Erin Brockovich, Inc.

Erin Brockovich (the woman, not the movie) has just finished speaking for an hour and 15 minutes to more than 300 college bookstore managers in Room 403B in the South Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center.

It was a virtuoso performance by Erin Brockovich, the motivational speaker, talking about the admittedly fallible life of Erin Brockovich, the person. The session was billed “Take It From Me: Life’s a Struggle but You Can Win,” which happens to be the title of a book by Erin Brockovich, the author.

The speech is an abridged version of a story that could fill a country-western tear-jerker, or maybe a dozen of them. Dyslexia, hospitalized with anorexia, two really bad marriages, one really good one, guilt over an abortion, macaroni- and-cheese-for-dinner poverty, a decision to get breast implants to help with her self-esteem, an alleged $310,000 extortion attempt by a former boyfriend and an ex-husband, a slander lawsuit by another ex-husband, the unexpected death of a brother, a palimony suit by the ex-boyfriend, $250,000 spent on drug rehab treatments for two of her three children, who range in age from 11 to 18. Not to mention a bad case of mold in her dream house that she says made her terribly ill, has cost her $500,000 to fix and launched a messy lawsuit that so far has filled five volumes of paperwork at Van Nuys Superior Court.

Most people might prefer to keep experiences like those private. But not Brockovich, not if she hopes to cash in on the celebrity she has enjoyed since the mostly true-to-life movie bearing her name chronicled how she stubbornly sought justice for a small town suffering from pollution. Working as a low-level investigator for a trial lawyer, she became the catalyst for a $333-million settlement by Pacific Gas & Electric for polluting the waters of Hinkley, Calif., with chromium 6.

Actress Julia Roberts portrayed Brockovich in the movie, and last year Roberts won an Oscar for her performance (forgetting to mention Brockovich in her nervous acceptance speech). No matter that some conservative critics accused the movie of glorifying trial lawyers and questioned the science behind the Hinkley claims, or that some people from Hinkley complained publicly about the small cut of the settlement they got. The story struck a chord, grossing $125.5 million domestically at the box office.

Brockovich did rounds of interviews, with Universal asking her to hold off until just before the movie opened, correctly anticipating that journalists would want to speak to the real-life character Roberts played once they saw the film. “One interview turned into 450,” Brockovich recalls.

Soon Brockovich had a book deal, a speaking tour, three agents from William Morris Agency and, with luck, may in the future land a talk show. Her celebrity is seemingly everywhere, part of an orchestrated effort to continue leveraging the goodwill generated by the film even though it’s going on two years since it was released. “She’s an industry now,” says Chris Newman, one of her William Morris agents.

On this morning at the convention center, Brockovich, 41, is dressed in a tight powder-blue blouse, black pants, spiked heels and a studded black belt. Her blond mane is tied into an upright ponytail, the leftover hair swinging around like a large tassel. She’s told the bookstore managers about her awkward first meeting with a surprisingly shy Roberts, and how before the Hinkley case, secretaries in the law office hoping to get her fired brought a yardstick to work to measure how far north of her knee her skirts fell. She choked up reading a letter her father wrote after punishing her for cutting high school in her hometown of Lawrence, Kan.

A few minutes after she finishes, her McGraw-Hill book detailing all that and more will be sale at a booth in the lobby for $8, a bargain given its $19.95 list. Two dozen audience members line up to greet her.

“It’s about empowerment,” says Jeni L. Luft, director of the bookstore at Montana Tech in Butte. Marlin Kinzer, director of the tech bookstore at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, adds: “I would consider myself a common man. She certainly relates to the common man.”

Then there’s Michael Jastorff, director of the Black Hills State University bookstore in Spearfish, S.D., who offers a simpler explanation of why he showed up. “I saw the movie and thought here’s my chance to meet someone famous.”

The most important decision that created what Brockovich is today came when the movie was christened. A movie about PG&E; and Hinkley could have easily been “Erin B.,” “Erin,” “Just Erin,” “Class Act” or “Lady Justice,” which were some of the other titles considered. But director Steven Soderbergh and producing partners Jersey Films wanted “Erin Brockovich.”

At the wrap party, Brockovich asked Soderbergh what he planned to name the film. That’s when he broke the news to her. “Up until that point I always thought I’d be able to disassociate myself with the movie, whether it be good, bad or indifferent,” she says. “There would be no name recognition. When I realized it was going to be named with the name I go by, it hit me that I really am attached to this movie.”

With the exception of historical figures (Gandhi, Patton, Nixon or Malcolm X) when does Hollywood ever name a hit movie after a real person, let alone one who still stands in line at department stores, writes checks and uses credit cards? Patch Adams was a real person played by Robin Williams, albeit the nickname for Dr. Hunter Adams. Who remembers that Jan Schlichtmann, played by John Travolta, was the real-life lawyer in the hit film “A Civil Action.”

After choosing the name, Universal Pictures settled on a marketing slogan for the film’s posters, billboards and ads: “Julia Roberts is Erin Brockovich.” The more pertinent question these days is “Who is Erin Brockovich?” now that she’s in Act II of her celebrity. It’s not a question she can answer easily.

Some days, she says, she is a woman who yearns for the anonymity that preceded the movie, when she could spend hours investigating files without being bothered, leave her name on a phone message without worrying about the reaction or use a credit card without launching 20 minutes of questions and autograph requests.

“My cover has been blown completely,” she says. “I actually had a meltdown the other day. I said, ‘I’m sick of being Erin Brockovich.’ I can’t get away from it, whether it be a check, a credit card or a phone call. Yesterday I made a phone call to an agency. They flipped and said, ‘Oh, come on.’ ”

Demurrers aside, this movie heroine has become a multimillion-dollar franchise and the most requested speaker the William Morris Agency had last year, commanding $25,000 an appearance and logging 93 speaking dates over 18 months.

Bob Benia, chief executive of Toronto-based RCB Entertainment, repeatedly invokes the term “brand” when talking about Brockovich. He could just as well be talking about Procter & Gamble’s Tide or Walt Disney Co.’s Mickey Mouse. “Here is a person who won the celebrity lottery. When you do, you can do a lot with your winnings,” Benia says.

Benia books Brockovich into auditoriums and concert halls as part of a package of speakers who have also included such prominent women as activist Coretta Scott King and actresses Lauren Bacall, Mary Tyler More and Julie Andrews.

“Anyone who puts themselves out there like Erin to encourage a transaction, whether its an emotional transaction or a financial transaction like selling a book, becomes a brand,” Benia says. “We’re kind of like brand managers. We put these five flavors out on the buffet. Erin is clearly a distinct flavor. She’s working to keep her brand strong. She knows her buyers.”

Lately, keeping that brand going has involved appearing virtually everywhere. Brockovich carrying the Olympic torch. An environmental justice program at UCLA funded with $100,000 from Universal Pictures that has her name and that of her boss, lawyer Ed Masry, on it. Speeches in such places as New Brunswick, N.J., Milwaukee, Baltimore, Calgary and Toronto, sometimes as many as three a week. There’s Erin Brockovich endorsing Democrat Tom Umberg in his unsuccessful bid for state insurance commissioner, and the revelation in a recent book that Al Gore wanted to recruit her to dig up voting irregularities in Florida when the 2000 presidential race hung in the balance.

She hosted a prime-time ABC special in December called “Challenge America With Erin Brockovich.” Agents Mark Itkin and Chris Newman of William Morris said the ratings were disappointing, and blame the time slot it was given--10 p.m. on the Friday before Christmas. ABC executives say it was watched by 7.2 million people, third for the night, but did draw 29% more 19- to 49-year-olds than CBS’ “48 Hours.”

Brockovich has even become a budding stage actress, appearing in the Toronto production of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues,” where, according to the National Post, Brockovich was “showing off her legendary cleavage in a black leather bustier.”

There is also the possible talk show, which has television executives tripping over themselves to gush about her potential. “If you want to use ‘Donahue’ and Erin in the same sentence, that would be fine,” says Linda Finnell, executive vice president of programming for NBC Enterprises, which in November shot a pilot for a syndicated talk show it is developing with Dick Clark Productions. “We want to do a show that people can walk away from and learn something.”

Itkin describes the concept as “a more contemporary version of what Oprah does.” Adds NBC Enterprises chief Ed Wilson: “What I see in Erin is a woman who connects with America, a woman who stands for what’s good about our country. I see her as a great person for daytime television.”

Like so many things in Brockovich’s life, a twist of fate put her media career into overdrive. Three weeks after the movie opened, Candice Bergen had to cancel a speech in Kansas City, Mo. William Morris agent Betsy Berg knew Brockovich had grown up in Lawrence, Kan., just a 40-mile drive away, and asked her to fill in. “It was a fluke,” Brockovich says.

With her parents in the front row and high school friends in the audience, Brockovich made her first public speech before a packed Midland Theater holding 2,800 people. Benia saw the potential of what she could do on a speakers tour and knew he had to jump fast. “It’s not so different from being on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade,” he says. “Here’s a new piece of talent. Do you want to buy into her? That’s when we started to brand her, not as a movie but as an inspirational person.”

Brockovich was wary of some of the offers. So was agent Newman, who originally got involved because he was a college friend of her current husband, actor Eric Ellis. Some were from fly-by-night operations like struggling Internet sites. There were offers to appear on games shows, even an offer to pose nude for Playboy that she turned down.

“I didn’t want to be perceived as the bimbo with the big chest,” she says. “I really wanted to be perceived as someone who has a heart and who has a brain, regardless of how I look.”

There also were nerves. She spurned “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” because she was, by her own admission, terrified.

O another recent morning Bockovich is sitting at a table in the marbled Westlake Village office of her mentor, Masry, played by Albert Finney in the movie. Masry, who gave her a $2.5-million bonus after the Hinkley settlement, is now mayor of Thousand Oaks. Brockovich, despite her hectic new schedule, has kept at this less-glamorous side of her life. As head of the law firm’s environmental investigations, she’s eager to drive to San Pedro in a few hours to meet with an expert witness, but worries that she won’t be able to make the drive in the allotted 45 minutes.

As she talks, it’s clear she is frustrated balancing celebrity with the desire for the privacy she once had. She bemoans how just a few days earlier she caused a stir at a Macy’s cosmetics counter in the San Fernando Valley when people in the store found out who she was. “It’s very surreal. The glitz, the glamour, the fairy tale come true, the Cinderella thing,” she says.

But Brockovich and her advisors also know that the window will close soon. Benia cites the example of Marcia Clark, the O.J. Simpson prosecutor who he believes failed to exploit her celebrity properly-- including taking too long to publish a book--and as a result faded quickly.

Brockovich knows privacy will have to wait. She says she’s well aware that sports stars and newsmakers of an instant have tried, and failed, to seize the moment.

“There is a window of time, and it is right now,” Brockovich says. “I’ve seen it build ever since the time the movie came out. I thought in six months it would die down. A year has passed since the Oscars and the momentum is still out there.”

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Times staff writer James Bates last wrote for the magazine on former Screen Actors Guild president Bill Daniels.