‘Jesus Is Coming!’ and He’s More Than a Superstar to Some

The reception outside the stage door shows no signs of dwindling by 11:15 p.m. It’s opening night, after all, and some in the small crowd have been known to wait until 3 a.m. just to greet this particular cast member of the rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

A stagehand suddenly rushes out with an announcement: “Jesus is coming!”

Sure enough, the man Roman soldiers were nailing to a cross only an hour earlier finally emerges from Long Beach’s Terrace Theater in jeans and a long-sleeved designer shirt. Ted Neeley--a vision of Jesus of Nazareth with his long hair, thin beard and benevolent gaze--opens his arms to take in the applause.

Their hearts pounding, Jennifer Bernbaum and her mother, Judy, watch as Neeley embraces each fan. It is the 12th time Jennifer has seen the show, and this time she wants to present a pie she baked for him.

“Coming to see the play is not just coming to see the play,” says Jennifer, a 31-year-old teacher from Santa Monica. “It’s . . . coming to see Ted afterward.”

Not quite as dedicated a fan as her daughter, Judy Bernbaum has witnessed only seven of Neeley’s live performances. And having been raised more strictly Catholic, she occasionally reprimands Jennifer for equating Neeley with the biblical Jesus. But the Inglewood teacher admits that he does look like Jesus, and that in his arms, all is forgiven.

“A hug from Ted Neeley is like no other hug,” says Judy, 53.

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Far from being a local phenomenon, fans like the Bernbaums have made a name for themselves across the nation as “Ted heads.”

A reference to the “Deadhead” subculture that followed the Grateful Dead rock ‘n’ roll band, the term was coined four years ago during the 20-year anniversary of the musical’s movie adaptation, which also starred Neeley as Jesus.

Not all Ted heads sanction the label, however.

“We always called ourselves disciples,” said Gretchen Armato, a 50-year-old mother of three from Santa Barbara. She has even earned a special title--Cookie Lady--by making sure a batch of her cookies awaits Neeley at every stop on the tour.

In addition to those who commune outside stage doors, a multitude of Neeley fans meet on the Internet. An online search turns up tearfully honest accounts of interludes with the superstar, including one from Matthew Wegener, who e-mailed from Pennsylvania last month:

“After the show [Neeley] looked out and saw me there and smiled. He said he knew I’d be here and through the tears I smiled. He took me in his arms again and I just fell apart.”

Denise Oldford, a Rhode Island administrative assistant whose home page is popular among fans, said some of their e-mail borders on zealous. Having attended the show 23 times since December, Oldford sometimes identifies with their enthusiasm. But other times she said she feels obligated to talk them down.

“I tell them that it’s really great that they like the show, and it’s wonderful that they get to meet him,” said Oldford, 41. “But they must remember, he’s not Jesus.”

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Sitting in the lobby of the Terrace Theater, where the show opened Tuesday and runs through Sunday, a man who would prefer to be remembered as a rock ‘n’ roll drummer who made good in Hollywood traces his ambitions to a small church in Ranger, Texas.

Neeley recalls the high theater of Sunday morning sermons and how he, too, wanted to take the pulpit some day. Although he let that dream go in 1962, the year he and his band, the Spirals, hit the road, he says his early image of Jesus as an untouchable “stained glass window” stuck until he happened upon the role of a leper in a 1971 production of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

“No one ever talked about Jesus as a man--the human side--and that’s what this [musical] does,” he says.

Eyeglasses perched on the end of his nose, Neeley, 53, rolls up his sleeves to show goose bumps on his arm after humming a few bars of the show’s overture. He calls this proof of the musical’s power--and a partial explanation for some of his fans’ devotion.

“When people come up to me and say, ‘You are in fact the true embodiment of Jesus Christ in this lifetime,’ then that’s endorsing our work as a group of performers,” he says.

Yes, he says, some people believe that simply spending time with him has helped them to overcome various diseases. But he says he tries to put the brakes on fanaticism.

“I play Jesus in the show,” he says. “I’m a rock ‘n’ roll drummer from Texas. I’m a father, I’m a husband . . . I’m a human being.”

Others’ delusions of his grandeur can have benefits, of course. For one thing, he reckons he’s the most hugged man in North America. But he also cites drawbacks.

“They say, ‘When we pray we see your face,’ ” he says. “And part of that scares the hell out of me.”