Swimmers and stars: A splashy screening

Philadelphia marked its first blue-carpet movie screening last night as a crush of stars visited for a high-spirited promotion of the film

Pride.

Blue carpet? Blue, to match a swimming pool. Pride is loosely based on the inspirational story of swim coach Jim Ellis, who for many years has trained nationally ranked swimmers at Marcus Foster Recreation Center in Nicetown.

The stars, including Terrence Howard, Bernie Mac and Tom Arnold, clearly were in fine form, bounding from limousines outside the Prince Music Theater on Chestnut Street to sign autographs. Crowds began gathering more than two hours before the celebrity arrivals.

Howard missed the first 20 minutes of the screening, staying outside in his natty suit to sign and pose for cell-camera-toting fans.

Lionsgate, the studio, described last night's event as a screening, not a "premiere." (It's a Tinseltown thing; next month's "premiere" will draw even more paparazzi.)

Among the first on the carpet was Michael Gozzard, one of the screenwriters and a Temple University graduate. "This is amazing," he said beneath the twinkling lights, a searchlight probing the skyscrapers. "I left Philadelphia with two bags and a dream to be a screenwriter." His writing partner, Kevin Michael Smith, found Ellis' story in a magazine.

Mac - in a lime-green scarf and wool topcoat, a massive diamond earring in his left ear - greeted Mayor Street with a hug and a jovial "What's up, young man?"

Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, creators of Philadelphia International Records, strolled through. The soundtrack of Pride, set in 1973, includes several of their hits, including "Back Stabbers" and "Love Train" by the O'Jays.

Also on the carpet were some of the young actors who play members of Ellis' team: Regine Nehy grew up in Overbrook and left Archbishop Carroll High as a sophomore. Alphonso McAuley spent his blue-carpet time cutting up and hollering across the street. Eighteen-year-old Evan Ross said he asked his mother, singer Diana Ross, for examples of slang used in the early 1970s. "She kind of didn't remember that," Ross said.

Asked why he played a bad guy - as he did in the soap Port Charles and in many other roles - Gary Anthony Sturgis grinned and replied: "I do what they pay me to do." His performance as a thug notwithstanding, he called Pride "a feel-good joint."

The low-key Ellis, meanwhile, drew his own crowd. Clearly more comfortable in a sweater and khakis beside a pool, he yanked on the lapels of his suit jacket, grinned, and said, "Hugo Boss."

"I can't say this is a dream come true," Ellis said. "I never dreamt it."

The stars were expected at a party after the movie at the nightspot Zanzibar Blue.

Pride, opening March 23, is the Hollywoodized story of Ellis, the Bodine High math teacher and part-time Recreation Department worker who since 1971 has trained mainly African American youths to be swimming champions competing under the team name "PDR" - as in Philadelphia Department of Recreation. Since 1980, he has worked out of the Marcus Foster pool on Germantown Avenue, leading practice before and after school and on Saturdays.

In the movie, shot mostly in Louisiana by first-time director Sunu Gonera, it's 1973 and college grad Ellis (played by Howard) is hired to prepare a run-down Foster for closing. Driven by his love of swimming and his desire to help the neighborhood kids, he instead refurbishes the pool with crusty custodian Elston (Mac). Ellis whips the youngsters into a swim team. They encounter racism (Arnold plays an elitist coach at the fictional Main Line Academy), as well as bullying from local hoodlums (including Sturgis) and the scorn of a councilwoman (played by Kimberly Elise of the CBS series Close to Home), before they get to the big meet.

It's a sports movie, right?

In real life, Ellis was a water safety instructor from Pittsburgh who started a swim team at Sayre Rec in West Philly. He moved the team to Marcus Foster when it opened in 1980, and has mentored hundreds of kids, many of whom have gone to college on swimming scholarships.

Asked why he's kept it up, Ellis said: "I like kids."