I'm getting up from my bed," she said, and then, indeed, sound effects indicated that she got up, walked across the room, found the scrapbook in question, put on her glasses, flipped through until she found the right page.

"It's called My Own Private Overdose, by Tad Friend," she said, and then read aloud, somewhat hurriedly: " 'His friends and family have tried to turn River Phoenix into a martyr . . . but if they struggle to get meaning out of a squalid drug death, they begin to wonder how well they ever knew him."

Of course, she didn't write "Beauty and the Beast" about River Phoenix. She wrote it about her relationship with Mick Fleetwood, with the 1938 Jean Cocteau film "Beauty and the Beast" as a thematic backdrop.

"You must get that movie," Stevie urged. "I totally guarantee that it will take you to another place. It will inspire you. It did me--and I didn't even want to see it."