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Topic: Driver to the stars (SSC) Return to archive
October 16th, 2005 03:01 PM
Ten Thousand Motels DRIVER TO THE STARS ELSIE BELMAN CHAUFFEURS CELEBRITY CLIENTS

Elsie Belman owns a limousine sevice that she operates from her Stafford home. She has provided cars and drivers for numerous celebrities including the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and Jessica Simpson.


By BEN SELLERS

When they speak of the Swinging '60s these days, members of The Rolling Stones are probably referring to their age.

Forty years since the release of songs like their signature "Satisfaction," The Stones still maintain their wild reputation. But what does it really take to keep the band satisfied on the road?

"They smoke a lot," says Stafford resident Elsie Belman, who runs Elsie Slyman Belman Stretch Limousine Service.

"They smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke. I feel like a gravlax salmon."

At 9 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, Belman, her sister and business manager, Libby, and a crew of six impeccably dressed drivers gather outside a white concrete-block garage. The structure is part of an elaborate compound of houses off White Oak Road where the Belmans live and operate the business.

Elsie Belman inspects a black limousine parked in front of the garage. After making sure the tires are sprayed, the trunk emptied and the whole car cleaned, she is satisfied that the eight-seater is ready to roll.

She's preparing to transport Stones guitarist Keith Richards to Richmond's Jefferson Hotel, in between tour stops at Washington's MCI Center and Charlottesville's Scott Stadium.

Richards is just the latest in a long list of rockers she's driven, from Billy Joel to Billy Idol--not to mention Hollywood stars like Robert De Niro, sports greats like Willie Mays and countless Washington politicos.

Belman estimates that about half of the famous referrals come though chauffeuring service Carey Washington DC.

"She's very professional," says Carey Head Dispatcher Alessandra Vergiu. "I mean, her vehicles are immaculate, her suit is spotless and clean and her availability is awesome--she's available the middle of the day, the middle of the night."

At first meeting, Belman's disarming openness makes her seem more like an old friend than a savvy businesswoman. But the the gregarious 51-year-old has a history of being underestimated. That was how she got her start, becoming the first female limo driver in the Washington area, she says, after responding to a classified ad to "go exciting places, meet exciting people."

"The only reason why I was hired is they thought I was a plant from women's liberation. They said, 'She'll cause trouble if we don't hire her.'"

A few years later, in 1981, Belman launched a local sightseeing enterprise, Confederate Tours. Feeling that the local visitors center wasn't doing enough to promote her business, she took on City Hall in a feud that lasted more than five years. Through lawsuits and protests, she earned headlines and a reputation. But the business remained profitable until she sold it, she says.

"I got out because it was a personal conflict, but I didn't lose any money."

According to Vergiu, Belman still enjoys pointing out landmarks in Washington and the surrounding region to interested passengers.

"We get customers that sometimes want to do a tour of the city, and she's very knowledgeable."

After Belman began devoting her attention to the more stylish forms of transportation, however, regional business continued to grow. Over the past 10 years, she gradually hired more drivers. Her fleet now boasts eight vehicles--including Lincoln town cars and sport utility vehicles that she says are booming in popularity among her rich-and-famous passengers.

Even a rise in gas prices, which forced Belman to increase her rates five times this year, doesn't lower the demand for her service, she says.

"A lot more people have business accounts and they're travelling." That means more airport rides, more nights on the town and more repeat business, she adds.

On this Wednesday, Belman already has spent the better part of a week chauffeuring Richards as she readies the limo to drive him to Richmond. But she is understandably mum about The Rolling Stones, crediting her connection to "someone who is in with someone at [concert promoter] Cellar Door." This is the fourth tour she has worked on for the Stones and in order to maintain her star-studded contract, she says she must keep her lips sealed about what happens when Richards gets in the back seat.

That's assuming there is anything to gossip about. Belman says the only beverage she provides the notoriously hard-partying guitar-god Richards is bottled water. But amid the limo's charcoal leather interior, beneath a twinkling, fiber-optic stargazer ceiling that any other night might revive a dying date, sit three empty glass decanters and a corkscrew, just in case.

The limousine also comes equipped with a back-seat stereo and TV/DVD system. So do Richards and his entourage prefer CNN or Spice?

"They don't watch 'em," Belman says.

She and her crew do, however, have plenty of other famous clients to dish on, like the time they picked up former independent counsel Kenneth Starr from the Thornburg McDonald's after he had a disagreement with another driver.

Belman says most of the big shots she has encountered go out of their way to interact kindly with the person in the front seat. "They make it a point to be nice to drivers, make it a point to speak to us, and I think that's very nice."

There are the good celebrities (Evander Holyfield, whose assistant offered a hotel room to the exhausted chauffeur), and the bad (Jessica Simpson, deriding an onlooker at the airport--who just happened to be Libby Belman).

There have been near misses, such as Elsie Belman's first high-profile call, to drive in a convoy of limos carrying Elvis Presley. That is, until Elvis' manager, Col. Tom Parker, fearing what might happen between The King and a female driver, sent her back to the garage.

And then there is the hat. A navy blue New York Yankees cap with white stitching, it looks like any other. "Put it on--size seven," says Belman, prying it from the jaws of a yapping Lhasa apso named Tiger. The snugly fitting headpiece was Bruce Springsteen's, she says.

It's one of the many discarded or forgotten keepsakes Belman has come across: Justin Timberlake's blue-glass Saratoga bottle, a paperweight given to her by Sen. Edward Kennedy (commemorating his receipt of the George Bush Public Service Award) and most recently, the Marlboro cigarette butts of a certain Rolling Stone.

Though she muses some of the items might do well on eBay, "it's mostly for Elsie--my little personal museum I don't have any intention of selling it."

And she doesn't think the Stones guitarist, for one, would have a problem with donating the charred relics.

"Keith Richards belongs to the masses and I am just one out of many," says Belman.

Late Wednesday afternoon, traffic on Interstate 95 forces Richards and his guests to take an impromptu tour of downtown Fredericksburg, writes Belman in an e-mail. They ride past the Hugh Mercer Apothecary Shop, James Monroe's law office and the slave auction block on William Street.

At Fredericksburg Baptist Church, two passers-by do a double-take upon seeing the rock star with his window rolled halfway down. And on Mine Road, just before turning onto U.S. 1, Belman says the esteemed songwriter considers a new career: "He remarked, 'Ruby Tuesday, now hiring shall I go in?'

"But the best part was when he got out of the limo at the hotel in Richmond," she adds. "He gave me a hug and a kiss on my right cheek. I can still feel the pressure of his lips on my cheek. What a rush "

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