Dirty Blonde Photo Session on Robertson Boulevard

Dirty Blonde Photo Session on Robertson Boulevard

Dirty Blonde Photo Session on Robertson Boulevard

Dog Retrieved on Sunset Boulevard

Beverly Hills Christmas

Rodeo Drive Christmas

PaleyFest10: Curb Your Enthusiasm

 

We wanted to attend one event at this year's Paley Fest and chose CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM. We went the Goldstar route and sat in the nosebleeds. The Saban (formerly Wilshire) Theater is still beautiful. Last time I went to a play at this theater, I saw Barbara Streisand entering the Women's room. At this moment, I don't remember the title of the play.

Tonight, the balcony crowd liked to talk to the screen. I sat next to two goofy guys who thought they were at CURB JEOPARDY, shouting episode titles during the clips montage. While the actors answered the moderator's questions, many people in the balcony let everyone else know, by their vocalizations, that they were in on the joke. The woman sitting next to my wife had a hearing problem and kept asking her what somebody on stage had just said. Goldstar.

The moderator was bland. Larry was distant, but informative and patient. Jeff showed off his new slimmer physique and demonstrated his peculiar giggle. Cheryl was gorgeous. Susie was polite. Richard Lewis appeared stoned, rambling on and on. The night's funniest moments, however, came from Bob Einstein's deadpan humor. I particularly enjoyed when he told a British audience member asking a question, "Please stop using that annoying fake accent." Bob Einstein's stone face rivals Buster's.

I enjoyed the show and I'm glad we went, but I would have rather watched this on television, or even YouTube.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998)

THE LOVED ONE's Doheny Cemetery?

The book was adapted in 1965 by Terry Southern into a sprawling film of the same name, billed as The motion picture with something to offend everyone! Not particularly true to the book, the film features many in-joke cameos and familiar California filming locations like the Greystone Mansion. Christopher Isherwood worked on an early version of the screenplay and can be glimpsed as one of 'Uncle Frank's' mourners. -- wikiThe Loved One is a 1965 film about the funeral business in Los Angeles, which is based on The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy (1948), a short satirical novel by Evelyn Waugh. It was directed by British filmmaker Tony Richardson and the screenplay – which also drew on Jessica Mitford's book The American Way of Death (1963) – was written by noted American satirical novelist Terry Southern and British author Christopher Isherwood. -- wikiYoung Englishman Dennis Barlow (Robert Morse) wins an airline ticket and visits his uncle Sir Francis Hinsley (John Gielgud) in Los Angeles. Hinsley has worked as a production staffer at a major Hollywood studio for over thirty years. His employer D.J. Jr. (Roddy McDowall) fires Hinsley, despite the old man’s faithful dedication to the company. Hinsley commits suicide by hanging himself. Dennis is swayed by a prominent member of the local English expatriate community to spend most of the money from his uncle's estate on a socially prestigious burial at Whispering Glades cemetery and mortuary where he soon meets Aimee Thanatogenos (Anjanette Comer), a hopelessly naive and idealistic cosmetician who says she was named after Aimee McPherson. Dennis lusts over but has no wish for a lasting relationship. Meanwhile, Aimee worships head embalmer Mr. Joyboy (Rod Steiger) who wants to marry her. -- wikiBoth Upton Sinclair's book OIL (1927) and the recent film THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007) are loosely based on the life of Edward L. Doheny. Greystone Mansion aka the Doheny Mansion served location for the final sequence in the film. The filmmakers refurbished a former bowling alley in the basement of the mansion.

Greystone Mansion: A Dec. 27, 2007 article in the Home section about the use of Greystone Mansion as a shooting location for "There Will Be Blood" said filmmakers chose the site based on scouting photos and prior knowledge that the basement contained a bowling alley. In fact, filmmakers visited the site, at which point they discovered the bowling alley. -- L.A. Times

From a previous post:

GREYSTONE,

The Doheny Mansion of Murder and Suicide

On February 16, 1929, four months after Ned Doheny, his wife Lucy and their five children moved into Greystone, Ned died in his bedroom in a murder-suicide with his secretary, Hugh Plunket. The official story indicated Plunket murdered Ned either because of a "nervous disorder" or inflamed with anger over not receiving a raise. Others point out that Ned's gun was the murder weapon and that Ned was not buried in a Catholic cemetery with the rest of his family, indicating that he had committed suicide. Both men were involved in the trial of Ned's father (Edward L. Doheny) in the Teapot Dome scandal.

-- Greystone Mansion - wiki

THE LOVED ONE (1965)

Greystone, the Doheny Mansion of Murder and Suicide

On February 16, 1929, four months after Ned Doheny, his wife Lucy and their five children moved into Greystone, Ned died in his bedroom in a murder-suicide with his secretary, Hugh Plunket. The official story indicated Plunket murdered Ned either because of a "nervous disorder" or inflamed with anger over not receiving a raise. Others point out that Ned's gun was the murder weapon and that Ned was not buried in a Catholic cemetery with the rest of his family, indicating that he had committed suicide. Both men were involved in the trial of Ned's father (Edward L. Doheny) in the Teapot Dome scandal.

-- wiki

Both Upton Sinclair's book OIL (1927) and the recent film THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007) are loosely based on Edward L. Doheny. The final sequence in the film was filmed at Greystone Mansion aka the Doheny Mansion.

Rebecca Schaeffer Gravesite

Thanks to death2ur for the video.

Menendez Money Madness Murders

Being a good-looking Beverly Hills rich kid wasn't enough for Lyle or Erik Menendez. They coveted the power, the goodies, and the freedom that the control of great wealth promises. Their parents, Jose and Kitty, were filthy rich. Jose Menendez was a member of the Board of Directors of Carolco Pictures. So, on August 20, 1989, they massacred their parents in the den of their Beverly Hills family home. Talk about premeditated, they followed an elaborate plan to set themselves up with an alibi. They acted like stricken orphans to the police and the press. But that plan failed. They were arrested and put on trial. For their next plan, they portrayed their parents as abusive tyrants. They claimed self-defense. The second jury didn't buy this act.

Both brothers were convicted of two counts of first degree murder, plus conspiracy to commit murder. In the penalty phase of the trial, the jury did not support death sentences for the brothers but instead returned recommendations of life in prison. The jury later said that the abuse defense was never a factor in their deliberations and that the jury rejected the death penalty because neither brother had a felony record or a history of violence. Unlike the previous trials, the jury unanimously rejected the defense theory that the brothers killed their parents out of fear, but believed rather that the murders were committed with the intent of gaining control of their parents' considerable wealth.

-- wiki

So, now the boys have been in prison for awhile. Although California does not allow for conjugal visits for murderers or lifers, both brothers have gotten married. The brothers live in separate prisons. Reportedly, they haven't spoken to each other in several years.

Lyle and Erik Menendez News Clip

Thanks to g12er for the video.

Menendez Home - Dearly Departed Tour - You Tube

Thanks to deathhag for the video.

Lana Turner's Gangster Boyfriend Killed By Her Daughter?

On April 4, 1958, Johnny Stompanato was stabbed to death at Turner's Beverly Hills, California home. The assailant was Turner's then teenage daughter, Cheryl Crane. The girl claimed that Stompanato was attacking her mother and she had to defend her. The courts agreed, ruling Stompanato's death to be justifiable homicide. After the ruling, Stompanato's family sued Turner for $7 million; gangster Mickey Cohen supposedly paid the family's legal costs. The case was finally settled out of court.

There have been endless rumors since 1958 that Turner was the actual killer. Her daughter supposedly took the blame because she was a minor and would face minimal judicial punishment under the circumstances. However there is no evidence to prove such claims.

-- wiki

Lana Turner died in her Century City condo on July 29, 1995.

CURIOUS NOTE: In the fall of 1957, Lana went to England to work alongside Sean Connery in ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE (1958). Jealous Johnny followed her. He started imagining Lana and Sean were having an affair. Johnny showed up on the movie set and pointed a gun at Sean. The American gangster and ex-Marine threatened the former Mr. Universe runner-up and future James Bond to stay away from his girl. Now Sean grew up on the mean streets of Edinburgh. He twisted the gun out of Johnny's hand and sent him packing. The English Government deported Johnny. After Johnny's death, the Mob wondered if Sean had anything to do with it. When Sean came to L.A., he kept a low profile for awhile.

"Tell them: the little fish I throw back into the sea."

-- Sean Connery as James Bond in THUNDERBALL

Bugsy Bumped in Virginia Hill's Beverly Hills Linden House

On the night of June 20, 1947, as Siegel sat with his associate Allen Smiley in Virginia Hill's Beverly Hills home reading the Los Angeles Times, an unknown assailant fired at him through the window with a .30-caliber military M1 carbine, hitting him many times, including twice in the head. No one was charged with the murder, and the crime remains officially unsolved.

Though descriptions held that Siegel was shot in the eye, he was actually struck twice on the right side of his head. Both death scene and postmortem photographs clearly show that one shot penetrated his right cheek and exited through the left side of his neck; the other struck the right bridge of his nose where it met the right eye socket. This second shot passed behind Siegel's left eye before exiting directly behind his left zygomatic bone where it meets the left temporal bone. Overpressure created by that bullet's striking and passing through Siegel's skull blew his left eye out of its socket. Both the Los Angeles' Coroner's Report (#37448) and his death certificte (Registrar's #816192) state the cause of death was cerebral hemorrhage.

Though as noted, Siegel was actually not shot exactly through the eye (the eyeball would have been destroyed if this had been the case), the bullet-through-the-eye style of killing nevertheless became popular in Mafia lore and in movies, and was called the "Moe Greene special" after the character Moe Greene - based on Siegel - who was killed in this manner in The Godfather.

Siegel was hit by many other bullets including shots through his lungs. According to Florabel Muir, "Four of the nine shots fired that night destroyed a white marble statue of Bacchus on a grand piano, and then lodged in the far wall".

-- wiki

Benjamin Siegel's crypt is located in Beth Olam Mausoleum at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood.