He's blond, good-looking, single and in his early 20s. He takes his mammy, and sometimes even his granny, to film premieres. And he wasn't there.
The titanic disappointment of thousands of screaming teenage girls was obvious when they realised their screen idol, Leonardo DiCaprio - Leo to his fans - would not be attending the charity Dublin premiere of his latest film, The Man in the Iron Mask. The young star had to head back to the US.
"If you're talking to him, tell him how disappointed I am," said Susan McDonnell (15) from Tallaght, Co Dublin, who, with a gang of friends waited from 3 p.m. yesterday outside the Savoy cinema for a glimpse of the star of the world's biggest box office hit, Titanic. "I can't express how disappointed I am because I'm a big fan," she said but was slightly mollified that her name might appear in the paper.
"We went out to the airport to see him," said her equally-disappointed friend Patricia Whelan (15). "We saw John Malkovich, though, and he was very nice and he waved at us."
But he couldn't make up for the non-appearance of Leo, according to Elaine Ryan (12) from Glenageary. So what's so special about the new actor on the block? "He's gorgeous," she said. "And he's a good actor," chipped in Emma Prunty (15) from Tallaght. Earlier, another teenage fan who declined to identify herself, described him as "sex on legs".
They had lined up with about 5,000 other teenagers, virtually all female, behind barricades running the length of the Gresham Hotel to the entrance to the Savoy cinema, clutching their cameras and waiting for HIM to arrive. As a scream started at the end nearest the hotel it travelled along the queue to the other end like a Mexican wave of sound. The girls didn't know who they were screaming for but they seemed to enjoy it anyway.
But if the fans were screaming for Leo, the reporters were screaming (silently) for Leo's musketeers and co-stars, Gabriel Byrne, John Malkovich and Jeremy Irons.
John Malkovich wasn't in the least jealous of Leo's fan club. "I'm not jealous about anybody," he said on his first visit to Ireland. "I'm more concerned about him. That's a bit of an irritation on the ears - the noise of the fans." His co-star Jeremy Irons is not jealous either because "I've never been insecure about my age. I feel 22 inside and I've been on the planet for 49 years. Life gets better as you get older," he avowed.
Gabriel Byrne was full of praise for the absent Leo. He described him as grounded and unaffected. "He's incredibly together and he hasn't a shred of ego."
He said working on the film was "an incredibly joyous experience and we all got on great together". People had said there would be a clash of egos, but "I've never worked on anything where there was less tension".
Those disappointed teenagers will be relieved to hear their young idol is planning to come back to Ireland at a "quieter time" when his more mature co-star Mr Byrne is going to show him around. But don't count on finding out when.
