METHOD ACTING: Who are those...

METHOD ACTING: Who are those people in the infomercials, clapping wildly over the host’s pitch for tooth whitener, magic makeup or miracle diets? When infomercial mogul Mike Levey taped a show recently in Burbank, he needed onlookers who could appear interested through eight hours of babble about computer instruction (F1) . . . Well, some of those who showed up wanted to learn to make infomercials of their own.

SAM SPADE 101: You read the books. You saw the movies. You can talk tough and terse. You have the trench coat. If your fantasies run to Bogie and Sherlock, you could enroll in a Van Nuys school for private detectives. Lesson one: Those fantasies are baloney . . . and the blonde bombshell isn’t the secretary or the villain--she’s a star graduate. See Around the Valley (B5).

NAILED: At the original Builders Emporium in Van Nuys, where the 97-store hardware chain was launched 47 years ago, employees greeted news of the company’s demise with confusion, sorrow, anger and anxiety (B1, D1) . . . “A Japanese firm going to buy it out?” a customer asked Florence Cousins (above). “Nobody’s buying us out,” was Cousins gloomy reply.

DUCK EYES: All eyes on the Mighty Ducks hockey team are on a Studio City woman--and vice versa. Elise Brisco says she’s the only female optometrist for a professional hockey team. Her job: prescribe special contact lenses for the cold, dry, rough world of the pro hockey rink. . . . She’ll also coach players in “vision performance,” noting that “if they blink, that puck is way past them.”

BURBANK COMEBACK: Santa Clarita has been poison for the Burbank and Burroughs high school football teams--but they’re plotting a comeback (C12). Both Burbank schools went 0 for 3 last year against Santa Clarita teams. . . . Key weapon: new coaches. Pac-10 veteran Gary Bernardi comes to Burroughs. Burbank track coach Dave Kemp takes over football.