THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : Role Reversal : Celebrities Attending the Trial of the Century Come to See the Show

You know the public is gawking at the Trial of the Century, but so are the people who usually get gawked at: celebrities.

As if the O.J. Simpson murder trial couldn’t get more surreal, there in the courtroom--among participants who have themselves become inadvertent celebrities--are luminaries who usually command our attention.

Some, such as former baseball great Steve Garvey and his wife, Candace, are from the circles that O.J. and Nicole Simpson once moved in. Others, such as actor Richard Dreyfuss, are preparing for courtroom roles. And a few occupy that uncomfortable stratum of celebrity media types: When Barbara Walters shows up at court, is she covering the trial, or is the media covering her? Or both? No matter what the nominal reason, once they enter that courtroom, celebrities--like the rest of us--become voyeurs at one of the most riveting public spectacles of our time.

The Garveys came to court Wednesday morning as did ex-Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner and his wife, Kris (once the wife of Simpson pal and attorney Robert Kardashian). The sports star couples, once friends of O.J. and Nicole, ended up walking the same gantlet of media cameras and microphones usually trained on the lawyers and family members. No less shy than the lawyers, both couples obliged reporters with sympathetic comments for the victims and their families. Candace Garvey, who testified months ago at the beginning of the trial, sported an angel pin like the one that Brown family members have worn before.

“Well, I just think they’re circling the bases for a home run,” opined Steve Garvey, the former Dodger and Padre first baseman, of the prosecution’s closing. “I think they laid a very compelling, systematic story of what happened and who did it.”

Kris Jenner, in court at the invitation of the Browns, told reporters that her friend Nicole knew she was in danger long before she died. “She told me, ‘He’s gonna kill me and he’s gonna get away with it,’ ” Kris Jenner told a reporter, confessing to a certain amount of guilt that Nicole’s friends didn’t respond more aggressively. “Much as she said . . . ‘He’s gonna kill me,’ . . . You never really expect it’s really going to happen,” said Jenner.

But a lot of celebrities say they are playing student when they enter Judge Lance A. Ito’s courtroom. Playwright/actress Anna Deavere Smith, who created “Twilight,” the one-woman play about the 1992 Los Angeles riots, has been in court doing research for a screenplay--completely unconnected to the Simpson trial. Actress Barbara Bosson came in June to study the prosecutors for her own portrayal of a district attorney on “Murder One,” the new television drama from her husband, Steven Bochco. Bosson even kibitzed with reporters in the hallway as they waited to enter the courtroom. When author Dominick Dunne mentioned that he had had a conversation with defense attorney Barry Scheck--who is often kidded for his long-windedness--on an airplane and then had fallen asleep, Bosson quipped, “I think [Scheck] kept talking after you fell asleep.”

And Dreyfuss secured a seat in the courtroom less than two weeks ago on the eve of going off to shoot a Sidney Lumet film in which he plays a defense attorney.

“He wrote the judge a letter and the judge put him on a list to get a seat,” said court spokeswoman Jerrianne Hayslett. The actor secured a seat by a wall, the courtroom camera noted his famous presence and a picture of him in the courtroom was broadcast around the world.

Then the actor got a taste of the intense scrutiny usually reserved for the trial attorneys: One high-profile lawyer about town later accosted a business colleague of Dreyfuss, demanding to know why the actor was sitting on the defendant’s side. “That’s where they seated him,” the surprised colleague explained.

Some celebrities are there simply to drink in the atmosphere. Actor James Woods--who has played a slew of lawyers in films and television movies--went down to the courthouse with his mother, who was visiting and wanted to take in the scene. They went with no expectations of getting an inside glimpse. But as they hovered in a hallway near the courtroom, a bailiff recognized the actor and offered him, his mother and a friend of hers seats that the sheriff’s deputies had available on the bench in the back of the courtroom.

Some celebrities, such as Dreyfuss and Woods, get treated to a brief audience with Ito in the real inner sanctum, his chambers. Usually, it is the courtroom guest who instigates the meeting. Visiting media stars Diane Sawyer, Larry King and Walters have been among those.

But some celebrities do catch the judge’s attention. When Anita Hill, the law professor who accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment and went on to become a feminist symbol, was in the courtroom sitting in one of the district attorney office’s seats, even Ito noticed.

Recalled Hayslett: “Anita Hill, he saw sitting there and he asked his clerk to have her come back.”