Tom Cruise – IAMNOTASTALKER

January 18, 2019January 17, 2019

Jerry’s Condo from “Jerry Maguire”

Location hunts can take some strange, circuitous paths. Case in point – during my laborious, years-long search for the condo where Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) lived in the 1996 classic of the same name, I headed down a fairly deep rabbit hole in an attempt to identify the onetime beach home of actress Suzanne Somers and her husband, Alan Hamel. What in the heck do Somers, Hamel and their former beach house have to do with Jerry Maguire? Let me explain.

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My quest to find Jerry’s condo actually began many moons ago, around the time I first met Mike, from MovieShotsLA. During one of our initial stalking outings, Mike mentioned that he had worked in Marina Del Rey for years and would often walk by a house on the Strand that had a unique rock sculpture displayed on its beach side. Upon seeing Jerry Maguire years later, he noticed a rock sculpture visible outside of Jerry’s windows and knew it was the same one he had regularly passed. Unfortunately though, other than it being on the Strand in MDR, he could not remember exactly where it was located. As soon as I got home that day, I spent more than a few hours searching the area’s coastline. Being that the exterior of Jerry’s place was never actually shown in the film, I had my work cut out for me and came up empty. Figuring the rock statue had long since been removed, I abandoned any hope of ever pinpointing the site. Then, in 2016, while on a Jerry Maguire kick, I sat down to watch the video commentary featured on the film’s Special Edition DVD and just about fell over when Renée Zellweger mentioned that Suzanne Somers lived next door to the location used as Jerry condo’s. Hope restored, I began hunting for the Somers/Hamel residence, which both Zellweger and Cuba Gooding Jr. said was in Manhattan Beach and which I figured would be a snap to find.

A Google search led me to a 1999 Los Angeles Times article chronicling the sale of the Three’s Company actress’ longtime Marina Del Rey home, which was described as a “beachfront townhouse” with three levels, three bedrooms, a rooftop sundeck, and 3,500 square feet. According to the blurb, Somers and Hamel had owned the pad since 1977. While the Marina Del Rey part did not gibe with Renée and Cuba’s recollections, it did gibe with Mike’s, so I figured I was on the right track. Hope was soon dashed, though, when I came across a 1982 People feature that catalogued all of the Hamel/Somers’ homes, noting that their coastal property was “a seven-level beach-fronter” in the “expensive section of Venice.” Though I knew that one of the articles had to be incorrect in its reporting, I couldn’t find an address for the couple in either MDR or Venice, nor could I find a seven-level property anywhere along the Speedway! The hunt for their pad was proving just as difficult as the search for Jerry’s! So I reversed course and sat down to scour the entire coastline from Venice down to Manhattan Beach. Using Google Street View (which amazingly chronicles the beach side of the Strand!) and some serious elbow grease, I finally came across the infamous rock sculpture outside of the property located at 3811 Ocean Front Walk in Marina Del Rey. Eureka!

I promptly did an internet search of the address to see what else I could dig up on the locale and was flummoxed when the first result kicked back was a 2015 real estate listing with this sentence in the description, “Residence offers Hollywood pedigree, as it was the home of Jerry Maguire in the popular movie of the same name.” Face palm! Had I just simply Googled “Jerry Maguire” and “Marina Del Rey” upon revisiting my quest for the house, I would have saved myself a lot of time! Ah, well. I ran out to stalk the place just a few days later and was saddened to see that the rock statue that had figured so much in the hunt was no longer in place.

I’m assuming the sculpture was removed when the place sold in 2015 (for a cool $2,754,000, mind you!) because it was still on display in the MLS photos.

As was depicted in Jerry Maguire, 3811 Ocean Front Walk houses condos in real life – two condos to be exact. Unit 1, a one-story space, is situated on the lower level and Unit 2, a two-story spread, comprises the second and third floors. It was the lower level unit that was utilized in the film.

The site pops up several times in the movie. Though the master bedroom was not utilized (Jerry’s bedroom was a set built on Stage 21 at Sony Pictures Studio), the rest of the condo’s interior was used prominently in the film.

Areas of the pad that appeared onscreen include the kitchen;

the living room;

the dining room, which served as Jerry’s home office;

and the media room. (Notice that the shutters and shelving visible behind Kelly Preston below are identical to those pictured in the listing photo! I think the couch might actually be the same, too!)

One room in the condo was also apparently utilized as the office of Cardinals General Manager Dennis Wilburn (Glenn Frey) in the movie, but I was unable to find anything that resembled it in the listing photos.

In real life, Unit 1 features 2 en-suite bedrooms, 3 baths, 2,368 square feet, a private beachfront terrace, a fireplace, an open kitchen, a media room, flagstone flooring throughout, and granite countertops. Or, at least, it did.

Sadly, as you can see in recent Google Street Views and in this image, the second and third floors appear to be undergoing massive renovations.

It is heartbreaking that the locale remained virtually frozen in time from its onscreen stint all the way up until its recent sale, only to then be completely gutted. What a shame.

For those wondering, I did end up finding Suzanne Somers’ home, but not until I sat down to write this post. Once I finally pinpointed Jerry’s condo, I was so excited, I completely forgot to see if the Hamel/Somers residence was actually located next door. As Zellweger noted, though, it does indeed neighbor Jerry’s place at 3819 Ocean Front Walk! I wound up identifying it thanks to a set of photos published on Alamy of a fire that took place at the property in 2009 which ran with captions stating the locale was once owned by Somers.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Jerry’s condo from Jerry Maguire is located at 3811 Ocean Front Walk #1 in Marina Del Rey. Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel’s longtime former home is right next door at 3819 Ocean Front Walk.

July 21, 2017July 21, 2017

The Site of the “A Few Good Men” Crab Restaurant

To paraphrase Dorothy (Judy Garland) in The Wizard of Oz, our heart’s desires can often be found right in our own backyard. Even though I’ve seen the 1939 film about a gazillion times, I failed to heed Dorothy’s advice while searching for the crab restaurant Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore) took Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) to in fave movie A Few Good Men. The eatery had long been at the top of my Must-Find List, but because I always assumed it was located in the D.C. area where the 1992 courtroom drama was partially shot, I never put much energy into tracking it down. When I found out that the Grim Cheaper and I would be journeying to the East Coast last fall, though, I immediately sprang into action – and was shocked to discover that the locale was right in my own backyard the whole time. Or at least, it was. The restaurant has, sadly, since been razed, hence the odd photo above which shows roughly where it once stood.

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For those who don’t remember the scene (or perhaps have never seen the movie, which I can’t imagine is possible!), toward the middle of A Few Good Men, JoAnne shows up unexpectedly at Danny’s apartment and asks if she can take him out for dinner (it’s not a date, though!) at a good seafood place she knows. After razzing her quite a bit, Danny accepts the invite and the two head to a very East Coast-looking spot, where they proceed to eat crab off of a paper-covered table, with mallets as their only utensils.

The scene absolutely mesmerized me. Though I grew up in San Francisco, home to fish restaurants galore, until watching A Few Good Men, I had never seen crab eaten in such a way and wanted nothing more than to visit a place like that myself. So, on one of my first visits to D.C., back in 2001, I told my friends who lived in the area that I was not leaving town without going to a similar spot. (This was before I became a master stalker, so it never even occurred to me to try to track down the actual A Few Good Men restaurant during that trip.) My friends happily obliged and that meal is one of my fondest memories of the whole vacation. A page from my D.C. photo album is pictured below, showing us enjoying crab in all of our messy-handed glory.

For this trip, I decided I had to track down the real spot. Most sources I came across online claimed that the A Few Good Men scene was lensed at The Dancing Crab, a D.C. institution that had been around for more than 40 years, but was, sadly, shuttered in 2014. At the time of its closure, the restaurant was located at 4615 Wisconsin Avenue NW in the District’s Tenleytown neighborhood. The photos of the site posted on Yelp did not look anything like what appeared in AFGM, though. So I did some digging and learned that the eatery had moved locations in recent years. It was originally situated one storefront to the south at 4611 Wisconsin Avenue NW. Though I could not find any images of The Dancing Crab from its time at that spot, I could tell from looking at the outside of the building via Google Street View that it was not the right place. Two large windows are visible in the background of the AFGM scene, but the original Dancing Crab site (pictured below) has no such windows. So it was back to the drawing board. (Come to find out, The Dancing Crab does have an A Few Good Men connection, but more on that in a bit.)

I decided to start contacting crew members and got lucky when one responded right away. His reply to my query absolutely blew my mind. He informed me that the AFGM crab restaurant could not be found in Washington, D.C., but much closer to home, about 20 miles south of Los Angeles. As he explained, the eatery was a diner in the San Pedro area that had been redressed to look like a seafood restaurant for the shoot. Then he shocked me even further when he mentioned that the same site had also been used in When Harry Met Sally . . .! At the time, I was unaware that the 1989 romcom had done any filming in the L.A. area. My crew member friend did not remember the name or address of the diner, so I started looking into things and fairly quickly came across its whereabouts thanks to the book Shot On This Site, which stated that a scene from When Harry Met Sally . . . had been lensed at the Port Café in Wilmington. I was devastated to learn upon reading further that the eatery, once located at 955 South Neptune Avenue, just steps from the Port of Los Angeles, had since been demolished.

Scant information about the Port Café is available online, other than a few building permits and the short blurb below which was featured in the book Wilmington (Images of America). Originally built in 1941, the diner was mainly patronized by people who worked on the docks nearby. Aside from moving about 100 feet to the north in 1956 in order to accommodate the enlargement of a nearby terminal, little of the restaurant was changed over the years. Sadly, I could not locate any photos of the interior of the space to compare to screen shots from A Few Good Men.

So I popped in my When Harry Met Sally . . . DVD and was dismayed to see that the café, featured in the beginning of the movie in the scene in which Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) and Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) stop for a roadside meal during their drive from Chicago to Manhattan, did not look anything like the A Few Good Men crab restaurant. I started to think that maybe my crew member friend had gotten it wrong. Even though I knew that the space had been completely redressed for AFGM, I thought that some small detail at the very least would be recognizable from WHMS. I could not find a single matching element, though. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Enter my friend/fellow stalker Michael (you know him from his many fabulous guest posts). Michael’s eye is much keener than mine, so I asked him to take a look at the AFGM crab restaurant scene and compare it to the WHMS diner scene to see if I was missing anything. Sure enough, I was! As he noticed, a post and lintel (denoted with a purple circle below) and a beam (denoted with a green arrow) that match each other perfectly are visible in the respective scenes.

Upon taking another look at the two movies, I also spotted the post and lintel (albeit the opposite side of it) in an exterior shot in When Harry Met Sally . . .

And I noticed that the stainless steel/green/pink wall schematic (denoted with a purple bracket below) was the same in both flicks. (Love that the Port Café’s 955 address number is visible just to the right of Billy Crystal in the WHMS cap.)

The two movies (which were both coincidentally, or not so coincidentally, directed by Rob Reiner) really showcase different sections of the Port Café, which, along with the re-dressing of the space for A Few Good Men, makes it appear to be two totally distinct places. Helping with the visual manipulation is the fact that the restaurant seems to have had two counters (denoted with purple arrows below) and two kitchens (denoted with green arrows below) – one of each in the center of the space and one of each on the side.

Though the side counter is mainly featured in When Harry Met Sally . . . , Michael pointed out that we get brief views of the central counter, as well, when Harry and Sally enter and exit the restaurant.

The diagonal edge (denoted with purple arrows below) of the counter in A Few Good Men, the wood material, the metal piece running parallel to the floor (denoted with green arrows below) and the foot rest (denoted with yellow arrows below) all correlate to the center counter briefly seen in When Harry Met Sally . . . The green flooring visible in both movies is also a match.

Because I was having trouble envisioning how the Port Café was laid out (the two counters/kitchens really threw me), Michael was kind enough to draw up a diagram, which I transformed into the graphic below. The areas of the eatery utilized and visible in A Few Good Men are denoted in red (the initials TC and DM stand for Tom Cruise and Demi Moore, respectively), those utilized and visible in When Harry Met Sally . . . are blue (BC and MR stand for Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan), and those utilized and visible in both movies are teal.

When Harry Met Sally . . . provides us with some great views of the exterior of the Port Café.

I thought those views, along with the Historic Aerials image pictured below, would help me discern the Port Café’s exact former location when I went out to stalk it last week.

When I got to the area, though, I could not make heads or tails of anything and failed to take photos of the precise place. The picture below is the closest I got to the correct location. The Port Café was formerly located pretty much in the spot where the purple arrow is pointing.

Had I panned just a bit to the north, I would have captured its exact former site. Thank God for Street View!

The purple box outlines where the eatery was formerly situated.

In When Harry Met Sally . . ., Sally’s car travels north on Neptune Avenue before turning left (west) onto East Pier A Place and then into the Port Café parking lot. A very crude graphic showing her route is pictured below. The pink line depicts the path of Sally’s car.

Many of the tanks visible when she drives to the restaurant have been razed, as you can see from my photograph below (which, believe it or not, is pretty much a matching angle to the screen capture), though the tall white one on the left-most side still stands.

The tank situated on the side of the Port Café also still stands. It is pictured below, albeit from a different angle.

As I mentioned earlier, A Few Good Men does have a connection to the now defunct Dancing Crab restaurant. In his DVD commentary, Rob Reiner states that while filming in the D.C.-area, he took the cast and crew out for dinner at The Dancing Crab. The ambiance of paper-covered tables and mallet utensils made such an impression on him that he was inspired to place an AFGM scene in a similar setting. So when they got back to L.A., he did just that. And the rest, as they say, is history.

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

Big THANK YOU to my friend Michael for helping me to identify this spot! Smile You can check out Michael’s many fabulous guest posts here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Port Café, aka the crab restaurant from A Few Good Men, was formerly located at 955 South Neptune Avenue in Wilmington. The spot where it once stood is denoted with a pink box below.

June 5, 2017May 31, 2017

St. Elizabeths Hospital from “A Few Good Men”

We all know the scene – a nervous Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore) briskly walks across a grassy field toward the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, while, behind her, a large U.S. Marine band playing a rousing rendition of “Semper Fidelis” marches in formation and a Silent Drill Platoon performs an enthralling and precisely-timed exhibition drill. I am talking about the opening of A Few Good Men, easily one of the most famous segments in all of moviedom. So I, of course, wanted to stalk St. Elizabeths Hospital, the former mental health facility where the bit was shot, during my trip to Washington, D.C. last September. While the site proved a bit difficult to navigate, I did eventually get to see it – from afar. To cap off my recent A Few Good Men postings, I thought I’d write about it today.

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St. Elizabeths (no apostrophe) Hospital was originally established in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane on a 193-acre plot of farmland overlooking the Anacostia River. The institution was spearheaded by Dorothea Dix, an activist who tirelessly pioneered for the humane treatment of the mentally ill, and Dr. Charles Nichols, a physician’s assistant who became the site’s first superintendent.

Designed by both Dr. Nichols and architect Thomas Ustick Walter, the Gothic Revival-style hospital was built to showcase its bucolic setting, with the hope that the idyllic surroundings would bring peace to those who were institutionalized there.

The federally-run hospital, which was re-named St. Elizabeths in 1916, proved successful for many years and underwent several expansions, eventually coming to encompass a whopping 350 acres on which stood more than 100 buildings. The site grew so large, in fact, that it was divided into sections – the East Campus and the West Campus, with Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE bisecting the two. For various reasons, including decreased funding, the deinstitutionalization of health care and a cease on military admissions, St. Elizabeths began to see a decline in patient population in the 1940s. By 1987, operation of the East Campus had been transferred to the District of Columbia. Though admittance continued to decline, a new hospital was constructed in a small section of that site in 2010. It continues to operate today. In fact, up until late last year, John Hinckley Jr. was institutionalized there. (Hinckley actually spent 34 years at St. Elizabeths before being released into the care of his mother on September 10th, 2016.) While the remainder of the East Campus is currently vacant, it is set to be redeveloped as a mixed-use site.

St. Elizabeths’ West Campus continues to be federally owned and though it, too, was set to be redeveloped, the plans fell through. In 2004, the property was taken over by the General Services Administration and it is currently being transformed into the headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security.

Most websites detailing A Few Good Men filming locations state that the St. Elizabeths portions of the movie were lensed at 1100 Alabama Avenue SE, but that is incorrect. That address marks the entrance to the East Campus and when the Grim Cheaper and I pulled up, we knew right away were were in the wrong spot. Thankfully, I happened to find an extremely friendly security guard who counts AFGM as one of his favorite movies. He had no idea it had been filmed on the premises, nor did he recognize the building that masked as the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, which I thankfully had screen captures of. He was completely willing to help with the hunt, though, and called several of his co-workers for assistance. After much discussion, he was finally able to figure out that the building I was looking for was located on the West Campus, which, being that it is home to the Department of Homeland Security, is, obviously, off-limits to the public. The GC and I drove over there regardless, though, to see if anything was visible from the street.

Though the West Campus is heavily guarded, security there was friendly as well. The guard that we spoke with wouldn’t let us onto the property (for obvious reasons), but he did inform us that the structure that masked as the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in A Few Good Men still stands. He also told us exactly where to go to see portions of it from the street.

Known as the Administration Building in real life, the neoclassical-style structure was designed by the Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge architecture firm during a major expansion the hospital underwent in 1903.

The Administration Building popped up countless times throughout A Few Good Men. Along with the opening segment . . .

. . . and the scene in which JoAnne informed Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) that she got authorization to speak with his client from “Aunt Ginny” (in that bit, Kaffee’s car is parked just south of the building’s entrance) . . .

. . . it was also featured regularly in establishing shots of the movie’s many courtroom scenes.

A Few Good Men utilized the west side of the Administration Building, but, unfortunately, only the east side is visible from the street.

Though several websites report that the inside of an actual courthouse was used in A Few Good Men’s interior courtroom scenes, I have never believed that to be true. Shortly before writing this post, I got in touch with a friendly crew member who confirmed my hunch that the courtroom was a set built at The Culver Studios in Culver City.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: St. Elizabeths Hospital’s Administration Building, aka the Judge Advocate General’s Corps from A Few Good Men, is located on the site’s West Campus, the entrance to which can be found at 2701 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE in the Congress Heights neighborhood of Washington D.C. The campus is closed to the public, but the Administration Building is visible from Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, about 1000 feet north of where it intersects with Milwaukee Place SE.

June 2, 2017May 30, 2017

Sam’s Apartment from “A Few Good Men”

At the risk of saturating my blog with A Few Good Men locations, I’m back today with yet another spot from the 1992 courtroom drama. (And I still have an additional AFGM locale up my sleeve, which I will be writing about soon.) Last September, while in Washington, D.C. – where A Few Good Men was set and partially filmed – I dragged the Grim Cheaper, my good friend Nat, her boyfriend Tony, and her mom Marlys (yeah, there was a whole brood of us) out to Adams Morgan to stalk the apartment building where Lt. (j.g.) Sam Weinberg (Kevin Pollack) lived.

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The building, which is known as Airy View in real life, only appeared once in A Few Good Men, in the scene in which Sam and his co-counsel, Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise), discuss both Sam’s daughter’s first word and whether or not Daniel should encourage their clients to take a plea deal in the Pfc. William Santiago (Michael DeLorenzo) murder case.

Considering how brief the scene is, it is incredible how instantly recognizable Sam’s building is – but that could just be a testament to how many times I’ve seen the movie. Though, Nat and Tony easily recognized it, as well, and they aren’t nearly as obsessed with the flick as I am.

I found this spot thanks to my friend Owen (of the When Write Is Wrong blog), who provided me with quite an extensive list of D.C.-area filming sites prior to my East Coast trip. Owen, in turn, found it via the Movie Tourist website. I am guessing that Movie Tourist tracked it down thanks to the fact that both “Airy View” and an address number of “2415” are visible in the scene shot at Sam’s building.

In real life, the three-story Beaux Arts-style structure houses twenty condominium units.

Airy View was built from 1910 to 1911 and was designed by the L.E. Simpson & Co. architecture firm.

The gorgeous building features a recessed formal entrance with French Classical detailing and a landscaped central courtyard.

Airy View has a very Midnight-in-the-Garden-of-Good-and-Evil thing going for it, which I love. It’s almost hauntingly beautiful.

You can check out a photo of one of the building’s actual units here (those brick walls!) and here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Airy View, aka Sam Weinberg’s apartment from A Few Good Men, is located at 2415 20th Street NW in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

May 31, 2017June 2, 2017

Danny’s Apartment from “A Few Good Men”

It is rare when a movie comes along and changes the course of your life. For me, one such movie was A Few Good Men. I walked out of the theatre after first seeing it in 1992 proclaiming that I was going to become a lawyer. I was 15 at the time – a sophomore in high school. I spent the next few years convinced that law was my calling, regularly and passionately professing my love of the film and its climatic “I want the truth!” moment to anyone who would listen. One day, a neighbor who happened to be on the listening end of my diatribe said something very profound to me. He said, “You don’t want to be a lawyer. You want to be a lawyer in a movie.” It was a valid assessment (I guess I did want the truth!) – one that got me thinking about acting. It wasn’t long before I tried out for – and landed a role in – my first play. My love of acting led to my move to L.A. shortly thereafter, which in turn led to the start of this blog. And the rest is history. Needless to say, A Few Good Men has always had a very special place in my heart. So when I learned that we were heading to Washington, D.C. last September, I informed the Grim Cheaper that I wasn’t leaving town without stalking Lt. Daniel Kaffee’s (Tom Cruise) apartment from the film.

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Daniel’s brownstone pops up regularly throughout A Few Good Men.

While blue at the time of the filming, the exterior of his Georgetown-area walk-up has since been painted yellow. Aside from the coloring, though, the place looks much the same today as it did when A Few Good Men was filmed 25 years ago.

According to Zillow, the property, which was originally built in 1900, houses condos in real life.

Because so many scenes took place there, I am 99.9% certain that the inside of Danny’s apartment was a set built on a soundstage at The Culver Studios in Culver City (where many of the movie’s interior scenes were lensed) and that the building’s actual interior was not used.

Cementing my belief is this November 1992 Los Angeles Times article which states that A Few Good Men “was shot almost entirely on a sound stage at Culver Studios in Culver City, with the exception of two weeks of location shooting exteriors in Washington.” Now we know that many scenes were, in fact, lensed on location in the L.A. area, so the article’s information isn’t exactly ironclad. (The column also asserts that because the Defense Department did not sanction AFGM, no filming was allowed to take place on any military bases – another falsehood. The flick utilized several military sites, including the US Coast Guard base in San Pedro, the Naval Air Station Point Mugu – which a later LA Times article does acknowledge – and Fort MacArthur.) Regardless of the erroneous reporting, I do believe that most of the movie’s interiors, including Danny’s apartment and his fridge full of Yoo-hoo, were sets. There’s just no way Tom Cruise was hanging out inside of someone’s actual apartment for the amount of time it would have taken to shoot the many segments. Nor would a studio utilize a real life interior – with no insulation to block out exterior noise and no control of the outside world – to such an extent.

What is interesting, though, and what had me doubting my hunch for a bit is the fact that countless scenes were shot from the outside of Danny’s apartment window looking in.

As unbelievable as it may seem (and it seems pretty unbelievable to me), I think that the production team built an exact replica of the building’s façade, as well as replicas of the neighboring façades, on a soundstage to shoot the window scenes.

While I initially thought that the segments were likely created using special effects, with footage of the actors superimposed behind actual shots of the building’s window, in scrutinizing the scenes further, I noticed that a line was visible in the brickwork running along both sides of the window fame that appeared the movie. As you can see in the photo below, that line is not there in real life, which led to my conclusion about the façades.

It is really too bad that the interior of Danny’s pad was not real. His place was so warm and inviting, though I have to admit I am a sucker for a fireplace and any sort of built-in bookcase.

On an A Few Good Men side-note – while researching this post, I was shocked to discover that the movie was based on a true story! In 1986, ten Marines stationed in Guantanamo Bay performed a code red on Pfc. William Alvarado, a fellow soldier who had been writing letters to his senator about the illegal discharge of another platoon member’s weapon. (Sounds familiar, right?) Though Alvarado did not die during the code red, his face turned blue and he passed out. The ten men informed the higher-ups and Alvarado was taken to Miami for treatment and survived. While seven of the Marines wound up being dishonorably discharged for the act, three decided to fight the charges in court. One of the lawyers assigned to the case was a man named Don Marcari, who defended Lance Corporal David Cox. It was Marcari’s very first trial. (Again, sound familiar? “So this is what a courtroom looks like!”) Another lawyer who worked on the case was A Few Good Men screenwriter’s Aaron Sorkin’s sister. She told Aaron about the proceedings via telephone one day. Sorkin was working as a bartender at the Palace Theatre in New York at the time and, inspired by what his sister told him, began writing a script based on the story on cocktail napkins during his downtime. That script went on to become a hit play and then a hit movie. But the tale doesn’t end there. Five of the marines involved in the real life case wound up suing Castle Rock Entertainment in 1994. And David Cox, who was planning to join the lawsuit, was murdered under extremely mysterious circumstances that same year. His killing has never been solved. You can read more about the story and Cox’s death here, here, here, and here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Lt. Daniel Kaffee’s apartment from A Few Good Men is located at 3017 Dent Place Northwest in Georgetown.

May 22, 2017May 21, 2017

The “A Few Good Men” Softball Field

I don’t know – or care – much about sports. I do love me some Tom Cruise, though. So when my friend/fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, sent me his list of Washington, D.C./Philadelphia-area locales prior to my trip back east last September, I was thrilled to see the softball field from the 1992 drama A Few Good Men mentioned. As noted in his files (which were extensive!), filming of the AFGM softball scenes took place on the baseball fields at West Potomac Park, just south of the Lincoln Memorial and the Korean War Veterans Memorial. When I went to look at the fields on Google Maps, though, I noticed that they did not match to what was shown onscreen. So I started to do some digging on the subject and came across a comment on the Movie Tourist blog posted by “tahoekid” that cleared things up. Apparently, Movie Tourist had posted the Potomac Park fields information back in early 2013 and when tahoekid went to stalk the site a little over two years later, he noticed that things didn’t match. He investigated the matter further and discerned that filming had actually taken place in a since-dismantled field once situated just northwest of Independence Avenue SW and 17th Street SW in an area that is now part of the national World War II Memorial.

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I was still having a hard time matching things up, though (I am so not good at pinpointing park locations, let alone a since-dismantled park location from a movie over twenty years old!), so I sent my findings over to Owen to ask his thoughts. As it turns out, he had come across Movie Tourist’s A Few Good Men page when it was first posted and had jotted down the West Potomac Park fields information, along with the other addresses, in his Washington, D.C. stalking files, but because he had no trips to the nation’s capital planned at the time, had not done any further research. In looking at the screen captures I sent him in comparison with Street View imagery of the roads outside of the World War II Memorial, he was able to match several things, confirming once and for all that filming took place exactly where tahoekid said it did.

The softball field pops up twice in A Few Good Men. It first appears in the scene in which Lt. Dave Spradling (Matt Craven) threatens to not only charge Lt. Daniel Kaffee’s (Cruise) client with possession of marijuana, but to also hang him from a “f*cking yardarm.”

The field appears once again shortly thereafter in the scene in which Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore) informs Kaffee that his new clients, Pfc. Louden Downey (James Marshall) and Lance Cpl. Harold W. Dawson (Wolfgang Bodison), have just been imprisoned.

In that scene, the district’s statue of Revolutionary War naval commander John Paul Jones is visible behind JoAnne. It is that statue that helped tahoekid determine where the softball field was once situated.

I was interested in pinpointing the field’s exact former location – Where was first base? Where was home? I am nothing if not a stickler for details. – and Owen, along with an assist from Historic Aerials, was able to do so. As you can see in the 1988 image below (for which Owen provided the graphics), the field was located directly south and slightly west of the Rainbow Pool, which sits at the eastern end of the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool.

An unmarked version of the 1988 image is pictured below. You may have noticed that the field is a bit hard to see. As Owen explained to this sports-challenged stalker, “What’s interesting — and I’m guessing you’re not familiar with this — is that most softball fields are completely dirt in the infield and completely grass in the outfield. A baseball/softball field with an all-dirt infield is pretty easy to spot in Historic Aerials. The field from A Few Good Men, however, is almost entirely grass. The only dirt portions are narrow strips between the bases, a small patch for the pitcher’s mound and a larger section near home plate. That is why the field is difficult to spot on Historic Aerials … but it’s there.”

A more current aerial from Bing is pictured below. As you can see, though the Rainbow Pool is intact and looks much the same as it did in 1988, it has since been integrated into the World War II Memorial, which was built from 2001 to 2004. It was during those years that the A Few Good Men softball field was removed. You can see an image of what the area looked like prior to the memorial’s construction here (though, due to the angle from which the photo was taken, the softball field is not really visible).

The World War II Memorial’s information booth is the best marker as to the field’s former location. It sits pretty much directly on top of where home plate used to be.

Though Owen noted that “The field is long gone, of course, and almost nothing will be recognizable from the movie,” he did manage to pinpoint some things that remain intact (along with the John Paul Jones statue, which was mentioned earlier). The line of trees visible in the background of the first softball scene, which borders the southern edge of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, is still there today. (Because of the information booth and the many buses and cars typically parked in front of the site, the view of the trees from the vantage point from which AFGM was shot is currently a bit obstructed, as you can see below.)

Owen also noted that four fenced notches visible throughout the softballs scenes on the concrete wall that runs along Independence Avenue are still identifiable from their onscreen appearance.

As is the small portion of the Kutz Bridge that appeared in the background of the scene with JoAnne.

A map of all of those landmarks is pictured below.

I am hoping all of my sports-minded fellow stalkers had some fun with this locale. As Owen said after helping me out with it, “I enjoyed looking at this because how often do I get to combine filming locations and softball fields?!”

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

Big THANK YOU to my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, and to tahoekid for finding this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The A Few Good Men softball field was formerly located just southwest of where the World War II Memorial is currently situated today, near the spot where the information booth now stands.

May 1, 2017April 30, 2017

Moody’s Bar and Grille from “Jerry Maguire”

Oh, how this stalker loves herself a dark, wood-paneled bar! There is just something so warm and inviting about them, which is probably why they are featured regularly onscreen. One that I was quite fixated on tracking down for years was the supposed Tempe, Arizona-area “Crocodile,” where Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) got stood up by Cardinals General Manager Dennis Wilburn (Glenn Frey) in the 1996 romcom Jerry Maguire. I finally managed to identify the watering hole as the now defunct Moody’s Bar and Grill, formerly located on the ground floor of the Sheraton Grande (which became the Los Angeles Marriott Downtown in 1997 and then the The L.A. Hotel Downtown in 2012). While the pub was detailed in my two-part post on JM locales in December (you can read Part I here and Part II here), I happened to spot it pop up in an episode of Melrose Place that I was scanning through recently and figured the place was worthy of its own write-up.

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Moody’s first came on my radar while I was researching The L.A. Hotel Downtown for my January 2016 post about the property. In reading about the hotel, I came across a FlyerTalk thread in which commenter “ntamayo” asked which Marriott had been featured in Fatboy Slim’s 2001 “Weapon of Choice” music video starring Christopher Walken. Commenter “Non-NonRev” responded that filming had taken place at the L.A. Downtown Marriott, explaining, “the dead giveaway is the entrance to Moody’s restaurant seen behind Walken early after he begins to dance.”

Upon digging a bit deeper into the location, I came across these photos of Moody’s taken in 2011 and was immediately smitten. As the August 1996 Los Angeles magazine article pictured below describes, the space was “reminiscent of East Coast meeting places” with a “friendly atmosphere and club environment” and a décor “rich with forest green, ivory marble, rich oak woodwork and polished brass.” This website deemed the bar “the Cheers of the West Coast” and, if images of it are to be believed, it definitely gave off that vibe. Moody’s is certainly the type of place I would have loved to grab a cocktail on a cool evening. Sadly though, further research revealed that the lounge had long since closed and, because I had not seen any sort of wood-paneled space when I stalked the the hotel in early 2016, I assumed it had been gutted and revamped into something else during the property’s massive $25-million renovation that took place between 2011 and 2013.

Flash forward to last summer, when I began compiling locations for the Jerry Maguire post. While scanning through the movie, I just about fell over upon realizing that the NFL Draft scene had been shot at the Sheraton Grande.

I immediately got to thinking about the Crocodile scene, during which Jerry is supposed to meet Dennis to discuss Rod Tidwell’s (Cuba Gooding Jr.) new contract. Knowing that location managers tend to shoot as many segments as possible in one spot, I had a hunch that the “Crocodile” might actually have been Moody’s. So I pulled up the 2011 images of the place and compared them to screen captures from Jerry Maguire and, sure enough, the two places were one and the same! I later got confirmation from Greg Mariotti, of The Uncool website, who co-wrote the JM post with me, that the Crocodile segment had, indeed, been lensed at Moody’s. (Interesting side-note – Cameron Crowe named the bar after the Crocodile Café, an actual hangout in Tempe, Arizona that was very popular in the ‘90s. Sadly, that space has also since shuttered.)

Prior to publishing the Jerry Maguire post, I stopped by The L.A. Hotel Downtown once again to see if I could learn the current state of the former Moody’s space and was shocked to discover, thanks to a very friendly receptionist, that, while shuttered, the bar remains intact! The receptionist even called down to the events manager for me to see if a quick tour could be arranged, but, unfortunately, she could not get ahold of him. She did tell me that the lounge was visible through some windows in the front of the hotel, though, which is how I snapped the photos that appear in this post.

Moody’s also popped up in the Season 4 episode of Melrose Place titled “No Lifeguard on Duty,” as the spot where Bobby Parezi (John Enos III) told Peter Burns (Jack Wagner) to stay way from Alycia Barnett (Anne-Marie Johnson).

In researching this post, I discovered a myriad of productions lensed at The L.A. Hotel Downtown that I somehow missed while penning my 2016 write-up – productions like Scandal, Melrose Place, and Criminal Minds. I’ve updated my original post to include the information. You can check it out here.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Moody’s Bar and Grille, aka the “Crocodile” from Jerry Maguire, was formerly located on the bottom floor of The L.A. Hotel Downtown, which can be found at 333 South Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the restaurant is currently closed.

February 1, 2017January 30, 2017

Idle Time Books from “A Few Good Men”

There’s pretty much nothing I love more than bookstores. They run second only to Starbucks and film locations in my book (pun intended). If I come across a good one, I can get lost amongst the stacks for hours. So there was no way I was leaving Washington D.C. without checking out Idle Time Books, the quaint District literary shop that made a couple of appearances in A Few Good Men, one of my all-time favorite movies.

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Idle Time Books was originally established in 1981 at 1725 Columbia Road NW in Adams Morgan. The used-book store was founded by New Zealand expat Val Morgan and her husband, Jacques, a long-time bibliophile/comic book aficionado and admitted curmudgeon. As The Washington Post stated in 2012, “Morgan’s antipathy for many of his patrons was so pronounced that he and his wife long ago agreed that their business’s survival depended on him never working the cash register.” So it was left to Val to run the shop, while her husband combed area flea markets and yard sales for inventory. In spite of Jacques’ crankiness, Idle Time succeeded.

In 1987, the couple moved the shop to a new alley-adjacent space located just around the corner at 2410 18th Street NW. (The spot they moved to is the grey building pictured below with the yellow “Space for Lease” sign in the window. Unfortunately, I did not get a great shot of the front of it. You’ll understand why in a minute.)

Idle Time remained at that location until 2002, at which time Jacques and Val decided to purchase a three-story building just down and across the street to house their store. That building, located at 2467 18th Street NW, is pictured below. In order to buy the property, Jacques sold his vast comic book collection (over 55 boxes worth, including first editions of such classics as Spider-man and The Avengers), walking away with almost $100,000. Sadly, Jacques passed away in 2012, but Val continues to run the shop today. The charming space boasts a collection of more than 50,000 titles of used, rare, and out-of-print books, as well as records, CDs, cards, and gifts.

In A Few Good Men, Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) regularly stops by Idle Time Books – or rather, the newsstand located in the alley next to it. I am not certain if the shop actually operated a newsstand at the time that the movie was filmed in 1992 or if it was a set piece brought in for the shoot, but I believe it was real. While there, Kaffee shares humorous verbal spars with Luther (Harry Caesar), the man who runs the stand.

I found this spot via the Movie Tourist website, who I am guessing tracked it down thanks to the Idle Time Books logo that was visible during a scene.

Even though there is no longer a newsstand on the premises (or perhaps never was) and Idle Time has moved away, the alley remains fairly recognizable from its onscreen appearance. Oh, how I wish there was still a newsstand there, as well as a Luther that I could have shared a witty repartee with. Ah, well. I was excited to stalk the alley nonetheless.

Beyond excited, actually. Though it is basically just two non-descript brick walls, I was absolutely thrilled to be seeing this spot in person. In fact, the Idle Time alley was one of the locations I was most elated about stalking while in D.C.!

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

Big THANK YOU to the Movie Tourist website for finding this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Idle Time Books from A Few Good Men was formerly located at 2410 18th Street NW in Washington D.C.’s Adams Morgan neighborhood. The newsstand featured in the movie was situated in the alley just north of the store. Idle Time’s current location can be found a few hundreds yards north and across the street at 2467 18th Street NW. You can visit the shop’s official website here.

December 14, 2016September 10, 2020

The Complete Guide to “Jerry Maguire” Filming Locations – Part II

The Complete Guide to Jerry Maguire Filming Locations, which I’ve partnered up with Greg Mariotti of The Uncool to compile, continues today! In case you missed it, be sure to check out Part I here.

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18. Cushman’s House – (Morehart Mercantile, 9016 Mupu Road, Santa Paula)

“You know, I told myself, ‘He shows up, we stick with him.’” – Matt Cushman

Matt Cushman (Beau Bridges), whose word is stronger than oak, makes a verbal agreement to keep Jerry as his son Frank’s agent while in the living room of his Odessa, Texas ranch house. Filming actually took place at a home on the sprawling grounds of Morehart Mercantile, a feed and farm supply company in Santa Paula.

19. Jerry, Ray and Dorothy’s Airport Goodbye – Terminal A Entrance, John Wayne Airport (18601 North Airport Way, Santa Ana)

“Jerry, do you know the human head weighs eight pounds?” – Ray Boyd

Dorothy and Ray drop Jerry off at the airport before the NFL Draft outside of the entrance to Terminal A at the John Wayne Airport. While there, Dorothy fondly watches a father say goodbye to his wife and young son.

20. Airport Gate – Terminal 6, Los Angeles International Airport (600 World Way, Westchester)

“No, I am not Hootie.” – Rod Tidwell

Jerry, Rod and Cush meet up en route to the NFL draft at what is supposed to be the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. While there, some young boys approach Rod for an autograph, mistakenly thinking he is Darius Rucker from Hootie & the Blowfish. The scene was not actually lensed in the Peach State, but at Terminal 6 of the Los Angeles International Airport. A replica of the suit Martin Luther King Jr. wore during his meeting with Lyndon B. Johnson, which has been on display at ATL since the 1980s, was created for the scene in exacting detail by production designer Clay Griffith. It is visible just to the left of Rod in the above screen capture.

21. New York Marriott Marquis – The L.A. Hotel Downtown (333 South Figueroa Street, downtown Los Angeles)

“Rod, you know what was great about you down there? For about five minutes you unloaded that rather large chip that resides right there on your shoulder and, you know what? You let people in – and you were brilliant.” – Jerry Maguire

Jerry, Rod and Cush attend the NFL Draft not at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square as was stated in the movie, but at what was then the Sheraton Grande in downtown Los Angeles. The exterior, lobby, and mezzanine level of the upscale property, which became the L.A. Hotel Downtown in 2012, were heavily dressed with Marriott Marquis signage, convention booths, and football memorabilia for the draft segments, but are still largely recognizable. Don’t go looking for the gift shop or Cush’s hotel suite there, though. Those scenes were shot at Sony on sets built on Stage 21 and 22, respectively. The ballroom where Jerry and his goddess-of-rock-climbing fiancé Avery Bishop (Kelly Preston) break up can’t be found there, either . . .

22. Avery and Jerry’s Break Up – International Ballroom, Hilton Los Angeles Airport (5711 West Century Blvd. Westchester)

“I won’t let you hurt me, Jerry. I’m too strong for you. Loser!” – Avery Bishop

Though Jerry unceremoniously dumps Avery while at the NFL Draft, the scene was not shot at the L.A. Hotel Downtown where the other Draft segments were lensed, but in the International Ballroom at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport. Avery does not take the break-up well – “No one has ever dumped me!” – and repays Jerry with several uppercuts to the face and a knee to the groin. Imagine if he had gotten her the ring she really wanted! Howard Stern’s Artie Lang makes a cameo in this scene, but it was cut from the theatrical version. It will be included as an extended scene on the 20th Anniversary Blu-ray! Unfortunately, the International Ballroom has been remodeled significantly in recent years and no longer resembles its onscreen self.

23. United Airlines Club Room – TWA Ambassadors Club, Los Angeles International Airport (Terminal 3, 300 World Way, Westchester)

“See this jacket I’m wearing? You like it? Cause I don’t really need it because I am cloaked in failure!” – Jerry Maguire

The TWA Ambassadors Club in Terminal 3 of LAX was dressed to look like a United Airlines Red Carpet Club for the scene in which Jerry drowns his sorrows over losing both Cush and Avery during the Draft. The lounge was also utilized for the short segment at the beginning of the movie in which Calvin Nack (Brent Barry) won’t sign an autograph for a little boy. Today, the Ambassadors Club space houses the Virgin America Loft at LAX.

24. Arizona Cardinals Training Facility (8701 South Hardy Drive, Tempe, Arizona)

“These are the ABCs of me, baby!” – Rod Tidwell

Jerry watches a rather mediocre practice of Rod’s – and attempts to discuss Rod’s contract with Dennis – while on the western field of the Arizona Cardinals Training Facility in Tempe, Arizona. The property’s locker room and bathroom were also utilized for the famous “Help me help you” sequence in which Jerry explains the hardships of his job (“It is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about, OK?”) while Rod “air dries.” Sadly, that area of the site was gutted as part of a remodel in early 2015. The Arizona Cardinals Training Facility was also used during a few of the movie’s game sequences and was where Rod received medical treatment towards the end of the film.

25. The Crocodile – Moody’s (333 South Figueroa Street, downtown L.A.)

“Meet me at the Crocodile, 8 o’clock.” – Dennis Wilburn

Though Tempe did boast a popular hangout known as the Crocodile Café in the ‘90s, filming of the scene in which Dennis stands Jerry up was not actually shot there. Instead, an eatery named Moody’s located just off the lobby of the Sheraton Grande (now the L.A. Hotel Downtown) was utilized for the shoot. While the wood-paneled space has been shuttered for several years, it remains intact and still looks much the same as it did onscreen. You can see some more images of it here.

26. Jerry and Dorothy’s First Date – Paco’s Tacos (4141 South Centinela Avenue, Del Rey)

“You wanna go out to dinner?” – Jerry Maguire

For their first date, Jerry and Dorothy head to Del Rey staple Paco’s Tacos where the two enjoy a romantic meal of Mexican fare set to the tune of a Mariachi version of “Words Get in the Way.” Little of the property’s décor has changed since filming took place twenty years ago. Even the brightly-colored fish tank that Dorothy and Jerry sat next to still looks the same as it did onscreen. Nearly everything on the menu at the decades-old Paco’s is made fresh daily on the premises, including the tortillas which patrons can watch being sculpted by hand. The popular restaurant also popped up several times on the 1970s television series CHiPs.

27. Rod’s Camel Chevrolet Commercial Shoot – Lost Dutchman State Park (6109 North Apache Trail, Apache Junction, Arizona)

“I didn’t shoplift the pootie! Alright, I shoplifted the pootie.” – Jerry Maguire

Rod attempts to film a Camel Chevrolet commercial with an actual camel and then schools Jerry on the art of dating a single mom while at the base of the Superstition Mountains at the incredibly picturesque Lost Dutchman State Park. The 320-acre site was named after the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine and is a popular camping and hiking area, as well as a popular filming location, having also appeared in the 1987 comedy Raising Arizona.

28. Veterans Stadium Press Box – Stage 21, Sony Studios (10202 West Washington Boulevard, Culver City)

“Loser!” – Avery Boyd

Avery flashes Jerry the loser sign while in the press box of what is supposed to be Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia during one of Rod’s games. The box was actually a set, though, built at Sony on Stage 21.

29. Veterans Stadium Exterior – Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (3911 South Figueroa Street, Exposition Park)

“Not everyone has what you have.” – Jerry Maguire

Rod and Jerry share a heart-to-heart (which doesn’t end well) outside of Veterans Stadium after Rod’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Filming actually took place near the entrance to Gate 5 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, though. The Coliseum was used for several sequences in Jerry Maguire, including the scene in which Jerry is shown swimming underwater (that bit was shot at the property’s LA84 Foundation/John C. Argue Swim Stadium), the segment in which Sugar tries to poach Rod before the big game at the end of the movie, and the aforementioned scene from the opening montage in which Cush tosses footballs in “Odessa, Texas.”

30. Restaurant Where Marci Goes into Labor – Reel Inn (1220 3^rd Street, Santa Monica)

“I hate you going to the movies alone without me.” – Rod Tidwell

A lunch date with Rod and Jerry and their families at the Reel Inn on the Santa Monica Promenade ends abruptly when Marcee Tidwell (Regina King) unexpectedly goes into labor. Sadly, the fish restaurant has since closed and today is an American Apparel store. The only aspect of the space that remains recognizable is its open ceiling and exposed ductwork. The Reel Inn’s sister eatery in Malibu remains a local staple, though, as it has been since it first opened in 1986.

31. Jerry and Avery’s Airport Encounter – Tom Bradley International Terminal, Los Angeles International Airport (1 World Way, Westchester)

In a scene that was shot as an homage to the opening of The Graduate, Jerry and Avery pass each other while traveling in opposite directions on a moving walkway at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX.

32. Cardinals/Cowboys Game – Sun Devil Stadium (500 East Veterans Way, Tempe, Arizona)

“No, no, no. No, wait, wait. Just – just let me enjoy this for a minute.” – Rod Tidwell

Jerry Maguire’s climactic final game was lensed at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. The thrilling segment, in which Jerry finally gets Rod to dance, was shot during an actual Cardinals/Cowboys football game. The scene in the hallway outside of the locker room following Rod’s big moment was also shot at Sun Devil Stadium, as was the segment in which Jerry runs to the field to get to Rod after his injury. The press box and football announcers sequences were not shot on location at the arena, though, but were sets built on Stage 21 at Sony.

33. The Up Close Show – Stage 8, Sony Studios (10202 West Washington Boulevard, Culver City)

“Jerry Maguire, my agent – you are my ambassador of kwan, man!” – Rod Tiwell

Though Rod vows not to shed a tear while being interviewed by Roy Firestone (who played himself) on Up Close, he winds up wailing after receiving the news of his new $11.2-million/4-year offer from the Arizona Cardinals. Filming of the Up Close show scenes took place on Stage 8 at Sony Pictures Studios.

34. Ray Tosses a Ball to Little Leaguers – Pote Field (4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Griffith Park)

“Hey, I don’t have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I’ve failed as much as I’ve succeeded. But I love my wife. I love my life. And I wish you my kind of success.” – Dickie Fox

Jerry Maguire comes to a close at Pote Field in Griffith Park, where Ray impresses a group of Little League players – and Jerry – as he tosses back an errant ball before walking hand-in-hand with Jerry and Dorothy off into the sunset. An alternate ending, where Jerry takes Ray to the zoo, will be featured on the 20^th Anniversary Blu-Ray.

December 13, 2016December 21, 2016

The Complete Guide to “Jerry Maguire” Filming Locations – Part I

Few romantic comedies appeal to both sexes. Even fewer are responsible for adding instantly recognizable catch phrases to the lexicon. And fewer still remain engaging and poignant decades after the fact. Jerry Maguire is one such film. Amazingly, the Cameron-Crowe-directed flick turns twenty today! Yes, as implausible as it may seem, Jerry Maguire first hit the big screen on December 13^th, 1996. The movie has always been one of my favorites and remains just as loved in my household today as it did when it originally premiered. In honor of its 20^th anniversary, I’ve teamed up with Greg Mariotti of Crowe’s official website, The Uncool, to uncover and compile a complete list of all of the film’s shooting locales, as well as some insider tidbits. So, without further ado, we present The Complete Guide to Jerry Maguire Filming Locations – Part I. Stay tuned for Part II tomorrow. And for those who want to soak up even more behind-the-scenes info, the movie’s 20^th Anniversary Blu-ray, chock full of new extras, will be hitting shelves on January 3^rd.

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1. Opening Montage

“So, this is the world and there are almost 6 billion people on it. When I was a kid, there were three. It’s hard to keep up.” – Jerry Maguire

The movie’s opening, in which successful sports agent Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) introduces the audience to several of his young clients, was shot at various athletic facilities across L.A., mainly in the San Gabriel Valley. The “Indiana” Basketball Court where Clark Hodd (Michael James Johnson), the best point guard in the country, shoots hoops is Robinson Park, located at 1081 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena. The area where Clark plays in the segment was remodeled in the mid-2000s and the number of courts reduced from four to two, so it looks a bit different today. Erica Sorgi (the All-American diver played herself) – “You’ll see her in the next Olympics!” – skips across the living room of a house at 972 Cornell Road in Pasadena before hurling off a diving board a few miles away at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center at 360 North Arroyo Boulevard. Dallas Molloy (also playing herself), whose lawsuit, as Jerry tells us, helped paved the way for women boxers everywhere, throws jabs in the boxing gym at Villa-Parke Community Center at 363 East Villa Street, again in Pasadena. The “Indio” baseball field where Art Stallings (Jordan Ross) shows us what pure joy looks like is Pote Field at 4730 Crystal Springs Drive in Griffith Park. The “Great Frank Cushman” (Jerry O’Connell) tosses a pigskin at what is supposed to be an Odessa, Texas stadium, but, in reality, he is at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum at 3911 South Figueroa Street in Exposition Park. And Brookside Golf Course at 1133 Rosemont Avenue in Pasadena is where a young golfer (Brandon Christianson) throws a club at his coach.

2. NFL Owners Meeting – The Westin Los Angeles Airport (5400 West Century Boulevard, Westchester)

“Now I’m the guy you don’t usually see. I’m the one behind the scenes. I’m the sports agent.” – Jerry Maguire

Following the opening, the scenery shifts to an NFL owners meeting taking place in the bustling lobby of what was then the LAX DoubleTree Hotel, but today is The Westin Los Angeles Airport. There, Jerry wheels and deals for his various clients, trying to secure a $14-million-per-year/5-year offer for one player. Hey, no one said winning was cheap!

3. Sports Management International Exterior – Brickell Bay Office Tower (1001 Brickell Bay Drive, Miami, Florida)

“33 out-of-shape agents guiding the careers of 1,685 of the most finely tuned athletes alive.” – Jerry Maguire

Though Jerry Maguire was lensed solely in California and Arizona, an establishing shot of downtown Miami’s sleek Brickell Bay Office Tower was used to represent the exterior of Sports Management International, aka SMI, where Jerry and his fellow agents work.

4. SMI Interior – Stage 23, Sony Pictures Studios (10202 West Washington Boulevard, Culver City)

“I will not rest until I have you holding a Coke, wearing your own shoe, playing a Sega game featuring you, while singing your own song in a new commercial starring you, broadcast during the Super Bowl in a game that you are winning – and I will not sleep until that happens.” – Jerry Maguire

The interior of the Sports Management International office was an elaborate set that took up almost all of Stage 23 at Sony Pictures Studios. The sprawling two-story space, which was inspired by the office in Billy Wilder’s The Apartment, was comprised of a large central bullpen containing rows upon rows of desks, surrounded by a perimeter of windowed private offices and meeting rooms. The views visible from the various office suites were created via a large backdrop made from a photograph taken from a building at Newport Center, located at 620 Newport Center Drive in Newport Beach.

A deleted office scene, which will be featured on the 20^th Anniversary Blu-ray, was shot on the top floor of the parking structure located at 600 Corporate Pointe in Culver City.

5. Houston Police Station – Airport Center Parking Garage (5250 West Century Boulevard, Westchester)

“Listen, there’s no proof of anything, except this guy is a sensational athlete.” – Jerry Maguire

The world of sports starts to lose its luster for Jerry when his football player client is arrested for statutory rape and taken to a “Houston police station.” Filming of the scene actually took place in the parking garage at Airport Center near LAX.

6. Steve Remo’s Hospital Room – Veterans Administration Medical Center (5901 East 7^th Street, Long Beach)

“It would take a tank to stop your dad. It would take all five Super Trooper VR Warriors to stop your dad.” – Jerry Maguire

Jerry gets a reality check – and the finger! – courtesy of a client’s young son at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Long Beach. The hospital segments involving Steve Remo (Toby Huss) and his family were the first of the film to be shot.

The scenes featuring Jerry’s idol Dicky Fox, who was played by Jared Jussim – a lawyer at Sony – were also shot on location at the medical facility.

7. Airport Shuttle (California Avenue and Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica)

Though there is no airport in the vicinity in real life, the scene in which Jerry is shown riding in a Budget car rental shuttle down a rainy street was shot on Ocean Avenue just north of California Avenue in Santa Monica.

8. Miami Corporate Conference Hotel – Long Beach Marriott (4700 Airport Plaza Drive, Long Beach)

“And then it happened. It was the oddest, most unexpected thing. I began writing what they call a mission statement. Not a memo – a mission statement. You know, a suggestion for the future of our company.” – Jerry Maguire

The “Miami” hotel where Jerry and his fellow agents attend a corporate conference is actually a conglomeration of three different locations. The elevator bay, front desk and atrium-like lobby where Jerry receives a standing ovation after handing out his mission statement can be found at the Long Beach Marriott. Jerry’s actual room, where he stays up all night writing the statement (“And I’m not even a writer!”), was a set built on Stage 21 at Sony. And the stairwell Jerry runs down while on his way to the Copymat is the back staircase of the Sydney Poitier Building at Sony Pictures Studios.

9. Copymat – Kinko’s (6301 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood)

“That’s how you become great, man. Hang your balls out there.” – Copymat Jesus

The “Miami” Copymat where Jerry prints 110 copies of his The Things We Think and Do Not Say mission statement – even the cover looks like Catcher in the Rye! – was actually a Kinko’s located on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood. The site was razed in 2002 in order to make way for Sunset + Vine, a 750,000-square-foot mixed-used development comprised of upscale apartments, restaurants and retail stores. Fun fact – Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains portrayed the “Copymat Jesus” in the scene.

10. Airplane Ride – Stage 21, Sony Pictures Studios (10202 West Washington Boulevard, Culver City)

“First class is what’s wrong, honey. It used to be a better meal. Now it’s a better life.” -Dorothy Boyd

Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger) longingly listens to Jerry tell the tale of his engagement from afar while sitting in a coach seat on a plane ride from Miami to Los Angeles. The scene, along with the movie’s other airplane sequences, was shot on Stage 21 at Sony.

11. Baggage Claim – Terminal A, John Wayne Airport (18601 Airport Way, Santa Ana)

“I know who you are. You’re Dorothy Boyd. You’re in accounts. You have the side middle cubicle with a poster of Albert Einstein’s face morphed onto Shaquille O’Neal’s body.” – Jerry Maguire

It is at Baggage Claim 2 in Terminal A of the John Wayne Airport that Dorothy loses Ray (Jonathan Lipnicki) – and tells Jerry how much she loves his “memo.” John Wayne was featured in many of Jerry Maguire’s airport segments, including the scene towards the end of the movie in which Jerry rushes through a quiet terminal hallway to get home to Dorothy, which was shot in front of the car rental counters. Cameron returned to this location in 2004 to shoot Elizabethtown. It was the first film to use the airport, post 9/11.

12. Jerry’s Condo (3811 Ocean Front Walk #1, Marina del Rey)

“There’s no real loyalty. And the first person who told me that, Jerry Maguire, was you!” – Avery Bishop

A contemporary 2-bedroom, 3-bath, 2,368-square-foot condo overlooking the ocean in Marina del Rey serves as Jerry’s sleek home in the film. The pad’s interiors, including kitchen and living room, appear throughout the movie, though Jerry’s bedroom was a set built on Stage 21 at Sony. Interestingly, the property performed triple duty in Jerry Maguire. Not only did it portray Jerry’s residence, but it was also utilized as Cardinals General Manager Dennis Wilburn’s (Glenn Frey) office and Jerry’s hotel room in the scene in which the two speak on the phone about Rod Tidwell’s (Cuba Gooding Jr.) contract. The condo recently sold on October 27^th, 2015 for $2,754,000.

The exterior of a home two doors up the street at 3719 Ocean Front Walk was used as the exterior of Jerry’s condo in a scene that wound up on the cutting room floor.

13. Jerry’s Bachelor Party – Grand Havana Room (301 North Canon Drive #215, Beverly Hills)

“He cannot be alone.” “He – he can’t be alone.” “He’s almost phobic.” – Jerry’s former girlfriends

Jerry’s bachelor party, where he comes face to face with his greatest fear of being alone via a humorous video clip starring his many former flames, is held in the private, members-only Grand Havana Room in Beverly Hills. The exclusive cigar club, which was originally established in April 1995, is still in operation today and looks much the same as it did onscreen in Jerry Maguire.

14. Cronin’s Restaurant – Café Figaro (9010 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood)

“What about me? You know what I went through knowing I was gonna have to fire my mentor? Carrying that around in my head for a week! Could you get past yourself for a second?” – Bob Sugar

The now defunct West Hollywood eatery Café Figaro masked as Cronin’s, the busy restaurant where Bob Sugar (Jay Mohr) fires Jerry in the movie. The kitschy spot, which was decorated with decoupaged newspaper articles and Tiffany lamps, was originally established in 1969 and remained in operation through 1997. The site has since gone through numerous remodels and restaurant iterations and today houses Au Fudge, the insanely popular, ultra-chic and innovative kid-friendly bistro founded in part by actress Jessica Biel. Both the interior and exterior of the space were utilized in Jerry Maguire.

15. Kathy Sanders’ House – Stage 21, Sony Pictures Studios (10202 West Washington Boulevard, Culver City)

“Oh, Jerry!” – Kathy Sanders

Jerry’s client Kathy Sanders (Angela Goethals) feigns anguish over Jerry’s firing at a set built on Stage 21 at Sony. The scene was inspired by a similar event in Cameron Crowe’s life in which, thanks to faulty call-waiting, the director caught an actress in pretend agony over deciding not to take a part in one of his films.

16. Rod Tidwell’s House (1760 Kirsten Lee Drive, Westlake Village)

“I’m a valuable commodity! I go across the middle. I see a dude coming at me, trying to kill me, I tell myself ‘Get killed. Catch the ball.’ Booyah! Touchdown! I make miracles happen!” – Rod Tidwell

It is at a large Mediterranean-style home situated on a quiet cul-de-sac at the top of a hill in Westlake Village that one of the most famous sequences in all of moviedom was shot. While standing in the pink-tiled kitchen of his supposed Arizona residence, Rod delivers his famous “Show me the money!” speech and Jerry secures his one client. The scenes at the Tidwell home were the last of the movie to be filmed and both interiors and exteriors were utilized in the shoot.

17. Dorothy’s House (527 23^rd Street, Manhattan Beach)

“Don’t cry at the beginning of a date. Cry at the end, like I do.” – Laurel Boyd

Dorothy and her sister Laurel’s (Bonnie Hunt) charming yellow bungalow can be found on a sleepy street in Manhattan Beach, looking much the same as it did onscreen twenty years ago. Though the interior of the sisters’ home, including the kitchen, living room, Dorothy’s bedroom, and Ray’s bedroom, was a large set built on Stages 22 and 23 at Sony, it was modeled partly upon the residence’s actual 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 1,820-square-foot interior. The wooded backyard, where Dorothy and Jerry got married and then later broke up, was also a set built on Stage 22. A bedroom located in the home next door at 529 23^rd Street was also utilized as part of Dorothy’s house.

Be sure to check out Part II of The Complete Guide to Jerry Maguire Filming Locations here!