Wednesday, July 17, 1996

Fabio's appearance in Abilene leaves female fans swooning

By GREG JAKLEWICZ
Staff Writer

Georgia Baird of Buffalo Gap could hardly concentrate on the shopping she still needed to do.
"Oh my. Mercy," says the grandmother from Buffalo Gap. "Words can't describe him. He's so pretty."

Baird had just met Fabio, the 6-foot-4 model turned romance writer turned, perhaps soon at a theater near you, movie star.

Fabio was in Abilene on Tuesday at the northside Wal-Mart, where they sell more romance novels than any other store in the nationwide chain.

The Italian-born hunk drew rave reviews from the long line of all-female fans, primarily for his looks and secondly for his warm personality. Though he had to be in Dallas that night, Fabio Lanzoni did not rush. Each woman received his complete attention.

He obviously had theirs.

"Yes, I'm going to touch him!" Nicole shouts to her friend farther back in line, as she walks up to Fabio. Her friend's camera is ready.

"Come here," the teen-ager says to him, giggling. He pulls her to his massive chest, and hugs her with all his might. She's swept away.

"Oh God!" Nicole cries out.

Later, she fans herself to catch her breath.

"He's so perfect," gasps Nicole. "And he smells so good."

This is the way it went for almost two hours. Fabio posed for a three-generation photo, he lifted fans and cradled them in his tanned arms. He signed his new book, Dangerous, for West Texas Rehabilitation Center as an auction item.

Wanda Bailey, an R.N. from Anson, brought all six of his books with her to sign ("You haven't read Rogue, Pirate or Comanche," she chastises the woman in front of her). Quenell Kincaid of Abilene brought the top to a tub of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, which Fabio endorses. Lori, a Wisconsinite in town for a summer visit, had Fabio sign the front of her shirt. While she was wearing it.

But this is a tame crowd. In fact, it takes an hour before a fan has the nerve to ask Fabio to kiss her on the cheek. Other places, it's a bit more risque.

"We have women who want Fabio to sign their breasts," says Eric Ashenberg, his manager who's standing nearby.

A woman bravely asks him, "Are you really dangerous?"

Fabio leans forward toward her. His face almost touches hers.

"Yes, but only to your parents. Look into these eyes," he says softly. "Am I dangerous?"

A tornado could have demolished the store and she wouldn't have known it.

Meanwhile, the women in line, surprisingly patient, size up Fabio. The verdict?

"Oh, he's much more handsome in person," they agree.

But is he a natural blond?

"Nooooo," Abilenian Kathy Wilcox says, giggling.

More important, does Fabio really write these books?

Ashenberg explains that Fabio comes up with the plot and develops the characters, and leaves the actual writing to someone else.


"With his schedule," Ashenberg says, "when could he do it?"
Fabio's manager says the star's picture, as both a writer and a model, has sold about a hundred million books. Novels sell 30 percent better, he says, with Fabio's picture on the cover. Forty percent better if he's not embracing another woman.

Back to the action. A box fan cools the aisle, which was getting as steamy as a love scene in one of Fabio's books.

The star compliments a woman whose long pink nails match her outfit and shoes. And when a photographer can't advance her film, he jokes, "Rewind it."

"Hello, Heather," he greets another fan. She's apparently shocked Fabio knows her name, forgetting her Wal-Mart nametag is pinned to her blouse.

"How ...," she begins.

"I'm psychic," he interrupts, smiling broadly.

He greets two very different groups of fans. Eight women from the Clyde Senior Citizens Center have journeyed to Abilene to meet Fabio. Someone advises them to behave themselves.
"Goodness gracious, that would take all the fun out it," one responds.

The other is from Abilene Christian University, students heading a youth leadership camp. They want to take pictures with Fabio for the camp's weekly slide show. Two are guys, the first males officially in line to meet Fabio.

Not every woman, however, is impressed. A shopper pauses by the commotion, shakes her head, and remarks as she wheels her cart away, "Oh, he's just another person."
Right, and Babe Ruth was an OK cleanup hitter.

Soon, Fabio will be gone. Next time his fans will see him probably will be on a talk show. Or maybe in a movie.

"It'll be an action-adventure, but with romance," explains his manager. "We want him to be more of an Errol Flynn than strictly an Arnold or a Van Damme."

Fabio leaves "Ah-bih-lean" with some advice for guys who never have had hundreds of women stand in line to meet them: "Be yourself, not somebody else. That limits you. Be honest."
Fabio's fans Tuesday will agree he practices what he preaches.