The party crasher

One photo captures him in a private moment with Barbra Streisand at a black-tie gala. Another shows him cozying up to Tom Cruise and Ben Stiller at a Hollywood premiere. There he is again -- could that really be a Grammy he's holding? -- backstage with Andre 3000 . And again, this time with Jon Stewart at Vanity Fair's post-Oscar bash, an invite-only gathering of the swellest of swells.

Steven Spielberg , Elizabeth Taylor , Bruce Springsteen , Will Smith , Jack Nicholson , Meryl Streep , Dustin Hoffman , Chris Rock , Elton John , Hillary Rodham Clinton , Harrison Ford , Brad and Jennifer . The list of stars with whom he's consorted, and has the snapshots to prove it, reads like a Who's Who of show business and politics.

But ask any of these VIPs Who's he?, and you'd draw a blank stare.

A low-level William Morris rep, maybe? Part of the Boss's security team? Dustin's personal trainer? Wait, isn't he the bald white guy who stood behind OutKast when the rappers got their Grammy for album of the year? Hey, it's nice they brought their accountant onstage.

In fact, Michael Minutoli's day job is slicing cold cuts at a supermarket deli in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. He doesn't own a home, a car, or a Screen Actors Guild card, much less a beach house, stretch limo, or reserved seat at the Academy Awards. He sleeps on the beach in Laguna or in a borrowed van parked near the supermarket, and gets his mail sent to a friend's house. Southern California is his home, and yet he's never dated Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan, which is shocking in and of itself.

To examine his stash of pictures therefore -- hundreds of them, stacked like postcards from another galaxy -- is slightly surreal, like being in on some joke to which only Woody Allen could do justice.

Katie Couric , Jim Carrey , Cher , Sean Penn , Paul McCartney , Luciano Pavarotti , Henry Kissinger , Tom Hanks , Bruce and Demi . Did this man really introduce Keith Richards to Russell Crowe at the Golden Globes? Yes, he did. Jump onto Elton John's piano and shake hands with the pop star during an Elton-Billy Joel concert? My oh my. Bob Dylan, who was in the front row, could not believe his eyes, either.

What Minutoli is, in a culture fixated on red-carpet celebrity, is our collective fantasy life decked out in a secondhand tuxedo and standing at the bar, trying to pass for Someone Who Belongs. A party-crasher of near-mythic stature, a self-described chameleon who has made his way inside a thousand gala events without a ticket or even a credible cover story. A 46-year-old man with no ostensible life -- not in the conventional sense, anyway -- other than rubbing elbows with the Madonnas and De Niros of the world while the rest of us stand outside the ropes, wondering how and why he does it.

``I like the glamour, the glitter, the action," Minutoli says when asked why anyone would bother taking the risks he does for a few Kodak moments. ``It's intoxicating. I guess you could say I'm addicted to it."

We are eating pizza at one of Minutoli's favorite North End bistros during his recent trip to the Boston area. Minutoli grew up in Attleboro and is revisiting many of his old haunts for a documentary being made about his gate-crasher's life. Sitting in the booth are two filmmakers from Los Angeles, David Keith and Chris Allen , who've been following Minutoli around since February compiling footage for a project they hope to finish this year.

Keith met Minutoli eight years ago and describes him as a really nice guy with a really weird hobby.

``He's not out to irritate anybody, and we certainly don't condone party-crashing," says Keith, who's financing the film on a shoestring. ``We just think he's a fascinating character that people will want to meet."

Allen says not everyone thinks Minutoli is heroic so much as pathetic.

`` `Get a life?' Yeah, you hear that a lot," says Allen. ``But most people are intrigued by Michael. And he does have those pictures."

Ah, those pictures. If each one tells a story, and each does, then let the photos speak to our all-access, backstage-pass yearning little hearts. Because Minutoli has braved the barricades to get them.

There is, in the genesis phase of this peculiar epic, the 1989 Madonna concert at which it first occurred to Minutoli that a little chutzpah could take him a long, long way.

``I noticed this line to get in backstage, jumped in, and was whisked through by security," Minutoli recalls. ``Suddenly I'm standing next to Warren Beatty. I'd never experienced anything like that in my life."

Accosted by a security aide, he got off with a stern warning and decided he'd found his calling. Or at least a heck of a way to spend an evening here or there. When he later told his wife he'd be going to the Oscars, ``She looked at me and said, `How?' " Minutoli recalls with a smile. ``I had no idea, but I got in."

His fixation with fame began in Attleboro , where he grew up going to rock shows at the Garden and Orpheum and ``dreamed of being Billy Joel," as he puts it. After his mother died, when Minutoli was 18, he left for California to make a new life. That life may not be much to look at, but the slide show is something else.

``His stories really are unbelievable," says Joanna Gonzales , a producer for KABC's ``Eye on L.A." newsmagazine show, which profiled Minutoli recently. ``I don't know how many others there are out here like him, but his ability to get in everywhere is definitely impressive."

Minutoli carried an autograph book around until it got too cumbersome, then switched to a disposable camera. None of the hundreds of photos he's taken has captions or dates. ``I've got all the data right here," he says, tapping his head. Besides a positive attitude, his biggest asset may be patience. At each venue, he methodically cases the joint looking for an unguarded side entrance or a departing guest who does not mind handing over his ticket. Sometimes all Minutoli needs to slip inside is an outward-swinging door. Once inside, he's not shy about seizing the spotlight, either, as he did during the 2004 Grammys when he simply rose from his seat and walked onstage with OutKast. Back home, Minutoli's daughter was watching the live TV broadcast and shouted, ``Look, there's Daddy!"

So far, Minutoli has been arrested only once.

``It was the first post-9/11 Oscars," he says. ``I was sitting beside Robert Redford when a detective asked to see my credentials and put me in handcuffs." Jailed along with half a dozen other gate-crashers, he went before a judge and was ordered to stay away from the Kodak Theatre for one year. This winter Minutoli received a letter from the Academy warning him to stay away. Yet he still managed to crash the Vanity Fair party everyone wants to get into.

``I'm more upset when I can't get a friend in with me," he confesses. He estimates there are 50 or so serious gate-crashers working the Hollywood celebrity scene, and maybe five to 10 in his league. Some do it for the freebies, some for the photo-op or the stargazing. ``You won't succeed without self-esteem, though, and I'm not shy," he says. ``To get a photo with Barbra Streisand, you have to be aggressive. Still, I've had other crashers try to get me thrown out. In Hollywood, everyone is egotistical and jealous."

One of Minutoli's boldest moves occurred in February 2005, when he crashed a tribute concert for Brian Wilson. Minutoli was backstage when one of the keyboard players left his post. Assuming Minutoli was a guest musician, the keyboard player invited him to sit in. Minutoli wound up singing harmony on ``Fun Fun Fun."

``The party - crashers are watching me with awe," says Minutoli. ``I get my gift bags, and a guy approaches me and says, ``Are you the [expletive] who was singing with Brian?" I say, `No, man,' and leave."

His lifestyle choice has exacted a price. His marriage of 21 years is on the rocks, his wife and daughter having moved to Montana. He does see his son Anthony, now 19, who attends community college in Southern California, but that relationship also has a complicated history. Anthony, who appears in dozens of his father's photos, suffers from alopecia areata, a skin disease that frequently results in hair loss. Minutoli maintains he's never used his son's condition, which Anthony contracted at age 5, as a pretense to gain entry to VIP events -- though Rosie O'Donnell once chewed out Minutoli for supposedly passing off his son as a cancer victim.

``I would never use him that way, nor did I ever portray him the way she assumed I had," says Minutoli. ``The fact is, the more people I bring with me the more difficult it is to get inside."

Still, Minutoli acknowledges, many old friends have deserted him since he became such a curious species of party animal.

``If the bills haven't been paid, my priority has always been to go to the show," he says. ``I didn't want it to cost me my marriage. I still believe I can save it, but it won't happen overnight. My wife used to say, `Billy Joel isn't paying my rent.' She's right."

Minutoli vows he'll reprioritize over the summer and get his life back together. Perhaps he will, but there's one more money shot he'd like to add to his collection first.

``Mick Jagger," says Minutoli. ``Why? Because in my next life I want to be Mick."

Joseph P. Kahn can be reached at jkahn@globe.com.