INSIDE/OUT

David Silva

One of the fringe benefits of living in Southern California is we get

to tell our stories of occasional brushes with greatness. It’s an L.A.

pastime, regaling one another with our tales of star sightings, of being

in line at Ralphs and the guy in front of you happens to be on the cover

of the People magazine to your left, or of turning around in a night club

and spilling your drink on someone whose face is instantly recognizable

to millions.

“You’ll never believe this!” the stories go. “I was in Denny’s

yesterday and Wynona Ryder was sitting in the booth across from me

eating a Denver omelet!”

“Really? Wow! You know, I was closing up shop last month and Arnold

Schwarzenegger came in and asked if he could use the restroom. I said,

‘Are you kidding me? Mi bano es su bano, Mr. Schwarzenegger!”

The problem with these stories is the bigger the celebrity and the

greater the contact with them, the less likely it is people will believe

them. For example, my friends have no trouble believing me when I tell

them about my conversation with Anthony Edwards. I was walking into

Priscilla’s Cafe in Burbank when I spotted him walking out, still wearing

his “E.R.” greens from, I assume, the day’s filming at Warner Bros.

“Hey!” I immediately shouted at him. “Love your show!”

Edwards looked at me kind of startled and replied, “Oh. Thank you.

Thanks a lot,” got into his car and sped off. So I tell my friends I had

a conversation with Anthony Edwards, and they have no problem believing

it.

But they tend to look a little skeptical whenever I tell them the

story of my long weekend of love with Catherine Zeta-Jones. But that’s

probably because I only tell it after I’ve had a few and usually can’t

stop laughing when I do.

And very few of my friends, except the ones who were with me when it

happened, believe me when I say I was in the famous gym dance scene from

the movie “Grease.” It’s a source of sadness for me, because, unlike the

tale of my love tryst with Michael Douglas’ future wife, the “Grease”

story happens to be true.

A big chunk of “Grease” was filmed at Huntington Park High School,

about six blocks from where I grew up. Some of the movie was shot at

Hollywood High and elsewhere around L.A., but the classroom scenes, the

hallway scenes, the scenes on the steps to the main building that bore

the words ‘Rydell High School” -- all were shot at my alma mater in

Huntington Park. And the famous “National Bandstand” dance scene was shot

in the H.P. High gym.

I was 12 when the filming took place, and for my friends and I, it was

like the circus had come to town. Every day during the two-month shoot,

we were all over the sets, climbing over fences to gawk at the cameras

and the costumes, stealing doughnuts from the buffet tables, hobnobbing

with the cast and crew until they begged us to leave them alone.

The director came to hate us -- no less than three scenes that had

taken hours to set up had to be completely re-shot because either myself

or one of my friends suddenly rushed in wearing our 1970s attire while

the cameras were rolling. He brought in extra security and had fences put

up everywhere in a vain attempt to “Keep those god*** kids off my ***

set!”

Right. What the director was never able to figure out was that my

friends and I had spent years exploring every inch of Huntington Park

High. The school had always been our own private recreation center -- we

were intimately familiar with entrances even campus security didn’t know

about. The gang of “Grease” was on our turf, and they weren’t about to

keep us out of the most exciting thing to every happen in our hometown.

Of course we had no idea ‘Grease’ was going to be such a phenomenal

hit -- one of the highest-grossing films in movie history. My friends and

I looked at all those pompadours and outlandish outfits, and assumed an

episode of “Happy Days” was being filmed. Who knew?

Over the course of the summer of ‘76, we managed to meet just about

every big name in the movie -- Olivia Newton-John, Jeff Connelly, Sid

Caesar, Eve Arden. When I say “meet,” I mean we managed to run up and

startle the daylights out of them. But it’s a plain fact that I was the

only one among us who shook hands and chatted it up with John Travolta.

The big gym dance scene was being staged, and security was at an

all-time high. Every door leading into the H.P. High gymnasium was

guarded by beefy men with walkie-talkies. So I scaled a fire-escape at

the back of the building, crawled through a skylight that had been

unlocked years before by my friends, carefully negotiated the catwalk

that ran over the top of the drained Olympic-size pool, slipped through

the transom that led to the girl’s locker room (which explains why my

friends had unlocked the skylight years before), and from there casually

strolled through a back door that led into the main gym.

The only place I could hide in the gym in order not to be kicked out

was under the bleachers, so that’s where I went. And here’s the part of

my story that no one ever believes when I tell it: While the famous gym

dance scene in “Grease” was being shot, I was crawling under the

bleachers, which are clearly visible in about half of the scene. Thanks

to the wonders of VCR technology, I’ve since studied the entire scene

frame by frame. Although I’m not certain, I think you can actually see

the soles of my tennis shoes in one of those frames.

During a break in the shooting, I spied from my vantage point John

Travolta standing alone in his pink shirt and suit. Although I knew it

meant getting busted, there was just no way I was going to miss shaking

hands with the great Vinnie Barbarino, so I crawled out from under the

bleachers, rushed over and shook his hand.

“Mr. Travolta, it’s great to meet you. I’m a big, big fan.”

“Oh. Thanks. Thanks a lot. I appreciate that.”

John Travolta was just the nicest guy. A lot nicer than the assistant

director who suddenly grabbed me by the back of my T-shirt and hustled me

out of the gym. When I saw the awed expressions of my waiting friends

when I was tossed out the front door, I knew I had a story to tell for

the rest of my life.

And now I’ve told it to you. Later, when I think the mood is right,

I’ll tell you all about my long weekend of love with Catherine

Zeta-Jones.

DAVID SILVA is city editor of the News-Press. His column appears

Wednesdays. Reach him at 637-3233. Or e-mail him at

david.silva@latimes.com.