So these winter trips to California… old hat by now? Not by a long shot. There’s just so much to see and do, and with a little planning beforehand, it’s possible to keep busy and enjoy myself every minute of every trip. Yes, of course it was the Hollywood Show that brought me out there again in dead of winter, but once again I was able to stretch the visit to a four-day extravaganza of sorts. It won’t be the last Winter L.A. trip nor will it be the last one in 2018, but it was a unique one in its own right.
Thankfully the Ohio weather had crapped out its snowstorm a couple of days before I departed on Friday, February 9, which also happened to be my Mom’s birthday, so it was clear enough on the road when I left my house at 5am and trudged to the Cincinnati airport in Northern Kentucky. This time I didn’t have anyone take me, so when I arrived I parked in the long-term lot, caught a quick shuttle to the airport, and made it through security with a good two hours to spare before my 8:55am flight. I grabbed some Chick-fil-A and put on my headphones while I waited. Speaking of headphones, this was the first time I had my new Bose headphones on a plane, and they performed splendidly. In fact, once I put them on whilst eating my breakfast, I didn’t take them off until I arrived in Los Angeles. On the way I sat next to some little boy, who, while his attractive mother slept by the window, managed to spill cookie dust all over me as he passed it to the stewardess.
Sill wearing by Bose at LAX
Once I arrived in L.A. at 10:50am local time, I took the shuttle over to the Westin, where Jimmy quickly picked me up. I didn’t honestly have a lot planned for Friday other than one Laurel & Hardy location and perhaps a DD&D, but Jimmy had a great idea to go to Paradise Cove in Malibu. He knew that I had started watching The Rockford Files, which is one of his favorites too, so this made an ideal place to visit and get lunch. A lot of location seekers don’t bother visiting this one, as parking is normally $30, but if you spend that amount on lunch at the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe, you can get a validation and pay only $6 for the parking. The location of Jim Rockford’s trailer in the series was somewhat obvious although the beach seems to have extended into the former parking lot area. The pier is also seen frequently in the show, even in the lead-in. They also had a sign honoring the history of the show.
The Rockfords on the Paradise Cove Pier
And Rock-head on the same pier
The location of the Rockford trailer
The same area of Paradise Cove today
Self explanitory
We had lunch at the Cafe, which at the time of the series was called The Sand Castle and was often seen in the show. Jimmy had worried that we might not be able to spend $30 between the two of us, but that was no concern after all. In honor of the series, and Jim Rockford’s fondness for tacos, I had their ‘world famous’ taco trio of BBQ Prime Steak, Ocean Shrimp, and Carnitas Pulled Pork. The food was great, and it had a fun atmosphere. The restaurant really embraced their heritage by displaying autographs of celebrities who had been there and photos of movies and TV shows that had filmed there.
Vintage shot of the restaurant from the 1940’s
The same restaurant today
Jimmy ready to dine, Rockford style. I didn’t realize until late in the meal that this room wasn’t as long as it looked and that it was a mirror not far behind him.
World famous tacos I hear
If it’s good enough for Rockford, it’s good enough for me
Our view of the Pacific out the window
Celebrity autographs adorning the walls of the restaurant
As we had driven to Paradise Cove down Pacific Coast Highway, I recognized the area as being where Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Cafe had been located. She had operated the business and had her own apartment on the third floor of the building. Up the stairs and a block away was the home of Jewel Carmen, a former actress and the ex-wife of Thelma’s lover and business partner Roland West. The garage to the house is where she had tragically been found dead at age 29 on December 16, 1935, having been poisoned by carbon monoxide in her own car. Mystery has surrounded the case ever since, with the death being ruled at the time to be accidental.
In the intervening years, the Cafe was donated by Roland West’s widow to a religious-based TV production company, and had recently sold to be offices. Concern was expressed by the movie geeks that the place would be torn down, but now that I was finally getting around to getting a picture with it, tearing it down seemed to be the furthest thing from the new owner’s mind, as it was getting a massive facelift. Jimmy and I parked on the opposite side of the road and crossed over the bridge from the beach side and got a picture amongst the flying dust and work vans.
Vintage shot of Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Cafe
Another angle with a shot of the bridge over the once-quiet highway
About the same angle, now with the bustling Pacific Coast Highway
Then we walked up the back stairs that Thelma often did to visit West’s home. We tried to do the same thing using our cell phones to guide us, but then realized that there was no access from that area to the house. So we had to go back to the car and drive around to an access road that got us there. I had visited this before with Bob in 1995, but never got a photo with it. Interestingly, the door to the garage was wide open so I was able to look inside. I didn’t see any ghosts of Thelma, but I saw plenty of junk. Although I desperately wanted to go inside, I refrained lest I be charged with trespassing and allowing my vacation to come to a screeching halt.
It was in this garage that Thelma’s body was found
A look inside the sad garage
In unrelated news, here’s a shot from It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World of the California Incline just off the PCH
There’s really no good way to get a picture with it, but as we drove by I snapped a picture of that same ramp today. Stan Laurel lived in the Oceana almost directly above the base of this ramp on the other side of Ocean Avenue
Mind you so far everything we had done was a bonus to what I had planned, but now we headed back toward Los Angeles, not too terribly far from Culver City. You may recall that way back in 2007, Jimmy and I had spent a good amount of time searching for the house from Laurel & Hardy’s 1928 silent film Their Purple Moment and had come up empty. We had even given it another quick look as recently as last year when we drove through the area again. Little did we know that someone had already located it and while reading the new updated version of Randy Skretvedt’s Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies, there was the address right there printed in black and white. I had never seen anyone post photos of this house, so I don’t even know if anyone had actually ever visited it. But I’d like to think that I was the one who discovered it finally (in the book) and that Jimmy and I were the first people to see it in person.
Laurel and Hardy in front of the house in Their Purple Moment
At long last, the house today
From looking at Google Maps, I knew the fence would prevent getting in a really good photo of the house
To the right of the house, behind the town gossip Dorothea Wolbert
The house to the right today
Babe and Stan and the house to the left
The house to the left today
Dorothea Wolbert hustles toward Stan’s house
I move almost as fast. The offset streets were the key to identifying this location, just down the road from the house
It was around 4pm at this point, and we had time for one more location, one that I had mentioned that I’d like to see if we ended up with extra time. I have been to the Silverlake area of Los Angeles multiple times and visited the famous stairs from Laurel & Hardy’s The Music Box each time I went there. But I had never seen the steps from The Three Stooges’ An Ache in Every Stake, the 1941 short that borrowed the idea of an exhausting delivery up a tremendous flight of stairs. Although I had never seen pictures, I would have never pictured that the stairs themselves were at the end of a very steep cul-de-sac, which took some effort in itself to climb up. As I was panting just getting up the road, Jimmy remarked that he was out of shape, but volunteered to go the top if I wanted to. Figuring that I’d regret it later if I didn’t we made the climb, all 147 steps, actually 14 more than in the Music Box flight.
Moe sends Curly to the top of the of the stairs to deliver ice. Note the manhole cover that Moe is standing on.
Same manhole. Same stairs. Different stooge.
A view from the bottom in the film
Feeling chipper at the bottom
Feeling a little different at the top
And on that note, we ended the location quests for the day, and headed off to Burbank to meet up with David. We got there much quicker that we had thought we would, and David wasn’t quite home yet. We entertained the though of visiting Ollie’s grave to write a toast or something, but Jimmy couldn’t remember exactly where it was, so we just sat in the car until David got home. I don’t know about Jimmy, but when David finally got home and I stepped out of the car to greet him, my knees felt like they were held together by ginger ale. Mind you, I needed the exercise, but that was a lot of stairs between Thelma and the Stooges.
The three of us then went out for dinner at the Kabuki Japanese Restaurant. I hadn’t had sushi in a while and was in the mood. I got a Lava Roll (eel, yama gobo, cucumber, ponzu and eel sauce), a Philly Roll, and Salmon Skin Roll, which proved to be too much food overall. Still it was tasty and it was great hanging out with Jimmy and David. After we ate, we went back to David’s and Jimmy hung out for a bit before heading home. I tried to keep my eyes open to watch some sitcoms with David, and nearly did so… especially when the Seinfeld episode The Pen came on.
Diving into sushi with David
The next morning was the Hollywood Show at the Westin. David got up early and made us omelets with Danish cheese and Danish sausage that he had bought over his birthday weekend in Solvang, which was good and filling. We got to show a little after they opened at 10am, and began the round of fulfilling my wish list of about 30 celebrities, most of whom I only got photos with. Remarkably things went so smoothly that I was able to round up almost my entire list in less than two and a half hours… and this included picking up four autographs for my friend Dave Chasteen and four for Dean. I saw a few familiar faces roaming the crowd, including Scott Schwartz, Mason Reese, and Michael Stern, and chatted with all of them. Rick Greene came too, but he didn’t get there until about 1pm. We met up with him and his friend and fellow Son of the Desert Brian Rabinowitz (who used to write a monthly column for the Intra-Tent Journal) and we ate lunch together in the hotel’s Daily Grill where I enjoyed the French Dip and sparkling conversation. Rick’s getting ready to put out a book about Henry Brandon that he co-write with Bill Cassara, so he had some great tales about that.
With old pals Rick and David, and new pal Brian
As for the show itself, the guest list certainly didn’t live up to the last couple that they had had, but there were quite a few stars there whom I had missed or whom had cancelled previous shows. The only no-show was Dennis Haysbert, but there were numerous disappointing cancellations in the weeks prior to the show: Gregory Harrison, Genie Francis, Jonathan Frakes, Linda Harrison, Tori Spelling, Joe E. Tata, Judy Pace, Patrick Cassidy, James Eckhouse, and Steven Howey… plus some whom I had met in the past: Angela Cartwright, Cathy Moriarty, Ian Ziering, Gabrielle Carteris, Joanna Pacula, and Jennifer Blanc. Sadly Heather Menzies was scheduled to be at the show, but passed away a months and a half before. Sam Jones and Melody Anderson were Sunday only.
Those at the show whom I had already met were Connie Stevens, Jon Provost (I chatted with him and approved his anti-Trump Facebook posts), Ron Dante (but I got an autograph from him for Dean), Sally Kellerman, C.J. Graham, Vernon Wells, Bruce Davison, Bruce Dern, Tommy Kirk, William Ostrander, Judy Geeson, Richard Herd, Margaret Kerry, Lee Montgomery, Gary Lockwood, Tom Berenger, Kari Michaelsen (but I got another autograph for Dean), Louise Fletcher, Clare Kramer, Mews Small, Lewis Smith, Lana Wood, David Faustino, Celeste Yarnell, William Daniels, Bonnie Bartlett, Trina Parks, Ryan Cassidy, Lou Diamond Phillips, Michael Biehn, Sean Kanan, Lou Ferrigno, Lee Meriwether, Russ Tamblyn, Morgan Fairchild, Diahann Carroll, Martin Kove, Corbin Bernsen, Peter Lupus, George Wendt (but I finally got a photo signed for Dave that I had forgotten to bring to a previous show that he was at), and Joely Fisher. Although I had met Anson Williams and Don Most in the past, I updated my photos with them in single shots instead of the group shot I had gotten before. You can follow the full list of celebrities from this show here.
After our long lunch and going back to get the Happy Days dudes, David and I left the show around 4pm and headed back to his house. We hung out for a few hours watching some sitcoms and then left a little before 8pm to pick up Jose and Ellie and head out to eat at the Summer Canteen Thai restaurant. I had some great Pad Thai with chicken and Shrimp, but the real treat was the Tom Kha Gai (Chicken Coconut) soup. I had first had this soup back in 2010 in Carpenteria. Since then I had ordered it many times at many Thai restaurants but it had never quite buckled my knees the way it had the first time… until now. Granted my knees were still a little wobbly from all those stairs the previous day, but this soup was amazing in its own right. I want more and I want it now.
More of this soup, every day, every meal please
After a fun dinner, we dropped Jose and Ellie off at their place and headed back to David’s. We watched a trio of episodes of It’s Your Move in anticipation of our next activity, which would come the next morning. Be excited. Be very excited.
The Winter 2018 California trip will continue with a breakfast I’ll not soon forget…
Bypass this trip and continue with 2018…
Follow the trail of celebrities from the Winter 2018 Hollywood Show here…
I loved this.. Found this website by accident and I loved reading your journey with the before and after photos. I will be back to read more and I am a fan of all the stuff you wrote about. Talk about memories.
Sunnnee
March 5th, 2018