A signature performance

Dustin Hoffman was hot. The iconic actor wowed the crowd in the packed courtyard of Dutton’s Brentwood Bookstore late Saturday afternoon, as he added yet another notch to his career: It was the first time he’d ever done a bookstore reading and signed books for a throng of literary fans.

Of course, the fans were mostly too young to read and had never heard of Hoffman, let alone “The Graduate,� “Midnight Cowboy� or “Rain Man.� Even some of their parents hadn’t seen those films on first release, which explained the presence of so many grandparents with multiple descendants in tow.

The most amazing thing about the event, Hoffman accurately observed, while scrawling his name on flyleaves: “Only in Hollywood could I be in a bookstore signing books I didn’t write.�

This is true. Hoffman didn’t write “Just as You Are, the Story of Leon and Sam� (Wave Publishing), which is the rhymed tale of a boy and a homeless pup who fall in love as only a boy and a dog can. The book, for ages 2 to 8, was written by Nancy Freeman Marks, 54, who happens to be a friend and Brentwood neighbor of the Hoffman family. A portrait artist who’d never written a book before, Marks needed a little juice to get it noticed. Asking Hoffman to do a reading seemed logical, since it was the actor’s teen daughter Ali who helped the author find the real-life Leon on whom the book, and the poem it began as, are based.

“The Hoffmans are dog people,� says Marks, whose husband heads an investment firm. “We didn’t have dogs.... Then Ali started working on us. She said a family is not a family without a dog. She took me to the Lang Foundation, a rescue shelter, and it was there I found my Leon.�

In Hollywood and in life, success is often a matter of connections. Marks is well supplied. “I write the poem, and my family loves it. I fax it to a friend at the William Morris agency and he loves it. I go to a dinner party with friends and see Carol Doumani. She and her husband have dogs. I tell her I’ve written a children’s book, and she tells me to fax it to her.

“I have no idea, at this point, that she owns a publishing company. She calls me and says she loves it. ‘Let’s meet for coffee,’ she says. We did, and she decided to publish the book.�

Doumani is selective. “My goal is always to create a beautiful book, as opposed to making lots of money. I’m content if the product is of excellent quality.�

“Just as You Are� is dazzlingly illustrated by recent Otis School of Design graduate Su Jen Buchheim. The 25-year-old was selected from dozens of artists interviewed by Marks and Doumani.

Of course, the crowd in the courtyard didn’t care about the book’s development. The kids sat on a huge pink carpet and followed along as Hoffman read -- utterly oblivious to his celebrity. The adults ogled, photographed and tape-recorded the star, who emoted in loud, clear tones -- apparently having given up the Ratso Rizzo mumble that so characterized his early work. But he looks very much the same as he always has -- craggy, intense, subversively attractive.

“I told my son we were going to hear a good book read by an actor that Mommy likes,� said Salome Wyman, who brought son Eugene, 2, to the event.

Robert and Rochelle Lewit of Santa Clarita are such Hoffman fans that they named one of their sons after him. So, of course, they had to bring Dustin, age 8, to meet Dustin, age 66.

Many in the courtyard didn’t even bring kids for cover. Ann Weiner, a bank manager, said she drove from San Juan Capistrano after she read about the signing on a favorite Web site that “tracks celebrity events.� Mark Chouinard calls himself “an addicted collector� of autographed books and said this was his second signing of the day.

Margo Gabor of Glendale has multiple sclerosis and a dream of getting “enough famous autographs to open a gallery and make money to find a cure. I have 150 celebrity signatures,� she announced.

The unusually eclectic crowd stepped up, one by one, to the desk where Hoffman wielded his pen. There were the gushers, mostly young men, so awed by proximity to the star that they could only stutter outrageous compliments on his talent.

There was the woman who hadn’t seen or contacted her autistic brother for years until she saw “Rain Man� recently.

“I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but that movie changed my life. I went to visit my brother and began a wonderful relationship with him.�

Mike Ovitz stopped by to say hello. And a woman named Suzanne stepped up to say she’s “writing a biography of Warren Beatty and I’ll be calling you about that.�

Linda Bukowski, wife of the late poet Charles, arrived with one of her husband’s books as a gift for Hoffman.

“I hear that when you were young, you and your friends used to get slightly plastered and yell my husband’s poetry. Is that correct?� she asked. “Yes, yes, we did,� Hoffman replied. “Bukowski and Allen Ginsberg were our favorites.�