Drew Stephens doesn't look like anti-establishment movie material.

He certainly bears no resemblance to Kurt Russell, the handsome young actor who portrays him in the new film, "Silkwood."

Relaxing in his wood-paneled Oklahoma City office with his feet propped on his desk, the real Stephens looked every inch the prosperous small-businessman well-barbered and neatly attired in V-neck sweater, tie and slacks.

His expensive leather sportcoat hung on a nearby rack. His manner was easygoing, cordial and unassuming hardly the stuff of which film heroes are made.

Nine years ago, he lived out a real-life drama that became a cause celebre for the anti-nuclear, labor and women's rights movements. His girlfriend, Karen Silkwood, was elevated from obscure nuclear plant worker to martyred heroine after her highway death in 1974.

"I've spent a lot of years wondering what happened," he said.

"I've come to accept the fact that I may never know what really did occur."

Whatever happened triggered a headline-making lawsuit against one of Oklahoma's largest corporations Kerr-McGee and now it has inspired a major motion picture.

Nine years after his girlfriend's death, Stephens still believes the car wreck that killed Karen Silkwood may have been "caused."

He recalls that Silkwood's allegations of safety violations and her union "spying" didn't make her the most popular employee at Kerr-McGee's Cimarron plutonium plant back in 1974.

The new movie "Silkwood" re-creates events at the Crescent, OK, facility just prior to her death, but offers no new revelations in the case.

And now, at 33, Stephens has all but given up learning all the answers to questions raised by his volatile, unpredictable girlfriend so long ago.

Kerr-McGee's official reaction is that the movie is anything but what really did occur. Company spokesperson Ann Adams labelled the film "a highly fictionalized Hollywood dramatization" which portrays Kerr-McGee in a "false and defamatory manner." She declined to name specific scenes or dialogue in the film which Kerr-McGee found objectionable.

James Ikard, Silkwood estate attorney (who appears as an extra in the film), said, "I think the film in many ways portrays Kerr-McGee in a better light than they're really entitled to … I don't think they came across well (in the film), but I do think they're not treated as badly as they're entitled to be treated."

"Silkwood," which opened Wednesday night in Oklahoma City, has already stirred controversy locally and nationally with its themes of nuclear responsibility and worker-versus-establishment.

The flap is especially heated in Oklahoma, as it deals with a famous Oklahoma-based lawsuit still in litigation and a nuclear plant just 30 miles north of Oklahoma City whose safety precautions have been questioned.

But beyond the topical issues, Drew Stephens is simply glad his former girlfriend's story is finally being told on the screen.

"I'm very pleased with the movie on the overall because it fleshes out the real-life character of Karen Silkwood, who people had known only as a name or figurehead for years and years," he said.

Stephens praised actress Meryl Streep for her portrayal of Silkwood.

"She depicted Karen's character as volatile as it could be at times, and as caring as it could be at other times," he said. "She had a very difficult job because she had to play a person that's been long since gone.

"I think she extrapolated the character mannerisms, movements, responses very well."

Streep and Kurt Russell portray Silkwood and Stephens as young, rural, working-class people who toil long hours at the plutonium plant and share a rundown country house, finding recreation in liquor, marijuana and each other's company.

Russell plays Stephens as a blue-jean-wearing, laid-back youth who is driven away when his girlfriend becomes obsessed with fighting on the side of the union against alleged safety violations at the Kerr-McGee plant.

Fictitious names are used for Kerr-McGee managers, some of whom are portrayed as uncaring and vaguely sinister individuals.

"I think Kerr-McGee's portrayal is simplified," Stephens said.

"That's the best way to put it. The management of Kerr-McGee was depicted in a very flat, one-dimensional way.

"(The movie) came nowhere close to the time it would take to develop all the complexities that went into what Kerr-McGee is or was, or why the things that occurred at Cimarron occurred … I think it was mostly symbolic in nature. And I think for sure it was for the sake of telling the story that was told."

The film follows Silkwood through her involvement with the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union (OCAW), and her attempts to document her accusations of serious safety infractions at the plant.

Her unexplained radiation contamination on Nov. 5, 6 and 7, 1974 which later became the basis for the Silkwood estate's lawsuit against Kerr-McGee is also depicted.

The movie suggests Silkwood may have been the victim of harassment and scare tactics devised by a person or persons unknown at the plant.

Its ending strongly suggests that Silkwood's car may have been purposely run off the road when she was on her way to meet with a union official and a New York Times reporter on the night of Nov. 13, 1974.

Stephens still subscribes to that theory, although the Oklahoma Highway Patrol ruled the death an accident.

"Within four or five days after her death I felt that it was likely that the accident had been caused," he said.

Stephens who owns Hammer and Dolly, an auto body repair shop bases his belief on the dents he found in the rear bumper of Silkwood's car, and tire marks at the scene, which he said described a "sharp angle which indicated trauma to the car of some sort, before she left the road.

"First of all, I didn't feel that she went to sleep as a result of the methaqualone (the drug found in her blood during autopsy) … because the steering wheel was wrapped solid down around the steering column and you don't do that when you're asleep."

When asked why he thought the wreck was ruled an accident, Stephens would only say, "Because that's probably the easiest route out."

Stephens agrees that much of the film is "fictionalized" and that "license was taken" in order the tell the story within the limits of a two-hour movie.

One particular scene, in which Russell, as Stephens, slugs a Kerr-McGee employee, was "all fiction. I never really clobbered anybody. However, I kind of liked that."

With the exception of himself, Silkwood and one union official, Stephens said all the characters in the movie were "composites put together of all the elements that existed in a way that is convenient to tell the story well."

Stephens who appears briefly in the movie as a restaurant waiter and in a union meeting hall scene said he first became involved with the film eight years ago when he was contacted by executive producers Larry Cano and Buzz Hirsch.

"I felt like it was a story that needed to be told properly," he said. "And I feel that it has been told."

He said the implications of safety violations in a nuclear fuels laboratory are "so big" that people should be made aware of them.

"There are deep problems with the nuclear fuel cycle as far as I'm concerned," he said. "Because there are just people that do it."

As for the more personal side of the film, Stephens admitted he found it difficult to watch "Silkwood" the first time. He has viewed the movie four times.

"I never did completely understand her," he mused. "She could be a kind and caring person. I believe those are the things that motivated her to pursue the health and safety thing…

"I hope that a lot of people that were aware of the Silkwood past can tie a real-life human being to that, and I hope that they can understand that she was just another person.

"She did some pretty special things. Maybe not for the reasons that NOW (National Organization for Women) or OCAW would like us to think. I think she would be very happy today to know that she has achieved the audience she has achieved." BIOG: NAME:

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