Entertainment
Eames House and other L.A. cultural gems threatened by fire: status updates
Despite rumors that the historic Eames House burned in the wildfire raging in Pacific Palisades, The Times has confirmed that this gem of midcentury design — one of Los Angeles’ most important architectural landmarks — remains undamaged. Some of Los Angeles’ treasured cultural institutions and historic architecture are at risk, however, as fires spread in the Palisades, Altadena, Pasadena, Sylmar, Topanga and points beyond. Here is the status of cultural destinations near the fires; check back for our updates as the emergency continues to unfold.
The Getty Villa: J. Paul Getty Trust President and Chief Executive Katherine E. Fleming said Wednesday that the Getty Villa in the Palisades was still safe. Trees and vegetation caught fire Tuesday, but the staff and collection of antiquities were safe. The Villa will be closed until early next week and perhaps longer. Fleming said the Getty Center in Brentwood would remain closed through at least Sunday in an effort to alleviate traffic in the area.
Will Greer Theatricum Botanicum: The beloved open-air Topanga theater — known for its annual Shakespeare-under-the-stars performances — is under a mandatory evacuation order. A representative said that the complex was safe for now but it’s “a waiting game.”
Thomas Mann House and Villa Aurora: A statement on the website for Villa Aurora and the Thomas Mann house noted that both structures were safe but “the impact of the fires on our two houses will only become fully visible in the coming days. The situation in immediate vicinity of Villa Aurora is especially dire and we must expect the worst.” The Spanish-style Villa Aurora mansion was built in 1943 for the German author Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife, Marta, and was the site of gatherings for German and Jewish immigrants during World War II. It has been an artists’ residence since 1995. The Thomas Mann House is a two-story villa completed in 1942 for writer and Nobel Prize laureate Mann and his family. They lived in the residence from 1942 through 1952, during Mann’s exile from Germany. The house offers residency programs for visiting fellows.
Theatre Palisades: The theater, founded in 1963 by three TV writers, appeared in news reports to have been largely destroyed in the wildfire. The organization’s website said that all operations at its 125-seat community theater are suspended until further notice.
The Gamble House: The historic Craftsman home built in Pasadena in 1906 for Procter & Gamble founder James Gamble’s son David B. Gamble, is part of a Level 2 evacuation warning for the Eaton fire, meaning a mandatory evacuation could come but hasn’t yet.
Descanso Gardens: The 125-acre historic La Cañada Flintridge property filled with winding pathways and lush landscapes including a Japanese garden and an oak forest, is in the evacuation zone for the Eaton fire. But a Descanso representative said Wednesday that the grounds were safe and out of immediate danger. The gardens will remain closed until further notice.
Norton Simon Museum: The museum, which has more than 44,000 objects in its collection including European sculptures, paintings and tapestries as well as Asian art and woodblock prints, sits just outside of the Level 2 evacuation warning for the Eaton fire. A representative said that the museum is safe and that security and facilities staff members are on-site and in close contact with Pasadena emergency teams. “Our grounds are kept clear of brush and our building is constructed with fire resistant materials,” the museum said.
Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens: Nestled in the flatlands of San Marino, away from the hills of Pasadena and Altadena, the Huntington and its historic buildings, priceless books and gorgeous gardens are not close to evacuation zones. The museum, however, will be closed Wednesday due to the threats from high wind. In an email, a rep said that the Huntington lost a few trees due to the high winds, but so far has sustained only minor damages to the property from falling debris. “While we are currently outside the range of active fires, our buildings are equipped with features designed to enhance the safety of our art and library collections. Our HVAC systems continue to maintain safe collection storage environments, including the filtering of outside air,” the rep wrote.
Los Angeles Arboretum and Botanic Garden: The 127-acre complex is south of the 210 Freeway, below the mandatory evacuation zones. It was closed Tuesday and remains closed Wednesday due to the fires but does not appear to be in imminent danger.
Eames House: The historic 1949 home — formally known as Case Study House No. 8 — has been unharmed by the wildfires so far. Eames Foundation founder Lucia Atwood, granddaughter of legendary designer Charles Eames, confirmed the house’s states as of noon Wednesday. “Windblown fires continue to claim other homes in the community and bring the fires nearer,” she said by email. “We are closely monitoring the situation and the Eames Foundation has taken every precaution to protect the site.” The foundation’s team removed some objects from the house on Tuesday before evacuating the building themselves.
In 2008, when The Times assembled a panel of residential architecture experts to choose their favorite L.A. houses of all time, the Eames House finished No. 4, ahead of other landmarks such as John Lautner’s space-age Chemosphere, Greene & Greene’s beloved Gamble House in Pasadena and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House. The accompanying photo gallery beautifully captured the eclectic bohemian modern vibe that continues to inspire generations of design fans.
The house has faced fire threats before, most notably the 2019 Getty fire, whose mandatory evacuation area included the Eames property.
Movie Reviews
Movie Review – SHAKA: A STORY OF ALOHA
Entertainment
Tommy Lee Jones’ daughter reportedly found dead at San Francisco hotel on New Year’s Day
Victoria Jones, the daughter of Academy Award-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones, was reportedly found dead at a hotel in San Francisco on New Year’s Day. She was 34.
According to TMZ, the San Francisco Fire Department responded to a medical emergency call at the Fairmont San Francisco early Thursday morning. The paramedics pronounced Victoria dead at the scene before turning it over to the San Francisco Police Department for further investigation, the outlet said.
An SFPD representative confirmed to The Times that officers responded to a call at approximately 3:14 a.m. Thursday regarding a report of a deceased person at the hotel and that they met with medics at the scene who declared an unnamed adult female dead.
Citing law enforcement sources, NBC Bay Area also reported that the deceased woman found in a hallway of the hotel was believed to be Jones and that police did not suspect foul play.
“We are deeply saddened by an incident that occurred at the hotel on January 1, 2026,” the Fairmont told NBC Bay Area in a statement. “Our heartfelt condolences are with the family and loved ones during this very difficult time. The hotel team is actively cooperating and supporting police authorities within the framework of the ongoing investigation.”
The medical examiner conducted an investigation at the scene, but Jones’ cause of death remains undetermined. Dispatch audio obtained by TMZ and People indicated that the 911 emergency call was for a suspected drug overdose.
Jones was the daughter of Tommy Lee and ex-wife Kimberlea Cloughley. Her brief acting career included roles on films such as “Men in Black II” (2002), which starred her father, and “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” (2005), which was directed by her father. She also appeared in a 2005 episode of “One Tree Hill.”
Page Six reported that Jones had been arrested at least twice in 2025 in Napa County, including an arrest on suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance and drug possession.
Movie Reviews
Movie Review: “I Was a Stranger” and You Welcomed Me
Just when you think that you’ve seen and heard all sides of the human migration debate, and long after you fear that the cruel, the ignorant and the scapegoaters have won that shouting match, a film comes along and defies ignorance and prejudice by both embracing and upending the conventional “immigrant” narrative.
“I Was a Strranger” is the first great film of 2026. It’s cleverly written, carefully crafted and beautifully-acted with characters who humanize many facets of the “migration” and “illegal immigration” debate. The debut feature of writer-director Brandt Andersen, “Stranger” is emotional and logical, blunt and heroic. It challenges viewers to rethink their preconceptions and prejudices and the very definition of “heroic.”
The fact that this film — which takes its title from the Book of Matthew, chapter 25, verse 35 — is from the same faith-based film distributor that made millions by feeding the discredited human trafficking wish fulfillment fantasy “Sound of Freedom” to an eager conservative Christian audience makes this film something of a minor miracle in its own right.
But as Angel Studios has also urged churchgoers not just to animated Nativity stories (“The King of Kings”) and “David” musicals, but Christian resistence to fascism (“Truth & Treason” and “Bonheoffer”) , their atonement is almost complete.
Andersen deftly weaves five compact but saga-sized stories about immigrants escaping from civil-war-torn Syria into a sort of interwoven, overlapping “Babel” or “Crash” about migration.
“The Doctor” is about a Chicago hospital employee (Yasmine Al Massri of “Palestine 36” and TV’s “Quantico”) whose flashback takes us to the hospital in Aleppo, Syria, bombed and terrorized by the Assad regime’s forces, and what she and her tween daughter (Massa Daoud) went through to escape — from literally crawling out of a bombed building to dodging death at the border to the harrowing small boat voyage from Turkey to Greece.
“The Soldier” follows loyal Assad trooper Mustafa (Yahya Mahayni was John the Baptist in Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints”) through his murderous work in Aleppo, and the crisis of conscience that finally hits him as he sees the cruel and repressive regime he works for at its most desperate.
“The Smuggler” is Marwan, a refugee-camp savvy African — played by the terrific French actor Omar Sy of “The Intouchables” and “The Book of Clarence” — who cynically makes his money buying disposable inflatable boats, disposable outboards and not-enough-life-jackets in Turkey to smuggle refugees to Greece.
“The Poet” (Ziad Bakri of “Screwdriver”) just wants to get his Syrian family of five out of Turkey and into Europe on Marwan’s boat.
And “The Captain” (Constantine Markoulakis of “The Telemachy”) commands a Hellenic Coast Guard vessel, a man haunted by the harrowing rescues he must carry out daily and visions of the bodies of those he doesn’t.
Andersen, a Tampa native who made his mark producing Tom Cruise spectacles (“American Made”), Mel Gibson B-movies (“Panama”) and the occasional “Everest” blockbuster, expands his short film “Refugee” to feature length for “I Was a Stranger.” He doesn’t so much alter the formula or reinvent this genre of film as find points of view that we seldom see that force us to reconsider what we believe through their eyes.
Sy’s Smuggler has a sickly little boy that he longs to take to Chicago. He runs his ill-gotten-gains operation, profiting off human misery, to realize that dream. We see glimpses of what might be compassion, but also bullying “customers” and his new North African assistant (Ayman Samman). Keeping up the hard front he shows one and all, we see him callously buy life jackets in the bazaar — never enough for every customer to have one in any given voyage.
The Captain sits for dinner with family and friends and has to listen to Greek prejudices and complaints about this human life and human rights crisis, which is how the worlds sees Greece reacting to this “invasion.” But as he and his first mate recount lives saved and the horrors of lives lost, that quibbling is silenced.
Here and there we see and hear (in Arabic and Greek with subtitles, and English) little moments of “rising above” human pettiness and cruelty and the simple blessings of kindness.
“I Was a Stranger” was finished in 2024 and arrives in cinemas at one of the bleakest moments in recent history. Cruelty is running amok, unchecked and unpunished. Countries are being destabilized, with the fans of alleged “strong man” rule cheering it on.
Andersen carefully avoids politics — Middle Eastern, Israeli, European and American — save for the opening scene’s zoom in on that Chicago hospital, passing a gaudily named “Trump” hotel in the process, and a general condemnation of Syria’s Assad mob family regime.
But Andersen’s bold movie, with its message so against the grain of current events, compromised media coverage and the mostly conservative audience that has become this film distributor’s base, plays like a wet slap back to reality.
And as any revival preacher will tell you, putting a positive message out there in front of millions is the only way to convert hundreds among the millions who have lost their way.

Rating: PG-13, violence, smoking, racial slurs
Cast: Yasmine Al Massri, Yahya Mahayni, Ziad Bakri, Omar Sy, Ayman Samman, Massa Daoud, Jason Beghe and Constantine Markoulakis
Credits: Scripted and directed by Brandt Andersen. An Angel Studios release.
Running time: 1:43
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