THE VOICE OF HOLLYWOOD; TOUR GUIDE TAKES TINSELTOWN TALES FROM THE BUS, ONTO CD AND BEYOND.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

It was just another day in the star-studded world of bachelor Stephen Schochet.

He'd just left TV icon Aaron Spelling's house, dropped by Rodeo Drive, cruised the Sunset Strip. Now, he stood on a hilltop above Hollywood Boulevard, the glitter that is Tinseltown spread out at his feet.

Nearby, a long line of tourists patiently waited for him, cameras at the ready to record the day they spent with Stephen Schochet - tour bus guide.

``I love Hollywood, with all its stories,'' said Schochet, 35, snapping photos of couples from Texas and Australia with the Hollywood sign in the background. ``And I love to tell all the stories I find to the people on the bus.''

With the Hollywood news he finds in the entertainment trade papers and the screen history he digs up in the public library, the Marina del Rey resident is working to parlay a nine-year career as a tour guide with VIP Tours & Charters near Los Angeles International Airport into a future as an audio publisher.

With the help of Valley free-lance record producer Ivor Francis, Schochet has produced a cassette tape titled ``Tales of Hollywood'' that traces the roots of motion-picture production. The two also collaborated on a lushly orchestrated double tape/CD biography of animator and studio head Walt Disney. And the two are putting together a mini-library of CDs containing 100 two- or three-minute history vignettes, based on the American Film Institute's recently released list of the 100 greatest films, that they'll try to syndicate to radio stations nationwide.

``Stephen has a story about every actor, every director, every producer in the city, so there's no shortage of stories about every movie,'' said Francis, brother of ``General Hospital'' star Genie Francis and owner of Emerald City Records. ``We hope the CD library is done by the end of the year.''

Initially, Schochet considered writing a book of Hollywood tales, ``but it just seemed like my strength was as an oral storyteller.''

Well, he has had nine years of practice.

``I'm always driving past the same places, so I started to look for new stories to keep the tour fresh,'' Schochet said.

He didn't start out as a tour guide. After college, he went to work for a limousine company and began researching and writing stories about early Hollywood.

``I figured I could write while I waited for people in the limo,'' Schochet said. After telling some of his stories to appreciative limo passengers such as Sammy Davis Jr., it occurred to him that he'd have a lot more fun telling the stories to a bigger audience. He signed on with the tour company.

Marco Khorasani, general manager for VIP Tours, said Schochet offers tidbits of Hollywood history, as well as the latest entertainment news and gossip, to tour bus passengers.

``He has so many stories,'' Khorasani said. ``Every day, he comes up with something new and entertaining for the tourists to listen to. They seem to love it. And he always shares his stories with the other tour guides, which they love.''

Schochet's tour route varies only when construction bars the way: From LAX-area hotels, he heads through Marina del Rey, Venice, Westwood, Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills and up Sunset Boulevard to Hollywood. Out-of-towners can briefly stroll along Rodeo Drive, get a panoramic view of Hollywood from the parking lot of the hilltop Japanese restaurant Yamashiro, check out stars' handprints and footprints at Mann's Chinese Theater, then lunch at Farmers Market before heading back to their hotels.

Along the way, Schochet points out the mud flat that may someday be the new DreamWorks studio complex; Arnold Schwarzenegger's Santa Monica restaurant, Shatzi on Main; star magnets Spago and the Viper Room on the Sunset Strip.

Keep an eye out for movie stars, he tells tourists - no telling where you may spot them.

``Jimmy Stewart was always driving around in a green Volvo waving at the buses,'' Schochet said. ``George Burns, I used to see all the time, always with a big smile, always waving at buses. One time I was loading up the bus at Rodeo Drive, and Kirk Douglas came by, said `How are you?' to everybody.''

Tourists love to visit the Regent Beverly Hills Hotel near Rodeo Drive, where Julia Roberts and Richard Gere filmed lobby scenes for ``Pretty Woman.''

``People want to stay in the suite they stayed in in the movie,'' Schochet told his passengers. ``But they can't; it doesn't exist. It was filmed on the lot at Warner Bros. Studios.''

But where are the stars?

``If you really want to see somebody like Leonardo de Caprio of Gwyneth Paltrow or whoever's the star of the moment, the Skybar (on the Sunset Strip) is the place to do it,'' he advises.

Schochet offers up some possible luminaries of the future: a handful of grungily dressed young men lounging on the sidewalk in front of the sad-looking Laugh Factory on Sunset Boulevard. ``Those are all young comedians,'' Schochet tells the tourists. ``They get eight minutes on stage tonight, and they hope somebody will turn them into the next Seinfeld.''

Heading into the hills, the tour bus paused in front of former president Ronald Reagan's home. ``You can see the bulletproof guard shack,'' Schochet announces.

Composer Quincy Jones' home ``has 25 rooms on six floors''; ``Steel Magnolias'' producer Ray Stark, who owns the home once occupied by Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, is ``so afraid of burglars, he bought a used police car and he parks it in the driveway''; and at Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion, Schochet shares: ``They had a wild party the other night, lots of people running around in the buff.''

But the home that drew oohs and aahs from the tourists was Spelling's palatial 56,500-square-foot home, where the ornate wrought-iron gates opened, and a cream-colored Mercedes drove out just as the bus drove by.

``Nope, that's not Aaron,'' Schochet told the excited tourists. ``He waves at the buses.''

Anyplace else the tourists want to see?

``How about O.J.'s house?'' suggested someone in the back.

``It's not on our route, and we're not supposed to go there because the neighbors got really annoyed by all the tour buses,'' Schochet said regretfully. ``I heard about a driver who got a $256 ticket there the other day just for slowing down.''

Besides, he noted, the Simpson house was recently bulldozed, so there's nothing left to see.

Schochet's favorite stories - tales of how Hollywood and its legends were born - come after lunch, as he heads back to tourists' airport hotels.

He tells how people came to see the first silent movies again and again, agog at the movement, unbothered by lack of plot or story.

At one theater, a grizzled old farmer came dozens of times to see a short film that featured a pretty girl disrobing beside a lake. As she began to remove her final garment, a train streaked past, between the girl and the camera, and when the train had passed, the girl was submerged up to her neck in the lake.

``The theater manager asked the old farmer why he kept coming back to see the film,'' Schochet said. ``The farmer said, `Well, sonny, I'm hoping one of these days, that train will be late.' ''

He tells how Samuel Goldfish, a Polish glove maker-turned-moviemaker went into partnership in 1916 with Edgar Selwyn and, four years later, dissolved the partnership - but adopted half of Selwyn's last name.

``That's how he came up with the name Goldwyn,'' Schochet deadpanned. ``Because he didn't want to be Selfish.''

And, complete with a passable voice imitation, Schochet tells how W.C. Fields' father, determined to deter his son from the evils of alcohol, filled a glass with live worms, then poured booze over them, drowning them. But Fields drew his own conclusions from the demonstration.

``Gentlemen,'' he once told his drinking companions, ``I'll never forget the lesson my father taught me: When you drink, you don't get worms.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) Tour guide Stephen Schochet has a story (several, actually) for every Hollywood landmark, including the Chinese Theater. His tales are making the leap to cassettes, CDs and perhaps radio, too.

(2) ``I love Hollywood, with all its stories,'' says Stephen Schochet. ``And I love to tell all the stories I find to the people on the bus.''

David Sprague/Daily News