Seeing Stars: Where the Movies Were Shot (on Location)



The late 1990's - 2000's

Filming locations of TV Shows,
Made-for-TV Movies & Music Videos.



  • The long-running TV sitcom "MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE" revolved around life at the eccentric family's home, in a town that is never named on the show.

    But in real life, you'll find that familiar Malcolm house in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley, at 12334 Cantura Street, in Studio City, CA. Of course, don't expect to find the show's shoddy lawn... that was studio set dressing.

    ( That's on the south side of the street, 8 houses west of Laurel Grove Ave and 7 houses east of Rhodes Ave. 1 - just one street south of busy Ventura Blvd. Look for the wavy sidewalk.)


    [ Warning: remember that this house, and the other houses listed here, are private homes.
    Do not knock on their door, trespass on their property or do anything else that might disturb the residents. ]


    (See a Google StreetView from 2007)


    Update: The new owners have ruined the old place.
    They have completely rebuilt it, and it doesn't look anything like it used to. 
    You'd never recognize it now in a million years. Here's what it looks like now.


  • The kids on "Malcolm in the Middle" attended North High school, which was really
    Reed Middle School, located less than two miles northeast of the "Malcolm" house,
    at 4525 Irvine Ave, in North Hollywood.




   

Sure, you recognize that old Victorian house where Prue, Piper & Phoebe live in the TV series "CHARMED." But did you know that some scenes from the show were shot on location at an actual Victorian home in L.A.? Well, it was.

You'll find it on Carroll Avenue, a public street near Echo Park, which features a cluster of historical Victorian homes preserved for posterity.

The familiar "Halliwell House" is on the north side of the street, near its east end. The exact address is 1329 Carroll Avenue, about a mile northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

    The 2001 season premiere episode of Charmed (where Prue died and was replaced with Paige) had scenes shot on location at two familiar local spots:

    • The funeral scenes (with the girls near Prue's casket) were shot inside a real mausoleum. In fact, it was the very same mausoleum where silent-screen legend Rudolph Valentino is buried, at the Hollywood Forever cemetery in Hollywood (which is next to Paramount Studios). The address is 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard.

    • The church scene, where Paige learns to levitate a candle (and where the girls are attacked by a demon) was shot at St. Vincent de Paul church, north of the USC campus. It's the same beautiful church used extensively in the filming of Arnold Schwarzenegger's horror film, "End of Days." The address is is 621 W. Adams Blvd, south of downtown L.A.




 

  • The scenes set at Sunnydale High School in TV's popular "BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER" were actually shot on location at Torrance High School (at 2200 W. Carson Street) in the city of Torrance (in the South Bay region).

  • Just three blocks north of Torrance High (Sunnydale) is Buffy's house, where she stays with her mother on the series. You'll find it at 1313 Cota Drive in Torrance. (It's a private residence, so don't disturb the occupants.)

  • And in between the high school and her home, you'll find the spot where (in Season 1, Episode 7), Angel rescued Buffy from three big vampires. That scene was shot in the parking lot of the Foster's Freeze at 1624 Cravens Avenue, in Torrance.

  • After Buffy graduated high school and moved on to college, many of the outdoor campus scenes in her first season at college were shot at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in Westwood.

  • When shooting at UCLA became too difficult due to crowding, they shifted most of the outdoor campus scenes over to the CF Braun Business Park, located at 1000 S. Fremont Avenue, in Alhambra.

  • Ever wonder where they shoot the cemetery scenes for "Buffy"? Well, it isn't always in a real cemetery. (The producers set up some fake headstones in the parking lot of their Santa Monica studio.) But most of the scenes that were obviously shot in a large cemetery are usually shot at the Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery, located at 1831 W. Washington Blvd., just south of Koreatown. It's a very real cemetery, and one of the oldest in Los Angeles. Actress Hattie McDaniel (the first African-American to win an Academy Award, for "Gone With the Wind") and Anna May Wong (one of Hollywood's first Asian actresses) are buried at Rosedale. *

  • While we're on the subject of "Buffy", in season two, Angel (David Boreanaz) took up residence in a deserted mansion, along with Spike and Drusilla. By the third season, he had returned from hell and stayed at the mansion until his own show was spun-off in the fourth season. So where was Angel's Mansion really located? Well, it's also here in L.A., high atop a hill in the Griffith Park area. It's really the Ennis-Brown house, an official city landmark designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The address is 2607 Glendower Ave. It's even open for public tours. (And it has its own website at www.ennisbrownhouse.org.)
  • Actually, the house has been in a number of films and productions, including the classic 1959 horror movie "The House on Haunted Hill," the 1981 sci-fi classic "Blade Runner" (where it served as Harrison Ford's apartment) and "Twin Peaks."






  • Speaking of the "Buffy" spin-off "ANGEL", after Angel moved to Los Angeles he set up 'Angel Investigations' in a deserted, historic hotel. Did you ever wonder where Angel's "Hyperion Hotel" was located?

    Well, for once the script and reality agree - it's right here in L.A., and it really is an historic hotel with old Hollywood connections. In fact, it's on the National Register of Historical Places. It's actually the Los Altos Hotel & Apartments, located at 4121 Wilshire Blvd.

It was built back in 1925, and in its heyday it housed Hollywood stars such as Douglas Fairbanks, Clara Bow, Bette Davis, Mae West, Judy Garland and Loretta Young. Rumor has it that William Randolph Hearst once kept his mistress, actress Marion Davies, in the penthouse apartment. It's located on the north side of Wilshire, just east of Crenshaw Blvd.

    If you're driving through Culver City, near the former MGM Studios, you might recognize this unusual, cantilevered building as the headquarters of Wolfram & Hart, the demonic law firm that is the chief nemesis of "ANGEL".

    In the real world, the building is the Sony Pictures Plaza, located right across the street from the main gate of Sony Studios, (at 10202 W. Washington Blvd.), The building is on the east side of Madison Ave., between Washington Blvd and Culver Blvd in Culver City.



    Other one-time Angel locations include:

    • There is a fight scene in front of the Shrine Auditorium in the episode "Heartthrob".

    • In the same episode, there is a subway chase, which was filmed at the Hollywood Red Line subway station, (underground) beneath Hollywood & Highland.

    • Angel and Judy visit the Griffith Park Observatory after dark in the episode "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?" - which explores the history of the Hyperion hotel.





        

  • In the pilot of the TV show "7th HEAVEN," the actual house used for exterior shots of the Camden family home is located in Altadena, about two and a half miles north of Pasadena's famed Colorado Blvd. (This is not the same house now featured weekly in the series.) The address is 1090 Rubio Street, in Altadena. The same house was also seen in the a number of movies including "Risky Business," "How Stella Got Her Groove Back", "The Baby-Sitters Club" and "Can't Hardly Wait." It was also Shelley Fabares' house in TV's 1997 "The Great Mom Swap."

       

  • If you are a fan of the TV series "7th HEAVEN," you know that the father of the Camden family is a pastor at the fictional "Glen Oak Community Church". Well, the church seen in the series is actually the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) at 4390 Colfax Avenue in Studio City (at the southeast corner of Colfax and Moorpark.)






             

* Locations marked by an asterisk (*) may be located in areas with high crime rates.
Exercise reasonable caution.


For information about watching TV sitcoms being taped live in the studio, see the separate page about getting tickets to live TV tapings.



Looking for something in particular? Search the Seeing-Stars website!














Click Here to Return to the Main Menu



Copyright © 1999-2024-Gary Wayne
All Rights Reserved
(Click here to read disclaimers)