“Tobey Maguire used my bathroom”

Since this is Spidey Week for the Perfessor, he of the Can’t-Get-Enough-Of That-Spidey-Stuff persuasion, I figured I’d add a bit of fun and point to a tale told in the NYPost by Cindy Adams. Cindy tells the tale of someone in Queens sometime in the Fall of 2000 getting a flier shoved under their door.

But it wasn’t just a door stuffing spam message. No, this was Hollywood a’callin’!

Seems “Spider-Man” advancemen had sent a scouting party to pick The House, and hers was against two others around the corner to be chosen as the lead character’s home since, as all Spidophiles know, he’s from Queens.

They chose Annette, who’d been planning a renovation, but the film crew said she couldn’t do zippadeedoodah until their scenes were shot. Reason being, Annette’s was to be MJ’s house and, per script, her parents were alcoholics, so the place had to look run-down. We’re talking garbage, weeds, bottles on the front lawn.

Nice to have a house that’s known as a crappy run-down house filled with alcoholics.

This special-ed teacher in Long Island, whose house was used again in “Spider-Man 2,” had replaced her front door not long before but hadn’t discarded the old one. They rehung the decrepit job on its hinges just for the shoot. For props, they brought stuff from her own mom and grandma, like green leather chairs, pink velvet seats, an upstairs desk, which they lugged to where they wanted, an orange chair that acted as a Dumpster for a backyard scene where Spidey’s grandma, moving out, held a garage sale. Scenery types wanted the kitchen wallpaper stripped but were told, “Only if the same’s available.” Annette accompanied them to a wallpaper store. It was in stock. So she allowed it torn down. They even hacked open a wall to make a temporary kitchen window.

[...]
The house, so far featured in every “Spider-Man” movie, is now hung with wall-to-wall “Spider-Man” decorations. Annette bought 20 tickets when it first screened locally. She made cookies in the shape of the Marvel Comics hero and carried a “Spider-Man” lunchbox as her handbag.[...]

Annette provided food for the cast and crew and let them use her john. Ask what this nice lady most recalls about her historic experience and, puffing with pride, she’ll say: “Tobey Maguire used my bathroom.”
[Cindy Adams, NYPost]