Derek Waters on a Western set of Drunk History.
Courtesy of Comedy Central.
The Bachelor mansion is burning. The Woolsey wildfire ripping throughout Southern California has reached the Agoura Hills house that has been used as a backdrop for the ABC series’ The Bachelor and The Bachelorette since 2007. Mike Fleiss, the creator of the franchise, tweeted early on Friday asking his followers, “Pray for Malibu—and #TheBachelor Mansion. . . .”
Later in the day, sources told The Hollywood Reporter that the back patio was burning, the lower house (which is often used as production headquarters) had been destroyed, and the flames were headed toward the main house. The show was not shooting there at the time.
The raging fires also decimated the historic Western Town at Paramount Ranch in Los Angeles’s Agoura Hills neighborhood on Friday, a set recently used by the HBO drama Westworld to shoot its Main Street scenes. Over the last eight decades, Western Town has been a backdrop for such movies and TV shows as The Cisco Kid, Sutter’s Gold, and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. The latter shot at the ranch from 1992 to 1997. A CBS Los Angeles reporter posted images of the devastation, which show the iconic Westworld church still standing amid the smoking wreckage.
“Westworld is not currently in production, and as the area has been evacuated, we do not yet know the extent of the damage to any structures remaining there,” HBO said in a statement. “Most importantly, our thoughts go out to all those affected by these horrible fires.”
The Comedy Central series Drunk History halted filming at King Gillette Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains due to the fire, after consulting with emergency services, Vanity Fair has confirmed. The cast and crew are safe, and production is expected to resume Monday at a different location, as was previously planned. The series’s co-creator, Derek Waters, posted on Instagram: “First time I’ve ever pulled the plug on shooting Drunk History. I love my job, but I love my crew more. This ain’t funny.”
The fires that rip through Southern California regularly endanger TV and film production, and Westworld’s other main shooting location, Melody Ranch in Santa Clarita—also the setting for the original Deadwood series, as well as its forthcoming movie version—has been the frequent victim of fires. Less than a year ago, Westworld had to stop shooting at Melody Ranch over concern about nearby wildfires. During its original run, Deadwood production was disrupted by conflagrations several times, and the wooden buildings on the set had to be rebuilt—which is somewhat ironic considering the historic town of Deadwood, on which the show was based, was itself engulfed in a massive fire in 1879 that forced townspeople to rebuild with sturdier fire-proof materials.
Westworld has frequently had to halt production due to Southern California wildfires that raged near its Western sets.
As for Paramount Ranch’s decimated Western Town, it had been in production since 1927, when Paramount Pictures purchased 2,700 acres of the old Rancho Las Virgenes, and the site became a stomping ground for the film industry. It is currently owned by the National Park Service, which tweeted the news that the Woolsey Fire had burned Western Town: “We do not have any details or photos, but it is our understanding that the structures have burned. This area is an active part of the incident and we cannot access it.”
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Credit:Vanity Fair
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