Ago Restaurant

For my birthday this year, my parents and my boyfriend were planning to take me to famous celebrity haunt the Ivy restaurant in Beverly Hills.  But plans changed when my boyfriend heard that a better bet for celeb stalking was Ago Restaurant, which just happens to be owned by Robert DeNiro, Ridley Scott, and Harvery and Bob Weinstein.  Apparently the Italian restaurant is celeb central with countless stars showing up to dine nightly.  Sadly, the stalking gods were not shining on me when we dined at Ago, because we didn’t spot one single celeb during my birthday dinner.  😦  But I would definitely recommend stalking the restaurant anyway.

Ago, pronounced Ah-Go, is named after Italian chef Agostina Sciandri.  The food there is INCREDIBLE – my dad, who was recently released from the hospital and hasn’t really had an appetite since, practically licked his plate clean.  It was the first time I had seen him eat an entire meal in a good two months!  So, for me, that speaks volumes!  My boyfriend chose the gnocci, which our waiter proclaimed was the best in America, and it truly did live up that promise.  Service at Ago was great, too, although somewhat rushed.  We were out of the restaurant in 45 minutes flat  – which seemed strange for such an expensive place.  I have heard, though, that if you ask them not to rush you, they will slow their service down. 

I would definitely recommend making a stalking trip to Ago – but it will cost you.  Dinner will run you about $100 for two people at the bare minimum.  If you don’t want to pay that much for a meal, Ago does have a bar with a great view of the front door for prime celeb stalking.  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It:  Ago is located at 8478 Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood.  You can visit their website here.  I would suggest dining there later in the evening, as you’ll have a better chance of seeing celebs.  🙂

Buy A Set From Laguna Beach!

Fave website Real Estalker just posted news that Lauren Conrad’s parents put their Laguna Beach dream house  up for sale for a cool $17.5 million!  You may remember that James Conrad built this house during the first season of Laguna Beach: The Real O.C.  and LC and Ste-ven traipsed through the house during construction in the pilot episode.  L.C. threw a few pool parties/BBQ’s there during subsequent seasons of the show and it was at one of those pools parties that her romance with Jason Wahler blossomed.   I have no idea why the Conrad’s would sell this home – it is absolutely amazing! 

You can read the entire Real Estalker article here.

Stalk It:  The Conrad’s home is located at 29 Vista Del Sol in Laguna Beach.  You won’t get past the guardshack located at 32350 Pacific Coast Highway, though, so you’ll just have to settle for views of the house from the road.

The World’s Most Famous Subway Grate

The other night in my acting class we were talking about Marilyn Monroe and the movie The Seven Year Itch.  One of my classmates asked me if I had ever seen the famous scene of Marilyn standing on top of a subway grate from the movie.  I told him that not only had I seen it, I’ve stood on that very subway grate!  So, I thought I’d do a little post about it.  🙂  In that famous scene, Marilyn and her downstairs neighbor, played by Tom Ewell, exit the Trans Lux Theatre, which once stood at 586 Lexington Avenue, and walk onto a subway grate.  Marilyn is standing atop the grate as a subway passes making her white skirt billow high above her waist as she exclaims “Oh, can you feel the breeze from the subway?  Isn’t it delicious?”

The scene was originally shot on location in Manhattan on September 15, 1954 at 1 O’clock in the morning, with over 5000 spectators and media men watching.  The crowd went wild as Marilyn’s skirt flew higher and higher, making the footage being shot completely unusable due to the noise.  Director Billy WIlder ended up having to re-shoot the entire sequence at 20th Century Fox Studios in Los Angeles.   

The footage that ended up making it to the final cut of the movie was significantly edited down as the scene was considered far too racy for its time.  But everyone remembers those black and white photographs taken of Marilyn that September night in Manhattan with her skirt billowing high above her waist, showing off her panties and her long gams.  In the actual movie, you barely see Marilyn’s skirt fly up at all, most of what is shown is her face reacting to the subway breeze.  You can watch the subway grate scene here.

On a side note – One of the many people in attendance that September night in New York was Marilyn’s husband at the time, Joe DiMaggio.  Supposedly, Joe became enraged that the gleeful onlookers were viewing his wife’s panties over and over again during the filming of the scene.  The marriage was already on the rocks at the time and this experience put Joe over the edge.  Just a few weeks later he filed for divorce from the starlet, long before the movie ever premiered.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Seven Year Itch subway grate is located at the northwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 52nd Street.  The Trans Lux Theatre is no longer there and a large office building now stands in its place. 

Making My Job a Little Easier!

For my birthday my boyfriend bought me the new Sex and the City: The Movie book  and I was totally floored to open it up and find a whole chapter devoted to filming locations from the movie!  Takes a bit of the guesswork out of stalking, but it will make things so much easier on my next trip to New York.  🙂  The book is GREAT!  I absolutely LOVE IT!  There are tons of pictures, gossip, and trivia inside and I am having so much fun flipping through it.  The only location not named in the filming locations chapter in the book is the Mexican restaurant the girls go to during Carrie’s “honeymoon”.  It does mention, though, that it is located in Simi Valley, so it looks like I’ll be stalking all Mexican restaurants in the Simi Valley area for the next few months.  🙂 

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: You can buy your very own Sex and the City: The Movie book here.

Alma Mater to the Stars

This weekend, while stalking in the Valley, my boyfriend and I drove by Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks.  American Idol  fans might remember Notre Dame from Season 5, when Katherine McPhee returned to her hometown of Sherman Oaks for a large pep rally held in the gym of her alma mater.  Antonio Villaraigosa even showed up for the celebration and declared the day as “Katharine McPhee Day”!  Gag me!  I, personally, did NOT have McPhever during Season 5 of Idol  and was very happy when she didn’t take home the crown.  🙂

Besides Ms. McPhee, Notre Dame is the alma mater to countless celebs, including Rachel Bilson from The OC, director Nick Cassavetes, Kristin Dunst, Maureen Flannigan (from Out of This World), Devon Gummersall and Devon Odessa from My So-Called Life, Staci Keenan from My Two Dads, Jerry Mathers aka the Beave, Dave Navarro and Stephen Perkins from Jane’s Addiction, and Michelle Trachtenberg from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer  and Gossip Girl, as well as countless professional football and baseball players.  There must be something in the water at Notre Dame, I swear!!  It definitely seems like a breeding ground for lots of talented celebrities.  🙂

According to Wikipedia, the softcore porn TV series Love Street  shot an episode at Notre Dame High School, which is very surprising as schools are usually pretty choosy about what productions can and cannot film on campus. 

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Notre Dame High School is located at 13645 Riverside Drive in Sherman Oaks. 

Britney’s Cure for a Bad Hair Day!

This weekend, before our Vitello’s dinner, my boyfriend had the idea to stalk the Tarzana salon where Britney Spears shaved herself bald in February of last year.  Apparently, at around 7pm on the night of February 16th, after the salon was already closed for the night, Britney along with one of her bodyguards entered the shop and asked Esther Tognozzi to give her a buzz cut.  When Esther refused, Britney took matters into her own hands and shaved her head bald. 

Later that week Esther and her husband put BritBrit’s hair up for sale on eBay for a cool $1.2 million!  They were also going to throw in the half empty can of Red Bull Britters was drinking during the hair cut, her blue Bic lighter and the electric razor she used to shear herself.  I am not sure what happened, but the listing was taken down off of Ebay before the hair was ever sold.  The website Esther started – www.buybritneyshair.com – has also been taken down.  Maybe Esther just couldn’t bear to part with such an iconic piece of history.  For the time being, whatever happened to Britney’s hair will, I guess, remain a mystery.

Esther’s Haircutting Salon is a tiny little place set way back on Ventura Boulevard.  How Britney chose this tiny little salon to shave herself bald is beyond me.  I sooooo wanted to go inside and talk to Esther herself but my boyfriend flat out refused and said he’d leave me there if I did so.  LOL  I guess I’ll have to go back to Esther’s on my own to do some further stalking.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Esther’s Haricutting Studio is located at 18360 Ventura Boulevard in Tarazana.  It is set back a bit from the road, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled.  You can visit the salon’s website here.

“The Entertainment Capital of L.A.”

This weekend, for my birthday, my boyfriend surprised me with a day at Universal Studios Hollywood, which according to the entrance sign, is the “Entertainment Capital of L.A.” and is now just as expensive to visit as Disneyland – $70 per day!  I must say that while I had a FABULOUS time on the Studio Tour (which lasts about 45 minutes), I was ready to leave the park by 1pm.  LOL  Besides the Studio Tour, Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride, and The Universal Experience attraction, there wasn’t a whole lot I wanted to see.  I don’t know that I’d recommend spending the $70 to get into the park, unless you are a huge movie buff.  For me, the Studio Tour alone was worth the entrance fee.  🙂 

Even though it was a bit cheesy at times, I loved every single minute of the backlot tour!!!  It was a blast and I could hardly sit still in my tram seat!  The first stop we made on the tour was the entrance to Courthouse Square, from Back to the Future  fame and, more recently, the location of the Universal fire.  As we came upon it, my boyfriend said “Oh, that must be the War of the Worlds  set.”  I was like, “No, no – that was the real fire!”  LOL  I am happy to report, though, that the Clocktower that sends Marty back in time in Back to the Future  was not harmed in the fire, despite news reports to the contrary.  The Courthouse Square set is currently being used in the TV show Ghostwhisperer  and it looks a bit different than it did when Back to the Future  was filmed.  The Courthouse is now made of brick and the clock is no longer there- it is currently in Universal’s storage area until Ghostwhisperer  goes off the air, at which point they plan to re-attach it.

While the tram does go right by the fenced off, fire-damaged section of the backlot to give you and up close and personal view of the destruction, it unfortunately does not drive very close to the Courthouse or the New York Street sets, many of which are still standing.  I was so looking forward to seeing that area of the lot, so I guess I am going to have to go back as soon as it is rebuilt and is part of the tour again!  My boyfriend will be oh-so-happy about that.  🙂

Our next stops on the tour were a demonstration of a flash flood and rain storm, a drive through Old Town Mexico where the Tijuana episode of The OC  was filmed and a drive through of the Old West set where the bar from Jessica Simpson’s These Boots Were Made For Walkin’  video is located.  After that came the moment I had been waiting for all morning – the tour of Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives!  Mia posted a comment on my previous Universal Studios post  saying I probably wouldn’t be able to see the Wisteria Lane set as the area is usually closed for filming, but since it was during the summer, when most episodics are on hiatus, the street was open for us to view.  YAY!

We got to see all the Housewives homes and they were all so much smaller than I had expected.  Ironically my boyfriend said they were bigger than he imagined they would be, but I was just shocked at how tiny they were.  To me they look like they were built on a 3/4 scale or something.  Wisteria Lane is a little cul-de-sac which begins with Gaby Solis’ large yellow home (pictured above).  The houses definitely look like sets – the flowers are all fake and I can’t quite put my finger on it, but they just don’t look like real homes.  Possibly because of the size thing.  Bree’s house (pictured at left) is by far the nicest and apparently was also used as the main home on the TV show Providence.  I guess the first few episodes of Providence  were filmed at a real house somewhere in LA, and subsequent episodes were filmed on the back lot.  Looks like I have some research to do so I can stalk the real home!  🙂

Susan Meyer’s (Terri Hatcher’s) house was by far the tiniest of the street!  I almost didn’t recognize it at first.  It is a teeny, tiny yellow house with gable windows.  In the picture to the left, though, it looks normal size.  So wierd how cameras can do that!  The magic of the movies!  Wisteria Lane used to be known as Colonial Street where it was used in Leave It To Beaver, The ‘Burbs, Ghostwhisper, National Lampoon’s Delta House, The Munsters, Gremlins, and the Smashmouth Allstar  video, as well as countless other productions.  The exterior of the homes on Wisteria Lane change for each film shoot (with the exception of Bree’s house which looked exactly the same in Providence  as it does in Desperate Housewives), so the houses at this time are not recognizable from other productions.

One of the last stops on the tour is a plane crash set from Steven Spielberg’s movie War of the Worlds.  This set was absolutely incredible!  Steven took a real 747 airplane and destroyed it for the movie and let me tell you, it was HUGE!  In the movie a plane crashes into the middle of a suburban neighborhood, destroying homes and cars in the process.  I think it is so cool that this set was left intact for stalkers like myself to tour long after filming was completed and I wish more productions did that.  Imagine if the set from Friends  was still around and was open to the public for touring!  How cool would that be???  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It:  Universal Studios Hollywood is located at 100 Universal City Plaza in Universal City.  You can visit the park’s official website here.  There is a VERY cool site called The Studio Tour  that gives a comprehensive and detailed history of Universal Studios (as well as other LA studios) and productions that were filmed on the lot.  LOVE IT!

Hooked On Houses

Jackie over at Hooked On Houses  just gave me a very nice shout out linking back to my Father of the Bride post – Thanks, Jackie!  Her post includes a very interesting article about the current owners of the FATB house, so check it out!  I wasn’t aware that the producers had also used the interior of the El Molino house for the movie, creating a lot of extra work for the new owners upon move in. 

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

“Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli”

My title might be a bit in poor taste, but it seems Robert Blake followed just that advice on a fateful day back in May 2001 after dining at Vitello’s Restaurant in Studio City.  Although a jury found him not guilty, it is pretty widely assumed that Blake murdered his wife Bonnie Lee Bakley after eating at Vitello’s, while the two were parked just around the corner from the restaurant.  So this weekend, while in Studio City, I dragged my boyfriend and my parents to do a little Vitello’s stalking. 

Vitello’s had long been a favorite of Blake’s – he dined there at least 3 times a week – and the restaurant even named a dish after him – Fusilli a la Robert Blake (I’m not kidding!).  On May 4, 2001, after finishing dinner and leaving the restaurant, Blake returned to Vitello’s claiming he left his gun in the booth where he had just eaten.  While he was searching for his gun, Blake claimed his wife was shot while sitting in their parked car on Woodbridge Road, just around the corner from Vitello’s.  Although Blake was charged with Bakley’s murder, he was aquitted of all charges on March 16, 2005.

At first I was a little hesitant to eat at the restaurant, thinking it might be a morbid stalking trip, but as soon as I walked in the door and was greeted by the Maitre D and the hundreds of autographed celebrity headshots on the entryway wall, all my fears were put aside.  Vitello’s is a very charming place with AMAZING food at completely reasonable prices and absolutely FABULOUS service!  It’s not too hard to see why the restaurant is a favorite of celebrities – it is definitely a place I will dine at again. 

Robert’s house, where he lived with Bakley during their marriage, is located just a few blocks away from Vitello’s.  Apparently, while Blake lived in the main house, Bakley stayed in a guest house located on the property.  After the murder, Blake sold this house to Alex Kingston of ER  fame.  Alex had the home completely remodeled and subsequently sold it to another buyer.  She never lived there.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Vitello’s Restaurant is located at 4349 Tujunga Avenue in Studio City.  Try the cannoli’s – they are amazing!!  You can visit their website here.  After dinner, be sure to hit up Pomm, a super cute boutique and art gallery located right across the street at 4330 Tujunga Avenue – the Jenn + Jane jewelry they sell is adorable!!  Robert Blake’s former home is located at 11604 Dilling Street in Studio City.

Miranda and Steve’s Garden Wedding

In keeping with the SATC theme of this week, I thought I’d do a post about a location that my boyfriend actually dragged me to!  At the time I had no idea it was a filming location, let alone a SATC  filming location, so sadly I didn’t take many pictures while I was there.  When I was in New York two years ago, my boyfriend and I happened upon what looked like a huge brick castle in the middle of Greenwich Village and he insisted we go inside to explore.  It turns out the building was not a castle at all, but a former New York City courthouse and detention center.  A bit of trivia – the detention center once held famous prisoner Mae West!  I must admit that while I am usually not into touring museums or historical buildings, this location was a really fun one to stalk.  🙂 

Jefferson Market Courthouse functioned as the Third Judicial District Courthouse from 1874 to 1945, at which time it fell into disrepair and was headed for demolition.  Thankfully, New Yorkers protested against the demolition and the property was turned into the Jefferson Market Branch, New York Public Library.  The building is now a National Historic Landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places.  The detention center that was attached to the Courthouse was demolished in 1974 and replaced with a community garden called the Jefferson Market Garden.  That garden was the location of Miranda and Steve’s nuptials on Sex and the City.  According to a Villager article, thanks to that episode of SATC, the garden has turned into a  frequent wedding venue.  Besides being used in the SATC, Jefferson Market was also featured in David Duchovny’s movie House of D.

The Library is very cool to stalk, as it is still set up like an ancient courthouse.  There are winding staircases, wood paneled rooms and even a dark, creepy dungeon that now houses the computer room.  🙂  When you step inside the library, it feels as if you are stepping back in time. 

 

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Jefferson Market Garden is located next to the Jefferson Market Branch, New York Public Library at 425 6th Avenue in Greenwich Village.  The former courthouse is open daily to the public.