A Kimmelesque retrospective:
Mae Brunken's Beachwood Canyon home
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
By Debra Prinzing
Mae Brunken wanted a home with a past. The interior designer and set decorator ultimately found her period piece high in the hills of Hollywood: a 1927 Spanish Colonial Revival that starred as the home of Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) in Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity."
Then:
Paramount Pictures)
In the film, the romantically linked Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck) and Walter Neff (MacMurray), left, plot to kill Dietrichson’s husband (Tom Powers), right. Photographed 55 years ago, the foyer looks much the same then as
Now:
Mae Brunken's Beachwood Canyon home
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
A black-and-white still photograph from the 1944 film was hanging in the house when Brunken first visited it in 2000. Stanwyck and co-star Fred MacMurray stand in the foyer near the curved staircase with iron scrollwork, terra cotta steps and Monterey tile risers. Little had changed inside the room since Paramount Pictures took the photo, and though the film connection wasn’t the only reason Brunken purchased the 3,200-square-foot house, “I asked for the photo to be part of the sale, she says.
Mae Brunken's Beachwood Canyon home
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
At the time, most films were shot on the studio back lots. I could not believe until I went inside - and then went back to the film - that they actually copied the interior of the home exactly,- says Brunken's friend, Thomas Boghossian, a retired California Institute of the Arts film historian.
der Brucer
Isn't Boghossian one of BK's pals?
