FAME HAS ITS PRIVILEGES - EVEN IN PRISON

Stars Manage To Avoid Jails That Are Tough

LOS ANGELES - Christian Slater and Robert Downey Jr. are the latest
Hollywood bad boys ordered to jail. Are show-biz hot shots treated like the
rest of us when the handcuffs come off and the cell doors slam?

Get real.

Rather than wealth and string-pulling, it's fame that gets high-profile
prisoners special attention in the giant Los Angeles County jail system,
which has hosted the likes of O.J. Simpson, Robert Mitchum, Sirhan Sirhan
and Charles Manson.

They were all kept away from other inmates.

``The people we feel could be jeopardized because of their celebrity are
isolated to protect them from another inmate who, trying to build their own
notoriety, might want to harm someone famous,'' says Steven Day, chief of
the sheriff's Custody Division.

Downey eats three daily meals -- ``two hots and a sandwich'' -- inside his
cell; he's escorted to a daily shower; and he gets three hours for exercise
a week. He also has collect-call telephone privileges, visitors one hour a
week and access to television.

``We control what they watch -- no violence, no sex,'' says Day.

When big-bucks lawyers, money and charity performances won't let them walk
and incarceration is a certainty, shopping for a municipal jail to stay out
of the overcrowded and scary Los Angeles County jailhouse is often the
alternative.

Celebrities pay a daily room-and-board fee to the smaller jails, which
afford them more privacy and comfort than a cell at the 21,000-prisoner
County Jail, where inmate violence is common and meals are far below Planet
Hollywood standards.

Former bad boy Sean Penn found a jail in Bridgeport, a remote town on the
eastern flank of the Sierra, to cool his heels in 1987 while serving a
60-day sentence for fighting with a photographer in violation of his
probation for a barroom brawl.

Cop-slapper Zsa Zsa Gabor served three days behind bars in 1990 at the El
Segundo jail near the Los Angeles International Airport. She paid $85 a day
for the privilege, and stories swirled that she was coddled and allowed to
have silk sheets in her cell.

``I didn't have silk sheets. I don't even have silk sheets at home. I was
on a horse blanket,'' the Hungarian-born star of ``Queen of Outer Space''
said when she emerged from the jailhouse.

Slater, who pleaded no contest to battery and being under the influence of
drugs, is scheduled to begin serving a 90-day sentence by Jan. 10. He will
avoid the dreaded county jail by spending his time in a suburban Los
Angeles jail.

``I made a mistake, and whatever consequence comes with it, I'll pay it,''
Slater, 28, said while promoting his film ``Hard Rain,'' which is due out
Jan. 16.

In Downey's case, Malibu Superior Court Judge Lawrence A. Mira finally put
his foot down after giving the Oscar-nominated ``Chaplin'' star chance
after chance to end his addiction to drugs. ``You are going to jail because
you used drugs,'' scolded Mira.

``I have no excuses. I find myself defenseless,'' a contrite Downey told
the judge.

Mira wouldn't let Downey find a cushy municipal jail bunk.

``I'm going to incarcerate you, and I'm going to incarcerate you in a way
that's very unpleasant for you,'' the judge told Downey on Dec. 8 before
ordering him cuffed and hauled downtown to the massive Twin Towers jail.

``It's not easy here,'' Day says of ``the largest jail system in the free
world.'' He bristled at the suggestion celebrities might in some way be
coddled.

``The high-profile inmates aren't given any special privileges,'' says Day.
``TV is going all day long and there's eating and reading.''

Deputy Bill Martin says the special one-man cell section was simply
sensible: ``They would not fare well in a dormitory situation or a multiman
cell. . . Jail is still jail.''

Indeed, Downey's first Twin Towers breakfast was the legendary jailhouse
sustenance -- chipped beef on toast.

Drugs also lurk in the jail system. Funk music's Rick James, who spent
months in county jail for various offenses, contends drugs are easily
accessible behind bars.

``Drugs do get into the jail system,'' says Day. ``It's like a chess game.
We discover how they get in and then they get in through other means until
we discover that.''