A Real Cinderella Story for a Real Snow White

SAN DIEGO —  When Eileen Bowman was a child at St. Martin’s Catholic grade school in San Diego, she was teasingly called “Snow White” because her skin was so fair and her brown hair so dark.

Since being introduced as Snow White to a worldwide television audience on last week’s Oscar telecast, an appearance being kept alive by a lawsuit filed by Walt Disney Co. against the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Bowman said she has learned to like the nickname.

Bowman, a native of La Mesa, refuses to discuss the legal brouhaha that started when Oscar show producer Allan Carr decided to use a Snow White image that Disney lawyers claim was fashioned after the studio’s trademarked character. But at a welcome-home party at the Abbey Restaurant in San Diego Saturday, Bowman’s older sister, Bernadette, composed a song that contained what she called the seeds of the quarrel.

To gales of audience laughter in the packed nightclub, Bernadette sang, “Disney’s suing/Just because her little knees were shewing; Interviewers calling on the phone to bend her ear/My pride is showing, my sisterly love overflowing, but next time Enie please wear your skirt cut down to here.”

The irony of the suit, say Eileen’s sisters and friends, is that Disney executives couldn’t have found a more in-character Snow White than Eileen if they’d done the casting themselves. She doesn’t smoke, drink, swear or even go to very many movies.

“I think there are too many things in the movies we don’t need to see,” Eileen said, adding that she had never seen an Academy Awards show before performing in the one last week.

Bowman said she’s looking forward to receiving her check for the Snow White performance, but was not told how much it would be for, and never asked. Bernadette says her sister’s greatest eccentricity is keeping a load of change at the bottom of her purse to have when approached for handouts on the street.

Eileen said that although she hated being called Snow White as a child, she took the name to heart. She collected Snow White memorabilia and played the character as a teen-ager at the San Diego Junior Theatre. Still, friends say they had to talk her into dropping out of a Youth for Christ chorus to try out for the role of Snow White in “Beach Blanket Babylon,” a musical revue at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas.

After winning the part, the play’s director/composer Steve Silver asked her to audition for the 10-minute Academy Awards show opening that he was designing for producer Alan Carr.

In that audition, Bowman, a 22-year-old novice with only nine months of experience singing show tunes at San Diego’s Abbey Restaurant, won out over Pia Zadora, Lorna Luft, Ellen Green and Lucie Arnaz.

Was she nervous?

“At rehearsals, I felt so nervous I thought I was really going to be sick,” she said, adding that her greatest fear was having to approach celebrities in the front row during her number and shake their hands. “I thought I was going to look at one person and just forget my lines.”

The show’s musical director, Marvin Hamlisch, eased her fears beforehand, she said, by telling her that Snow White was a bigger celebrity than anyone else there, and her own embarrassment disappeared when she saw how embarrassed the stars were when she approached them.

“The first person whose hand I shook on camera was Michelle Pfeiffer,” said Bowman. “She was so embarrassed, she couldn’t even give me her hand. Then she started to laugh and giggle and that made me feel better. If she was nervous, then why should I be? Then, as soon as the curtain opened and I saw my friends on stage--all the dancers--I felt really great.”

Bowman leaves today for Las Vegas to begin playing Snow White in “Beach Blanket Babylon,” but it’s been a busy seven days. Since the Oscar show, she said she has heard from producer Aaron Spelling about doing a TV pilot, from various managers wanting to represent her, and from People magazine wanting an interview.

“I hope something good comes out of it,” she said, quickly adding that she is interested in neither fame nor money, but in how she could use a career to help others.

“If I’m going to be in the public eye, I would like to say there is hope. I see so many people who are so unhappy. They have so much money. They have so much fame. But you can’t take that stuff with you. I think if I have money, I wouldn’t keep any for myself. I would give it to others.”

Whoever ends up managing her career is going to have to overcome a major case of shyness. Although she had done ensemble work in musical production attractions at Sea World, it took her months to work up the nerve to sing solo at an “Open Mike” night at the Abbey.

“My friends kept saying, ‘Get up and sing,”’ she remembered. “Finally, one night there were only five people in the restaurant and it was late so I said, ‘O.K.”’

With further coaxing from the Abbey’s manager, Mike Lamry, Bowman began singing show tunes and became part of a regular Saturday night act at the restaurant. That was last June; nine months later, she’s had television exposure from Los Angeles to Beijing, a fact that got sister Bernadette openly moping in her song lyrics.

“I’m Snow White’s sister/Not an easy job I’ll tell you, mister,” Bernadette’s song continued Saturday. “I’ve been in LA for seven years you know/She’s there one day and gets Rob Lowe. . . .”

Reached Monday at Universal Studios, where she works as a tour guide, Bernadette said she was still trying to sort out Eileen’s good fortune.

“She’s so wide-eyed and I almost know too much,” Bernadette said, “Eileen,’ I said, ‘Do you know who these people are?’ And she said, ‘Not really.’ People would kill for this opportunity and my sister has no more sense of business or money than a gerbil. We used to call her Oblivia Newton John. At first she kept saying, ‘I don’t want to be here.’ Now she says, ‘Maybe I still can do this (show business) and still be a good person.’

“Her goal was to be Snow White at Disneyland. With the lawsuit, I don’t think it will happen now. But I really hopes she takes advantage of all this and realizes she has been given the talent and should do something about it.”

Although she dashed away from the Shrine Auditorium before the Oscar show was over, Eileen acknowledges that her brush with fame has been seductive.

“This is a little like a dream come true,” she said. “I’ve always loved Snow White because she’s nice. I know that sounds weird. To tell you the truth I’ve never seen the movie. I just didn’t want to see it. And I don’t know why.

“I just always knew I was different. I am used to being called Snow White by now and I thought If I’m going to be called it, I might as well get some use out of it. I feel really really lucky.”