LEO RISING

Shoulder-to-shoulder before the smeared ladies’ room mirror, 12-year-olds Ashley Nelson and Katie Carson give their matching hairstyles one last inspection.

Too young to date, the pair primping at Garden Grove’s Four Star Cinema nonetheless has eyes for the same young man--and they don’t seem to mind sharing.

“Leo is soooooo cute,” swoons Ashley, in a hurry to get a good seat for the 4:15 p.m. “Titanic” on this rainy afternoon.

“Yeah,” offers her ponytailed sidekick. “They had only front row [seats] last time we saw it. But who cares? He’s soooo worth it.”

“Leo,” if you have to ask, is none other than Leonardo DiCaprio, 22, teen idol and star of the mega-hit still selling out at the box office eight weeks after it was launched.

Surrounded in her Laguna Niguel room by pinups of the actor she and all her friends call Leo, Alex O’Gorman muses about her favorite parts of the movie. She has seen it five times “so far” and admits she still has trouble containing herself when DiCaprio arrives on the silver screen.

“The last time I saw it, the part when he comes in in his tuxedo . . . my friend and I screamed,” she says.

A production risk at more than $200 million, director James Cameron’s epic about a Titanic survivor recalling her ill-fated romance on the even more ill-fated maiden voyage of the luxury liner has proved to be a wise investment for Paramount.

The movie also stars Kate Winslet and Billy Zane, but industry execs maintain that the boat itself is the star of the three-hour, 14-minute romance some have called “Gone With the Wind” for the ‘90s.

Begging to differ are scores of Ashleys, Katies and Alexes who continue to help fuel Titanic’s staying power with return trips to the movie theater.

“Face it, the parts without Leo are boring,” states one repeat viewer, a seventh-grader.

“To be honest, I don’t think any of my friends care about watching the Titanic sink again,” she says. “It’s Leo we want to see.”

“He’s hot,” says Nicole Rappa, 14, who went with friends Christina Anoci, 15, and Samantha Bracci, 15, to see the movie for the fifth time before learning that the next two showings were sold out.

Before “Titanic,” DiCaprio received acclaim in films such as “William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet” and “Marvin’s Room” (both 1996) “The Basketball Diaries” (1995), “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” and “This Boy’s Life” (both 1993).

As a teen actor he appeared on TV’s “Growing Pains,” but in less than five years, the Hollywood-born actor (named after Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci by parents George and Irmelin) has established himself as a major industry player.

“We get an enormous bag of mail a day from all over the world,” says DiCaprio publicist Cindy Guagunti. “We are besieged.”

DiCaprio’s popularity is no surprise to Cathee Sandstrom, editor of BB and BOP, top U.S. teen fan magazines. She saw big fame coming for the floppy-topped actor with piercing blue-green eyes.

“Leo’s the biggest draw as far as actors go right now,” Sandstrom says. “We got a huge response to him after ‘Romeo & Juliet,’ and now with ‘Titanic,’ they can’t get enough of him,” she says.

Sandstrom says the publications have received letters from girls who have seen the movie 17 times and who would “do just about anything” for the chance to meet DiCaprio.

Eager fans “come up with ploys, and they get pretty creative,” Sandstrom says. “One girl even sent us a letter saying her friend would kill herself if she couldn’t meet him.”

Suicide threats aside, teen fans are very loyal, with a lot of baby-sitting dough and allowance to burn, says Sandstrom, who has seen a steadily growing readership among girls 10 to 16 in the magazines, which offer several teen heartthrob pinups per issue.

“They have a lot of disposable income,” she says. “And they do see movies again and again.”

Yaron Israel, manager of the Four Star Cinema in Garden Grove, agrees.

“We see the same faces every week,” he says, taking tickets outside the theater. “Especially the little girls. They have their napkins; they’re crying all the time . . . I don’t know where they get the money, but they do. They love Leonardo DiCaprio.”

*

The adorable DiCaprio does indeed light up the screen, say 11-year-olds Alex Battorff and Katie Seshadri. Still, they are also developing a fondness for movies that tug at their heartstrings.

“We like the whole thing,” says Alex, waiting outside the Edwards Metro Pointe Stadium 12 in Costa Mesa, “but the love story part of it is the best.”

Fans of the film are also are buying up the soundtrack, making “Titanic” the nation’s top-selling album for the third week in a row.

The album, featuring “My Heart Will Go On” performed by Celine Dion, has sold more than 2 million copies.

In versions played on radio stations, sound bites from the film are mixed in with the song’s romantic lyrics. That mix, says Nicole Altamirano, who answers the request line for KIIS-FM (102.7), has made it the station’s most requested song.

The key sound bite brings back the moment when DiCaprio’s character, Jack Dawson, declares his undying love to survivor Rose Calvert while freezing to death in the water.

“Promise me that you’ll never give up . . .” DiCaprio says with his last breath. “Promise me now, Rose . . .”

As the soundtrack of Leo’s gurgling dying declaration plays on the car radio, the young Leo fans in the back seat listen earnestly.

“Don’t laugh at it, Mom!” they shout. “It’s not funny. It’s romantic.”