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Tuesday February 11th 2025

Million Dollar Baby | 2004

Million Dollar Baby film location: On The Waterfront Cafe, 205 Ocean Front Walk, Venice Beach, Los Angeles
Million Dollar Baby film location: Maggie works at the On The Waterfront Cafe, 205 Ocean Front Walk, Venice Beach, Los Angeles

Discover the film locations for Million Dollar Baby, around Los Angeles – some remaining, some gone – in Venice, Hollywood and Downtown.


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 film location: Church of St Mark, 940 Coeur d'Alene Avenue, Venice, Los Angeles
Million Dollar Baby film 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 film location: Shelly Cafe, 7013 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, Los Angeles
Million Dollar Baby film location: the diner: Shelly Cafe – now gone – 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, but Hollywood continues to lose its individual character. The long-standing, unpretentious eaterie opposite the venerable Roosevelt Hotel, has now closed and the premises has become part of Marshall's department store.

Million Dollar Baby film location: Grand Olympic Auditorium, 1801 South Grand Avenue, downtown Los Angeles
Million Dollar Baby film location: fight scenes: Grand Olympic Auditorium, 1801 South Grand Avenue, downtown Los Angeles

And, sadly, another piece of LA history has been lost downtown. Fight scenes were filmed in what was the Grand Olympic Auditorium, 1801 South Grand Avenue at Olympic Boulevard, downtown Los Angeles. Opened in 1925, the Grand Olympic was home to some of the biggest boxing, wrestling and roller derby events until the 1950s, and became a major wrestling venue until the 1970s. It's inevitably hosted countless boxing pictures, including both Raging Bull and Rocky itself as well as being the wrestling arena in Tim Burton's Ed Wood. The Auditorium ceased holding fights in the 1980s but lived on as a music/rave venue. In 2005, it was bought by a Korean-American Christian church and is now the Glory Church of Jesus Christ.

Million Dollar Baby film location: the Hollywood Athletic Club, 6525 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, Los Angeles
Million Dollar Baby film location: the ‘River Thames Boxing Association’: the Hollywood Athletic Club, 6525 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, Los Angeles

The ‘English’ bout, at the ‘River Thames Boxing Association’, is still 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 The Blues Brothers, sci-fi spoof Galaxy Quest and John Schlesinger's apocalyptic Hollywood satire Day of the Locust and in The Blues Brothers.