Hollywood Chases Girl Who Turned Parents In

Members of the Peace Lutheran congregation in Tustin offered prayers for Deanna Young during services Sunday at the same church where the 13-year-old heard an anti-drug talk that prompted her to turn in her parents last week for alleged cocaine use.

Last week’s events have surely changed Deanna Young’s life, church members said. The determined teen-ager has become a national symbol in the campaign against drug abuse, and many church members feared that intense media glare will make her a “victim” unable to lead a normal life.

Indeed, the case has aroused so much interest that reporters attended services at Peace Lutheran on Sunday, even though Deanna Young and her parents--Bobby Dale Young and Judith Ann Young of Tustin--are not members of the congregation.

Parents Arrested

What’s more, Hollywood producers are already swarming all over the Young story, hoping to take advantage of the rising tide of anti-drug sentiment and the unusual circumstance of a teen-ager turning in parents to police.

Last Tuesday night, after hearing a talk against drugs by Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy Bruce Stanley, Deanna went home, gathered up small amounts of marijuana, pills and about an ounce of cocaine, put it all in a trash bag and took it to the Tustin police station. Her parents were arrested Wednesday morning and charged Thursday in court with possessing cocaine.

The story spread quickly after appearing in Thursday’s Times, being repeated before the day was over on several network television newscasts.

Susan O’Brien, the attorney appointed by the court to look after Deanna’s welfare, has also been besieged with phone calls from Hollywood agents and producers hoping to dramatize the story, but she has kept them at bay pending a resolution of the girl’s situation.

Last week, Lloyd Strelow, pastor at Peace Lutheran, warned that media attention could harm Deanna and her parents. Then, during two Sunday services, he asked the congregation to “pray for the Lord to give his love and guidance” to the Youngs as he listed special prayers for other people, including his own wife, who was ill.

“It was just mentioned in passing, a request that we pray for them,” said Zetta Oswald of Tustin. “Nobody around here really knows her or her parents, but we care a lot about what happens to them. We’re concerned.”

‘Now the Victim’

Art Oswald, Zetta’s husband, added, “What I find disturbing is that she is now a victim of the whole thing.

“She has to defend what she did, and they’re out and she’s in,” said Oswald, referring to the judicial system. On Thursday, a Municipal Court judge in Santa Ana ordered Deanna’s parents freed on their own recognizance in the drug case, but juvenile authorities have kept Deanna at Orangewood, the county facility for abandoned, abused and homeless children, or youths who are otherwise separated from their parents or guardians.

The intense interest in the Youngs’ story displayed by producers of made-for-TV films “raises my fears that this will be detrimental to the family,” Strelow said. “There’s a story to be told, but in due time.”

Anne Carlucci, director of television development for Brookfield Productions and formerly with producer Norman Lear, said Deanna’s tale is “an incredible story which would make a wonderful movie for television, going along the lines of (President) Reagan’s anti-drug program.”.

Money Talks

“A young girl that loves her family so much that she does something that is totally alien in this country,” Carlucci said. “She informs on her parents. I don’t think for a moment that she realized the consequences of what she was doing, including movie rights. I don’t know if they are going to be receptive to having their story splashed all over the tube, but money talks.”

Bob Theemling, director of Orangewood, the county facility where Deanna Young has been staying, said he has been contacted by nine major production companies, including Lorimar, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures Television and Triad Artists.

Such calls are being rerouted to Deanna’s lawyer, county officials said.

Producers declined to discuss the amount of money the Youngs’ story might be worth. They said it would take about a year to produce a television movie once the rights are secured.

“Everybody in the world has gone after this story,” said Carlucci. “I have spoken to Susan O’Brien, who represents Deanna Young, and I apologized because I felt like an ambulance chaser.”

Carlucci said she had developed “The Burning Bed” television movie, starring Farrah Fawcett, based on the true story of a woman abused by her husband.

More Compelling

Extensive newspaper coverage makes such stories even more compelling for the screen, Carlucci added. “That’s where all the good stuff comes from,” she said. “Once it’s in the public eye, it makes for a terrific movie. I don’t think there’s anything more exciting than real life. (It’s) stranger than fiction.”

Carlucci said people could not help being “sensitive to the plight of this kid and her family. . . . It (a TV movie) can be a pleasurable experience for them and it can be a negative experience. They certainly will have more money. They will be more famous and then eventually life will slide back to where it was. . . . I would not exploit the child. . . . I’m not interested in creating more problems for this kid.”

Judy Silk of Dick Clark Productions told reporters last week: “We want the complete story. . . . Of course Deanna is the focus. What we have now is an incomplete story. . . . It would be great if the family got back together again and we could have a happy ending.”

Independent producer Susan Williams went so far as to attend Thursday’s court hearing in Santa Ana, where she mingled with as many people as possible in hopes of arranging a meeting with the Youngs. She was unsuccessful.

“It’s tough because when something like this happens, everyone and his brother starts whipping out his checkbook,” Williams told reporters. “But I’m here and they’re not.”

Times staff writer Mark I. Pinsky contributed to this story.