Skater Seeks Hollywood Applause

LOS ANGELES - Pasha Grishuk's bright red lips form a sweet smile at the thought of the next twist in her soap-opera life.

Grishuk, the two-time Olympic ice-dance gold medalist, has dumped her partner from the Nagano Games and is preparing to take the pro skating world by storm with Alexander "Sasha" Zhulin.

"I feel like I was just born," said Grishuk, the gold disks on her black zippered jacket sparkling under the rink lights.

Her next competition with Zhulin - whose marriage broke up because of their affair - will bring them blade-to-blade with their exes Dec. 10-11 at the World Pro Championships in Landover, Md.

"I think it's supposed to be very friendly," Grishuk said. "What's happened has happened and we've moved on. It's like beginning of new life. We only remember good things."

A smiling Zhulin predicted only that the Maryland competition would be "very interesting."

"We hope they do well and we wish them good luck," Grishuk said, her voice dripping with sweetness. "Of course, we would like to do our best and be No. 1."

What everyone likes to dish about is Grishuk's confrontation with Zhulin's then-wife Maia Usova, the ice-dancing 1994 silver medalist, at Wolfgang Puck's Spago restaurant in Los Angeles. Grishuk claimed Usova slapped her for flaunting Zhulin's ring on a necklace.

At the same time, Usova had a clandestine relationship with Grishuk's partner, Yevgeny Platov. She formed a new skating twosome with Platov, leaving Grishuk and Zhulin in social Siberia.

Although their romance has cooled, Grishuk and Zhulin got together on the ice and won their first pro competition in South Carolina this month, earning two standing ovations.

As the duo reaches for professional titles, Grishuk also is pursuing a side career in Hollywood.

After winning her second straight Olympic gold in February, Grishuk packed her purple skates and took her blonde hair, red nails and lipstick-painted smile to Los Angeles.

So far, she's stayed out of Spago and avoided the temptation of nightspots. She doesn't have much choice. The only private hours Grishuk and Zhulin often can get at the rink are midnight to 4 a.m.

"That is our nightclub," she said.

Their relationship is bi-coastal. He lives in Delaware and comes to Los Angeles to train half the month. She flies East for the other half. They take three days off in between.

"If you're 24 hours together, you drive each other crazy," Zhulin said.

Maybe that's why the romance that brought them together is over.

"Now we're just really close friends," he said.

"We got to know each other well enough in the past, so we don't need that right now," Grishuk said.

The duo talks about competing in the 2002 Olympics, putting Grishuk in position for an unprecedented third consecutive gold medal.

"We want to be perfect," Zhulin said. "That's why we're trying to work so hard because we really like when people say, `Wow, they're incredible,' and we have standing ovation. This is a big pleasure."

Grishuk also wants to hear applause in Hollywood. It hasn't been easy. She was burned out of her rental apartment when plumbers ignited a fire, sending her to new digs in Beverly Hills.

Then there's the Russian accent. She's taking classes to ditch it. She toils in acting lessons when she's not rehearsing new numbers at a San Fernando Valley rink with Zhulin.

Grishuk insists skating is her top priority even though it cost her a role in "Ronin," Robert DeNiro's new action movie. The skating scenes were shot during the Winter Olympics. While Grishuk won the gold, Katarina Witt got the part.

Grishuk played a terrorist in a syndicated TV series, "Black Scorpions," that has yet to air.

She sought the non-skating role because "every day I play a skater on the ice," she said, laughing. "I'll try to do something different so I can grow and develop myself."

Grishuk plans a bit part in "Black and White," a movie currently shooting with Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Brooke Shields.

"She has to continue to study and try to key down her accent a bit," said Jill Smoller, Grishuk's agent at International Creative Management. "She's got a very dynamic personality and she's a great performer."

Grishuk is talking about an autobiography, "Pasha With Love," for next year. No doubt it will include details of the affair, her fight with Usova and her name change from Oksana to Pasha because she tired of being mistaken for fellow 1994 Olympic gold medalist Oksana Baiul. Grishuk called the other Oksana a "criminal" after Baiul's drunken-driving arrest.

It seems a kinder, gentler Grishuk has emerged since the Nagano Olympics. In Japan, she wanted the best-looking male gold medalists to line up in the athletes' village so she could pick one for herself.

"Sometimes I act certain ways, I don't know why or how it happens that makes people think wrong way about me," she said.