Uma Thurman – IAMNOTASTALKER

June 25, 2014June 24, 2014

The Viper Room from “Entourage”

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

[ad]

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can watch the Entourage opening credits by clicking below.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

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

August 17, 2011April 14, 2013

Lance’s House from “Pulp Fiction”

Last month, fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, came to town, along with his super-sweet mom, for a little filming locations vacation, and the three of us spent a whole day together, stalking pretty much all of Los Angeles, from one end of the city to the other. For this adventure, Chas had compiled an extensively detailed list of various movie locales, along with maps to each and a driving timeline. I know – it was all so Monica Gellar of him. LOVE it! Smile Anyway, one of the locations on Chas’ list was the Craftsman-style residence where drug-dealer Lance (aka Eric Stoltz) and his wife, Jody (aka Rosanna Arquette), lived – and where Vincent Vega (aka John Travolta) saved Mia Wallace’s (aka Uma Thurman’s) life – in the 1994 black comedy Pulp Fiction. Chas found the house, thanks to a very helpful crew member, in early 2010 while attempting to track down all of the locations from the movie – an endeavor at which, I am very happy to report, he succeeded. You can check out Chas’ extensive Pulp Fiction filming locations page here.

[ad]

Because the Grim Cheaper and I had once dressed up as Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace for Halloween many, many moons ago, I was extremely excited to stalk Lance’s house. (Sorry for the poor quality of the above photograph – it was taken on actual film so I had to scan it in order to post it here.)

Lance’s house was featured in a very brief, but very memorable scene, during the “Vincent Vega & Marsellus Wallace’s Wife” portion of Pulp Fiction, in which after visiting Jack Rabbit Slims restaurant, which I blogged about back in March, Mia accidentally overdoses on some heroin that Vincent had stashed in his jacket pocket. When Vincent discovers Mia on the floor, unconscious and unresponsive, he drives her to his drug dealer, Lance’s, home in the hopes that Lance can help her. It is there that Vincent winds up giving Mia an adrenaline shot, saving her life.

In the scene, Vincent crashes his car into the front of Lance’s house, destroying the roof and part of the porch.

I am very happy to report that the residence’s roof and porch are currently intact and that, despite the property’s shabby appearance onscreen, as you can see above, it is actually quite adorable in person.

And while the apartment building across the street from Lance’s house still looks very much the same as it did in the movie;

there is now, sadly, a fence located on the eastern side of the property, which blocks the neighboring lawn that is pictured in the above screen capture from view.

And while I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the residence was also used in the filming, I, unfortunately, could not find any photographs online to verify that hunch.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location. You can check out Chas’ extensive Pulp Fiction filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Lance’s house from Pulp Fiction is located at 3519 La Clede Avenue in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles.

March 10, 2011September 26, 2012

Jack Rabbit Slim’s Restaurant from “Pulp Fiction”

This past Tuesday night, I received a very exciting text from fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, letting me know that one of his readers had finally, finally tracked down the exterior of the fictional Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant where Mia Wallace (aka Uma Thurman) took Vincent Vega (aka John Travolta) for dinner in the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction. When I first saw Pulp Fiction just about seventeen years ago, I thought Jack Rabbit Slim’s, which Vincent describes as a “wax museum with a pulse”, was just about the coolest place ever! With its slot car race tracks, wait staff dressed up to resemble stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Mamie Van Doren, and James Dean, and booths fashioned out of classic cars, the restaurant could not have been more up my alley! In fact, the diner was one of the places I most wanted to stalk upon moving to Los Angeles a little over a decade ago. So imagine my surprise – and total devastation – when I found out that it was not a real place, but a set that had been created solely for the filming of the movie. Such an incredible bummer! I always thought the producers should have built a real Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant after the movie became so successful, but, alas, they never did. Why oh why do I always have to think of everything? Winking smile Anyway, I could NOT have been more excited about Chas’ news, so I ran right out to stalk the place yesterday afternoon.

The exterior of Jack Rabbit Slim’s only showed up very briefly in Pulp Fiction, in the scene in which Vincent takes Mia out for dinner at a place of her choosing at the behest of her husband, Marsellus Wallace (aka Ving Rhames).

[ad]

It is while out in front of Jack Rabbit Slim’s that Vincent begs Mia to take him to another restaurant so that he can get a steak, to which Mia replies, “You can get a steak here, Daddio. Don’t be a . . . “ and she then proceeds to draw a square on the screen with her fingers, which was one of my very favorite moments of the film.

At the time of the filming, the building which stood in for Jack Rabbit Slim’s was a recently-shuttered bowling alley named Grand Central Bowl, which you can see photographs of here. The property is currently owned by The Walt Disney Disney Company and is a part of their Grand Central Business Center. The 125-acre center is on the site of Los Angeles’ first major airport – the now-defunct Grand Central Air Terminal, which shut down due to a decline in business in 1959. The space was transformed into a large office park shortly thereafter, much of which was leased by the Walt Disney Company beginning in 1961. In 1997, Disney purchased the entire 125-acre property and it currently serves as the headquarters for Walt Disney Imagineering. Because Pulp Fiction was produced by Miramax, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, it makes sense that producers chose to film the Jack Rabbit Slim’s exterior where they did.

Sadly, as you can see in the above photographs, the Jack Rabbit Slim’s building is currently surrounded by a large cement wall and is not very visible from the street.

According to Wikipedia, the interior of the Jack Rabbit Slim’s set was built in a warehouse in Culver City and, at a cost of $150,000, was the largest line item in the production’s entire budget!

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for letting me know about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant, from Pulp Fiction, is located at 1435 Flower Street, on the southwest corner of Sonora Avenue and Flower Street, in Glendale. The property is located inside of Disney’s Grand Central Business Center, which is private property, so please do not trespass.

January 27, 2011January 27, 2011

The “Kill Bill” Church

One location that my dad and I visited while stalking in the Lancaster and Palmdale areas last week was the Sanctuary Adventist Church which was used prominently in the 2003 and 2004 Quentin Tarantino movies Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2. And although I have never actually seen either of the Kill Bill flicks, I was dying to stalk the church because, thanks to fave book Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, I found out that it also had a very small, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo in the 2002 Britney Spears movie Crossroads, in which I was an extra. I should mention here that if you are planning to spend a day stalking in Palmdale – and I do HIGHLY recommend doing so – I suggest you print out maps of each and every location that you are wanting to visit before heading out the door. I failed to do so and had planned on using my navigation system to lead me to each locale, but, let me tell you, that did NOT pan out very well. At most points during our journey, my navigator had no idea where on earth we were – more than once it told me I was driving on a road that didn’t exist! LOL – and a few times it even took us on routes through dirt roads that wound up at dead ends. And while Palmdale and Lancaster are not exactly desolate – there’s even a Starbucks there! – most of the filming locations in that area are pretty far removed from civilization. I suggest that you not make a stalking journey out there alone and that you arrive with a full tank of gas and a car that is in good working order.

[ad]

The Sanctuary Adventist Church, which up until recently was known as the Calvary Baptist Church, is an actual working religious facility that, sadly, does not appear to currently be in the best of shape. The tiny Spanish-style chapel definitely has a Southwestern feel to it and it is not very hard to see why Quentin Tarantino chose to use it as the site of the wedding day massacre in his two-part action flick. Especially with that lone Joshua tree that stands in front of it and gives the church a very picturesque, very cinematic feel.

As you can see in the above photograph, the church is also located on a very desolate and very remote stretch of desert road, which gives it a very non-L.A., non-California feel. In fact it is hard to believe that the place is located just a scant sixty miles away from the hustle and bustle that is Los Angeles.

In Crossroads, the church stood in for the supposed Arizona-area Native American souvenir stand that Lucy (aka Britney Spears), Kit (aka Zoe Saldana), Mimi (aka Taryn Manning), and Ben (aka Anson Mount) stop at during their journey from Louisiana to California. It is while at the stand that Lucy asks her friends for advice on whether she should show up at her estranged mother’s house unannounced or call her beforehand.

Ironically enough, even though the church is supposed to be a roadside souvenir stand in the movie, for whatever reason producers decided to leave the Calvary Baptist Church sign up during the filming.

In Kill Bill: Volume 1 and 2, the Sanctuary Adventist Church stood in for the supposed El Paso, Texas-area Two Pines Wedding Chapel where the Deadly Viper Assassination Team (aka Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, and David Carradine) attempt to kill “the Bride” (aka Uma Thurman).

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the church, which you can see a photograph of here, was also used in the production of both films.

The church has also been featured in numerous other productions, as well. In fact, the intersection of 198th Street East and East Avenue G, where the church is located, is quite a famous little stretch of land. In the 1981 movie True Confessions, the Sanctuary Adventist Church is where Detective Tom Spellacy (aka Robert Duvall) visits his brother Father Des Spellacy (aka Robert DeNiro).

The 1999 Jean-Claude Van Damme action flick Dessert Heat (which, for some reason, is also named Inferno), was filmed almost in its entirety in both the former High Vista Diner and the sundries store located directly across the street from the Sanctuary Adventist Church. The church is visible in the background throughout the vast majority of the movie.

Jubal Early (aka Pat Morita) is also shown ringing the church bell at one point in the movie, although that bell is no longer there in real life.

In Desert Heat, the High Vista Diner is where both Rhonda Reynolds (aka Gabrielle Fitzpatrick) and Dottie Matthews (aka Jaime Pressly) worked. In real life, the place was not a real working restaurant, but, much like Four Aces and Club Ed, was solely built for use as a filming location. Sadly though, the structure was torn down back in early 2008 and is now nothing more than a dirt lot. You can see a photograph of what it used to look like here and here.

Right next to the former High Vista Diner location is another vacant building which stood in for the Elis Emporium Sundries and Surplus store in Desert Heat. And while that structure is still currently standing, I am not sure for how long that will be the case.

As you can in the above photographs, the building does not look to be in the best of shape, although it is apparently still available for filming. Winking smile

The Elis Emporium structure was also visible in the background of the opening scene of True Confessions and I do believe that it was a real working grocery store at one point in time.

The little motel that Henry Howard (aka Robert Symonds) and his wife (aka Priscilla Pointer) owned in Desert Heat used to be located directly behind the Elis Emporium building, but it has also since been torn down.

In Nurse Betty, the High Vista Café stood in for the supposed Williams, Arizona-area Canyon Ranch Bar where Betty (aka Renee Zellweger), and later Wesley (aka Chris Rock) and Charlie (aka Morgan Freeman), stop while making their way towards California.

I am fairly certain that the interior of the Canyon Ranch Bar was filmed elsewhere though, as it looks nothing like the interior of the diner from Desert Heat and also appears to be quite a bit larger than the former High Vista Diner building. My guess is that the interior Canyon Ranch Bar scenes were filmed on a soundstage somewhere in Hollywood.

The Kill Bill church is also just barely visible in the background of Nurse Betty in the scene in which Charlie and Wesley arrive at the Canyon Ranch Bar.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Sanctuary Adventist Church, aka the Kill Bill church, is located at the intersection of 198th Street East and East Avenue G in Lancaster. The High Vista Diner was formerly located directly across the street from the church at the southeast corner of 198th Street East and East Avenue G. The Elis Emporium Sundries and Surplus Store from Desert Heat is located at the southwest corner of 198th Street East and East Avenue G.

July 19, 2010July 16, 2010

The Moonlight Mile Bar from “Beautiful Girls”

While going through my trusty stalking notebook this morning, I realized that I still have quite the backlog of Minnesota filming locations that I have yet to blog about. Not to mention the slew of Seattle locales that I haven’t even yet begun to post! I’m going to mix them all in with L.A. area locations over the next few weeks so that my fellow stalkers don’t get bored reading about the same city over and over again. But for today I thought I’d write about Minneapolis’ Nomad World Pub, the watering hole which stood in for the supposed Knight’s Ridge-area “Moonlight Mile” bar where Paul Kirkwood (aka Michael Rapaport) took Andera Womack (aka Uma Thurman) on a date in fave move Beautiful Girls. At the time, the bar was known as the 5 Corners Saloon, but ownership changed hands back in December of 2004 and so did the name. I found this location, once again, thanks to fellow stalker Owen and his highly-coveted Beautiful Girls master locations list! So, I, of course, just had to drag my parents out to stalk the place while we were in Minnesota this past May.

[ad]

In Beautiful Girls, Paul cooks up a ruse to bring “the lovely Andera” out on on a date at the Moonlight Mile bar for the sole purpose of making his ex-girlfriend Jan (aka Martha Plimpton), who hangs out there regularly, jealous. And I am very happy to report that even though ownership of the establishment has changed and over fourteen years have passed since Beautiful Girls was filmed, the interior of the Nomad still looks much the same as it did in the movie. YAY!

And, as it was portrayed in the flick, Nomad World Pub is actually a live-music venue.

Sadly though, the set of booths where Paul and Andera sat in Beautiful Girls, which used to run along the pub’s north side, have long since been removed. 🙁 I was seriously disappointed once I realized that as I had so wanted to sit in the exact spot where Michael Rapaport and Uma Thurman sat in the scene. UGH! Have I mentioned before how much I dislike change?? 😉

Even though little has been altered since Nomad World Pub took over ownership of the property, the former 5 Corners Saloon is apparently well-missed. There is even a Facebook page named “Remember the 5 Corners Saloon” that has been set up in honor of the historic former bar. So darn cool! You can see photographs of how the place used to look here.

For whatever reason, a different location entirely – a place known as Rich’s Health Shop in Stillwater, Minnesota – stood in for the Moonlight Mile’s exterior in Beautiful Girls. Sadly though, that building was torn down several years ago to make room for a new loft development, so I did not get to stalk it. And as you can see in the above photograph and screen capture, it beared little resemblance to the 5 Corners Saloon’s actual exterior.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Nomad World Pub, aka the Moonlight Mile bar from Beautiful Girls, is located at 501 Cedar Avenue South in Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can visit the pub’s official website here. Rich’s Health Shop, which was used as the exterior of the Moonlight Mile bar and has since been torn down, was located at 304 Main Street North in Stillwater, Minnesota.

May 18, 2010May 17, 2010

The Johnson Inn Restaurant from “Beautiful Girls”

The other Beautiful Girls location that I was most excited about stalking (second only to the main houses used in the movie, of course), while in Minnesota two weeks ago, was the Johnson Inn – the local “Knight’s Ridge, Massachusetts” watering hole where Willie Conway (aka Timothy Hutton), Tommy “Birdman” Rowland (aka Matt Dillon), Paul Kirkwood (aka Michael Rapaport) and the rest of the gang hung out in the flick. Interestingly enough, two locations actually stood in for the Johnson Inn in Beautiful Girls – one location was used for the interior scenes, while a second one was used for the exteriors. Fellow stalker Owen tracked down both locales for me thanks to his Beautiful Girls master locations list, but, sadly, while the exterior location is still alive and well, the interior – a Minneapolis-area restaurant named Winfield Potters – closed its doors over a decade ago. 🙁 But because the locations were the site of one of my very favorite scenes from the movie, I just had to stalk both of them.

The above-mentioned favorite scene – and believe me, I know that over the past week I’ve described numerous Beautiful Girls scenes as my “favorite” 🙂 – involves professional piano player Willie Conway leading his buddies in a sing-a-long of the classic Neil Diamond song “Sweet Caroline”. And even though my dad has been a lifelong fan of the singer, before watching Beautiful Girls for the first time back in 1996, I don’t think I had ever heard any Neil Diamond songs in their entirety. But once I saw the Beautiful Girls “Sweet Caroline” scene, that was it for me – I suddenly, and unexpectedly, became a total ND junkie! Even now, fourteen years later, I am still a HUGE fan and my iPod is stocked with pretty much every song the guy ever recorded. All thanks to one very brief scene from a movie that premiered almost one and a half decades ago.

Because the “Sweet Caroline” scene had such a huge impact on me, I was absolutely DYING to stalk the spot where Willie C. and Company had so memorably belted out that “good times never seemed so good”. So, you can imagine my heartbreak when Owen emailed me to let me know that Winfield Potters restaurant, which did indeed used to have a piano in the bar area for patrons to play, was no longer. UGH! Such an incredible bummer! But I still just had to stalk the restaurant’s former location, which has since been turned into an office building for a company called Clientek.

According to a super nice and very informative waiter at a nearby restaurant my parents and I had dined at earlier that day, the Winfield Potters patio used to be quite the popular spot for Minnesota diners during the warm summer months. So, amazingly enough, once Clientek took over the space, they opted to keep the patio intact in order to host barbeques and events for their employees during temperate weather.

While there, I was absolutely FLOORED to discover a plaque honoring the former Winfield Potters location on the wall outside of the patio area. So darn cool! Of course, I think there should also be a notation on the plaque which touts the restaurant’s cinematic history, as well, but I digress.

I, of course, also peeked inside the Clientek offices to see if I could spot any small piece of the restaurant which still remained, but, sadly, there wasn’t anything. I can’t tell you how heartbreaking this particular stalk was for me, as I had so badly wanted to see Willie C.’s piano. Sigh.

[ad]

I am happy to report, though, that the Marine General Store, the small grocery store which was used for the exterior shots of the Johnson Inn, looks very much the same today as it did when Beautiful Girls was filmed back in 1996. There are some differences, of course, but for the most part, the location is very recognizable from the movie.

And, even though no filming actually took place there, I just had to stalk the interior of the General Store, as well. While doing so, I asked the girl at the front counter if the movie Beautiful Girls had been filmed on the premises, to which she said, “I don’t know. Let me check.” She then proceeded to pull up a list of about one hundred movies on her computer screen. Well, let me tell you, I took one look at that list and just about passed out from excitement and said, “WOW! How many movies have been filmed here?” The girl looked at me utterly flabbergasted and explained, “This is the list of movies we have for rent. I thought you were inquiring about a movie rental.” LOL As I mentioned in a previous post, I am rapidly discovering that most people in this world have never even heard of Beautiful Girls, including, apparently, people who work at locations where filming of the movie actually took place!

Anyway, the girl at the counter, who was very nice, directed me to the manager of the store, who, amazingly enough, had actually heard of Beautiful Girls and even knew about its filming. She told me that the big fight scene between Tommy “Birdman” Rowland and Steve Rossmore (aka Sam Robards) at the end of the film took place in the General Store’s back parking lot.

Unfortunately, though, there was a van parked in front of the stairway that Tommy walks down in the scene, so I couldn’t get a perfect shot of it.

You can watch the Beautiful Girls “Sweet Caroline” scene by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding these locations for me! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The exterior of the Johnson Inn Restaurant from Beautiful Girls is the Marine General Store, which is located at 101 Judd Street in Marine on Saint Croix, about twelve miles north of Stillwater. The interior of the Johnson Inn was the former Winfield Potters restaurant, which used to be located at 212 2nd Street SE in Minneapolis.

March 18, 2010March 17, 2010

Mia Wallace’s House from “Pulp Fiction”

A few weeks ago, fellow stalker Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, set his sights on tracking down every single location featured in the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction. Well, as soon as I found out about this bold undertaking, I begged him to find the ultra-modern abode belonging to Mia Wallace (aka Uma Thurman) in the flick, which was, of course, the location I was most interested in stalking (besides the ‘50s inspired Jack Rabbit Slims restaurant, which unfortunately doesn’t exist in real life). And, sure enough, he did! Chas somehow managed to track down a crew member from the film who remembered that Mia’s residence was located somewhere in Beverly Hills a few miles north of Sunset Boulevard. So, Chas immediately got to cyberstalking and I am happy to report found the abode fairly quickly. And once he gave me Mia’s address, I dragged my fiancé right out to stalk the place. Sadly, though, the gate pictured above is pretty much the only part of the property that is visible from the street. 🙁

I was so hoping to see the home’s main entryway, as that is the area of the house that is most recognizable from Pulp Fiction, but alas that was not to be. 🙁

You can catch a slight (very, very slight) glimpse of the residence if you drive a bit north of the property . . .

[ad]

. . . . and another slight view of it if you drive a bit south of the main gates. Aside from those two limited views, though, there unfortunately isn’t a whole lot to see at this location. Such a bummer!

But that’s why God created real estate listings! While doing some research on the property earlier today, I not only stumbled upon a real estate website advertising the home (which is currently for sale at a price that is only made known upon request – yikes!), but a YouTube video, as well (see below)! Score! And, as you can see in the above photographs and screen captures, it seems that the real life interior of the residence was also used in the filming of Pulp Fiction. So cool!

Even the home’s real life bathroom was used in the scene in which Vincent Vega (aka John Travolta) tries to talk himself out of wanting to get together with Mia. So cool!

In real life, the home, which was built in 1960, boasts three bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, measures 4,015 square feet and sits on almost a full acre of land. And while the real estate listing does boast that the “gated celebrity view estate” (and I’m not even really sure what that phrase means!) features an infinity pool and “state of the art electronics and security systems”, for whatever reason it fails to mention its cinematic cameo! If I was the property’s real estate agent, you can bet its appearance on the silver screen would be my main selling point! Hello! I mean, that’s bound to drive the price up at least a few dollars. 😉

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Mia Wallace’s house from Pulp Fiction is located at 1541 Summitridge Drive in Beverly Hills.