Celebrities Find Luxury of Inattention in Laguna

LAGUNA BEACH —  Under tight security, a salmon-colored, palatial mansion hugs the bluffs overlooking Aliso Beach, dwarfing other multimillion-dollar homes around it.

So grand is the towering, Mediterranean-style villa under construction near the ocean’s edge that it was rumored that the Guccis were coming to town. But the Italian family whose name is synonymous with chic handbags and luggage isn’t moving to Laguna Beach. Rather, a non-Gucci who reportedly supplies watches to the company will occupy the conspicuous Camel Point estate.

By contrast, others who own homes in the beach community, including sports commentator O.J. Simpson, actress Bette Midler and former TV star Harriet Nelson, shun showy displays of wealth, preferring to blend into the fabric of the artistic village known for liberal attitudes and colorful characters.

In this well-known retreat that boasts a proximity to Los Angeles without the jet set atmosphere of Malibu, celebrities mingle freely among other townspeople, rarely attracting crowds or creating public spectacles.

“I would never go shopping myself in L.A. and would certainly never go in New York because it can get a little hairy,” says Simpson, who spends summers with his wife and four children at their Laguna Beach home. “But in Laguna, I often get the list and go do the shopping myself and nobody bothers me. I become a Lagunatic.

“I’ve seen Gucci loafers on the beach in Malibu, but you can let your hair down in Laguna. The people are a lot more down to earth.”

Simpson and Nelson can be seen strolling the aisles at the neighborhood grocery store. Robert Englund, better known as fiendish Freddie Kreuger of “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” turned up recently at a march to protest development in Laguna Canyon. And like other, less famous mothers, Midler signed her young daughter up for swimming lessons last summer at the city’s Recreation Department.

“Laguna’s got its own identity, with a mix of all different kinds of people,” Laguna Beach Police Sgt. Ray Lardie explains. “You have the upper class, the Hare Krishnas, the gays, the homeless. . . . Anaheim and Placentia are great cities, but they don’t have the draw of Laguna.”

And, says Lardie, celebrities in Laguna have not had to worry about overzealous fans whose obsessions sometimes lead to violence.

“We haven’t had any problems,” Lardie said. “They don’t require any more special treatment than anyone else.”

Yet even Laguna residents who pride themselves on a certain level of sophistication have been known to lose their cool when celebrity residents step out in public.

When Midler reportedly joined a local health club several months ago, a parade of cars inched past the picture window for weeks, straining for a glimpse of the star, says Laguna Health Club co-owner Raymond Unger.

“It used to make us furious,” Unger said. “The phones were ringing off the hook. They’d call up (and ask), ‘Is Bette there?’ ”

Co-owner Jack Fontan said he thought it was some kind of a joke when he first got a telephone call from a man, claiming to be Midler’s trainer, asking if a celebrity could work out at the club “without being bothered.”

“I figured he was some kind of a jerk and I said, “How am I to assure you that your celebrity won’t be bothered at my gym?’ ”

When Midler arrived, bundled in a thick sweat suit, no one knew who she was, Unger said.

“The boy at the desk thought she was some housewife. When she signed her name, he said it was funny that she had the same name as Bette Midler,” Unger said. “Then when she took off her sweat suit he said, ‘Oh my God, it’s Bette Midler’ when he saw her hair.”

Long after Midler had stopped working out at the club, it continued to get phone callers asking if she was there, Unger said.

One city employee admits it’s hard to keep her cool when she runs into Simpson pushing a shopping cart at her local grocery store.

“I’ve seen him a lot and I just kind of follow him around,” she said, asking that her name not be published. “He’s so cute. But nobody bothers him. What am I going to do? Jump in his lap? That would be awfully embarrassing.”

A Simpson appearance at a Board of Adjustment meeting last year was enough to make City Councilman Neil Fitzpatrick take notice.

“He was up there testifying like any good citizen would do,” Fitzpatrick said. “Everybody did what I did. Their eyes got real big, they watched, kept their mouths shut and tried to be real cool. He didn’t run up over there and leap over three rows of chairs or anything.”

Other Laguna residents go out of their way not to accord celebrities special treatment.

“We all like to think we’re as cool as they are, so we don’t want to make too big a deal out of it,” said Colleen McKown, a swimming instructor.

That became evident recently when Midler enrolled her young daughter in McKown’s swimming class.

“I had known she was coming and I had waited and waited,” McKown said. “They were late on the first day. When she got here, I said, ‘Is your daughter signed up for this class?’ She said yes and I told her, ‘Now it’s very important for you to get here on time.’ She said she was sorry. Then I asked her if she had a receipt, so she dug in her purse to look for it and she kept digging until I told her she didn’t have to look for it anymore,” McKown said.

“It was fun talking about it to all of my friends, but when she was here, it really wasn’t that big a deal,” McKown said.