Collision Courses Along an Orbit of the Stars

This county has always suffered from a movie star shortage. Here we are, just one county off, movie-star wise, from that garish celebrity jackpot to the south, a.k.a. Los Angeles County.

Except for artsy-craftsy Ojai, where dressing up means wearing panty hose with your Earth shoes, Ventura County pretty much has to wait until one of the rich and famous decides to retire to our “in-between” county (between Montecito and Malibu) for the tranquil life.

I can still remember feeling a little bit cheated when my parents and I migrated Okie-style from the Midwest to Ventura, and I discovered we had landed a mere 60 miles too far north of ground zero, Tinseltown-wise. (Ground zero being the Beverly Hills Hotel, which I had read about in Photoplay.)

On some level of Kansas corn consciousness, I had thought that once you got to Southern California, all the stars who graced the pages of Photoplay would be lined up on Main Street in Ventura, waving to fans, or maybe sitting in a booth at Dupars in Thousand Oaks, pens ready to sign autographs.

So I settled for the fringes of glamour, such as attending summer school at Ventura High with Mary, the actual daughter of the actual original Lois Lane in the “Superman” serial. Be still, my heart.

Mary had connections. She and I once went on an after-school double Coke date with Glenn Ford’s son and the best friend of Glenn Ford’s son. I was with the best friend, but that was OK. It was all the glamour I could handle on a weekday afternoon, anyway.

And that was about it for the ‘60s, lotusland-wise, except for one brush with Joel McCrea in a Ventura County Courthouse elevator in 1964. He was one of those few who had retired from the movies to Ventura County. He was at the courthouse either buying or selling Thousand Oaks, I forget which. He tipped his Stetson at me. I wrote home about it. Joel McCrea.

Star-wise, things began to pick up when I moved to Ojai in the ‘70s. I could lay claim to an occasional “sighting.” I traded in my Map to the Stars’ Homes of Beverly Hills (bought on Sunset Boulevard for $3 in 1965) for a new Map to the Stars’ Spots in Ojai.

There was Lee Majors, filming “The Six Million Dollar Man” on Ojai Avenue. And over there in Libbey Park was Lindsay Wagner filming “The Bionic Woman.” Six blocks farther up Ojai Avenue was Burt Reynolds doing a “Smokey and the Bandit” turn.

And even if she was retired, wasn’t that June Allyson I almost ran down with my grocery cart by the meat counter at Bayless Market? And Eva Marie Saint sitting next to our blanket at the Ojai Music Festival?

There sat Burl Ives, eating lunch on the patio at the Ojai Valley Inn. And for a while, it seemed as though you couldn’t walk into the Ojai Library without running into Michael Jackson. (Well, one time, anyway.)

Even I was becoming blase about Hollywood, which is a sure sign you aren’t in Kansas anymore.

It became the ‘90s, and out in Ojai’s east end, which was once filmed as Shangri-La in the 1937 movie “Lost Horizon,” lived the Zucker brothers, polishing sight gags for a “Naked Gun” film, and Mary Steenburgen, polishing her Oscar and planning another fund-raiser. Ho-hum.

And now there is Larry Hagman up there on Sulphur Mountain Road.

Am I imagining things or was that old J.R. himself in three of the county’s Fourth of July parades last month? Maybe I just saw him three days in a row. But he seems to be everywhere, riding a firetruck in the Ojai parade, raising money for the Ventura County Historical Museum or revving his motorcycle for another cause at the beach.

One reason that celebrities like Hagman may feel comfortable being in the public eye so much is the casual, even offhand treatment they receive from jaded Ojai locals.

At a gala dinner for former Ventura County Sheriff John Gillespie, Ojai activist Pat Weinberger was seated next to a handsome stranger.

“My glory,” she said to the stranger, “you’re the best-looking man I’ve ever seen in my life--you should be in the movies.”

“Yes, ma’am, I am,” said Tom Selleck.

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Brenda Loree is a Times correspondent.