Off Screen

"This is hell, dude!"

- Ascanio Pignatelli. L.A. based graduate student and would-be actor, interviewed during the Malibu fires by the Los Angeles Times.

There is a smell of burnt toast lingering in the Malibu air, and there's been a big rush on high-powered lawn sprinklers in Hollywood's D.I.Y. shops, but the world didn't come to an end last week despite the dire predictions of Maria Devi Khristos, Saviour of the Universe, Jesus Christ incarnate, leader of the Great White Brotherhood and former waitress. The Ukrainian Messiah had taken out a series of ads in the world press announcing that November 24th would be the big day, Armageddon, complete with the coming of the four horsemen and the whole apocalyptic enchilada, but then for some reason she suddenly rescheduled it for Sunday the 14th. Maybe God had plans for later this month and couldn't fit an apocalypse in.

When the end of the world came and went without incident, she let it be known the exact date was still negotiable. "My name is God and upon God's death comes Doomsday," she announced. "When my body is emptied of light, when the last drop of blood has been drained, when I am full of darkness . . . then you will see. Your devil's world will end." She made this announcement from Kiev jail, where she has been languishing since last week on unspecified charges. Presumably impersonating a deity or being in charge of a universe while under the influence of drugs.

But there must have been a moment there when the stars of stage and screen were wishing they had paid a little more attention to Maria, when towering walls of flame were sweeping down from the Santa Monica mountains, driven by the hot Santa Ana wind, and it looked like the signing of that lucrative three picture contract was just a tad premature. When the flames leaped across the Pacific Coast Highway and ran out of control through the million dollar beachfront neighbourhoods from Pacific Palisades to Malibu, you can't tell me that household names weren't down on their knees pledging all their worldly belongings to whatever God might be listening, if only He or She or even It, godammit, cause you can't be fussy at a time like this, if only the Supreme Being would see clear to sparing their miserable lives and maybe organising it so that the fire would at least skip around the trophy room where they kept their Oscar and that wonderful picture of Frank Sinatra kissing them on the cheek. Imminent death has a way of concentrating the mind wonderfully. Believe me, I know about these things.

After all the hoo-hah, you could tell the world's press was disappointed to find no major star had been caught in the conflagration. At one point the homes of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cher, Michael Keaton, Mel Gibson, Barbra Streisand, Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford, Ryan O'Neill and Farrah Fawcett, Danny DeVito, John McEnroe, Janet Jackson and Sting were reported to be under threat. In the end only Sean Penn was completely burned out, with minor damage being reported on the properties of Rod Steiger, Charles Bronson and Star Wars star Mark Hamill, who appeared on local television discussing his singed fence. This is hardly the Hollywood A list. Dick Van Dyke Evacuated From Flat! is not a scoop any editor worth a damn is going to stop his presses for.

Though 345 homes went up in flames and 35,000 acres of prime Californian real estate was levelled, there was only one fatality, a completely obscure English writer-director named Duncan Gibbins, who was burnt to a cinder while trying to rescue his cat. Reporters made as much as they could of the irony that he had written the films Fire On Fire, Third Degree Burns and Eve Of Destruction but it is hard to stir the public interest in movies they've never seen, by an Englishman they've never heard of. Now if somebody had been able to find out what happened to the cat, that would have been a story.

Still it's hard not to feel some sympathy for the multi-millionaire, superstar residents of the Malibu colony. I mean, how much more hardship do these people have to endure, O Lord? They've had brush fires, Pacific floods, race riots and earthquakes. They live under the constant threat that the San Andreas fault is just going to open up and swallow all their Oscars in one go. I sometimes wonder why they don't all relocate somewhere more hospitable, like Dublin. Believe me, we don't have these kind of problems in Donaghmede.

In fact, I have publicly offered to sway my desirable basement flat in the heart of one of Dublin's most vibrant and character filled districts for a life-threatening, beachfront fire-trap in the heart of the danger zone. And you know why? Because I care. I care about movies. And I care about the sensitive, artistic souls who star in them. Surely these geniuses of the silver screen, these tortured thespians, cannot be expected to suffer any more of callous Mother Nature's cruel tricks and japes? The worst they could expect in Donaghmede would be to get caught in a shower while running to catch the bus.

Meanwhile, I'm organising an appeal for food and blankets to send to Sean Penn and the other homeless of Malibu. No cheap tat, if you please. These folks are used to the best. Caviar, fine wines, silk sheets, old Armani coats, you know the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Anything you can spare as long as it's still got the designer label attached. Send it to Suffering Superstars, care of myself, at Hot Press. I'll make sure it gets put to good use.

I cannot close this issue's column without calling for a moment's silence in honour of the dead, and I'm not referring to that mad Englishman and his cat. It's been a bad couple of weeks for movie fatalities, even if you discount the latest Sly Stallone pic. Vincent Price passed over to the other side. I'm sure they laid on a big welcome for him. The inscription on his gravestone probably reads Not Undead, Just Between Roles.

Frederico Fellini passed away, after a long coma. An immense loss to the world of cinema, even if he was well past his sell-by date and hadn't made a decent movie in over ten years. He will be sorely missed. The whole of Italy apparently turned out for his funeral, which made it just about the greatest crowd scene of his career. Even the Italian Prime Minister, who once decried him as decadent and tried to ban his movies, wept as his coffin was lowered, probably glad of the distraction from the local corruption investigations. I was only disappointed that the funeral cortege wasn't led by an elephant, with the coffin carried by dwarves and hermaphrodites. That's the kind of gesture the director would really have appreciated.

Most shocking of all was the passing of young River Phoenix, who died suddenly and mysteriously on Halloween outside Johnny Depp's Hollywood club. The cause of death has not been uncovered, although a paramedic on the scene described it as a classic cocaine reaction. Surely that can't be right: I thought the classic reaction to cocaine was to start talking loudly and aggressively about something of no interest to anyone else, while pacing around the room rubbing your nose.

Hollywood commentators were at pains to point out that River was renowned not only as the most talented but also the most normal and well adjusted of the Hollywood brat pack, citing as proof his close family ties. Sure, but has anyone taken a good look at his family? Parents who were hippy missionaries in the bizarre Children Of God cult, gave their offspring names like River and Rain, and changed the family surname to Phoenix when they decided to start a new career as movie agents for their kids don't exactly register as either normal or well-adjusted in my book. River could only be thankful that his folks weren't Irish, or they might have decided to call themselves Mr and Mrs Liffey and he'd have been the laughing stock of the whole schoolyard.

But life is cruel. They called him the new James Dean, now he's gone the same way as the old one. In a perfect world that would have been Charlie Sheen on the sidewalk, Michael Winner in a coma and Bruce Willis engulfed by flames, having gone into the heart of his burning mansion in a valiant but vain attempt to rescue his toupee.