This international model turned actress
grew up in the San Francisco area. Here she guides us to her
hometown's hot spots, from dive bars and diners to museums
and music venues.
ve always been keenly aware that I grew up in a very magical
place," says Rebecca Romijn-Stamos of her roots in
California's Bay
Area. Her early life seems to have been a storybook existence. Dad
is a Dutch-born San Francisco street artist turned toymaker turned
furniture designer;
Mom is an English teacher. And Rebecca attended
Berkeley High School, where her nickname was Jolly Blonde Giant.
But when she entered the
University of California in nearby Santa
Cruz, she was left feeling that there had to be … more. "I used to
sit in my dorm room thinking, 'I just know I'm missing out on
something.'" Through a friend's connections, she hooked up with a
modeling agency and was on her way to
Paris, where she became an
internationally known model. In 1994, she met her future husband,
actor John Stamos, at a fashion show. Their first date was at
Disneyland. Now, having made numerous TV appearances and starring
in movies like
X-Men, she's back this month in Rollerball, a remake
of the 1975 sci-fi film. Here's a weekend with the beauty in the
beautiful Bay Area.
FRIDAY
Lodging
"The famous hotel in San Francisco is the Westin St. Francis, but
the cool one now is The Clift, which is where I'd stay if I were a
tourist. It's a Philippe Starck design, and I'm a big fan of his. I
also love The Clairmont in Berkeley. It's sort of settled into the
hills right on the border of Berkeley and
Oakland. It's a
beautiful, beautiful, beautiful old hotel. Very traditional and
grand and gorgeous. Several presidents have stayed there. It has an
amazing spa with
massages and facials and a gym with trainers. I
used to go up there in the summertime. You would feel like you were
on a tropical island somewhere."