By SEAN DALY Special to the Daily Press
NEW YORK CITY – Leonardo DiCaprio would like to get something off his chest: “I remember when I was very young, stealing some gum from the local Ralph’s supermarket around the corner from my house,” he says, flashing a boyish grin.
“It was called Big League Chew…I subsequently never went back to that grocery store for the next year. My mom would come in and say, ‘What’s wrong with you? You used to love going shopping with me.’ And I would say, ‘No, Mom, I just really hate that place’…because I got caught!”
The strange admission came during a recent interview to promote his new movie, “Catch Me If You Can,” opening Christmas Day. DiCaprio, most famous of course for that 1997 boat movie, plays real-life con man Frank Abagnale, who successfully masqueraded as a Pan Am airlines pilot, a doctor, a district attorney, and a college professor for more than five years while cashing upwards of $2.5 million in counterfeit checks.
Kinda makes the whole pack of gum thing seem, well, minor league.
Not that DiCaprio has ever been one to be outdone – especially when it comes to his much-publicized party lifestyle. Consider his recent 28th birthday bash at the Palms Resort in Las Vegas. The “Titanic” star enlisted private jets to fly in pals like Tobey Maguire and Lukas Haas for the three-day-long affair, November 14 - 16. On the final night, DiCaprio enjoyed a steak dinner with 20 close friends (including Limp Bizkit singer Fred Durst) then hit the hotel’s trendy Ghostbar, where he danced and shot pool with “Real World-Las Vegas” cast member Arissa Hill, 23, until the wee hours of the morning.
“He invited a lot of girls,” said pal Henry Penzi, who helped organize the festivities. “Leo said it was by far his best birthday.”
In fact, most things just seem to keep getting better and better for the 5’ 10” Los Angeles native, who returns from a self-imposed exile this month with both “Catch Me If You Can” and director Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York.” “After Titanic came out, my whole life was put under this sort of microscope and I had an immediate loss in my private life,” he tells Newsweek.
These days DiCaprio has learned a few tricks to survive the fame game: “I have my hat and sunglasses wherever I go,” he says. “It’s all a matter of blending in with your environment. If you are somebody who is recognizable, the first mistake you can make is dressing up and having an entourage. As long as you walk alone and dress like everybody else, you can easily adapt to the environment.”
Of course, celebrities like DiCaprio, who earned a reported $20 million for “Catch Me If You Can,” cannot always hide from the media – especially when they are misbehaving. Earlier this month, a judge in Manhattan ordered a trial date to be set in actor Roger Wilson’s $45 million lawsuit against the “Titanic” star.
Wilson alleges DiCaprio instructed friends to attack him outside a New York bar in 1998, after Wilson’s girlfriend, star Elizabeth Berkeley (“Showgirls) ignored his advances.
Berkeley is one of the many women to have landed on DiCaprio’s radar over the years. He has been romantically linked to actresses Sara Gilbert, Kate Winslet, Liv Tyler and Juliette Lewis. Earlier this year, gossip scribes say he ended an on-again-off-again romance with Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen, and according to the New York Daily News, DiCaprio hooked up at a Halloween Party at the Playboy mansion with a production assistant from E! Television named Jennifer Paulson.
Not surprisingly, DiCaprio politely refuses to comment on his current dating status – saying just that he is “single” – or on any of the various news stories circulating around him. “It’s a no win battle,” he says, in a defiant tone. “You can’t stand up there on a podium and declare who you really are or try to rebut each individual story, because there is no way you can win.”
He’s not trying to be difficult, you understand. It’s just that DiCaprio, today wearing jeans, a gray wool sweater and navy blue Detroit Tigers baseball cap, would much rather talk about the movie. Okay, Leo. “Catch Me If You Can” is the latest offering from director Steven Spielberg, and an adaptation of the 1980 book co-authored by Abagnale himself. “He has innate talents within him and he has an instinct to be able to engage people and make them trust him,” the actor says of Abagnale, who in a strange turn of events, now works as a special consultant for the FBI and spent several days at DiCaprio’s Los Angeles home helping him prepare for the role.
“He used his talents in a way that was destructive to him.”
DiCaprio, too, is recognized for his talents. In 1994, he received an Oscar nomination for role as Johnny Depp’s autistic brother in “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.” He has also won praise for roles in “The Basketball Diaries,” “This Boy’s Life” and “Romeo and Juliet”. But still, many fans of the former teen pinup idol seem to be predominantly interested in his personal life.
Ardent Leo-phytes know he was named after his pregnant mother Irmelin paid a visit to the Uffizzi Gallery in Florence, Italy. While admiring a daVinci painting, she felt a kick from her baby, prompting her to name him after the painter.
DiCaprio is about to begin production on “The Aviator,” one of several bio-pics about the late billionaire, oil, casino and airline tycoon Howard Hughes. “It is his initial descent into madness and his obsessive-compulsive disorder,” he hints.
It’s about young Howard Hughes, his triumphs, and his initial slope downwards.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 25, 2002. Read the original PDF.