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Selena Quintanilla performs at a 1994 fashion show for her clothing line, sold at her Selena, Etc. boutiques in San Antonio and Corpus Christi.<\/p>\n
1994\u00a9\ufe0fAl Rendon<\/p>\n
A still photo from the \u201cSelena\u201d movie shows how the Terrell Hills location looked during filming. The house on Larchmont Drive stood in for one of similar age and size in Lake Jackson, Texas, where the\u00a0Quintanilla family lived for about 10 years.<\/p>\n
Courtesy Leighton A. Chapman<\/p>\n
Selena performs at the San Antonio Spurs \u201cStay in School Jamboree\u201d in the Alamodome on March 18, 1995. In the \u201cSelena,\u201d movie, fans were invited to pack the\u00a0Alamodome for filming of a scene of the Tejano star performing in the Astrodome on Feb. 26, 1995, as part of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Express-News file photo<\/p>\n
Jennifer Lopez, who played the title character in “Selena,” was in the Astrodome concert scenes filmed at the Alamodome in 1996, where fans of the late Tejano singing star were invited to watch, applaud and take pictures.<\/p>\n
1996\u00a9\ufe0fAl Rendon<\/p>\n
A house in Terrell Hills, built in 1946, stood in for singer Selena Quintanilla\u2019s childhood home in \u201cSelena,\u201d the 1997 movie about her life. This photo was taken before a recent, extensive remodeling. Like Quintanilla\u2019s actual former home in Lake Jackson, it\u2019s a private residence, not open to the public.<\/p>\n
Courtesy Leighton A. Chapman<\/p>\n
The Mayan-like statues that graced Karam\u2019s Mexican Restaurant \u2013 shown here in 1972 with sculptor Antonio Medina \u2013 were featured in the now-closed restaurant\u2019s Mayan Garden. They can be seen in the \u201cSelena\u201d movie, for which Karam\u2019s was one of several San Antonio locations.<\/p>\n
San Antonio Light<\/p>\n
This 1946 plat map of Terrell Heights, Unit 2, shows Larchmont Drive near the top. It was one of the earliest streets developed for the family-friendly suburb.<\/p>\n
Courtesy San Antonio Public Library<\/p>\n
In a June 27 column on Terrell Heights history, reader\u00a0Cara Nichols asked about a house in the North San Antonio neighborhood that portrayed\u00a0Selena Quintanilla’s childhood home in the 1997 \u201cSelena\u201d movie scenes that were filmed here. The Terrell Heights home was used to depict the family’s house in Lake Jackson, Texas.<\/p>\n
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Readers with personal memories of the local shoot wrote to pinpoint the exact house, a one-story,\u00a0midcentury home on Larchmont Drive that was of similar age, size and style to the one the Quintanillas shared before moving in 1982 to Corpus Christi. Quintanilla\u2019s career took off there while she was still a teenager.<\/p>\n
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There were several San Antonio locations used in the film about the breakout Tejano singing star, who was fatally shot March 31, 1995, by a former employee.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 15, 1996, the Alamodome was used as a stand-in for the Astrodome, where Selena\u2019s fans were invited to play an enthusiastic crowd in scenes of her Feb. 26, 1995, performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want people who will be excited and cheering just like that day,” director Gregory Nava \u2013 recently honored at the San Antonio Film Festival \u2013 told the Express-News, Sept. 13, 1996. \u201cWe want to see lots of flashing cameras.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karam\u2019s Mexican Restaurant at 121 N. Zarzamora St., which closed in 2019, was used to portray Papagayo\u2019s, Selena\u2019s father\u2019s restaurant in Lake Jackson, where Selena y Los Dinos, the Quintanilla family band, first performed in public.<\/p>\n
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A River Walk bridge, the former Sunset Station (now the Espee), the Bun \u2018n\u2019 Barrel drive-in and other San Antonio landmarks also were featured, but the Terrell Heights location was special in that it portrayed the singer\u2019s childhood home in multiple scenes and involved people who lived in the neighborhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Terrell Heights house in the 100 block of Larchmont Drive was reasonably close in spirit to the Quintanilla house in Lake Jackson. According to real-estate listings, their one-story home in the 100 block of Caladium Street was built in 1953 and measured 1,510 square feet of living space. Its one-story filmed counterpart in the 100 block of Larchmont Drive, according to Bexar County Appraisal District records, was built in 1946 and had a little more than 1,460 square feet of original living space.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe scouted that neighborhood extensively for this particular home location,\u201d said Leighton A. Chapman, who was assistant location manager for \u201cSelena\u201d and served as San Antonio\u2019s film commissioner from 2001 to 2003. He knows the neighborhood well, having lived for eight years in the Tanglewood Apartments on Brees Boulevard, where he had \u201ca direct view of the stained-glass window at the (Sunset Ridge) Church.\u201d<\/p>\n