to the NCIS headquarters on the series.

Some filming of the yet-to-be-released James Cameron flick Battleship, which stars Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgard, and Brooklyn Decker, also took place at the Figueroa Hotel this past February.

And on a Matt Lanter side-note – a couple of weeks ago the cutie actor tweeted that he was going to be featured on the cover of the June 2011 issue of Metro Magazine. Well, I took one look at that tweet and ran right over to Vroman’s Bookstore to purchase a copy. Sadly though, Allen, the man who runs the Vroman’s newsstand (and yes, I know his name because I shop there FAR too often) told me that not only did the store not carry Metro Magazine, but it was apparently not even available from their distributors. So I marched on home and started searching for the publication online, but came up completely empty-handed. I could not find it anywhere and I am a pretty good Googler! Over the past few weeks I have also visited several newsstands and bookstores in search of the mag, but no one, it seemed, had ever even heard of it. Flash forward to last night when the GC came home from work with the above pictured laminated photograph in his hands. My birthday is today and he has been gifting me with little presents every night this week. Last night’s present, as it so happens, was a copy of Matt Lanter’s issue of Metro Magazine. As it turns out, Metro is published in the Philippines and not only was the GC able to figure that out, but he somehow managed to track down a man in the Philippines via eBay whom he had go purchase a copy for him! It is currently being shipped to me and I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on it! When the man heard why the GC had gone to such trouble to purchase the magazine, he said that he had inspired him to be a better husband. How cute is that???? Best.present.ever! Thank you, GC!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Figueroa Hotel, from “The Enchanted Donkey” episode of 90210, is located at 939 South Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the Figueroa’s official website here.

March 23, 2011March 22, 2011

The Original Pantry Cafe

Well, it is shaping up to be restaurant week at iamnotastalker.com because for the third day in a row now here I am with yet another eatery to blog about – this time Downtown Los Angeles’ historic Original Pantry Café which first opened almost nine decades ago in 1924. While I had actually known about the landmark restaurant for many years due to the fact that it has long been one of the Grim Cheaper’s boss’ favorite breakfast joints, it wasn’t until fellow stalker Lavonna recently informed me that my girl, Miss Marilyn Monroe, had once dined there that I realized the place was also a stalking location. Just a few of the other luminaries who have patronized the legendary restaurant over the years include Humphrey Bogart, Sammy Davis, Jr., former President Bill Clinton, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and Martin Luther King, Jr. So a couple of weeks ago, while out doing some stalking in Downtown Los Angeles, the GC and I decided to hit the place up for lunch.

The Original Pantry Café first opened for business in 1924 in a storefront located one block west of where it stands today. The tiny eatery consisted of one counter with seating for fifteen, a hot plate, a grill, and a sink. The place became extremely popular from the get-go thanks to its hearty servings and reasonable prices and hungry patrons formed lines that wound around the block out in front of the eatery on an almost daily basis. The Pantry flourished even during the Depression years and, in 1934, expanded its sitting area by adding a dining room. In 1950, the State of California took over the space where the Pantry was located in order to build a freeway onramp and the restaurant was forced to move to its current location at the corner of 9th and Figueroa Streets, where it has remained to this day.

On the day of the move, breakfast was served at the Pantry’s original location in the morning and then dinner was subsequently served at the new locale at night, so the restaurant, which is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, actually has the distinction of being able to say that it has never closed and has never been without a customer since its first day of business back in 1924. And to prove it, as you can see in the above photograph, the restaurant’s front doors are sans locks. In 1980, the Original Pantry Café was faced with demolition once again, but Richard Riordan, the future mayor of the City of Los Angeles, stepped in and purchased the property and some neighboring storefronts for $3.5 million. Thankfully, he left the exterior of the property, as well as the restaurant’s menu, exactly as they had been since the new location first opened in 1950. The interior has, sadly, been remodeled quite a bit in recent years, though. On October 5, 1982, the restaurant was declared Los Angeles’ Historic-Cultural Monument Number 255. Today the pantry, which can seat 84 patrons, still has customers lining up around the block on a daily basis, with some guests waiting up to two hours before being served.

When we showed up to stalk the place, though, there was no line and we were seated immediately – which should have been a clue. I am sad to say that our meal was not very good, which was highly disappointing as the place serves up mostly comfort food – my favorite . But from what I have since learned from the GC’s boss, the Original Pantry Café is definitely a breakfast place, so it looks like we just picked the wrong time to stalk it. Apparently the Pantry’s breakfasts are out of this world, which is why the place usually has large lines during the morning hours. And while our lunch left quite a bit to be desired, I have to say that the Pantry was definitely a cool place to hang out.

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The Original Pantry Café is also a filming location. In the 2000 movie The Million Dollar Hotel, the Pantry was where Detective Skinner (aka Mel Gibson) got into a fist fight with Tom Tom (aka Jeremy Davies). The movie was filmed before the recent remodel, though, so the restaurant is largely unrecognizable from it.

In 2007’s Knocked Up, the Pantry was where Ben Stone (aka Seth Rogan) told his father, who was played by actor Harold Ramis, that he had gotten a girl pregnant.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Original Pantry Café is located at 877 South Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here. The Pantry is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

March 22, 2011March 21, 2011

The HMS Bounty Bar and Restaurant from “Mad Men”

Another stalking stop on the Grim Cheaper’s Valentine’s Day scavenger hunt around Los Angeles that we embarked upon this past February was the historic Koreatown eatery known as the HMS Bounty Bar and Restaurant. And while I had known about the watering hole’s vast history and longtime celebrity clientele before we dined there, up until this past Friday afternoon I had no idea whatsoever that the place was also a filming location. I first read about the bar, which was founded over six decades ago in 1948, in the book Peaceful Places: Los Angeles, 110 Tranquil Sites in the City of Angels and Neighboring Communities and, because the GC loves all things historic, I knew it would be right up his alley. And it was! But imagine my surprise when, while doing some research on the Quality Café last Friday afternoon, I came across a blurb on fave website LA Time Machines which stated that the nautically-themed restaurant had been used in the Season 1 episode of Mad Men titled “Indian Summer”. So incredibly cool!

The HMS Bounty was originally founded in 1948 on the bottom floor of the Gaylord Hotel and was known at the time as the “Gay Room”. Both the hotel and the restaurant were named in honor of legendary land developer and longtime socialist Henry Gaylord Wilshire, for whom Los Angeles’ famed Wilshire Boulevard was also named. The Gay Room became extremely popular with the Hollywood elite and the political luminaries of the day and just a few of the legends who were regulars there included British statesman Winston Churchill, actor Jack Webb, radio commentator Walter Winchell, and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.

The watering hole even features plaques above many of its booths which cite the names of the legends who once sat there. The GC and I happened to dine at the favorite booth of Wilbur Clark, the restaurateur who founded the famed Wilbur Clark’s Desert Inn in Las Vegas (pictured above). Since its inception in 1948, the Gay Room has changed hands several times and has been known as the Gaylord Dining Room, the Secret Harbor, and the Golden Anchor. In 1962, it opened as the HMS Bounty Bar and Restaurant and it has remained so to this day. Amazingly enough, even with the numerous changes of ownership, the eatery’s interior remains largely the same as it was when it was first founded over six decades ago.

And, as you can see in the above photographs, the place is still going strong! It was absolutely jam-packed while we were there and the bar area was strictly standing-room-only. Thanks to the dimly lit interior, the restaurant still attracts stars to this day. In recent months, both Chloe Sevigny and The O.C.’s Adam Brody have been spotted there. And the “wake” for the famed Ambassador Hotel, which used to stand directly across the street from the Gaylord, was held at the Bounty on February 2, 2006 and was hosted by none other than actress Diane Keaton.

The bathrooms for the HMS Bounty are located in the lobby area of the historic Gaylord Hotel, which means that if you are dining at the restaurant, you can catch a glimpse of the former hotel’s beautiful interior. The 14-story building, which is now made up of apartment units, was designed by J.B. Lilly and P.B. Fletcher in 1924 and, at the time, was Los Angeles’ tallest structure.

There are several memorabilia items from the hotel’s heyday on display in the lobby area, including antique room keys, an old coffee shop menu, and the guest register (pictured above).

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In the “Indian Summer” episode of Mad Men, the HMS Bounty stood in for the supposed Manhattan-area La Trombetta seafood restaurant where Peggy Olson (aka Elisabeth Moss) suffered through a horrible blind date with truck driver Carl Winter (aka Aaron Hill).

That scene was filmed in the HMS Bounty’s back room, which I unfortunately only took one photograph of.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The HMS Bounty Restaurant from the “Indian Summer” episode of Mad Men is located at 3357 Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown, just west of Downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

February 17, 2011February 17, 2011

Los Angeles County Museum of Art from “My So-Called Life”

Since I spend the majority of my weekends dragging the Grim Cheaper out on various stalking adventures, this past Saturday, in honor of our first Valentine’s Day together as a married couple, I decided to create a scavenger hunt for him based on his many likes and hobbies. I do have to admit that while most of our destinations were places that I had little to no interest in visiting, the hunt was not entirely an un-selfish endeavor on my part. A few of our stops were, in fact, stalking locations – most notably the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, aka LACMA, which was featured in an episode of fave show My So-Called Life. As I mentioned a few weeks back, I just recently started re-watching My So-Called Life from the beginning and I became just a bit obsessed with tracking down the museum where Angela Chase (aka Claire Danes) and the gang go on a field trip in the episode titled “Why Jordan Can’t Read”. Because the series was filmed so prominently in the Pasadena area, I had a hunch that the museum used was the Huntington Library – a place where I just so happen to have a filming contact. So, I emailed a few screen captures from the episode over to Dinah, my contact, to see if she could confirm or deny my suspicion. As it turns out, though, my hunch was wrong – hey, it does happen! Winking smile – Huntington was not the museum which appeared in the episode. Thankfully though, Dinah knows her museums! She informed me that she was 99.9% certain that filming had taken place at LACMA. So, because the GC absolutely LOVES visiting museums, while I typically do not, I immediately added the place to his Valentine’s Day scavenger hunt and we headed out there this past Saturday morning. And, let me tell you, once he found out that we would spending the day at a museum, he could NOT have been more excited.

In the “Why Jordan Can’t Read” episode of My So-Called Life, Angela and her classmates, Jordan Catalano (aka Jared Leto), Rayanne Graff (aka A.J. Langer), Rickie Vasquez (aka Wilson Cruz), and Brian Krakow (aka Devon Gummersall), spend the morning on a field trip at a supposed Three Rivers, Pennsylvania-area museum, during which Jordan is nice to Angela, as she says, “like out of nowhere!”

Because the museum has been remodeled in recent years and various artworks relocated to different galleries, it was quite difficult to pinpoint the exact spot where filming had taken place. I had a few clues to help me out on my quest, though, most notably a set of numbers that was visible in the background of several scenes. As you can see in the above screen captures, those numbers were all in the 200 range.

Oddly enough, though, I could only find numbers like that in one area of the museum – on the third floor of the Hammer Building in the Art of the Ancient World section – yet those numbers were all in the 300 range, which left me completely puzzled. As fate would have it, though, I happened to run into an EXTREMELY helpful and EXTREMELY friendly museum docent who became determined to assist me with my quest. I had downloaded twenty or so screen captures from the “Why Jordan Can’t Read” episode onto the GC’s iPad – which he was gifted for Christmas from his boss and which is an absolutely AMAZING stalking tool – which I proceeded to show to my new friend. After seeing those 200 numbers, he informed me that the third level of the Hammer building was actually known as the second level back in the ‘90s when My So-Called Life was filmed, and had only be re-numbered in recent years during the remodel. Which meant that I was in the right spot! Yay!

By looking at the screen captures, the docent and I were able to determine that all of the filming of the episode had taken place on the now third floor (former second floor) of the museum’s Hammer Building in the Charles E. and Flora L. Thornton Gallery and a few of the smaller galleries which surround it.

As you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, the wainscoting on the gallery walls and the molding on the gallery entrances match up perfectly to what appeared onscreen.

Once I figured out that I was in the right place, I then proceeded to go on a scavenger hunt of my very own to track down a few of the specific works of art that had appeared in the episode. And, let me tell you, I had an absolute blast doing so! In fact, it was quite possibly the most fun that I have had at a museum in my entire life! A few of the works that I was able to locate include a Rembrandt portrait;

a painting titled “Portrait of Cardinal Roberto Ubaldino” by Guido Reni;

the sculptures that Angela, Jordan, and Brian looked at;

the portrait that Angela and Jordan were standing in front of when he invited her to watch his band, the Frozen Embryos, rehearse;

and the scary-looking sculpture that the camera panned in on towards the end of the museum scene.

I was most excited, though, to spot the statute where Jordan and Angela first started talking in the episode.

And I, of course, just had to re-create Jordan’s pensive stare after I found it, which the GC was NOT at all happy about. Winking smile The statue is currently displayed on a much shorter base than it was when My So-Called Life was filmed, which is why it appears to be so much lower to the ground in my photograph than it appeared onscreen.

Sadly, the sculpture room where Sharon Cherski (aka Devon Odessa) and her boyfriend Kyle Vinnovich (aka Johnny Green) spent the majority of the field trip has since been dismantled. Although I did manage to locate one of the sculptures which appeared in that scene.

Even sadder still was the fact that I could not for the life of me track down the display case where Rayanne inadvertently left Angela’s love letter to Jordan.

The very same area of LACMA also appears briefly in the 1991 comedy L.A. Story, in the scene in which Harris K. Telemacher (aka Steve Martin) roller-skates through a museum while his friend Ariel (aka Susan Forristal) video-tapes his exploits.

The “Portrait of Cardinal Roberto Ubaldino”, which appeared in My So-Called Life, was also featured in L.A. Story.

As was Jordan and Angela’s statue. Love it!

LACMA was also the site of the black-and-white ball, to which superstar Cher wore red, in 1992’s The Player.

In the Season 4 episode of Melrose Place titled “Drawing Henry”, Brooke Armstrong (aka Kristin Davis) and Jack Parezi (aka Antonio Sabato Jr.) meet up at LACMA to discuss their burgeoning affair and wind up being spotted by Billy Campbell (aka Andrew Shue).

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Located in front of LACMA’s main entrance is the famous Urban Light display, which I blogged about back in April of last year after its appearance in a Vanity Fair photo shoot featuring the male members of the cast of Glee. That very same light instillation was also used in the recently-released No Strings Attached, in the scene in which Adam (aka Ashton Kutcher) takes Emma (aka Natalie Portman) out on a Valentine’s Day date. LACMA was also featured in Breaking All The Rules, Strong Medicine, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, Born Yesterday, The Rockford Files, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Now You See It, Now You Don’t.

LACMA also has a few celebrity connections, as well. There is a statue titled “Michael Jackson and Bubbles”, which was designed by artist Jeff Koons in 1988, on display in the Broad Contemporary Art Museum building.

I so love that Mr. Koons captured MJ’s ever-present loafer-and-white-sock-combination so perfectly!

And there is also a Tiffany lamp from Barbra Streisand’s personal collection on display in the Ahmanson Building.

Also in the Ahmanson Building is an extremely ornate rosewood mirror which boasts an intriguing history. The massive mirror, which was designed by New York’s Herter Brothers interior design firm in 1873, originally belonged to Milton Slocum Latham, a former U.S. senator and governor of California, and was on display in his 50-room Menlo Park mansion, Thurlow Lodge. Slocum went bankrupt shortly after construction on his mansion was completed and then passed away in 1882. His former home was demolished in 1942 and the mirror was subsequently transferred to none other than the prop department of a Hollywood movie studio – although I am unsure of which one – where it remained until 1991, at which time it became the property of LACMA. So incredibly interesting! I am going to have to keep my eyes peeled from now on to see if that mirror pops up in any movies that were made between 1942 and 1991!

For those fellow stalkers who are also interested in seeing works of art as well as filming locations Winking smile , the museum features some amazing pieces, including paintings by both Monet and Picasso.

There is also a great view of the Hollywood sign which can be seen from the top of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum building.

Big THANK YOU to Dinah, from the Huntington Library, for finding this location for me! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, from My So-Called Life and L.A. Story, is located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. You can visit the museum’s official website here. Both My So-Called Life and L.A. Story were filmed in the museum’s Art of the Ancient World section, which can be found on the third floor of the Hammer Building, in the Charles E. and Flora L. Thornton Gallery. The works of art that appeared in MSCL are spread out among the different galleries located on the third floor of the Hammer Building.