Stars Ante Up for Hands Across America

Prince bought the first mile.

More than 500 other celebrities bought their own places in the national hand-holding event.

And more than 100 of the stars--television, sports, film and music industry personalities--were on hand at a West Hollywood press conference Thursday to kick off the latest entertainment charity event: a coast-to-coast human chain over Memorial Day weekend to raise $100 million for America’s poor and homeless.

Rock star Prince did not appear, but he sent an emissary to turn over a $13,200 check to the project’s founder, Ken Kragen. At $10 per person (the minimum pledge an individual must make to stand in the line) Prince’s check will allow 1,320 people to stand in the first mile of the Hands Across America line.

Kragen, manager of such rock stars as Lionel Richie and Kenny Rogers, also was a guiding force behind the all-star recording of “We Are the World” a year ago to benefit African famine victims.

At one point during the press conference, celebrities and reporters all joined hands, stood and swayed in rhythm to a pop song that Kragen, who also founded USA for Africa, predicted will be the 1986 anti-hunger anthem that “We Are the World” was in 1985. The song, “Hands Across America,” will make its public debut during the Super Bowl pre-game show on NBC-TV on Jan. 26.

A three-minute commercial for Hands Across America, featuring many of the celebrities who attended Thursday’s press conference, will be filmed in the San Joaquin Valley town of Taft on Saturday. In the “We Are the World” pop video tradition, the filming will be the centerpiece of much of the ever-increasing publicity that Kragen promises over the next four months.

It was in October when Kragen announced his plan to stretch a line of 6 million to 10 million Americans 4,152 miles from New York to Los Angeles. The project has been in the organizational stages for most of the last three months.

During that time, estimates on the project’s overall cost have escalated from $18.8 million to almost $30 million. Nevertheless, Kragen and his lieutenants remained adamant that they believe that the unprecedented hourlong human chain (from 3 to 4 p.m., Pacific Daylight Time on May 25) will be a reality, even though similar projects have failed in the past. (The most ambitious recent attempt was during the Bicentennial in 1976.)

“The whole approach to this project has been to peak on May 25 . . . not on March 1 or April 15, but on May 25,” Kragen told reporters.

The organizing details plus an intentional desire to snowball enthusiasm for the national human chain on the day of the event has kept early interest in the project lukewarm, Kragen said.

Thursday’s star-studded press conference was the first in several “pre-event” events that Kragen plans to use to continuously inject interest in it.

As of Thursday, fewer than 50,000 people had signed up to stand in the line and total pledges stood at about $700,000.

Hands Across America project director Fred Droz and Kragen invited corporations and individuals to join Prince in underwriting their own miles in the line.

Celebrities ranging from Susan Anton to Pia Zadora crowded a pre-press conference briefing. During the conference itself, celebrities asked as many questions as reporters.

“Is this going to be a simultaneous hand-holding?” actress Suzanne Somers wanted to know.

“I was wondering if you had a wide angle lens to take a photograph of the line?” comedian Jack Carter asked.

The answer to the first question was yes.

The answer to the second was no.