If being late is fashionable, then Saturday, Paris Hilton was even more fashionable than usual.
The famous-for-being-famous reality TV star was slated to appear at 2 p.m. at the Park City Bon-Ton to promote her new fragrance, Fairy Dust.
When Hilton finally emerged from a makeshift green room onto the small stage that had been set up for her, it was after 3 p.m.
The hundreds of fans who had turned out didn't seem to hold it against her.
"What's up, Lancaster?" Hilton asked, loping across the stage, a "teeny little thing," as one woman put it, in a designer wrap dress.
She said only a few words — including "I love you guys!" — but everything she said was met with a chorus of excited screams. When she raised her BlackBerry to take a photo of the crowd, it was as if she had sprinkled fairy dust on her adoring fans.
More than 400 of those fans had paid at least $135 for Paris Hilton fragrance products, to get the promise of an autographed photo and a minute with her on stage.
Celebrity, it seems, is a magic wand that makes signs of an economic recession disappear.
Chris Lainez, 19, of Lancaster, viewed the expenditure as "a win-win." His sister would be getting the Paris Hilton fragrances for Christmas. And he would get to see Paris Hilton.
"When are you going to have the opportunity to see somebody famous in Lancaster?" Lainez said, describing Paris Hilton as "an icon."
Cindy Kendall, 45, of Mount Joy said she had spent $175. She said she never before had spent that kind of money, or stood for hours in a line, to see a celebrity — except for rock musicians at concerts.
An office manager in a doctor's office, Kendall said her co-workers were surprised to hear she was a Paris Hilton fan.
"I love Paris Hilton," Kendall said. "I get a big kick out of her." Noting that Hilton "is a dog lover and I'm a dog lover," Kendall said she intended to ask the celebrity to create a line of fragrances for pooches.
Erika Schroyer, of East Lampeter Township, was celebrating her 21st birthday Saturday, with her mother, Amy Zvorsky. It had cost $270 in Paris Hilton products for this particular birthday celebration to take place.
"I wanted to enjoy that moment – it's a once-in–a-lifetime moment – with my daughter," Zvorsky said, relating how Erika had wakened her at 1:30 one morning a few weeks ago, shouting for joy because she'd just read online that Paris Hilton was coming to Park City.
A nursing student at Harrisburg Area Community College, Schroyer said, of Hilton, "Oh my gosh, I just love her! Everything she does — her business, her beauty, everything she does!"
Schroyer said she and her mom had named their family dog "Tinkerbell," after Hilton's Chihuahua. And neither mom nor daughter believes the negative press that Hilton has gotten over the years.
"I think — well, I don't think, I know — people make mistakes," Zvorsky said, noting that when Hilton was jailed in 2007, for violating her probation on alcohol-related reckless driving charges, "she served her time and she did it with grace."
Jessica Fischer brought her 7-year-old daughter, Skye, to see Paris Hilton, but said she didn't think Skye was very excited. "She doesn't quite know what to expect," Jessica Fischer said.
The Manor Township mom said she just thought it would be "cool" for her and her daughter to meet a celebrity. She said she told Skye that if she ever became a celebrity, she should not charge people so much money.
Heather Wertz, 17, of Mechanicsburg, was randomly plucked from the crowd to meet Hilton before the public event began. The young blond teen bore a striking resemblance to Hilton. "She's my role model," Wertz said. "I'm not even kidding."
Wertz said she intended to ask Hilton if she thought she resembled her. But she lost her nerve.
"I was too nervous," Wertz said, after meeting Hilton. "You don't know what to say. You just, like, freeze up."
Alycia Houck, 15, of Manheim Township, was thrilled by her brief encounter with Hilton. "Oh my god, OK, she's like, so sweet," Houck said. "It was amazing, it was, like, the best minute of my life!"
In an interview, Hilton said she loves meeting her fans. Whenever she makes an appearance, she said, she draws a diverse crowd. "Boys, girls, all ages, love to come see me and it feels really good," she said.
Asked to explain her appeal, Hilton said, "I'm just a girl who's living her life. I live life to the fullest ... I think people like me because I'm real and I am a good person and that shines through."
She's been booed, she's been feted, and she has dallied in everything from music to film to presidential politics.
Asked how she sees herself, Hilton said she thinks of herself primarily as a businesswoman and as a brand. She said she's worked very hard to build her "Paris Hilton empire." And she said the fairy concept behind her latest fragrance was her idea. "I've always loved Tinker Bell, the fairy, because I love fairy tales, and I just thought it was really magical," she said.
"My life is exciting," she said. "It's also a lot of hard work and it's a lot of pressure that comes along with it, but it's, it's a great life and I feel really lucky."
She said she is "proof that if you follow your dreams, anything can happen ... I have a big heart and I have good karma, and I think when you're that way, anything's possible."
Suzanne Cassidy is a staff writer for the Sunday News. Her e-mail address is scassidy@lnpnews.com.
