Star Struck? : Announcement of Suit Against Actor Stallone Brings Press Running

Oh, the urgent scramble of video cameras.

Oh, the tanned men with their portable phones.

Oh, the sheer LA-ness of it all.

On Thursday, a day when an armored car carrying live ammo caught fire on the Harbor Freeway, drug agents nabbed 100 pounds of cocaine, and hundreds of high school students brawled in the streets, the merest mention of “movie star” still brought the press on the run.

Seven TV cameras and almost twice as many reporters mustered in front of the Los Angeles County Courthouse to learn that a studio musician is suing actor Sylvester Stallone and his bodyguard for damages after they allegedly rammed their cars into the Honda Civic that the musician was in. All this transpired on March 28 during a two-mile chase “through a glamorous portion of West Los Angeles,” a press release said helpfully.

Beneath the stern stone courthouse figures honoring Mosaic Law, the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence, a woman with Lucille Ball hair and eyelashes handed out copies of the lawsuit.

In its pages, the musician, Phillip Norris, alleges assault and battery, conspiracy and negligence against the actor and bodyguard in an incident that has become tabloid catnip.

Norris was in a rented Honda driven by paparazzo photographer E. L. Woody, who says Stallone took off in his black Mercedes-Benz, and the bodyguard followed in a Nissan sports car, ramming the Civic repeatedly after Woody shot pictures of Stallone leaving a nightclub.

That, the suit says, was “despicable, shocking and offensive” conduct. It has left Norris saddled with “anxiety, depression, headaches, sleeplessness, nausea,” and “humiliation.”

The suit asks for money, but does not specify how much. Celebrities are considered to have “deep pockets” in such matters, even if Rocky-style boxing trunks have no pockets at all.

“If I take my car and slam into yours repeatedly at high speed on a public road, I have committed assault and I have endangered everyone in the neighborhood,” said Norris’ attorney, James H. Davis. “I don’t care how big you are, I don’t care who you are. You have no right to scream through two miles of our neighborhood streets and carry on like that.”

Stallone said last month that he was the one who was chased and rammed by the Honda, “like an excerpt out of ‘The French Connection.’ ” Stallone’s spokesman, Paul Bloch, had no comment on Thursday’s suit.

Davis has asked the district attorney to evaluate possible criminal aspects of the incident quickly, but district attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said Beverly Hills police are still looking into it and have not yet presented their findings.

Davis did the talking on Thursday. His client stood at his side, his black cowboy boots fixed at parade rest, looking as though he would rather be in Iraq than in front of cameras. Norris said only that he is a studio musician, he is 41 years old, and no, he hadn’t seen any Stallone films, not one, no. Never.

Davis said he expects to have a tape of a 911 call that Woody and Norris made from the car. On Thursday, he did have photos: of the Honda, damaged from “repeated blows,” he said; of a curb scraped in the chase; of what he described as tire tracks from Stallone’s U-turn to pursue the Civic.

Could Mr. Norris please hold up one of the pictures? a TV cameraman asked. “I don’t want to do anything inflammatory,” said Norris, with an almost involuntary half-step backward.

So they taped the pictures to a TV light pole instead, zooming and motor-driving as buses and cars braked to gawp, and other lawyers, laboring in the penumbra of fame, slowed to look on the way to court.

Within 30 minutes, reporters were packing up, calling their offices from news vans and portable phones. “Hi,” said one. “Everybody was here. If you want, I can do a one-on-one with the lawyer.”

The lawyer was telling a TV reporter that he admired his work. “I’m one of your fans. I just delight in watching you every morning, whenever you’re on. . . . No, I mean it, I’m very sincere.”

Behind the heavy glass panes of the courthouse windows, people were watching.

“There’s always something going on,” shrugged one employee, her aplomb restored once she found out that Stallone was not there.

“You see it every day. Joan Collins was here--she’s a tiny little thing. And what’s her name? Raquel . . . she didn’t have a stitch of makeup on at the hearing. And she is a pretty woman . . . and she’s close to 50.”