One of the perks of living in our inner city neighborhood near downtown L.A. is that we are constantly being approached by location scouts. Most of the houses in our West Adams neighborhood were built between 1905 and 1915 and they are frequently used in movies, TV series, and commercials. It’s way cheaper than building a set and as long as there aren’t palm trees in the shot our street can double for any east coast city. It is definitely a neighborhood in transition. In the early part of the last century, West Adams was THE place to live and stars like Rudolph Valentino, Theda Bara, and Fatty Arbuckle built magnificent mansions along Adams Boulevard. On our street, several blocks to the north, the homes were much more modest but still gorgeous with inlaid hardwood floors, stained glass windows, wainscoting, built-ins to die for, and fantastic light fixtures designed to showcase that newfangled invention that was sweeping all the finer homes in Los Angeles—electricity.
Kendall and I first discovered the neighborhood on an L.A. Conservancy tour several years ago. I had been living in Los Angeles for many years and had never even heard of West Adams. We were awestruck by the beauty and Old World elegance of these homes, even though it was clear the neighborhood had seen MUCH better times. Back in the day, West Adams did not hold onto its elite status for long. As the boundaries of Los Angeles continued to inch west towards Hancock Park and Beverly Hills, so did the movie and society folks, who, like today, were always looking for the latest “in” address. The stock market crash of 1929 dealt one of the more lethal blows to our neighborhood. As fortunes disappeared, many of the single-family homes were torn down or turned into boarding houses or in-home health care facilities for the elderly.
The construction of the Santa Monica Freeway in the early 1960s provided a final death knell for West Adams. With the neighborhood basically cut in two, its fortunes fell to new lows. Many of the most beautiful mansions were torn down and replaced by poorly constructed apartment buildings. Gangs began running rampant in the area and many of the remaining homes fell into disrepair, becoming crack houses or shelters for squatters and the homeless.
In the meantime prices for new homes in other parts of Los Angeles began skyrocketing to obscene levels. In the aftermath of the 1992 riots, in which many more West Adams treasures were lost, preservation groups in Los Angeles began paying more attention to the area. The city of Los Angeles enacted legislation protecting many of these old streets from further destruction, and a hardy bunch of preservationists moved in and began the job of restoring these grand homes to their past glory.
The film crews soon followed and began setting up shop in many of the neighborhood’s oversized gems. The Fisher & Sons Funeral Home from “Six Feet Under” is just a few blocks away from our house and parts of “Ray” were shot on our block. We lucked out when we first moved in two years ago and immediately landed an episode of the show “Monk” starring Tony Shalhoub. In our episode, called “Mr. Monk and the Three Pies,” the superb actor John Turturro debuted as Shalhoub’s older brother Ambrose Monk. Our next-door-neighbor’s house was cast as the Monk family home which Turturro’s character, an agoraphobic packrat, has not left in 32 years. Our house was the home of the killer in that week’s episode, played by actor Holt McCallany (the real-life son of chanteuse Julie Wilson). The “Monk” crew couldn’t have been nicer but we were a little scared for our newly restored wood floors when we saw them lugging a huge barbell set into our living room (our burly murderer was a weightlifter). They were only filming on our first floor so I stayed put in my office upstairs trying to read manuscripts and talk to authors on the phone as the cast gathered below. In the first scene, Holt had to slam our huge front door, which is framed by the original 1909 panels of leaded glass. I silently prayed that the glass would survive as I listened to violent take after take. Next thing I knew Holt was brandishing a gun in our hallway and then setting our neighbor’s house on fire. And they really did set it on fire, replacing the windows and building a fireproof booth in the upstairs bedroom. Since Monk supposedly grew up in Pennsylvania, trucks from the Philadelphia Fire Department suddenly blared down our southern California street.
Kendall, Leah, and I soon discovered the most exciting part of film shoots: Craft Services! For four days we got to join the cast and crew for fantastic catered breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Being our first shoot, we didn’t realize how they were spoiling us with the endless supply of gourmet items and different food stations set up on our front lawn. Leah’s favorite was the all-day “goody truck” parked in front of the house which contained every kind of candy, snack, ice cream, and beverage you could imagine. And can’t we always have a cappuccino cart just outside our front door? When the AFI student films started being shot on our street in later months we were appalled by the paltry crafts services. We had become prime-time divas, the kind who demanded room temperature Evian in their dressing room and platters of freshly cut exotic vegetables.
Our “Monk” experience also didn’t prepare us for the series of rejections our house would soon endure. Every week another location scout would come to the door to snap digital pictures of our different rooms. We were up for a prestigious feature film, a Japanese soft drink commercial, a public service ad for drug abuse, a new TV series about a paranormal detective squad, an independent horror film. Every time they left we thought we had the gig, but time and again something would change and the job would go elsewhere. Wasn’t it enough that I had a daughter in theatre—now I also had to worry about our house’s career too?
Soon after the “Monk” crew pulled up stakes, the MTV reality show “Sorority House” moved in next door for several months. I had fantasies of Leah making her TV debut on the show as the sweet sorority sisters took turns babysitting and watching her perform scenes from her latest Rodgers & Hammerstein production. Instead I ended up making Leah swear to me that she would never to join a sorority. The party-loving, music-blaring, fraternity-chasing girls had a tendency to park in our driveway no matter how much we begged them not to. Kendall ruined at least one important shot when she burst in through their front door screaming “That is NOT okay!” while all cameras turned in her direction. I’m sure that moment was included in the show’s blooper reel at the wrap party!
Yesterday they shot a pilot for a remake of the old Darren McGavin “Nightstalker” series on our block. This one stars Stuart Townsend (aka Mr. Charlize Theron) and while the main action of the episode took place in our neighbor’s house, we happily rented our driveway to crafts services. In one scene a grandfather murders his grandchildren by hanging them in the attic. Have you ever tried to edit a manuscript about critical literacy in early childhood education while child actors are screaming for their lives just outside your window? I thought they’d use mannequins or dummies but they actually rigged nooses for these kids and had them hanging there motionless for six minutes at a time. Leah didn’t seem traumatized by it, though. She was too busy surveying the candy selection on the catering truck.
During the shoot a director stopped by and asked if he could see our bedroom. He said he wanted to use it next Monday for a feature film. We gave our okay and wondered which movie stars would soon be in our bed. But alas, we just got a call that they’re using a different house in Monrovia. Damn, rejected again. I can’t help but feel bad for our house. Do you think I’m taking this all too personally?
I had a dream
A dream about you, house
It’s gonna come true, house
They think that we’re through, but house,
You’ll be swell!
You’ll be great!
Gonna have the whole world on a plate!
Startin’ here, startin’ now,
Honey, everything’s coming up roses!
The house looks lovely, and like every other member of the on-camera world, not nearly as old as it really is. Frankly, I think you've been injecting Botox around the window frames.
Posted by: Quinn | March 19, 2005 at 03:25 PM
Danny: Cripes, we're even more related than I thought: I spent two years as executive director of the nonprofit advocacy/preservation group in Lower Downtown, Denver's downtown historic district. The two most politically active (and stressful) years of my life. The neighborhood's stunning. Have you ever been there?
I was about to say I'd find it hard to live where reality and fantasy so often collide. But then I remembered that I was an actor in my past life, and so reality and fantasy went head-to-head every day for about seven years.
See you soon!
Posted by: amba | March 20, 2005 at 10:33 AM