Friends Thought Story of Slaying Was Just an Act : Crime: Bradley Minkoff kept saying he had killed his brother, according to several actors who thought he was mimicking James Dean.

An Agoura Hills teen-ager sought by sheriff’s deputies after the New Year’s Eve shooting death of his brother spent the last two weeks with actor friends in the San Fernando Valley who said he told them repeatedly that he had committed the crime.

Several of his friends this week said they disregarded Bradley Marc Minkoff’s story because he appeared to be mimicking his idol, brooding 1950s actor James Dean, and reciting melodramatic bits of movie dialogue.

“It got to be a running gag because we thought that he was just acting,” said Todd Antony Bello, 29, of West Hollywood, an actor and documentary filmmaker who socialized with Minkoff several times during the past two weeks.

Bello said Minkoff told him he had shot his brother because he was a drug dealer. “He said, ‘I was always the good one in the family,’ ” Bello recalled.

On Saturday, police converged on an actor’s North Hollywood apartment where Minkoff had been staying. The officers arrested Minkoff, 18, on a warrant charging him with the murder of his brother, Michael, 20.

“All week he’s been telling me this, and now I find out it’s true,” Bello said. “I’m in shock.”

Bello and others connected with the Magnolia Playhouse in North Hollywood said they did not tie Minkoff to the recent killing because he called himself Johnny Boy, a nickname that came from the character played by Robert De Niro in the movie “Mean Streets.”

He told his friends his true name was Martin Fallon, who the actors later learned was a character in the film “A Prayer for the Dying,” starring another of the teen-ager’s idols, Mickey Rourke.

Lisa Bergstrom, a Cal State Northridge student who is friendly with some of the actors, said she and her father realized “Johnny Boy” was Minkoff after they saw his photograph in a newspaper article about the Agoura Hills slaying. She said her father told sheriff’s investigators where the youth was staying, leading to his arrest.

“He kept telling everybody he had killed his brother for two weeks, and nobody believed him,” said Bergstrom, a North Hollywood resident.

Sheriff’s investigators said they do not believe the actors knew they were sheltering a fugitive. “He had been at that apartment and hanging out with those people since New Year’s Eve,” sheriff’s investigator Bill Gaynor said. “I don’t have any belief that these people harbored him. They didn’t know who he was. We were contacted once they put two and two together.”

The teen-ager told the actors he was having problems with his family and needed a place to stay temporarily.

Last week Minkoff brought a nickel-plated magnum revolver to a comedy play rehearsal at the Magnolia Playhouse in North Hollywood, the actors said. He loaned it to them for a skit involving an armed gangster.

Steve Oakley, artistic director at the playhouse, said he examined the weapon to make sure it was not loaded. Although it was used during one rehearsal, Oakley said he asked the actors to resume using a prop revolver after that night.

“I saw a gun that I didn’t want to have around the theater,” Oakley said. “That was basically a Dirty Harry type of gun,” referring to the violent Clint Eastwood film series.

The slim, red-haired youth, wearing handcuffs and a blue Los Angeles County Jail jumpsuit, was led into Malibu Municipal Court Tuesday morning for arraignment on a single count of first-degree murder, with a special allegation that a firearm was used.

Minkoff’s attorney, Dennis E. Mulcahy, declined to enter a plea, asking instead that the arraignment be postponed so he could review the police reports. Judge Lawrence J. Mira rescheduled the arraignment for Jan. 29.

Mulcahy also asked the judge to set bail at $100,000 to allow Minkoff’s release to the custody of his parents, Barbara and David Minkoff, who were in the courtroom. “As the court can see, Bradley has no prior offenses,” Mulcahy said. “There doesn’t appear to be a history of violence on Bradley’s part. They’d like to have their son home.

“I don’t think there’s anything to indicate anyone else would be in danger.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Loni Petersen challenged the bail motion, pointing out that Minkoff had fled authorities for two weeks after the shooting. She added, “The defendant has a preoccupation with death.”

Mira set bail at $1.5 million, describing it as “a reasonable bail under the circumstances.”

Mulcahy and Minkoff’s parents declined to comment on the case after the hearing.

Sheriff’s reports released Tuesday stated that deputies heard a gunshot and a crashing sound during a 911 call that originated from the Minkoffs’ Dargan Street home at 11:22 a.m. on Dec. 31. The deputies who responded found Michael Minkoff, a Moorpark College engineering student, face down on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood, with the phone receiver by his left hand. He was pronounced dead at the scene, with gunshot wounds to the head and upper chest.

A neighbor told deputies she had seen Bradley Minkoff drive away from the home that morning in the family’s blue Volvo. A friend of Michael’s told deputies the brothers had quarreled the previous night while he was visiting the house.

Barbara and David Minkoff were vacationing in Cancun, Mexico, when the shooting occurred. In the sheriff’s reports, they described Bradley as “a very reliable child who does not drink, smoke or take drugs.”

But they also expressed concern because Bradley had purchased a handgun shortly before they left for Mexico. They told deputies that Michael was worried that Bradley had become too much of a loner, keeping to himself inside his room.

The Minkoffs told deputies their sons had opposite personalities. They said Michael had joined them on a recent snow skiing trip, but Bradley chose to stay home. Deputies said the parents told them that “Bradley has no close friends, no girlfriends, no boyfriends, whereas Michael had a lot of friends and a girlfriend.”

They also said Michael was adopted, although Bradley was the couple’s natural child.

In the home, investigators examined poetic writing and cartoons, apparently done by Bradley, dealing with subjects such as death, murder, sex and actor Mickey Rourke.

Actor Bello said he met Bradley Minkoff last fall at a Valley drive-in restaurant that was sponsoring a 1950s memorabilia festival, including a display of James Dean collectibles. Bello said he interviewed Minkoff for a documentary he is making about obsessed James Dean fans.

Bello said they became reacquainted just before Christmas when a mutual friend brought Minkoff to meet author John Gilmore, who wrote a book about Dean and is assisting with Bello’s documentary. “He did every mannerism, every speech of James Dean,” Gilmore said of his meetings with the teen-ager.

Gilmore, a former actor, said he asked Minkoff if he planned to pursue that career. “He said, ‘I do all my acting in real life,’ ” Gilmore recalled.

Times staff writer Michael Connelly also contributed to this story.