#sunset gower studioes

[oldshowbiz]

Columbia Pictures: In the Line of Fire

[divineofficial]

On March 7, 1988, weeks after Hairspray was released nationwide, Divine was staying at the Regency Plaza Suites Hotel in Los Angeles. He was scheduled to film a guest appearance the following day as Uncle Otto on the Fox network’s television series Married… with Children in the second season wrap-up episode. After spending all day at Sunset Gower Studios for rehearsals, Divine returned to his hotel that evening, where he dined with friends at the hotel restaurant before returning to his room. Shortly before midnight, he died in his sleep, age 42, of a heart attack. Rest In Peace, Harris Glenn Milstead...DIVINE!

[citizenscreen]

On Poverty Row in Hollywood circa 1926, California Studios and Bischoff, Inc., the home of H.C. Witwer Comedies, Biff Thrill Comedies, and Gold Medal Comedies. Located on Gower St. just south of Sunset Blvd.

[semtituloh]

Via Divine

On March 7, 1988, weeks after Hairspray was released nationwide, Divine was staying at the Regency Plaza Suites Hotel in Los Angeles. He was scheduled to film a guest appearance the following day as Uncle Otto on the Fox network’s television series Married… with Children in the second season wrap-up episode. After spending all day at Sunset Gower Studios for rehearsals, Divine returned to his hotel that evening, where he dined with friends at the hotel restaurant before returning to his room. Shortly before midnight, he died in his sleep, age 42, of a heart attack. Rest In Peace, Harris Glenn Milstead...DIVINE!

#divine

[joshquagmire]

Apropos of our previous pix, here's another effort along a similar theme – a Tintype of Bronco Bunny & Kalamity Kitty filming a less than successful gun fight, while making the classic B–Western, "Shootout at Gower Gulch"... "Gower Gulch" or so I've been told, is the intersection of Sunset & Gower in Hollywood, far down in what was once the "poverty row" for small movie studios... Back in the 20s & 30s there was a li'l saloon on the corner, where ex-cowhands would hang out between jobs as riding extras – the Posse, the Outlaw gang, Indian raiders, or most any movie part that required riding a horse or driving a wagon or stagecoach... When a studio needed riders, they'd send someone down to hire whoever was there – eventually these riding extras became known as, "The Gower Gulch Gang"... They worked day to day with no security and no insurance, doing their own riding stunts... if they were injured on the job, the studios offered no help, it was just their tough luck... There's a fascinating book, "The Hollywood Posse" written by Diana Serra Cary, who's father was one of these ex-cowboy riding extras for many years, riding for Bronco Billy & Tom Mix, to Cecil B. DeMille's crusader epics...

[tabbydarling]

SCANDAL - The best drama of the 2010's.

Scandal is a political thriller that is part procedural and part drama. Shonda Rhimes created this insanely juicy political thriller and drama that premiered on April 5th 2012 with 7 episodes in the first season. This first season gives us an idea of who Olivia Pope (played by Kerry Washington) is and what she does as a DC fixer along with her team, a group of lawyers and a retired hitman. When I think of Shonda Rhimes I think about Greys Anatomy and Private Practice. Greys used to be one of my favorite shows until it stopped talking about medical cases, pushing an insane liberal agenda, and only using DEI hires that fell flat and were uninteresting. However, Scandal deviates from pushing an insane liberal agenda. President Fitzgerald Grant the II played by Tony Goldwyn is a catholic Republican who is deeply in love with the main character, Olivia Pope who is Apolitical. She does not spout hateful rhetoric towards Republicans, or Democrats which makes this a safe watch for people of any party.

Scandal is known for its sharp dialogue and intricate plotting. While most 43 minute shows have a script that is around 50-55 pages long, Scandal's scripts were around 80-82 pages PER EPISODE. This was done so they not only can they fit so many plots and turns in one episode but this is why they speak fast and command attention with their dialogue. The storylines include political scandals, personal vendettas, betrayal, the lines people cross in politics and these storylines show that not everything is black and white all the time.

The procedural parts of this show comprise of DC's elites politicians and their friends and families who hire Olivia to "fix" their problem or get rid of Scandals. Olivia Pope is based on real life DC and hollywood fixer Judy Smith. If you're not sure how the intricacies of Politics work, Scandal does an amazing job of showing you what life is like in the White House. It is incredibly accurate in certain aspects, however this show goes beyond politics. There is a deeper level of what goes on in the white house. Is there a secret group of people higher up than the CIA, the FBI, the military that controls what goes on in the white house? In season 2, you'll find out. Now of course a lot of this is far fetched, but actually there are some things that we see are not as far fetched as you would think. The season 2 finale has one of the first big shocks but the shocks and plot twists DO NOT STOP COMING.

I have watched Scandal more times than I can count and I'm always invested in it. I wish I could watch it for the first time again. This show doesn't start to lose it's luster until season 5, and even then it is still a crazy good show.

There is one season 4 episode that pushes a "racist cop" agenda, but that is only one episode and in the episodes defense the cops were being racist and dumb. Luckily, the writers dropped that trope moving forward.

When people watch Scandal they might think that this was actually filmed in DC but it was actually completely filmed in LA. Using Sunset Gowers studios for the sets and green screen for most of the outdoor scenes and the Truman Balcony it still looks realistic.

In politics nothing is as it seems and nobody is who you think they are.

[spikewriter]

The article is actually from August of last year, but it underlines another reason the WGA is striking: studios pulling crap like this. The studios (and I’m including Netflix and Amazon in this since almost every studio has its own streaming service now) are constantly looking for a way to avoid paying fees to creatives for their work — and have been since the first permanent studio was set up in Hollywood at what is now known as the Sunset-Gower Studios.

If you’ve followed any of the residual talk which came up as the WGA strike started, there was a lot of discussion about how residuals had dropped due to loopholes in contracts that allowed the studios to “devalue” series and movies when they ran on streaming services as opposed to syndication. There’s a good deal of speculation that the re-branding of HBO to MAX was to allow Warner Bros to get around payments if something was on HBO. Series are suddenly being cancelled and pulled off streaming services, and the speculation is that this is to deny people residuals. The idea seems to be to choke off the income stream in hopes of forcing writers and actors to agree to lesser terms.

AI is the “sexy�� reason for the strikes and certainly not to be sniffed at, what with some idiot executives thinking AI is at a point where they can have any intern push a button and produce a script (it’s not, but the guild needs to get contract terms in place before it reaches that point). Or the studios wanting to pay a background actor for a day’s work, scan their body, and use those digital images in perpetuity without further compensation (something is appears is already happening). But there’s also the residuals issue, which was the big reason behind the first SAG strike in 1960 and was a component of the 1980 strike as well.

Wanna bet that once we get through this one, the next WGA and/or SAG-AFTRA strike will have something to do with residuals as well, because studios will have found new and exciting ways to screw the creatives over?

Tl:dr; Sleazy attempt to cheat, fails.

ETA: For those wondering: no, this has nothing to do with the strike (or I would have tagged it accordingly). And yes, this is not new news. Just your periodic reminder that those previously caught dealing in egregiously bad faith are unlikely to just suddenly stop.

[seanastinhopeunquenchable]

Part 1 of 2: It was so damn much fun to see the taping of an episode of No Good Nick! (P1E6 The Glim Dropper) Afterwards, I got to chat with the cast and prowl around the set a bit!

I had hoped to be able to see another taping this fall. Alas, it’s not to be. 😢

[cheesybadgers]

So, I finally got around to having a read through Narcos: The Art and Making of the Show on my day off today and I know others have shared Javi’s and Steve’s profiles from the book already, so thought I would do Carrillo’s (because I love him, your honour).

I love the parts about how Maurice got the role and also how they came up with his character’s name, plus how the writers had to be careful separating Carrillo and Martinez. Let’s just pretend the fifth page doesn’t exist, though 😭 

I’ve transcribed the text and put it below the cut if anyone would prefer to read it that way.

Profile: Horacio Carrillo

Colombian Army Colonel Carrillo was head of the police’s Search Bloc unit who gradually earned a reputation for ruthlessness all but equal to that of the drug lords he fought, making Carrillo one of the only men the cartels truly feared. But Carrillo’s risk-taking and confrontational tactics ended with his violent death when one of his raids led to an ambush by Pablo Escobar himself, who personally executed Carrillo.

The creation of Carrillo, a memorable but completely fictional character in the series, came about due to the need to incorporate some questionable aspects of the real-life model for the character, Hugo Martinez, into the show. “We wanted Carrillo to be a highly morally-compromised character but one with a certain dignity,” says Chris Brancato. “And, so, at first, to be honest, the model was Martinez, and I even spoke to Martinez on the phone with a translator very briefly. But there were a couple of things going on. We didn’t have his life rights, and a couple of things I wanted the character to do, potentially, not only did Martinez not do those things, it was potentially defamatory in my opinion to call the character Martinez and have him do these things. So Carrillo was a fictional character – José and I were at Sunset Gower Studios walking to a restaurant and I said, “We need a name for this fictional character,” and I literally stepped on a star on the sidewalk that was for Leo Carrillo, a famous film director from the thirties or something, and José said, ‘How about Carrillo? That sounds Colombian.’”

Actor Maurice Compte brought a quiet power to the character that made his death at the hands of Escobar all the more shocking. “I had done a pilot for F/X, the very first year F/X came into being, that unfortunately competed against The Shield and lost, and it was called Dope,” Brancato says. “It was about drug trafficking in Los Angeles and it turned out to be a very good pilot and one of the better scripts I’ve ever written, and F/X couldn’t decide which of the shows to pick up and they went with The Shield, so Dope was the one that got away.

The actor who played the bad guy in Dope was Maurice Compte, so lo and behold we’re looking for someone to play Carrillo and we started off looking for actors of some note in South America. We’re looking at like fifty, fifty-five, sixty-year old guys and we were kind of frustrated because they all felt kind of familiar, and then Eric and I were talking and we thought what if the guy was younger? So Carmen plays the tape of this guy reading very dry and very matter-of-fact and I thought this guy seems familiar, where do I know this guy from? And then I realized it’s the guy from Dope, Maurice. I feel like now with Narcos I’m getting the chance to do this subject matter I really like and the idea that [Maurice] could come back and be part of it is like kismet to me. So he came back and was great.”

Colonel Carrillo killed

Colonel Carrillo was one of the few government or military figures who seemed as ruthless as Escobar and one of the only men seemingly capable of forming a threat to the drug lord. Tragically, in one of the most shocking turns of the season, Carrillo found himself betrayed just as it seemed he was on the cusp of bringing Escobar to heel in ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Dead.’ With Carrillo wounded by Escobar’s men, Escobar revealed a souvenir that Carrillo had sent him as a warning – a bullet, intended for Pablo, sent by a courier to the drug lord: one that Escobar then used to execute the Search Bloc commander.

Producer Jesse Rose Moore said that the death of Carrillo was planned to be completely unexpected. “Bringing him back in season two and then almost immediately killing him off was meant to be shocking,” Moore explained, noting that the character send-off also differentiated Carrillo from Search Bloc commander Hugo Martinez. “Martinez wasn’t throwing people out of helicopters like Carrillo. Murphy always walks a pretty straight line – he’s a cop, he believes in right and wrong, he’s trying to be morally the way he should. Peña is a bit more gray – less black and white, and Carrillo, similarly, you have to do bad things sometimes to take down bad people.” Carrillo represented a level of amorality that was illustrated in degrees with the show’s leads.

[l-ondina-norda-l]

    January 15 th, 1987     Van Nuys, 8:30 p.m.

    Today we were back in the studio, writing for the new album. I rode in on my Harley feeling all jittery and decided to stop for a small fix... Went in Denny’s on Gower and Sunset (always the classy guy!). I didn’t have a spoon, so I bought a bottle of Pepsi, threw the bottle away, kept the cap and went in their bathroom to shoot up. The shitter was disgusting - black rings and shit stains around the bowl and the unclever graffiti all over the walls...     I sat on my motorcycle helmet on the floor and filled the cap with water from the toilet. I dunno why I didn’t fill it from the sink, like any sane person would. I put the bottle cap on the toilet seat in the piss and stains, and poured coke in it. I drew it up in the syringe, washed it out in the shit water, put a little china white in the cap and cooked it, burning my fingers. I had no cottons, so I just drew it up and shot up.     The studio was fine after that... I just felt dead.

    Nikki Sixx, “The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star”.

    I hope we all understand it’s not a lure, but a warning.

[strappedarchives]

Will Smith photographed by Ron Galella during a break while filming “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” at Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood, CA - October 20, 1990

[oldshowbiz]

Gower Champion - David Merrick auditions held at the Allied Artists Studio at 4376 Sunset Drive.

The studio is still there today - owned by Scientology.

[divineofficial]

Weeks after Hairspray was released nationwide, Divine was staying at the Regency Plaza Suites Hotel in Los Angeles. He was scheduled to film a guest appearance the following day as Uncle Otto on the Fox network’s television series Married… with Children in the second season wrap-up episode. After spending all day at Sunset Gower Studios for rehearsals, Divine returned to his hotel that evening, where he dined with friends at the hotel restaurant before returning to his room. Shortly before midnight, he died in his sleep, age 42, of a heart attack. Rest In Peace, Harris Glenn Milstead...DIVINE!

[studiomadonna]

Para el recuerdo:

📌✅ El 28 de Enero de 2⃣0⃣1⃣4⃣, Madonna y Miley Cyrus posaban en el backstage del 'Miley Cyrus: MTV Unplugged' el cual fue grabado en los 'Sunset Gower Studios' de la ciudad de Los Ángeles, California, Estados Unidos. ✅📌

[blueguitar]

March 7, 1988 - LOS ANGELES Weeks after Hairspray was released nationwide, Divine was staying at the Regency Plaza Suites Hotel in Los Angeles. He was scheduled to film a guest appearance the following day as Uncle Otto on the Fox network’s television series Married… with Children in the second season wrap-up episode. After spending all day at Sunset Gower Studios for rehearsals, Divine returned to his hotel that evening, where he dined with friends at the hotel restaurant before returning to his room. Shortly before midnight, he died in his sleep, age 42, of a heart attack. Rest In Peace, Harris Glenn Milstead...DIVINE!

[mojave-pete]

The Monkees Go For A Cruise

This is The Monkees on set for a portrait at Sunset Gower Studios in Los Angeles in 1966. From left to right, we have Mickey Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Davey Jones.

Their TV series dominated a good two years of the late ’60s. We enjoyed watching the show about four young men on their ques to become a famous rock ‘n roll band. In some respects, they’ve succeeded – even though it was for a television show. We all remember “Daydream Believer” and “Last Train to Clarksville.”

Make’s me laugh Junior High and we knew all the songs and sang them all the time! Was the best of times ...