You’re Not in South Dakota Anymore

The chance to win a weekend in Hollywood with a real, live actor was too much for two South Dakota women to resist.

Shirley Schwab, a grandmother, and her friend, Kelly Marnette, put in a $500 bid at an auction sponsored by the Aberdeen American News. It was a lot of dough, but they both needed an adventure, and the out-of-towners were about to get one.

“Win an extended three-day weekend in Hancock Park, in the heart of Hollywood’s residential area where the stars live,” the promo said.

The ladies didn’t even mind that they’d have to pay their own airfare, or that their “celebrity” host -- Patrick Kilpatrick -- does not have his name in lights.

“I guess you’d call him a bit actor,” says Shirley, who runs a child advocacy agency with Kelly.

They had met Kilpatrick in Aberdeen last fall when he joined other luminaries in a pheasant hunt. There’s a national circuit in which local folks pay to hunt birds with ballplayers and entertainers, and Kilpatrick is in demand.

Bags packed and hopes high, Shirley and Kelly flew to Los Angeles on Feb. 3 to spend a few days with Schwab’s brother in Huntington Beach before making the Hollywood scene. On a family boating trip, Shirley got seasick, and it was rough waters for the next three days.

Shirley called Kilpatrick twice on Friday, but got no answer. She and Kelly missed his return call Saturday morning, and were surprised by the message he left.

“He said he was going to Universal City with his son,” Shirley says. He also said he’d leave a key to his apartment with his doorman and added, “Maybe I will see you later.”

Pardon?

She and Kelly didn’t feel comfortable flopping at Kilpatrick’s apartment, not knowing if or when he might return. They barely knew him, and South Dakotans don’t do that sort of thing.

Besides, their own hometown had rolled out the red carpet for Kilpatrick and his two sons last fall, all expenses paid. After Shirley and Kelly placed their winning bid for a Hollywood weekend with Kilpatrick, he told them they might hit an L.A. jazz club or restaurant together and maybe even drop by a live studio shoot.

The ladies left Kilpatrick a message Saturday morning and let him know they were confused and disappointed. When he finally called back Sunday morning, their Hollywood dream was shattered.

As Shirley recalls the conversation, Kilpatrick bluntly insisted he had more than fulfilled his obligation to them by cleaning his apartment, stocking the refrigerator and leaving the keys with the doorman.

Serving as the ladies’ West Coast agent and manager, I put in a call to Kilpatrick, who flipped out at the nerve of his accusers. He said he had “bent over backward” for Shirley and Kelly, who never had the “gumption” to make it to his apartment.

“I have so much to say about it,” Kilpatrick said, and he wasn’t kidding.

He rambled on for about 40 minutes about his “journey into the heartland” and the misunderstanding that followed, and I didn’t hear him take a breath.

Kilpatrick said he had graciously offered his home to two South Dakota couples this year, with another duo coming in next month. But he said he made it clear to Shirley and Kelly that he would be available to play tour guide only if he wasn’t busy. As it turned out, he was extremely busy.

It seems he has three “film projects” in the pipeline, and they happen to be the “most arresting films in the world, and very valuable to the world of ideas, as well as cinema.”

In other words, he’s like 50,000 other people in L.A. who can’t get funding.

Kilpatrick said he had to pick up one of his two sons in Santa Barbara, and he likes to spend enough time there to “relate” to the boys’ school. He also had scheduled a two-hour “purification” session, or he might have had more time to give his scheduled visitors a better “expression.”

It’s a shame this meeting of two worlds didn’t work out, because I would have loved to hear how Shirley and Kelly related to purification.

“I am not paying them back for that $500,” Kilpatrick bristled. “My budget doesn’t allow me to do that.”

I think Shirley and Kelly got closer to discovering the real Hollywood than they realized.

But they were determined to see the neighborhood itself for the first time, so they headed north from Huntington Beach with Shirley’s brother.

In very diplomatic terms, Shirley told me Hollywood wasn’t quite the glittering spectacle they had envisioned. A man stood on a corner, spewing racial slurs, and when the out-of-towners had to use a restroom, they went into a McDonald’s.

“A woman was in the stall, leaning against a toilet paper dispenser, shooting up,” Shirley says. Her brother was locked out of another stall until a man staggered out, rolling down his sleeve.

On the way back to the car, they had to duck for cover when some scaffolding collapsed. And when they reached their street, the car was gone.

“We thought it was stolen,” Shirley said, but after reading the small print on the signs, they realized it had been towed.

Shirley called the tow truck company but couldn’t hear anything. Sirens wailed as emergency crews raced toward the collapsed scaffolding. She called back and was told the car was impounded in Culver City.

“It cost $35 for the cab ride and $212 to get the car out,” Shirley said.

The Aberdeen newspaper is offering a refund to the ladies, but they’re not sure they’ll accept, since the $500 was intended for juvenile diabetes programs.

Shirley and Kelly told me they don’t hold any of this against California, and they realized we are not all in purification. They said they would consider returning, but would like to try a different celebrity hookup.

“If you could arrange it,” Shirley said, “Tom Cruise would be good.”

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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday and can be reached at steve.lopez@latimes.com.

Keep the raincoats handy in Santa Paula. Today brings a 20% chance of showers and highs in the low 60s.