Kosovo, 90210

by Steve Martin

George Magazine
July, 1999

Oh, to have a refugee relaxing at your poolside! Here's how one war-weary family found its own little slice of Beverly Hills happiness.

Dottie Paige is the wife of one of the most successful producers in Hollywood, and it was her idea to live in the guest house. Don liked the idea too, and not just because it would be fun to let drop that a family of refugees were living in your guest house. He would be doing something good for some people in need, and the guest house could use some people in it, as the batteries in the remotes needed a workout. Leave it to Dottie, who knows Clinton, to get a perfectly representative family, with true need-and with clothes that looked foreign, instead of the Western clothes she had been seeing them in on TV. They even had a hunched-over grandmother.

The Berisha family arrived in Beverly Hills at 2 A.M., after traveling 22 hours from Macedonia, and were picked up at the airport by Don's driver, Chico, who was working a night shoot anyway, so he was fully alert already. When the Berishas saw the guest house just across the pool and next to the waterfall, they wondered where they were, who they were, and what had happened to them. They had a perfectly lovely suburban house in Kosovo, but no one there had a pool, and certainly no one had a pool with a slide in it.

The Berishas wanted to work, but there wasn't much for them to do around the house that wasn't already being done. The garden was manicured; the furniture was polished. One night Mrs. Berisha cooked, but she made a meal so high in fat that Don gobbled all his Fat-Buster pills, and they made him sick. Once the Berishas were interviewed on Channel 5, with Don doing most of the talking. One day, Don made them extras in a crowd scene in his current movie, but the Berishas were uncomfortable, having just come from a crowd scene. Then they were taken to Disneyland in a limo.

The Berishas have a beautiful 18-year-old daughter named Bella, but Dottie didn't like her nose. Two months later, Bella had a new one. The family were also given new clothes by the Paiges, and the ethic clothes were given to charity. Bella spoke some English, but her 14-year-old brother, Serge, spoke better English. Through him, it was explained to his father about hair transplants, and how today they're almost impossible to spot, unless you're within 10 feet of someone. "It would be my pleasure," Don said, "to offer you a transplant and I know the person to do it. He did Liberace."

Because the Berishas were reluctantly idle and they wanted to please their hosts, they made regular visits to the Beverly Hills surgeons, who began to offer suggestions beyond what the Paiges were able to prescribe. As their faces changed and they said goodbye to their old appearances, newer, more extreme appearances became acceptable. Soon, Mrs. Berisha was a platinum blond with a razor nose and cheek implants that made her appear as though she were storing chestnuts. Dad had his chin lifted. Grandma had her breasts done.

Eight months late they were repatriated.

The Paiges said tearful goodbyes from their driveway, as the security gate closed over the vanishing airport minivan carrying the Berishas.

Back in Kosovo, the Berisha's home had been spared. Before long, because of the incredible tenacity of the human spirit, their town was bustling and rebuilding, and people were working again. But there was a problem.

"Sasha! So good to see you!"

"I'm sorry?"

"Sasha! It's me, Berisha!"

"You're not Berisha.."

"Sasha! You remember me! Remember my wife Sarka Berisha!"

"You're not Sarka Berisha."

And so on. Soon, however, through fingerprinting, the "new Berishas," as they were called, were identified, and the warm Albanian people overcame their xenophobia and came to regard them as "special". Bella and Serge grew up and had children, who grew up to look nothing like their grandparents, which aroused some suspicion.

Dottie and Don kept in touch with the Berishas. Don would send them videos of the trailers for his new films, wanting to get their reaction, and Dottie would send Sarka s supply of Christophe's platinum-blond hair dye. Sometimes in the evening, just before sunset, the family would stand on their lawn while townspeople would drive by to look at them, and they would wave, like the celebrities that they were.