When my roommate graduated from college, his dad booked him a suite at a very expensive hotel where he could celebrate with his friends. None of us really knew the name of the hotel, but we all knew what was filmed there. “The party is in the hotel where they filmed Pretty Woman!” was pretty much all that was needed to round up a good crowd.
Hotels are often as much a part of a film as the actors themselves. In fact, many hotels feature so prominently in Hollywood blockbusters that they’ve actually become more famous than the movie which featured it. Take, for example, the Bates Motel. This one isn’t real, but man, do those two words evoke a rather visceral response from anyone who has seen Psycho.
The concept of hotels as movie stars is the recent topic of a USAToday article by Barbara de Lollis who explores some of the more notorious big screen favorites and the location of their real life counterparts–such as the Park Hyatt Hotel in Tokyo, star of Lost in Translation.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the Pretty Woman hotel is actually the Regent Beverly Wilshire in Los Angeles. And yes, it was a very nice party indeed.