BURTON AND MATE ARE A PAIR, UNNORMAL

By Stephen Schaefer

From The Boston Herald, 12.08.1996

If Mars Attacks! is the wacky descendant of '50s alien-invasion movies, then director Tim Burton, 36, and actress Lisa Marie, 27, are the end-of-the-millennium's Fun Couple.

Call them the family that sights UFOs together.

"When I first met Lisa Marie," Burton said of his muse and soulmate, "she had a very haunting quality, like somebody I had met in a previous life or whatever. I don't know what."

Last seen as Vampira in Ed Wood, Lisa Marie (who doesn't use her last name, Smith) has the distinction of being the first actor cast--and the only human to play a Martian--in Mars Attacks!

The couple met four years ago in New York City on New Year's Eve. They bonded soon after, they claim, with two UFO sightings in California.

"Once was in the day and once at night," Lisa Marie said. "Once in the wine country at Napa Valley, the other sighting in the Ojai Valley."

Added Burton: "I don't know how to describe them, except to say, have you looked up in the sky and seen something that really shocked you? Really shocked you?

"Some (saucers) were of a metallic variety and some more UFO-ish. And some more of the spirit world, I think. I don't pretend to know what they are, but when you see a bunch of weird stuff in life, you get taken aback by it."

"They did look like the spaceships in Mars Attacks! very bright, shiny silver--the one I saw during the day," Lisa Marie said. "At night, it was luminous."

Nothing like a visitation to cement a relationship.

"It's nice," said Burton, "to experience something when someone's right there with you."

The couple also swear to experiencing a "paranormal experience" with Vincent Price's ghost. Price, the ghoulish eminence of countless horror movies (including the original The Fly) and Burton's boyhood idol, made his final appearance in Burton's Edward Scissorhands.

"It's true," insisted Lisa Marie about the communication with Price from the afterlife. "I wouldn't lie about something like that. He sees me for who I truly am and I'm grateful for that."

Burton and Lisa Marie also have a pet Chihuahua, Poppy, who is featured in Mars Attacks! as Sarah Jessica Parker's pet. Captured by the Martians, Poppy loses her head when it's put on another character's body.

In Burton's world, that's an experience to cherish.