Marriage Maven Is Busy Rekindling Romantic Fires : Relationships: Ellen Kreidman (who advocates greeting hubby at the door dressed only in stick-on bows) brought her ‘Light His Fire’ formulas from El Toro obscurity to lots of book sales.

For eight years, Ellen Kreidman’s “Light His Fire” philosophy was contained in a small classroom in her El Toro office.

Then a book agent sat in on one of her popular, how-to-keep-your-marriage-alive talks. Kreidman signed a book contract. The result, which bears the title of her course description, became a best-seller last year. She jetted off to be interviewed on the Big Three talk show circuit: Oprah Winfrey, Geraldo Rivera and Phil Donahue.

“Light His Fire” spread like wildfire.

Kreidman’s new-found success hinges on her simple theory: “A man falls in love because of the way he feels about himself when he’s with you,” she said, admittedly for the umpteenth time. “If he no longer feels good about himself, he will find somebody with whom he feels good about himself.

“My kids,” she wryly added, “can mouth that.”

In a matter of 10 months, Kreidman had gone from local-relationship sage to national-relationship sage. She recently finished her second book, “Light Her Fire”--giving equal buying opportunity to both sexes--due out next February.

By that time, she hopes also to have produced a “Light His Fire” board game, a “Light His Fire” cologne, and even a “Light His Fire” weekend get-away package at a major hotel.

“My goal is to own next Valentine’s Day,” Kreidman said with unabashed determination. “Wherever you go, you’ll see the book or the perfume or the video.”

It’s quite an ambitious statement for a woman who two years ago devoted little thought to taking her concept outside Orange County’s borders, and who was wracked by stage fright on “Oprah Winfrey”--her small-screen debut.

“If a robber came with a gun and said he was going to end my life and my kids’ life, I don’t think I could have been as frightened,” she recalled. “My heart was beating a mile a minute. Here’s this woman who teaches classes in El Toro to 20 or 30 people, and suddenly I’m on a national television program.”

It’s hard to imagine her as a shrinking violet. With scant provocation, the 45-year-old, self-made relationship expert can jabber effusively and effervescently for long, impenetrable stretches.

“My son once said to me, ‘You mean, people pay you to talk? I’d pay you to shut up,’ ” she laughed. Somehow, Kreidman’s native New York City accent lends credibility to her claim of uninhibited candor: “I’m an open book--I have no secrets.”

She survived the “Oprah” ordeal without fainting or otherwise humiliating herself. But the next time around, she aimed to enjoy rather than suffer during her 15 minutes of fame.

“I never wanted to feel like that again in my life,” Kreidman said. “I took a course that prepares people to go before the camera.”

And sure enough, she relished Sally Jessy Raphael, she adored Geraldo, she loved Phil.

“I was so afraid that Phil Donahue would look down on me over his glasses--you know how he gets--and go, ‘Come on, give me a break,’ ” Kreidman said. “Because, you know, he’s a feminist. But he was so nice. He’s just this incredible man.”

When the mini-media star wasn’t being interviewed on television talk shows with seven-figure audiences, she was being interviewed on radio talk shows with four-figure audiences. Kreidman’s book tour took her to all points of the country.

She still sounds like Every Woman, star-struck by the whole turn of events in her ordinary life.

“I don’t even know how to describe in words how exciting the tour was,” Kreidman said. “There’s an escort who picks you up in every city--it wasn’t like I ever got to an airport and nobody was there.

“I expected mediocre accommodations, but everything was first-class. Did you see ‘Pretty Woman’? You know, the hotel--Beverly Wilshire--that was in the movie? That’s where I stayed in Los Angeles. The living room was the size of my entire house, the bathroom was the size of my living room.”

All this glory and red-carpet treatment for yet another relationship book.

A relationship book that has sold more than 100,000 copies. A relationship book that visited the New York Times bestseller list for five weeks. A relationship book that has opened so many doors for Kreidman that she has taken a sabbatical from its inspiration--her popular class--to write more books and to market perfume, board games. . . .

At first blush, “Light His Fire”--the class, the book, the religion-- can seem sexist. Some feminists have criticized it as another piece of fluff advocating that women should set aside their own needs to fulfill those of their men’s.

But Kreidman says her sermon is just common-sense advice. She suggests that women-- and men-- should provide their mates unconditional love, constant ego boosts and endless passion.

The book, in places, rings of those ‘70s self-help manuals that prompted wives to greet their husbands at the front door wearing only cellophane.

“Arrange to meet (your husband) at a nearby bar or restaurant at an appointed time and day. If you’re a brunette, get a blond wig and dress differently than you normally would,” Kreidman recommends in the book. “If you’re a conservative business woman who usually wears suits, wear a short black leather skirt.”

Then there is: “Give him a present. Yourself--all dressed up in nothing but stick-on bows.”

However, most of the book deals with more realistic situations--such as how to comfort your spouse if he is passed over for a promotion or if he worries about going bald. (In the latter case, Kreidman says, tell him: “I love you and I’m very glad you’re mine. You’re the handsomest man I know--with or without hair.”)

Her publisher, Villard Books, asked her to write the flip-side of “Light His Fire”--a “Light Her Fire” version for men. “I said, ‘Can I just copy the women’s book?’ Because it will be the same sort of stuff,” Kreidman reasoned. “But they said, ‘No, you have to write something different.’ ”

She spent seven weekends earlier this year holed up in an Irvine Hilton room composing the sequel--by hand. “I have a computer sitting at the house and I’ve never touched it,” Kreidman confessed. “I give my pages to a typist. I have that little penmanship you learn in third grade--everybody can read my handwriting.”

A confirmed night owl, she found her most inspired moments in the wee hours of the morning--and slept during the day.

“My husband would join me on Saturday nights,” she said. The arrangement provided Kreidman seven continuous weekends to practice what she preaches.

She proposes that married couples should check into a hotel room, away from the kids and the daily routine, every three months. “It’s a necessity, not a luxury,” she insisted.

Although she does not have a degree in psychology, Kreidman considers herself a qualified marriage counselor because she’s half of a 25-year happy marriage. She and her husband, Steve, who met in high school, have two daughters, 21 and 20, and a son, 16.

Kreidman says her husband, an executive with Hewlett-Packard, is not the least embarrassed by the fact that his wife has immodestly bared their romantic antics. “He’s just excited for me,” she said.

Her daughters, who are college students, both have boyfriends. What if they employ some of their mothers’ helpful hints, such as bathing together with champagne or sprinkling rose petals on the bed?

“They’re at an age when they can make their own decisions,” Kreidman shrugged.

She feels that she has done as good a job at motherhood as she has at marriage, and therefore plans next to write a book for parents.

“I think that is my ultimate purpose in the scheme of things,” the former schoolteacher said. “I will teach that you give your children roots, and then wings.

“My mother had a nervous breakdown when my brother and I left home--she had no reason to live anymore. But if you’ve been a good parent, your children are going to go off and have a life of their own. So you’ve got to be an individual in your own right.”

Kreidman is basking in the afterglow of “Light His Fire.”

“It’s not a literary work of genius,” she announced with typical candidness. “It’s just me talking.”