Kids and Their Agent-Moms Are Moving Into an Apartment House Around the Corner FromHollywood to Further Their Show-Biz Careers : Stars in Their Eyes

It sounded like a typical bunch of mothers sitting around talking about their kids--until stylishly dressed Pat Dunn turned to another mom and asked, “Have they started shooting Ashley’s movie yet?”

“No, but she has the only child role in the whole film,” said Nancy Johnson about her 10-year-old’s budding movie career.

With that, Dunn did a little bragging about her daughter who is working on a deal to record her own song, “the one she wrote about peace of the world.” The scene was an apartment complex just over the hill from the HOLLYWOOD sign--and around the corner from the celebrity cemetery of Forest Lawn--billed by agents, studio teachers and casting directors as the “future stars’ apartments.”

Once notorious as a swinging singles complex that refused to allow children, Oakwood Apartments in Toluca Hills now is a magnet for young yet-to-be-discovered stars and their parents.

At first, families came from across the country to stay a few weeks, months or years because the month-to-month units are located just up the hill from the back lots of NBC, Disney, Universal and the Burbank Studios. As word spread about the convenience store that is well stocked with “Variety,” and the audition lists, which are posted on bulletin boards above the mailboxes, more and more wanna-be child stars showed up, particularly in the summer. They began to flock when they heard about the skyrocketing careers of such ex-Oakwood residents as Emmanuel Lewis of “Webster,” Keshia Knight Pulliam of the “Bill Cosby Show,” and Chris Burke, who plays Corky in “Life Goes On” and Fred Savage of “The Wonder Years.”

Now show-biz families rent up to 20% of the Oakwood’s 1,151 apartments during the peak summer season, according to Roselee Packham, Oakwood’s service director. During the winter, the numbers usually drop to 10%.

“If a kid makes it in the industry, chances are he or she has come through the Oakwood Apartments at some point,” said Linda Stone-Elster, an elementary school tutor for the Garry Shandling show.

The lure is the ability to lease on a month-to-month basis and order maid service, but this convenience doesn’t come cheap: a furnished two-bedroom goes for $1,800 to $2,100. Then there’s the added luxury of having an on-site deli, hair stylist, shoe repairman, tennis pro, fitness center and, of course, Federal Express box for those scripts and audition photographs.

So what’s it like? Well, the car pool might take parents to Paramount to pick up each other’s kids at auditions. And almost any afternoon around the pool a clique of agent-moms can be heard discussing audition schedules or acting classes. Sunday brunches at the clubhouse have turned into networking sessions where parents compare agents, recording contracts and movie deals. And aspiring child stars run around the playground with familiar young faces from sitcoms.

It is a “halfway house for kids trying to break into the industry,” said Miriam Richards, a child star tutor for 15 years who lives at the Oakwood during the TV season. “It is very typical to see people discussing show biz in halls.”

It was a talent scout who encouraged Nancy Johnson and her three children to uproot their “Leave It to Beaver” lives in Michigan and move to the Oakwood three weeks ago so they “could meet others” in the industry.

After all, Johnson’s 6-year-old daughter, Ashley, just happened to be the national Tropicana Orange Juice girl. So what happened? She just landed a role in Jean Claude Van Damme’s new film, “Wrong Bet,” as a poor child whose father was killed. “It’s not the typical bubbling Ashley you see running around the pool,” her mother said. “It’s hard for her to act sad.”

Johnson’s 9-year-old daughter, Haylie, is also breaking into acting, though somewhat more slowly. And her son, Christopher, 12, doesn’t want to be involved at all. He’s more interested in toy race cars.

Still the move effectively broke up the Johnson family. Nancy’s husband of 20 years plans to visit whenever he can, but in the meantime, he’s working on an oil-exploration rig to support the family.

“A lot of families can’t handle this temporary style of living,” said Evelyn Schultz, a Beverly Hills agent with Cunningham, Escott, Dipene Agencies. “A father has a wife who is gone for months and must support two households for something that may not work out. Brothers or sisters may not be suited for the industry, but their lives are also disrupted. It’s hard on everyone.”

Nancy Johnson knows the situation at the Oakwood isn’t perfect. For one thing, she’s gotten a lesson about the dark side of show business aspirants.

“I’ve seen some real brats out there,” Johnson said. “And I’ve seen mothers and fathers fight over how a child should read her lines.”

But, amazingly, a lot of the show-biz moms band together. “It’s been a comfort to have other sympathetic parents pick the children up at the studio when I’m late, or offer tips.”

How long will she stay? Nancy Johnson’s going to give it nine months. “If nothing happens with their careers, we’ll just go home and say it’s been an adventure. But Ashley has done more in a short time than many others who have been here a lot longer.”

Love Hewitt, 10, has lived at Oakwood 10 months. Love’s parents, Tom and Pat Dunn, sold their custom shirt-printing business in Killeen, Tex., when their daughter landed a role on Disney Channel’s “Kids, Inc.” They all moved to the Oakwood.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that this can break up a lot of families,” Tom Dunn said. “It’s tough. You need contacts or you get eaten alive.”

“The families seem happy and hopeful, but of course there are lots of heartbreaks,” said Rose Forti, Oakwood activities coordinator. “We don’t see that side because they tend to just check out and disappear.”

But Love Hewitt doesn’t believe that for a minute. And this typical young Oakwoodite--a perpetually smiling, perfectly dressed pre-teen--talks incessantly about her “career.”

“I want to be a great star who can sing, act, dance and do everything,” she said, adding, “but other than that I’m just a normal little girl.”

The show-biz aura at the Oakwood is so infectious that it forms a kind of specialized peer pressure. Raina Chrismon moved from Arkansas in August so her husband could break into video production. But her 6-year-old daughter, Kelsey Arnett, kept seeing her playmates at the Oakwood on television commercials. She insisted on trying it, too.

The mother of another child actor at the apartment complex recommended an agent who met Kelsey and raved over the blonde girl with a missing front tooth. Last week, she was offered a contract with a major talent agency.

“Around here, kids don’t ask how many Cabbage Patch dolls you have, they ask how many commercials have you done,” said Raina Chrismon.

“It all happened so fast,” said Kelsey’s father, Keith Chrismon, who produces puppet videos. “She never would have gotten into this if it weren’t for us living here.”

An unlikely friendship has blossomed at the Oakwood between the mothers of three budding teen idols--Josh Blake on “The Incredible Teddy Z,” David Moscow from the movie “Big” and now on “Living Dolls,” and Justin Whalin from “Charles in Charge.”

“You’d think we’d be rivals because our sons compete for the same roles, but we’ve ended up helping each other,” said Whalin’s mother, Terry, who has stayed at the apartments sporadically for the past three years. “If one boy is done with a script his mom will hand it to me for my son, and we tell each other about publicity events.”

As Beverly Hills agent Schultz said, “The Oakwood is a hotbed of gossip where the mothers ask each other about agents and the children hang out together. People who live there are really plugged into what’s happening in entertainment.”

Whalin’s mother finds that comforting: “It’s a little scary alone and we moms can talk to each other about our $400 phone bills to home and things like that.”

By all accounts, the Oakwood is going to get even more child stars.

Priscilla Condra, who chaperoned her actress-daughter, Julie, from San Antonio at the Oakwood for four years, is now a talent agent who brings 16 young actors here each summer to get them into show business.

“The word is out,” said Linda Seto of the Television and Film Workshop in Dallas, who started bringing prospective child stars across the country to the Oakwood five years ago. “It’s amazing to see so many families and agencies bringing kids to the Oakwood now.”

Still, many pursue what may well be the impossible dream.

“Families should not come out just because they have a cute little boy or girl who neighbors say should be in the movies,” Condra said. “They should have some credits.” After all, Condra warned, “it’s a very unpredictable profession.”

Still, Leo Vaughan is banking so much on the star quality of his daughter, Countess, that he left his 17-year teaching career, packed up his family and moved to the Oakwood 18 months ago. Now he is working at a funeral home.

“I’m not sure how long we’ll be here, but we’re still here,” said Vaughan, who is proud that his 11-year-old was recognized as the winner of last year’s “Star Search.”

“We’re here for the long haul because we know Countess is a very talented young person,” he said. “We won’t tuck our tails and run.”