The Steven Spielberg Saga: Bedeviled by Its Ever-Shifting Details

Of all the heartwarming tales told at the Kennedy Center Honors this month about the five awardees, few tickled the VIP crowd as much as the story Tom Hanks told about a teenaged Steven Spielberg.

"A few decades ago a young man showed up at the gates of fabled Universal Studios, dressed in a cheap suit and carrying an empty prop of a suitcase, hoping to sneak into one of Hollywood's great temples of magic-making," Hanks began. He described the future auteur bluffing the gate guard and roaming happily for 2 1/2 months -- eating in the commissary, watching shoots, even commandeering a vacant office before Alfred Hitchcock chased him off the lot.

Charming -- though a teeny bit different from the tale presented earlier that night in a short film bio, which had young Steven hopping off a Universal Studios tourist tram and staying for two weeks.

So, perhaps some comic exaggeration is at work? The director has told versions of that story over the years, the most streamlined of them to The Hollywood Reporter: "Through private auspices, I got a gate pass and studied filmmaking."

But did it actually ever happen at all? According to a 1997 biography of Spielberg, a co-worker of his from an early clerical job at Universal says no. "He made up a lot of stories about finding an empty editing office and moving into it," purchasing agent Julie Raymond told author Joseph McBride. "That's a bunch of [baloney]."

So what to make of the fact that the awards people can't seem to keep the story straight either?

"Really, are you new to show business?" George Stevens, producer of the Kennedy Center Honors, asked our colleague Anita Huslin. "Does he have creative license to retell his story? Yes, I would imagine. . . . Maybe we should just say it's part of the ever-expanding legend of Steven Spielberg." (The annual show will be broadcast Dec. 26 on CBS.)

It would hardly be the first Hollywood creation myth. Frank Capra used to claim he was hired to direct a film with no experience after reading a newspaper article about a San Francisco company looking for a director. In fact, according to another bio by McBride, he had been working in the biz for years before that gig.

"It makes a better story than the guy who works his way through the system," notes Douglas Gomery, a retired professor of media studies at the University of Maryland and author of "The Hollywood Studio System: A History."

"As the story grows older, the mythology grows stronger. And I'm sure even [Spielberg] now believes it."

Marvin Levy, a spokesman for Spielberg, told Huslin he's heard the story many times. "But I've never heard it in quite the detail of 'I was in so-and-so office . . .' " Perhaps, he said, he should sit down with the director and ask him to re-tell the story: "Check off this fact, this fact, this fact." But "it's not the right time -- not today."

A White Elephant Sale: End of Story for 'Speaker'

Looking for a last-minute bargain to slip under the tree? For the political wonks on our list, we headed to the U.S. Capitol Historical Society's gift shop in the Capitol building, where we found temporary tattoos of D.C. landmarks ($1.50), elephant and donkey pins ($2.95), dome bookends ($69.95) and a lineup of books including Barack Obama's"Dreams From My Father" ($14.95), John McCain's"Faith of My Fathers" ($14) and James Jeffords's"An Independent Man" ($25).