• March 15, 1999

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How Do You Capture Fame in 1/500 Second? With Luck, Persistence and a Sense of Humor. Over the Years, PEOPLE Photographers Have Clicked with Celebs

In 1984, director RON HOWARD celebrated his boy-meets-gill smash in Malibu with Splash stars TOM HANKS and DARYL HANNAH. "At lunch they'd yank me out on a crane and plop me on the deck," Hannah recalled of her mermaid experience. "I couldn't eat because I couldn't go to the bathroom. I just lay there shivering with barnacles in my hair, soaking wet."

Already a showbiz vet at 7 in '82, E.T.'s dewy-faced DREW BARRYMORE declared, "I want to be a star. Because it makes you feel good."

Starring in Commando and engaged to Maria Shriver, ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER demonstrated flex appeal in his Santa Monica pool in 1985. "People say I'm always happy. The life I've had, I'd be sick in my mind if I wasn't," he said.

"I get filled with angst if the house isn't clean," a domesticated JANE FONDA (taking daughter Vanessa Vadim, 6, with director Roger, and son Troy, 2, with then-husband Tom Hayden, grocery shopping in Santa Monica) told PEOPLE in '75.

"With everybody grabbing at me, I started retreating," said Ghost's PATRICK SWAYZE (at the five-acre ranch north of L.A. he shared with wife Lisa Niemi, seven horses and three peacocks) in 1990 of his reaction to stardom.

Motherhood after 40 "is just as tough as it ever was," said 41-year-old SALLY FIELD, bouncing 10-month-old Sam.(by second husband Alan Greisman) at their Brentwood home in 1988. The newcomer joined Eli, then 16, and Peter, 18.

Comeback champ MUHAMMAD ALI had just vanquished George Foreman in the eighth round of 1974's Rumble in the Jungle. Back home, however, Ali was a softy, giving Muhammad Jr., 2, a warm place to snuggle.

Still one of Charlie's Angels in 1976, FARRAH FAWCETT conceded that her acting was "just adequate." That didn't keep her from fretting: "It's the old Marilyn Monroe syndrome. Nobody takes a pretty girl seriously."

Cuddling kittens Fred and Furball at her Hollywood Hills home in l991, CANDICE BERGEN purred with contentment at her three roles—wife to French film director Louis Made (who died in 1995), mom to 6-year-old Chloe and Emmy-winning star of TV's Murphy Brown. "I don't think life is going to get much better than it is at this moment," she said.

RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN (in the swim at his L.A. home) reflected on his star turn as a British seaman shipwrecked in feudal Japan in NBC's miniseries Shogun in 1980. "I was terrified," he said. "But that sense of danger was what made me want to do it." The smash hit was the second of eight miniseries for the former Dr. Kildare.

"I don't like my smile, and sometimes I get into too much physical business," JACK NICHOLSON said in 1975. "But the biggest difficulty right now is that I'm in too many pictures." That year he appeared in four, including One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, for which he won an Oscar.

During Studio 54's extended 15 minutes (clockwise from left), HALSTON, LIZA MINNELLI, ANDY WARHOL and BIANCA JAGGER rang in the new year on Dec. 31, 1977.

Without her bouffant wigs, sequined jumpsuits and corset-tight gowns, "I'm a country girl," insisted songstress DOLLY PARTON in 1975.

Chicago Bull DENNIS RODMAN, in a $2.2 million tiara, declared in '96 that he was comfortable with his "feminine side. Every man has it; they just don't want to admit it."

In 1978, ROBIN WILLIAMS kept in shape for Mork & Mindy and on weekends broke in new material in a nightclub act. "My main fear is that the scripts will deteriorate into physical shtick," he worried. "I want to make sure the quality is high."

SYLVESTER STALLONE's Rocky road to glory began in New York City's Hell's Kitchen, where he returned in '76. Before the success of his self-starrer, "I felt the way Rocky does when I was cutting off fish heads in a deli or cleaning lions' cages in a zoo," he said.

"Ours is not a fighting relationship," said Cheers' RHEA PERLMAN, who nonetheless tackled hubby DANNY DEVITO on the family pool table in 1983. The pair moved in together two weeks after meeting in 1970 but didn't marry until 1982.

ELTON JOHN almost went conventional in '78 (at his Berkshire estate). Contact lenses and hair implants made him "feel new," he said, though he reckoned he'd "always be stuck with the glasses thing and the bloody glittery image."

"My family's my life, and then it's my music," said PAUL McCARTNEY in 1975, improvising with daughter Stella, 3 (who now designs the Chloé line in Paris).