Celebrities Reach Out and Touch Some Hospitalized Children by Phone

Hospitalized with his broken leg in traction, 9-year-old Wes Pennington stared out of the window of Tarzana Medical Center, sad-faced and listless. Then the phone rang.

“Are you feeling better?” the voice at the other end of the phone asked Wes. It also inquired about his hospital room and the food there, his favorite toys and television shows and pressed him on the details of his accident.

“I was fooling around on a tire swing, then I fell and a kid fell on my leg and broke my femur,” Wes explained.

The caller was a young actor named Scott Grimes, a star of the movie “Critter,” one of Wes’s favorites, and a co-star of the television situation comedy, “Charles in Charge.” Grimes chatted with Wes for about 15 minutes before wishing him well and signing off.

The conversation took place courtesy of Famous Fone Friends, a nonprofit organization that provides hospitalized children with messages of good cheer from actors, musicians and athletes.

Teaches at Studios

The idea is the brainchild of Linda Elster, who teaches Scott Grimes and other young actors on location during movie and television productions. She reasoned that, with her access to celebrities, she could line up the famous friends easily--and she has. Several of the young actors she teaches have telephoned cheery messages to hospitalized children.

Elster said she doesn’t like to solicit callers, assuming that the demands on celebrities’ time are heavy. She opts, instead, for celebrities to approach her about joining the Famous Fone Friend celebrity roster. Henry Winkler, Elliot Gould and Dudley Moore are three who have contacted Elster and made calls to sick children.

“It doesn’t take a lot of time,” said actor Henry Winkler, who is most famous for his role as Fonzie in the television comedy “Happy Days.”

“Thinking about it takes a lot more time than the actual doing. If you just give about eight minutes of your time, you will be hooked.”

25 Calls Made Nationwide

Since the start of the project in August, 1986, Famous Fone Friends have made about 25 calls to ill or injured children from Tarzana to New Jersey, Elster said. She said that hospitals have been slow in catching on, but she remains confident that her idea will take hold and grow in popularity.

Hospital workers where the calls have taken place express enthusiasm about the cheerful diversion.

“You could promise them a trip to Disneyland, but that’s a distant pleasure,” said Michael Burnam, a physician at Tarzana Regional Medical Center, whose 12-year-old son, Josh, received a call from Henry Winkler last month while he was laid up in the Tarzana hospital with a head injury.

“To have a phone call from someone they think of as being in Fantasyland, someone you never thought in your wildest imagination you’d ever speak to, it’s really startling,” Burnam said. “It’s like getting a call from the President.”

Burnam said his son was depressed over having had his head shaved and his eyes blackened during surgery and was cheered by the call. Winkler also mailed Josh a “Happy Days” script, which he treasures, Burnam said.

“I think it was a very nice gesture and a novel idea, and that’s what you need in order to distract a child when they are focused on themselves and in pain,” Burnam said.

Winkler, a father of three and a child psychology major in college, agrees.

“It helps their feelings about themselves and it relieves the feeling of physical discomfort by giving the child something else to think about,” Winkler said. “And it’s a big deal to be called by somebody you never thought you would meet or talk to in you life.”

But, he added, the child is not the only one to derive satisfaction from the phone calls.

“The satisfaction I receive is indescribable,” he said. “The little things mount up to make a gigantic mound of wonderfulness: things like the thank-you note you get back, and just the unadulterated openness and affection you receive.”

About a year ago Elster’s oldest daughter, a college sophomore who is studying physical therapy, told her about her volunteer work at a local hospital.

Television Fans

“She would tell me how the kids really needed affection and became so easily attached to her,” Elster said. “She would also tell me how they spend a lot of time watching TV and that they were so knowledgeable about television shows.”

At just about the same time, Elster had gone to a benefit for the Maple Center, a drug rehabilitation program in Beverly Hills. “I realized I missed being away from charitable organizations, and I wondered if I could come up with a low-cost charitable project,” she said.

So she began to formulate a plan to combine her love of children, access to famous people and desire to help. “I just sort of put it all together,” she said.

The organization has about 30 dues-paying members and operates on about a $2,000 yearly budget. Dues are $20 yearly. She has approached television and movie studios for donations, but has not received any thus far.

Father Donated $600

But one generous donor has been Elster’s father, Ed Stone, a successful salesman involved in trade-show promotions. Stone’s $600 contribution has helped defray the cost of brochures, stationery and specially designed Fone Friend pins, Elster said.

“The biggest expenses have been our phone bill and postage,” Elster said. “We’re in the hole quite a bit.”

Still, Elster figured her idea would be relatively low in cost but high in emotional dividends. She has not been disappointed.

“Kids in hospitals are just so overwhelmed by any attention given to them by any famous person,” Elster said. “And this takes so little of a celebrity’s time.”

Although his most fervent wish was for a call from Los Angeles Lakers star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 6-year-old Brent Pantell, who was down the hall from Wes Pennington with a crushed foot, received a call from 12-year-old actor Alex Polinsky, who also co-stars on the television program “Charles in Charge” and is a student of Elster’s.

“I was in the hospital once,” Alex told little Brent who listened raptly on the telephone. “I wheeled around in a wheelchair and got into trouble and had a lot of fun.”

Brent’s eyes lit up, “You did?”

Alex went on to ask Brent about his younger sister, friends, favorite television shows and his birthday.

“I think this is a really cute idea,” said Brent’s mother, Valerie Pantell. “The kids get kind of stir crazy, they start feeling a little left out, all their friends are in school. This gives them a special treat.”

Pee Wee Herman Is Her Hero

Then, there are the special cases: children with life-threatening illnesses, like 4-year-old Angela who was stricken with cancer and recently had her leg amputated at Long Beach Memorial Hospital. “She wanted to hear from Pee Wee Herman so badly,” and Elster was determined to grant her wish.

Not only did Angela hear from her hero Pee Wee, she also heard from four cartoon characters: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Fred Flintstone and Winnie the Pooh.

In a 4-year old’s scrawl, Angela fashioned a thank-you note to the callers, with a drawing and a photo of herself hugging her favorite teddy bear.

Elster said she has become painfully aware of how many children are suffering.

“The hardest thing is thinking about the kids stricken with terrible disease. Emotionally that’s hard,” Elster said.

Now she’s trying to track down Sylvester Stallone for a 6-year-old leukemia victim at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore who has seen all the Rocky movies.

Empathizes With Injured

Thus far, Elster has lined up the 11-year-old boy who played Rocky’s son in Rocky II. She saw him at Universal Studios and asked him if he’d make a call. “He said he’d be absolutely thrilled to call him. He had been hit by a car himself and had undergone surgery so he has special empathy for kids in the hospital.”

Elster likes to recount the story of a 15-year-old girl in Kansas, who was committed to a psychiatric ward after threatening her siblings. The emotionally troubled teen-ager had to attend group therapy twice a day. But, when she recently received a friendly call from Emmanuel Lewis, she began to cheer up. The leader of her therapy sessions called Elster and told her what a change the call had brought about in the girl.

“The girl had been very reticent and quiet, and suddenly she had a lot to say, she just bubbled over,” Elster said.

For information about Famous Fone Friends call (213) 204-LOVE.