No DDT This Time!

Back from a first-ever trip to LA, was anxious & eager to take the Hollywood Icons Tour that runs on Saturdays, but because the minimum number of reservations was not met had to pass it up this time. Was put on a waitlist but no callback. Was pumped to go on it (as we are all inveterate film buffs), but obviously not many others had the same idea. Incidentally, DDT is highly recommended by the Time-Out LA guidebook (The Time-Out series are my bibles to the bigger tourist destinations). Maybe next year!

Ohhhh! I'm so sorry you didn't get to do it. I have done over five private tours (but those were in the 90's) and I've been on tours from when it was Graveline over 20 times. When it was the other guy driving the hearse but when he and Scott were still involved with their business together, I talked over the narrator. He didn't care, because he'd already done two tours that day, and it was my birthday. It is a lot different now. I adore Scott, but he seems like a lot of people get on his nerves. I wish he could retire. Well, for all I know, he has. The last tour I took with Scott behind the wheels was four years ago. Sheesh, time flies. I can't anymore, because I'm mostly in my wheelchair, but next time you are in L.A. area, work to put your own together just in case, but Scott is half of the fun!

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Originally Posted by qulevergrrl

Ohhhh! I'm so sorry you didn't get to do it. I have done over five private tours (but those were in the 90's) and I've been on tours from when it was Graveline over 20 times. When it was the other guy driving the hearse but when he and Scott were still involved with their business together, I talked over the narrator. He didn't care, because he'd already done two tours that day, and it was my birthday. It is a lot different now. I adore Scott, but he seems like a lot of people get on his nerves. I wish he could retire. Well, for all I know, he has. The last tour I took with Scott behind the wheels was four years ago. Sheesh, time flies. I can't anymore, because I'm mostly in my wheelchair, but next time you are in L.A. area, work to put your own together just in case, but Scott is half of the fun!

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The site says Scott still does the Helter Skelter tour -- which if I ever have the chance will take that one in. Really wanted to do the Hollywood Icons where you watch the movie clips as you're passing the physical locations ~ that would have been priceless...

As we travelled around the city we would randomly pass sites that any Death Hag would adore: the Chateau Marmont where Belushi OD'd...the Viper Room in front of which River Phoenix died...nothing planned but shocks of recognition would take place.

We also passed some locations like the Hollywood Towers where I recognized a shot from Body Double; the LA River where one of the To Live And Die In LA chase scenes takes place. LA is quite a heady experience for the lifelong moviegoer!

Very cool. My sister and I put together our own Scott tour one night when we hadn't planned anything else to do. We ended it by going all the way up to Cielo Drive. We got stuck up there, because it is way too narrow at the top to turn around. The occupants of the house whose garage faces the street and is adjacent to the old Tate house or rather their garage is adjacent to the old Tate garage, actually came home as we turned around. They got out of their car and their radar went up. They immediately knew that we were looky loos. So I dug deep down into frosh soph drama and I started fake crying quite dramatically stating that my sister was preggers (she was). I was freaking saying that we came to drop off her husband off at an industry party two houses down, but now my sister was sick and we couldn't get the car out. There really was a party going on at this super posh house, and my sister and her husband both work with people in the industry. So we started pulling out a few names of industry people who my sister and her husband know quite well so that if we had to back it up we could. Thank God those people got super nice really fast and they just helped us back out because by that time we had gotten her wheel stuck. Hahahaha! That was my night on Cielo drive! LOL! It's creepy up there. Scary, even though it's just a street. And it was in the very early 2000's. They hadn't replaced the gate yet. I just thought, Tex was on that gate. Susan Atkins was on that gate...shivers, and just beyond the gate was where Steven Parent was shot. yikes.

Fascinating. We had a similar driving test in Laurel Canyon, where instead of going deeper and deeper (as one would expect in a canyon), we kept going higher and higher until we reached one of those single-lane overlooks literally perched on the side of a mountain. Great photo ops of the city below, glad we had an SUV to get us back down again. Will have to return real soon.

Wow! So is this the Four on the Floor house? That one creeps me out even more! I can barely think about that house. I've seen that vid a few times, and I've seen the autopsy/crime scene photos and they are just too much. That pushes me right to the edge. I imagine that was intense.

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Originally Posted by qulevergrrl

Wow! So is this the Four on the Floor house?

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No, we were just slumming with no real destination in mind, no maps or GPS. What did astound was all the new construction and renovation going on way up on the hillside where you look down on all of West Hollywood. Those neighborhoods must be a contractor's dream. Whenever we found a little stretch of curbside where no one was parked -- and there wasn't a pickup or resident bearing down on us -- we'd hop out for a photo-op. But I'm sure if those walls could talk.....!

Tracing over the movements of the family that night would have given me the heebie jeebies.

My best friend and I did it in 1977, and this is when Rudi Altobelli still lived there ! We were both nervous about it even though is was 2 in the afternoon. As we got closer I started saying what if we get caught by someone, and my friend said we're in Hollywood so we'll "act". LOL. We didn't get out of the car once we reached the gates, and you couldn't see the main residence even if we had. There were no other cars parked so we had no problem turning around, and as we did we looked back and could just see the top of the garage. It was one of those OMG moments, and we both got a little emotional. You think this is not an urban legend or a super scary fable, this really happened. I could have never gone there at night, that would have scared the hell out of me ! Kudos on your acting that night !

Reconstructing our steps on Google Maps now, when we got to the end of the Strip, we turned onto Laurel Canyon Drive and started our ascent. I think we turned left on Lookout Mtn. Ave. and started winding our way up-up-up into the hilltops overlooking W. Hollywood. On maps I see where we were just a stone's throw from the Wonderland murders house. Or maybe we passed it and it didn't hit me at the time! That's LA for you!