Daryl Hannah Climbs Tree On Behalf Of Squatting Farmers Everywhere
In Los Angeles, even a story about the forcible eviction of squatting farmers in South Central can have—nay, must have—a celebrity angle. The LAT reports that Splash/Clan of the Cave Bear star Daryl Hannah this morning demonstrated her solidarity with the squatters by scaling a tree during the raid and refusing to come down until she finished her tree-top interview alerting the world to her presence at the protest:
Hannah said she was sleeping in her tent when the Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies arrived. [Protest organizer John] Quigley alerted her to the raid, and she raced up the tree in about a minute.
"I felt an extreme sense of urgency. Not only did I have to climb up the tree, I had to pull up the rope behind me so they could not follow me," Hannah said in a cellphone interview with The Times from atop the tree.
She vowed to stay up there until deputies forced her down.
It's unclear from the story whether or not the actress is still in the tree, or if the exasperated police finally resorted to dislodging her from her perch with special, extra-soft "celebrity do-gooder" rounds from their non-lethal bean bag bazooka, but our sources have exclusively revealed that Jenna Eflman is already in talks to play Hannah in the movie of the week CBS has rushed into production, Squat and Climb: My Two Hours Among The Evicted Urban Farmers.
UPDATE: CBS News reports that Hannah is still in the tree, despite the fact that the police have started to saw off its limbs in an attempt to curtail her protest. More on this thrilling standoff between authorities and actress as updates become available...
UPDATE 2: Hannah has been de-treed.
[Photo: AP via CBS News]