Prom Nights to Remember

In the classic Cinderella tale, the fairy godmother appears from nowhere, armed with a magic wand to help the kindhearted girl attend the ball and change her life.

For eight seniors from inner-city high schools, their fairy godmother is a makeup artist who came from Hollywood armed with top industry connections to help those girls shine on a prom night that some might otherwise not have been able to afford.

Carol Brown, a three-time Emmy-Award-winning makeup artist, is the brains behind an academic achievement and essay contest recently held at seven Los Angeles area schools.

The winners received a free prom night package including beauty sessions with Brown and celebrity hairstylist Toni Bell, custom-made gowns by fashion designer Linda Stokes, plus jewelry, accessories and shoes (no glass slippers). Also provided were chauffeured limousines that do not turn into pumpkins at midnight.

Brown, who was raised in South-Central Los Angeles and Inglewood, launched the contest as a way to reward inner-city girls who have shown a dedication to academics and inner beauty despite growing up amid racism, poverty and crime.

And what better night to offer that reward, said Brown, than when the girls celebrate the completion of high school and their graduation into adulthood? Seven of the girls have used their prizes over the past few weeks and the last will attend her prom next week.

Like Cinderella’s fairy godmother, Brown said she is simply helping to bring out the inner beauty in the girls.

“The fairy godmother just put the outside on to match the inside,” she said as she recently prepared to put makeup on Alicia Santinac, a winner from Dominguez High School in Compton.

The eight girls, who come from seven of the poorest schools in Los Angeles County, are all top students who stayed clear of drugs and crime and plan to enroll in college in the fall.

Tiana Gripper, a winner from King/Drew Medical Magnet High School in Compton who plans to attend Santa Monica Community College in hopes of becoming a psychologist, describes herself as a shy person who doesn’t try to impress people with expensive clothes and makeup.

But she said her prom package--including a purple full-length silk and chiffon dress with a matching purple choker and earrings--brought her out of her shell for all her classmates to see.

“Prom night was excellent. It was so beautiful,” she said. “I walked into the prom and everyone was shocked at how I looked.”

Brown said she was especially proud of Keanna Hoskings, a contest winner from Inglewood High School, who had been saving up to attend her prom by working as a flight agent at Los Angeles International Airport. After winning the contest, Hoskings offered her prize to a friend, Leah Peters, who could not afford the prom. But Peters refused the package, allowing Hoskings to attend the prom and use part of her savings to pay for her tuition at Hawaii Pacific University, where she plans to study physical therapy.

“I loved it,” she said of the prom, held at the Harbor House in Marina del Rey. “Everything was perfect”

Brown calls the contest “Cinderella 2000” and describes it as a multicultural essay contest because the winners include girls from various ethnic backgrounds. High school principals recommended contestants based on grades and extracurricular achievements. Brown and several supporters selected the winners after reading the essays submitted by more than 300 of those girls about the meaning of inner beauty and self esteem.

Claudia Arevalo, 18, a senior at Locke High School in Watts and secretary of her senior class, wrote about the perils of judging people by their appearances. It is a painful subject for Arevalo, who is a Latina but said she is often not accepted by other Latino students because she looks Asian.

“Having respect for yourself is having respect for others and not judging people by external things,” she said. “I have been judged that way because of the color of my skin.”

Had it not been for the contest, Arevalo said, she would not have been able to afford to attend her prom. Now she said it is a night she will never forget.

Arevalo made a grand entrance to her prom at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, wearing a peach-colored lace gown with thin straps and matching shoes and handbag.

Afterward, Arevalo and her date dismissed the chauffeur and followed friends to an after-prom party. Eventually, the couple ended up taking a romantic stroll on a nearby beach, arriving home just before 3 a.m.

“It was all very nice,” she said.

Brown won her Emmys for directing the makeup on the soap opera “Days of Our Lives.” She has also worked on numerous awards shows, music videos and feature films, such as “Set it Off,” starring Queen Latifah, and “Money Talks,” starring Chris Tucker and Charlie Sheen.

Stokes, a longtime friend of Brown whose client list includes singers Jennifer Lopez, Patti La Belle, En Vogue and Will Smith, agreed to make the dresses in her Woodland Hills shop based on the ideas of the contest winners.

“I’m always helping celebrities get ready for the evening so I thought it would be fun to help some young girls get ready for the prom,” she said.

Bell, a hairstylist in the entertainment industry for 10 years, met Brown on the set of a television commercial and immediately agreed to help.

Wardrobe stylist Julie Tidwell helped out by persuading several New York designers to donate shoes, jewelry and accessories for the girls to keep.

Brown estimates that the market value of those clothes and services would be about $6,000 per winner.

Next year, Brown hopes to expand the contest to 22 high schools, including schools in East Los Angeles, with one winner chosen from each school.

“I’m going to do as many as I can,” she said.

For most of the girls, preparing for the prom was a daylong affair.

Santinac, a varsity basketball player, cheerleader and member of the Academic Decathlon team who plans to attend Cal State Dominguez Hills, arrived at the bustling Second 2 None salon on La Brea Boulevard about 11 a.m. on the morning of the prom last week, wearing overalls and a black baseball cap.

The make-over started with a manicure by Shelley McDaniel, a professional manicurist who volunteered to work on all the winners. After the manicure, McDaniel worked on painting and polishing Santinac’s toenails while Brown applied her makeup. Bell then shampooed Santinac’s hair and styled it in an array of elegant ringlets.

Later, at her home in Compton, Santinac slipped on her silver satin gown that she helped design at Stokes’ shop in Woodland Hills. The dress features a sleeve on one side and a silver strap on the other. She wore silver shoes and carried a matching purse.

Marcus Wilson, Santinac’s date, arrived just before the black chauffeured limousine pulled up to the curb about 6:30 p.m.

Friends and neighbors gathered around the car and someone popped open a bottle of sparkling apple cider just before the couple headed for the prom at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

“I felt like a queen on a pedestal,” a contented Santinac said a few days later.