One of the opening revelations in the new annotated version of The Big Sleep is a head-twister.

The annotators note that the “Sternwood” mansion may have likely been inspired by the real life “Greystone” mansion in the same neighborhood, built by an oil millionaire Raymond Chandler may have known during his oil executive days.

They then point out this bizarre factoid: the Greystone mansion was featured in The Big Lebowski, as The Big Lebowski’s mansion. So, the real life mansion inspired the fictional mansion in Chandler’s novel and in the (above) film, which in turn inspires the parody/homage which uses the real life mansion.

[Inspired by Lebowski, Chandler, and the Los Angeles I’ve come to know today, I wrote a screenplay last year with my own take on the themes. I intend to turn it into a novel soon too…]

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Photo by skeeze (Pixabay)