The Stars Come Out for Children : Health: The Hollywood elite behind the Children’s Action Network uses its celebrityhood to spotlight the plight of kids.

If Henry (the Fonz) Winkler told you that millions of American children were starving, would you believe him?

If Steven Spielberg sent E.T. around to persuade you to vaccinate your kids, would you do it?

What if he sent Kate Capshaw? Bugs Bunny?

“Let’s face it,” Winkler says, “celebrity is the royalty of America. Yes, we’re the ones who can actually grab people’s attention--at least for a second. And sometimes, that’s all we need. . . .”

Using their personal spotlights to focus public interest on the plight of children in the United States, the celebrity ambassadors of the Children’s Action Network have done a lot with a second here and a second there.

In the last two years, the network’s National Immunization Campaign has helped protect more than 175,000 children and educated millions of parents nationwide about the need for vaccinations.

Its supporters have crusaded for better access to health care for children and pregnant women, and they have given children who were caught up in the 1992 Los Angeles riots a televised forum to air their grievances against the dangerous world they live in.

Now the nonprofit group is preparing an all-out media assault on the myth that no one goes hungry anymore in America.

“It’s hard to imagine that some 5 million children go hungry in this country every month,” Winkler says, “but it’s the truth and it demands our immediate attention.”

*

Including his high-top sneakers and Ninja Turtle sweat shirt, 4-year-old Darnell Brown weighs in at a slim 34 pounds--not bad for his height and age.

Even so, he will probably get a blood test before preschool begins to make sure he has enough iron.

“Am I going to get a shot in the butt?” he asks nurse practitioner Dolores Collins at the Charles Drew Head Start Medical Clinic in Compton. “Not today, honey, not today.”

“I’m afraid we’re seeing a fair share--at least 10%--of our children with low iron in their blood. Anemia like that means they aren’t getting enough of the right foods,” says Collins, who hands out vitamins free to families who need them.

The Drew clinic is the only preschool program of its kind with an on-site clinic. Because every child it serves is living below the poverty level, it was adopted by the children’s network, which recently directed a $250,000 grant its way from the Mattel Foundation.

“We’re funded to serve 1,774 children ages 3 to 5. But with the grant,” says Martha Johnson, health coordinator, “we are able to screen and immunize another 410 kids, the little brothers and sisters.”

Most of the children playing on the floor of the clinic waiting room don’t recognize the names Spielberg or Winkler, but they know Big Bird and they know Barbie and Ken. And, after her recent appearance on behalf of the children’s network, they know actress Demi Moore as “a nice mommy,” as one child put it.

“With help from people who love children, we can sound the alarm for the specific plights of children,” says Jennifer Perry, the network’s executive director. “Once we’ve found the issue where our efforts might make a difference, we turn up the volume.”

*

“Children need a voice,” actress Capshaw says. “And I can be very loud.”

Capshaw and husband Spielberg were among the six high-profile Hollywood families who in 1990 founded the nonprofit Children’s Action Network to exploit their personal fame and contacts for the good of kids.

“All of us are parents and all have a solid history of work on behalf of children,” says Winkler, whose wife, Stacey, is a founder of the Los Angeles Children’s Services Commission. The Children’s Action Network has nothing to do with television networks--except for spreading the message of children in crisis. This is a network in the most active sense of the verb.

Its founders and family of friends reads like a Who’s Who of Hollywood social activism: Norman and Lyn Lear, Edward James Olmos, “Family Ties” Gary Goldberg, Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito, Robin Williams, Richard and Lili Fini Zanuck, Whoopi Goldberg.

MCA President Sidney Sheinberg says his actress-wife, Lorraine Gary Sheinberg, and children’s activist Lezlie Johnson saw an opportunity for such a coalition in meetings with Los Angeles children’s groups years ago. “And the network still works best at building more coalitions.

“We’re not all celebrities,” Sheinberg says. “It is not an exclusive club. But we do have access to certain people--politicians or makers of TV programs or movies, people who can help us amplify the voices of children.”

The group’s highly visible--and highly successful--alliance with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to vaccinate American children capitalized on the network’s media access.

E.T. look-alikes were sent to immunization centers, Jimmy Smits and Williams produced public service announcements, Bugs Bunny escorted Capshaw to clinic openings.

Now, a similar stable of stars is being mobilized for the upcoming hunger campaign. And people such as Oscar Lemus at St. Joseph Center Family Assistance Program is ready.

“People are hungry, there is no question about it,” says Lemus, whose Venice food bank is often out of food by noon. He introduces a visitor to Reina Chinchilla, 30, and her 10-year-old son, Brian. “We come here every week for groceries, fresh vegetables, butter sometimes and cereal, when it’s here. My boys love cereal. The food helps us very, very much.”

Like most food banks, supplies are low in the summer and fall. “We need more awareness year-round that little children are not getting enough to eat, to grow, to learn in school. When well-known people put their spotlight on our work, it is a true gift,” Lemus says.

*

Why people pay more attention to the voices of celebrities than to, say, those of children is a mystery to actress Perlman.

“There are so many people out there talking about so many things, it seems you’ve got to have a gimmick to get the message across. So, hey,” Perlman says, “we’re the gimmick.

“There are plenty of people who may be more educated on the subject than we are, but people would rather go some place when one of us guys is there.”

Although she has made promotional appearances for the children’s network’s immunization campaign, she has been helped as well.

In a dramatic change of venue for the former “Cheers” barmaid, the children’s network recently arranged a behind-the-scenes court tour for Perlman to give her a taste of a real custody case drama before she dramatizes one for TV.

“We jump at the chance to give writers and producers resources for background and viewpoint for their shows,” says network director Perry, whose research and special tours have made for more graphic and accurate depictions of issues such as foster care, runaways and child abuse.

“We want people to get face to face with the issues,” she says. “Once you see a need up close, it’s pretty hard not to want to do something about it.”