FANS OF ALL STRIPES KEEP STAR VIGIL

Chaka Khan came through the front door.

Prince came in through the back.

And on both sides of Shrine Auditorium on Tuesday afternoon--at both the Jefferson Boulevard and 32nd Street entrances to the aging mosque-like structure--fans scaled the chain-link fences and clambered up the retaining walls hours before the scheduled first award of a golden gramophone was handed out in the 27th annual Grammy Awards ceremony.

Fans with blue hair, sequined chests, gold-lame pantsuits and safety pins hanging defiantly from virtually every visible orifice. Fans in fright wigs and leather, corsets and chains.

But also student fans and housewife fans. Middle-aged chain-smoker fans with indelible bags beneath their eyes and lanolin-cheeked child fans who ditched school for a day to see Tina Turner or Bruce Springsteen . . . in the flesh.

By 4 p.m., about 500 fans jammed the sidewalk across the street from the main entrance to the auditorium and shouted down the few dissenters in their midst.

About a dozen anti-apartheid demonstrators denounced the Grammys for allowing entertainers who had been to South Africa--including Dolly Parton, Julio Iglesias and Pia Zadora--through the Shrine doors. One lone protester lumped together “atheists, liberals, agnostics, socialists, unbelievers, homos, communists and adulators and musician idolaters” for patronizing the awards ceremony.

But most of those gathered outside the auditorium shunned the demonstrators and concentrated instead on the line of chauffeured limousines that began forming shortly after noon on Jefferson Boulevard. Nobody had the temerity to show up in a Pinto.

As each rented limo dropped its cargo of rock, country, gospel and rhythm ‘n’ blues passengers in front of two pools of TV camera crews that parted for their grand entry, the fans went into The Ritual.

“Is that her? That her? Chaka Khan?” a self-appointed leader of the crowd keened from the front lines.

“Chaka Khan! Chaka Khan!” answered the crowd. “It’s Chaka Khan!”

And Chaka turned a well made-up profile to the crowd for a teasing bat of the eyelash, but disappeared inside without so much as a line from her Grammy-nominated song “I Feel for You.”

Christy Mayfield drove in early from North Hollywood. By 10 a.m., she and her 2-year-old daughter, Lauren, were sitting on a curb drinking Diet 7-Up and hoping to catch a glimpse of Prince. Lauren wore a koala bear T-shirt instead of a “Purple Rain” T-shirt, but still paid homage to the writhing Minnesota gnome by wearing deep purple Stride Rite tennis shoes.

“I like it because it wears purple,” Lauren said of her idol.

A trio of truants from Sacred Heart of Mary High School had different tastes, displaying a banner made of four brown-paper textbook covers they had taped together and decorated with a tribute to Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

“He’s gorgeous,” one of them said. “He makes great music to dance to.”

Despite the fealty she and her cohorts hold for Frankie, she nonetheless gave early odds to Prince for best song.

Wearing a Day-Glo yellow dress and scream-green panty hose, a 17-year-old fan leaned over the pedestrian traffic barrier to shout her Grammy choices.

“Cyndi Lauper!” she hollered through lips colored the same shade as the eye shadow Lauper uses on her cheeks, hair and, sometimes, on her eyes.

By noon, the flashy fan and about two dozen other hard-core rock fans had assembled at the rear entrance to the auditorium.

They got to see The Arrival.

At 11:59 a.m., three motorcycle officers cleared the way for the long-awaited purple limo, bearing California license plates MKPRO 10. It rolled into the Jefferson Boulevard entrance to the Shrine parking lot, trailed by a long white limo.

The rest of Prince’s bodyguards had to park a block away in a used-car lot that doubled as a Grammy parking lot. Dick Sigel, the lot’s owner, charged them $10 a car.

“I wouldn’t know one of these songs from any of the others,” he said when asked which of the nominees he liked for song of the year. “You can’t understand any of the lyrics.”

Scott Downie, a San Gabriel paparazzi who earns his living shooting stars at awards ceremonies, had no favorites either, but Prince qualified as his least favorite.

“This is my seventh year and it’s become one of the biggest events to cover, along with the Oscars,” he said.

He and two free-lance aides of his Celebrity Photo Agency would shoot at least 25 rolls of color film and countless rolls of black and white before the evening was over, he said. The results would appear in fan magazines, tabloids, monthlies and maybe even a few billboards for the next year, so the shots, if not especially artistic, had to be numerous and in focus. He was, after all, getting $750 plus expenses for the assignment.

“I don’t think there’s a photographer here who isn’t intimidated by Prince’s bodyguards,” Downie said. “I want his picture, but I don’t want to get crushed by one of his people. I can’t understand why he doesn’t want his picture taken.”

Diminutive Prince hid out inside the purple limo for almost 30 minutes while his entourage of bodyguards assembled themselves like a cadre of shock troops and took their instructions from Prince’s chief bodyguard, Chick.

“Here comes the Purple Pain,” muttered one photographer stationed outside the gate as the Prince limo arrived.

Fans like Melanie London had a different reaction, keening at the smoked-over limo glass that shrouded Prince from his adoring public:

“Ah, Prince! God, I want Prince to win!” 16-year-old London confided.

Everyone in her immediate clique nodded their agreement, though there was one mumbled dissent from a friend who wanted Tina Turner to walk home with the most Grammys.

But there were no opinions delivered as the purple limo rolled through the gates.

Only howls.

“Roll down your window!,” shrieked the crowd. “Roll down your window! Oh God, roll down your window!”

Prince didn’t.

The battle lines were drawn early, with roving security guards and an occasional Los Angeles police officer keeping fans like London and her peers from performing the thankless task of fainting, shrieking and shaking chain-link fences in order to catch a glimpse of emerging rock and roll royalty.

Three years ago, London had the name of the Hobbit-sized rock recluse tattooed on her left forearm. She saw “Purple Rain” seven times. She proclaims that she has been loyal to him since his first album came out, back in 1979.

“I don’t got nothing on purple,” London said, hanging her head in shame.

Her explanation for failing to wear anything in Prince’s favorite color, from her white Converse All-Stars to the top of her Frank Sinatra gray flannel hat, was that she was in a hurry to get away from Black History day at Mid-City Alternative High and see this year’s 26-year-old pop hero.

“At school, my friends all call me Miss Prince. They used to call me Mrs. Prince, but I’m liberated now,” London said.

Even her cat, Evo, is a Prince fan.