Million Dollar Baby, 2004
Director
Cast
visit the film locations
Los Angeles: Flights: Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
On The Waterfront Cafe, 205 Ocean Front Walk, at Ozone Avenue, Venice Beach (tel: 310.392.0322)
Shelly Cafe, 7013 Hollywood Boulevard at North Orange Drive (tel: 323.467.2233)
Grand Olympic Auditorium, 1801 South Grand Avenue at Olympic Boulevard (tel: 213.749.5171), downtown
Trivia
The Grand Olympic Auditorium is a staple of boxing and wrestling movies. Apart from classics such as Rocky and Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull, it was the wrestling venue in Man on the Moon, with Jim Carrey, and Tim Burton's Ed Wood.
Million Dollar Baby location: Maggie works at the On The Waterfront Cafe, 205 Ocean Front Walk, Venice Beach, Los Angeles
What begins as a female Rocky, develops into something deeper. Clint Eastwood’s Oscar magnet was filmed almost entirely around Los Angeles, where aspiring boxer Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) originally waits tables at the On The Waterfront Cafe, 205 Ocean Front Walk, at Ozone Avenue, Venice Beach.
Million Dollar Baby location: Frankie winds up the priest: Church of St Mark, 940 Coeur d'Alene Avenue, Venice, Los Angeles
Also in Venice is the Church of St Mark, 940 Coeur d’Alene Avenue, where Frankie enjoys winding up the priest but ultimately goes for guidance. ‘The Hit Pit’, the gym of grizzled veteran Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) was constructed by 89-year-old veteran production designer Henry Bumstead in a warehouse downtown Los Angeles.
Million Dollar Baby location: the diner: Shelly Cafe, 7013 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, Los Angeles
Over in Hollywood, Frankie later visits Maggie when she's working at Shelly Cafe, 7013 Hollywood Boulevard at North Orange Drive, a long-standing eaterie opposite the venerable Roosevelt Hotel.
Million Dollar Baby location: fight scenes: Grand Olympic Auditorium, 1801 South Grand Avenue, downtown Los Angeles
Fight scenes filmed, naturally, in the Grand Olympic Auditorium, 1801 South Grand Avenue at Olympic Boulevard, downtown Los Angeles, which has hosted countless boxing pictures, including both Raging Bull and Rocky itself.
Million Dollar Baby location: the ‘River Thames Boxing Association’: the Hollywood Athletic Club, 6525 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, Los Angeles
Even the ‘English’ bout, at the ‘River Thames Boxing Association’, is Los Angeles, It's the Hollywood Athletic Club, 6525 Hollywood Boulevard, the same building in which the gang meet the mysterious Mr Kobayashi in The Usual Suspects). And the fateful fight in the ‘Las Vegas Arena’ is the Hollywood Palladium, 6215 Sunset Boulevard, previously seen in John Schlesinger's apocalyptic Hollywood satire Day of the Locust and in The Blues Brothers.
