The Look: Heather Graham & James Walters

A POOL WITH A VIEW

"Waiting for Heather," James Walters suddenly says aloud, seemingly apropos of nothing. But it's not really a non sequitur--nor is it the title of some Hollywood revival of Samuel Beckett's classic play. It is, in fact, what we're doing. "The movie we made together, Shout, took weeks, no, months," he explains, "and I spent most of that time exactly like this--waiting for Heather's hair."

■ I have to agree, it's really tedious waiting hours for the hairdresser to work his magic on Heather Graham's tresses, but I tell Walters it could be worse. Back when they were filming, he had to while away the days on dusty backwoods locations, whereas now we have our drinks and our pretzels, the weather's nice, and we're on the terrace of a multi-million dollar beachfront mansion in Malibu. Hey, we've even got our feet up on the table, here in the shade. The owner of the house, an Oscar-winning composer whose name I didn't quite catch, comes by just then and shoots us--or, more exactly, our shoes--a sharp look, "That's Burt Lancaster's table," he growls, "He used to own the house next door." I want to ask, "Did you buy it at Bun's garage sale?" but I know that's not the likeliest scenario in this neighborhood. ■ These Malibu "shacks," as they're referred to by the locals, form a kind of Celebrity Clearinghouse: they are to hot (read; rich) stars on the West Coast exactly what Grand Central Station is to commuters on the East Coast--everyone passes through, sooner or later. Some-times in the unexpected haste of moving further up--or further down--the ladder of success, a table or two is bound to get left behind in all the excitement. At the moment, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore live a couple of doors down, and just past them reside Tatum O'Neal and John McEnroe. Two houses north is the place where Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley vacation from their beachfront home in the Hamptons, and just a little further on, Tom Hanks has recently purchased John Frankenheimer's old house. ■ So per-haps one day soon, as their stars continue to rise, Graham and Walters will each take up residence on this sandy strip too. "No, I don't think so," Walters says, casting a cool Bostonian eye on the incongruous sight of a huge heated pool and jacuzzi within a few feet of the Pacific Ocean. "Now, the character I played in Shout--a '50s orphan in a boys' reform school--this place would be his dream come true. But I'm not really much of a beach person--I prefer it when the forest wilderness comes right down to the water, you know?" ■ "I wouldn't really want to live in Malibu either," Graham chimes in as she joins us, in a chic little shift, purple pumps, and vintage Tuesday Weld 'do. "It'd be really cool to live at the beach, like maybe in Venice, but here when you go for a walk along the shore, you just run into all the same industry people you see all day, every day, at work." If she doesn't have a fantasy to be part of this scene, I wonder how much Graham's really enjoying get-ting the all-out glamour treatment that's part and parcel of play-acting someone who lives the high life of this particular territory. "Are you kidding?" Graham asks with a laugh. "Listen, I was a street junkie in Drugstore Cowboy, a girl just out of the convent on 'Twin Peaks,' a '50s virgin in Shout, and a Swedish immigrant farming the land in Willa Cathcrs' 'O Pioneers.' Pretending now to be some rich dame with all the time and money in the world is fan!" ■ At last, the photo shoot is about to begin. As she stretches out on a chaise to catch rays, wearing expensive sunglasses and looking every inch to the manor born, Graham glances over at me and says, "I learned a long time ago, everything looks better when you see it on the pages of a magazine."

--Kevin Hennessey

Terry cloth robes, sunglasses all courtesy I. Magnin, Beverly Hills. Borwore courtesy Joseph Jacquez.