Celebrity Status: Critical

The California Pacific Medical Center tends to bring out the big names for its fund-raisers -- not surprisingly since it’s a big hospital in posh Presidio Heights. But last year, when its backers wanted a San Franciscan with marquee value to put on the dais, they were star-crossed.

Robin Williams was booked. Ditto for Huey Lewis. Ashley Judd, whose godmother is local, couldn’t commit beyond lending her name as an absent-but-honorary co-chair. Someone mentioned Bonnie Raitt up in Marin, but then someone else mentioned the hundreds of requests she gets to appear for area charities each year.

Not even a society page plea managed to summon a headliner with a local connection. “Isn’t there a celebrity out there who’s comfortable with doctors and willing to step up to the plate for a medical cause?” implored the San Francisco Chronicle’s society columnist. “And if not, couldn’t they just fake it ... ?”

The answer came like the sound of one hand clapping.

“We ended up getting this 10-year-old girl with a beautiful voice,” said event co-chairwoman Carol Bonnie, adding that “at the end of the day, she was perfect.” As was the selection she sang at the end of the luncheon -- “When You Wish Upon a Star.”

There are parts of California where you can’t swing a paparazzo without hitting someone famous. The Bay Area is not one of them.

Not that big names are exactly absent -- George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Danielle Steel, Amy Tan, Neil Young, Sammy Hagar, Sean and Robin Wright Penn, Sharon Stone, Boz Scaggs, Joe Montana, Lewis, Raitt, Williams and others live here (not to mention Mayors Willie and Jerry Brown, whom some view as celebrities in their own right).

But the A-list is short by Los Angeles and New York standards, and in recent years, it has become shorter. Don Johnson, here for seven years, left after the 2001 cancellation of “Nash Bridges.” So did Cheech Marin, his co-star. Chris Columbus, the director, moved to London to make “Harry Potter” movies. Danny Glover, once a local fixture, has relocated to Portland. Herb Caen and Jerry Garcia (despite claims that their spirits linger) are gone.

The result in this tech-busted region has been a sea of good causes with too few brand names to endorse them. Or, as Marin joked, speaking from Malibu by cell phone, “Robin Williams can only make it to so many openings.”

Hard Times for Charities

“I’m constantly having to say to our clients, ‘You don’t understand,’ ” said San Francisco event planner Peter Poulos. “ ‘At this very moment, a thousand meetings are going on here where people are mentioning the exact same names you want.’ ”

Early in her marriage to Chronicle Executive Editor Phil Bronstein, Sharon Stone, for example, was perhaps the most sought-after celebrity auctioneer in the Bay Area. Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir says that if he said yes to all the local nonprofits that ask for his involvement, “I’d never eat and never sleep, and I’d get around to half of them, maybe.” Williams appeared twice in six days at fund-raisers during the first week of February (for the Napa Valley Symphony and Farm Aid). And benefit season in San Francisco doesn’t kick off until next month.

“Yeah, it’s like triage,” joked Williams, who has lived in the Bay Area, on and off, since he was 16. “It’s like you’re in these benefit SWAT teams. There’s something every night. Is it gonna be ‘Save the Shrimp’ or ‘A Toupee Is a Terrible Thing to Waste’? And then there are the real issues, health care and women’s rights and things that really are being assaulted.

“Of course, they’re not like in L.A., where they have the big fund-raisers at Barbra’s. No, here, it’s, ‘Well, we’re having a rally and a fund-raiser, a lovely small thing in the Berkeley Hills, won’t you please come join us? Don’t bring your car.’ ”

The push for an edge -- any edge -- in civic and charitable fund-raising has intensified around the nation as the economy has contracted and charitable giving has plunged. One of the most reliable, everybody-comes-out-a-winner gimmicks is the celebrity host or emcee. The big name attracts publicity and donors, and the star, in turn, gets the chance to promote a favorite cause, do some networking and gain good press.

In the first week of February alone, for instance, L.A.’s civic-minded could have rocked out with the Rolling Stones at a Natural Resources Defense Council benefit, posed with Leonard Nimoy at a MOCA gala, checked out Pennywise at a punk-rock fund-raiser for a victim of the Bali bombing or hung with Bruce Willis and David Duchovny at a film critic’s book launch. But event planners say that, even where show business people are plentiful, they’re hard to pin down. “Plenty of times, only the right person can get the right person,” said Leslee Tarlov, who coordinates 20 to 30 benefits a year in Southen California.

Still, the tactic remains a favorite in tough times because such wattage can make all the difference.

“It’s a shame because celebrities are not necessarily better people -- they just have a higher profile -- but if I’m doing an event and I need a draw, their attendance does make a difference,” said Sally Jackson, who has done public relations in Boston for three decades. The challenge, she added, is scoring a big-name guest in a city with only so many big names.

“Ten years ago, when ‘Spenser: For Hire’ was being shot here, the late Robert Urich was really the only movie star we had living in Boston, and every charity in the city descended on him. He was just inundated. After he left, I read an interview with him where he said he just hated Boston because nobody would ever leave him alone -- alas, poor Urich. Now, it’s sports celebrities, and the Aerosmith guys when they’re around -- even the local news anchors are a big deal here.”

A Different Stardom

Celebrity wrangling is especially tricky in the Bay Area, which tends to define itself in opposition to big, swanky, glitzy L.A. Fiercely democratic, it is also irrepressibly dishy.

Admiring of L.A.’s star-studded landscape, it nonetheless disapproves of Hollywood’s reputation for phoniness and social climbing. Urban yet intimate, it insists upon social engagement. Fans in the Bay Area don’t just want their stars to be glamorous -- they must also be authentic, courteous, civic-minded and humble. And even at that, the standard response to resident stars is to assiduously treat them like any neighbor.

“Here, it’s like you’re a Buddhist celebrity -- you are, but you’re not,” Williams said laughing.

When Neil Young was curt with the Chronicle’s Scott Ostler during a practice round at the recent AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, (“I don’t mean to blow you off, man, but I’m focusing on this,” Young reportedly told the sportswriter), the ensuing column mercilessly -- and hilariously -- ribbed the rocker for taking his golf too seriously.

When the Zuni Cafe asked local author Ethan Canin and his guests -- actor Chad Lowe and producer Mark Burton -- to vacate their table at the behest of an elderly regular who usually sat there, the incident surfaced in the local gossip columns within days.

This month, when the San Francisco Ballet opened its season, board member Kathleen Scutchfield brought her L.A. friend, Kirstie Alley, to opening night, supplying the event’s sole celebrity sighting. “Only one or two people asked for an autograph,” said Scutchfield, “although the press was sort of hip-checking people out of the way.”

“It’s interesting,” said Don Johnson, who during his “Nash Bridges” stint was the toast of the town for marrying a local society woman, then the talk of the town when a sushi bar patron sued him, claiming he’d groped her. “On one hand, you’re bringing in this huge boost to the municipal economy, and on the other, people feel like you’re sort of taking advantage of their city.”

Johnson’s response was to be as available as possible for civic causes -- a policy that, according to one event planner, meant that Johnson “was everywhere for years in the city.” The actor, who now lives in Beverly Hills and Aspen, Colo., said the civil suit has “gone away.”

Marin, who lived in San Francisco’s Seacliff neighborhood during his stint on “Nash Bridges,” said fans were “really cool and really respectful” of his privacy with one exception: Halloween night.

“We lived in this magic triangle between me and Sharon Stone and Robin Williams’ house,” he remembered, laughing, “and you couldn’t believe the crowds of trick-or-treaters. They were busing ‘em in from, like, Vallejo, I think.”

Many entertainers who live here find the Bay Area’s take on celebrity to be part of its attraction. “In L.A., you’re surrounded by the business,” said Williams. “People on the street know your grosses. Here, the end doesn’t justify the media, and it’s like they used to say about Switzerland and the bomb, that when they drop the big one the Swiss will be the only ones saying, ‘Vaht’s that noise?’ Show business here is a distant rumble. People are so diverse in their lifestyle here that you’re just sort of a strange accessory.”

A valued accessory, however, and one worth accommodating, at least when it comes to philanthropic involvement. Volunteers and event planners say the area’s stars have asked for -- and gotten -- everything from rearranged speaking schedules to concrete barriers against hordes that failed to appear.

One Bay Area celeb is so notoriously high maintenance that, when her name was mentioned, two high profile charity workers paused meaningfully for a long moment, clearly tempted to complain about her, only to murmur tersely “no comment.” A third elaborated, then anxiously took it back, saying she didn’t want to hurt her organization.

Other VIP requests merely reflect the quirkiness of their home city. When the author Amy Tan makes appearances, for instance, she likes to bring her dogs with her. When the publicity-shy Tracy Chapman, another local, was asked to sing at a benefit for the American Foundation for AIDS Research, she agreed, but asked that the invitation not include her name.

The difficulties inherent in working around show business schedules can also be daunting, to the point that some charities forgo big-name entertainers in favor of local characters. It’s a category that the Bay Area has cultivated since its Herb Caen days, from hostesses (Charlotte Mailliard Shultz, wife of former Secretary of State George P. Shultz) to bar owners (the Starlight Room’s Harry Denton, the Tosca Cafe’s Jeannette Etheredge) to impresarios (event designer Stanlee Gatti) to people who just sort of know people (author-socialite Pat Montandon). Poulos said he often advises local charities to draw from the ranks of the almost-famous.

“Oh, I’m recognized on the street,” laughed Jo Schuman Silver, producer of “Beach Blanket Babylon,” the long-running signature musical review. “It’s a big thrill. It’s kind of like being in high school, too.”

How to Get Williams

Still, sometimes only a top banana will do. When the Napa Valley Symphony, facing a severe cash crunch, went after Williams for this month’s benefit auction, they started their campaign last spring. “First, we wrote him a funny letter, way back in May or June,” said special events coordinator Lissa Ferreira. When Williams’ wife responded that the couple had laughed but were booked on that date, Ferreira said, the response clinched a nascent plan to change the date of the fund-raiser.

“So we wrote another letter and said, ‘OK, we’re changing the date, can he do it?’ And we didn’t get a response, so we wrote yet another funny letter,” she said.

Finally, in November, after much checking of schedules, Williams’ wife confirmed the appearance. And indeed, there he was on the night of the auction: their fellow Northern Californian -- a short man in a dark suit with a shtick known round the world.

“Isn’t he great?” Ferreira beamed as the comedian cracked jokes with a crowd of winemakers, a can of Coke in one hand and a complimentary gift bag in the other. (“Bwana!” Williams called out to a popular wine storage merchant who had arrived in a leopard-print sports coat.)

The event would beat its fund-raising goal by more than $50,000. “Our first big celebrity,” Ferreira smilingly said.