For Oscar time

Foes Oppose Snow's Prose

By Rick Horowitz

HOLLYWOOD -- Once upon a time, she was this glitter town's brightest light. Fans flocked to watch her, men were always at her feet. In an era hopelessly in love with beauty, she was, everyone agreed, the fairest of them all. Now she sits, a legend from days gone by, and sees all she's worked for come under a cloud.

"I never tried to cause any problems," says Snow White.

Set high in the Hollywood hills, the house looks much as it must have decades ago. What cracks and creases there are reveal themselves only gradually, and even then, they only lend the place more character. It's the same with the house's owner -- still gorgeous after all these years, even in slippers and a simple robe. Only the worry lines give the game away.

"It's just ridiculous what they're doing down there," she says. "I mean, why do they have to take everything so seriously?"

"Down there," Snow White makes clear, is Jacksonville, Fla., where a flap arose just days ago over "Snow White," the authorized biography by the Grimm Brothers. The Duval County public schools were found to have a translation of "Snow White" on their "restricted" list, and off-limits to elementary school students without their parents' permission.

Why? Some parents had complained about "graphic violence" in the book: Snow White's wicked stepmother, jealous of her looks, had ordered a hunter to tear Snow White's lungs and liver out. The hunter, taking pity on Snow White (she had a way with men even then), killed a wild boar instead and brought its lungs and liver back to the stepmother, who ate them, thinking they were Snow White's.

"Don't forget the heart," she says, barely suppressing a giggle. "In some versions, she wanted my heart instead." And that doesn't bother her?

"Hey, it's just a story. And the wild boar -- now I'll probably upset the animal rights people, too -- but you have to understand, things were different then. Killing a wild boar to save a beautiful princess -- people just didn't think there was anything wrong with that."

The question that's mystified Hollywood observers is: Why now? Why, after her tale's been in print all these years, is it suddenly a lightning rod for controversy? Snow White has a ready answer.

"Rob Lowe. Everything was fine until the Rob Lowe thing." In what she's freely admitted was the worst move in a storied career, White danced a much-ridiculed production number with Lowe at the 1989 Oscar ceremonies. "Suddenly, it's open season on Snow White."

"See, all that most people knew about me was my Disney period. But darling" -- she grins, runs a hand through that famous ebony hair, now streaked with silver -- "I'd been around forever!"

After the Oscar debacle, people started sifting through her past. There were stories of bondage ("My stepmother tried to do me in with a corset -- can you imagine?"), of strange combing rituals ("My fault -- nothing but my own stupid vanity"), of her role in her stepmother's death, dancing to exhaustion in red-hot iron slippers. ("The prince's idea of a joke.")

And, of course, there was her brief attempt to conquer Broadway. "So I tried one bite of the Big Apple," she says dismissively. "It was poison. I came back."

It's a brave face, but occasionally an impassioned one. "You can see more violence in five minutes on the local news! Why are they wasting their time beating up on libraries?" She's thinking of organizing a letter-writing campaign, she says, and has even contacted one or two of the famous men in her life.

"I hear from Sneezy -- just a little note now and then. Very supportive. And Grumpy -- mostly he wants back rent." The others are all gone now, with Dopey the latest to pass from the scene. "Sleeping pills," she says, her voice suddenly thick with emotion. "They say it was an accident -- with Dopey, who knows?"

She regains her composure; there are chores to do today, even some fan letters to answer. "People still care," she says as she escorts a visitor to the door. "It's really gratifying, especially with all the other..." She catches herself.

"'Happily ever after' isn't all it's cracked up to be, you know?"