USA Today --More on Brockovich's Moldish Nightmare

[Guest guest]

USA Today----April 16, 2001

Page 1D

Being Brockovich These days, the famed crusader is battling mold -- and

reports of being 'Broke-ovich'

By Marco R. della Cava

USA TODAY

AGOURA HILLS, Calif. -- Exterior, day.

We are in the perfect planned community; lawns are putting-green smooth, and

the blacktop resembles poured licorice. Homes boast three-car garages and

kidney-shaped pools.

Interior, day.

Brockovich, long legs sheathed in white pants and bust straining at a

pink bustier, lounges in a sitting room replete with grand piano, overhead

fans shaped like palm fronds and piped-in music from South Pacific.

Clearly, it's good to be . You rise from jobless single mom to

multimillionaire heroine. Hollywood's box office diva plays you in the your

life story and wins an for it. Life is wonder . . .

CUT!

Her life may have been made into a movie, but it's far from picture-perfect.

''Everything seems to be one of those bittersweet victories everywhere I

turn,'' she says. ''But maybe the bad keeps me grounded.''

What's it really like to be Brockovich these days? Let's start with

earlier this morning.

She was in court. Not for one of her toxic waste cases -- she still works for

Ed Masry -- but for a child custody hearing. One of her two ex-husbands still

beats the -is-a-bad-Mom drum.

Then there was her day in court last month. Her first ex, Brown, and

ex-boyfriend Jorg Halaby, the nice-guy biker in the film, threatened to go to

the tabloids saying she slept with Masry and allegedly wanted $310,000 to

keep quiet. Instead, their lawyer was found guilty of extortion.

It gets worse. There's trouble in her own pristine community. Her

6,000-square-foot home, Brockovich says, is teeming with water-generated

molds that have given her 10-year-old daughter, , and her husband,

actor Ellis, 35, a variety of respiratory and other ailments.

To eliminate the problem, she has decided to spend upwards of $500,000 to

rebuild her dream house. Most people might stop right there. But not the

woman who took on Pacific Gas & Electric on behalf of the contaminated

residents of Hinkley, Calif., landing a mammoth $333 million verdict in 1996.

She is suing the home builder as well as its seller, Selleck, brother

of actor Tom Selleck. And, after testifying in the state capital, seeking the

nation's first statewide policy regulating mold, she may make war on

household mold a personal crusade.

Brockovich 2: Deadly Mold. Would sign on? But jokes aside . . .

''This eats at my very core,'' Brockovich says. ''This home was my dream

home, which I bought in 1997 with some of the money I got from Ed after the

PG & E case (she got a check for $2 million). I'd look around and think, 'Cool,

I earned this.' It's the American dream. And then to find I have this silent

killer in my walls.''

At least one man thinks she can make a case.

''I don't know any other toxic investigator in her class,'' says Ed Masry,

casual in white shirt with gold cuff links, but no tie. He is shoeless in his

opulent office, about 10 minutes from Brockovich's house.

'' is by nature very suspicious and intelligent,'' he says. ''Of course,

I didn't see the value of hiring her. It was my partner Jimmy (Vititoe) who

did. But soon enough we all got to see how good she was.''

Good enough to nail those responsible for mold growing in her house? Not if

you ask Selleck's lawyer.

''There was absolutely nothing wrong with the house when Selleck sold

it. And why did it take her so long to find out she had problems?'' says Bob

Baker, who also represented O.J. Simpson in his civil case. ''I think this

mold nonsense is just that -- nonsense. Most people's motivation is money. I

don't know what hers is.''

Brockovich is resolute. ''I'm going to fight it out, just like everything

else,'' she says.

Indignation aside, could her mold motivation indeed be financial? What about

rumors that she's broke, with only $80,000 to her name? She laughs at the

question. ''That was the Broke-ovich story. I spent $80,000 redoing my

roof, and the reporter mistook that to mean that's what I had left,'' she

says. ''No, I'm not broke.''

Brokovich pays the bills giving motivational speeches and is booked through

2001. Forbes magazine recently reported that she makes as much as $25,000 per

speech and could earn seven figures this year. (Universal Pictures paid only

$100,000 for the movie rights to her life.) On the horizon: a motivational

book, maybe a TV show featuring as a crusader for communities everywhere.

''It would be maybe six specials a year. In each one, I would tackle a

significant problem a community is facing and try to get them some

resolution,'' she says.

Just then, her husband pops in. He has a bottle of Windex in one hand, a rag

in the other. ''I started doing one window, and I just kept going,'' he says.

and banter a bit. Clearly, there's a bit of role-reversal going on,

with constantly in demand and on the road, while is left, well,

Windexing. They seem at ease with the arrangement. ''It's so hard to balance

everything,'' Brockovich says. Her life has always been a bit of a three-ring

circus, between the men running out of her life and the children she

struggled to keep in it.

Brockovich's two oldest children developed drug problems and were sent to

private boarding schools with intervention programs. Her son, 18, is still

distant (''Trust is being rebuilt,'' she says), while her daughter, 16, has

returned to live with her.

Since Brockovich became Brockovich, it has been tougher to keep a

part of her for herself.

''Talk about an identity crisis. Surreal doesn't describe this. I feel like

I'm living The Truman Show,'' she says, pointing at the two posters in the

room.

One is a movie original (it reads '' is Brockovich''); the

other, made for her by the producers, features her photo instead of 's

and reads '' Brockovich is Brockovich.''

''I joke that I have a new first name, The Real, and last, Brockovich,''

she says.

She obviously has enjoyed the ride, from glamour-fests such as the Golden

Globes to her quasi-friendship with . ( sent three

massive flower arrangements, champagne, caviar and a note apologizing for

forgetting to mention during her long thank-you speech.)

And what about life after Brockovich? When your dream home is a moldy

nightmare, you have no illusions about life being a long stroll in the klieg

lights.

''Whatever has happened in my life since the release of the movie, it's not

forever. And some day the name Brockovich will fade away, and when it

does, what do I have left? Everything. A really strong belief system, a

wonderful family. I have everything.''Cover storyCover storyCover story

Front page, News, Sports, Money, Life, Weather, Shop

© Copyright 2001 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.