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SCMP Reporter

KIM-Maree Penn is an actress. She has appeared in a Jackie Chan film, a Dolph Lundgren special and a Leon Lai blockbuster.

  Hailing from Sydney, she is tall, blonde, slim and attractive. She is also lethal - currently undefeated in any martial arts competition. She was Women's Free-Fighting World Champion for two consecutive years.

  Finally, she is a bodyguard.

  Together with her partner Bruce McLaren, Kim runs Signal 8 Security in Hong Kong.

  They offer personal protection and all forms of round-the-clock security to visiting stars, local businessmen, nightclubs and concert acts.

  They have 60 clients of all shapes, sizes and nationalities on their books.

  'We like to be low-profile and discreet,' she says. 'When I do it, I look like some bimbo hanging off the star's arm, so nobody knows.

  'Because I'm not threatening, I don't often encounter trouble. But when it happens, I look after it really quietly.

  'Dislocate their knee, and the artist doesn't even notice it.'   Signal 8 Security has taken care of Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangalista, Sylvester Stallone, Steven Segal, Jean Claude Van Damme, Charlie Sheen and Bruce Willis.

  The company has also handled security for concerts by Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Bobby Brown and Paul Simon.

  Other work includes sending bodyguards to China to accompany nervous businessmen; they have even guarded a container-full of leather handbags on the docks - and thereby hangs a tale.

  'The container was the subject of a dispute between two businessmen, one of whom had gone bust,' says Bruce McLaren.

  'We had two guys on the docks guarding it, when a little old man came up with a crowbar and asked could he open it.

  'Of course, they said no and told him to go away. Hours went by.

  'The guys went up on to the roof of the container, made themselves comfortable, turned on the hi-fi.

  'The next thing you know, the container starts to move. The little old man had hooked the container to a truck and was driving it away with our lads on top!'   Neither Bruce nor Kim will reveal too many details of their job: the top action star and legendary fighter who required six 24-hour bodyguards will forever go un-named.

  They will not comment, when asked, about the movie star who went missing for an afternoon on a dubious errand.

  Did Mr Musician really indulge in slap-and-tickle in a Wan Chai toilet? Don't ask Bruce and Kim.

  'To be in this business you need common sense, self-control, a sense of humour, and you absolutely have to be discreet,' says Bruce.

  'It really doesn't matter what size you are. We have people ranging in size from 5 foot 4 inches to 7 foot one. 'It's all in the way you talk and the way you behave. We're all very normal, you know.'   But some pretty threatening figures work for Signal 8 Security.

  It is a United Nations of bodyguards, with an ex-SAS commando; a former soldier who did bodyguard work in Belfast; the Sultan of Brunei's former minder; the British kick boxing champion; an ex-bodyguard for the band Bros; and several women from all over the world.

  'We like to use women,' says Bruce. 'Females are good at diffusing situations, and when it comes down to women pestering male stars, you have to be careful they don't shout assault.'   Yet, in handling security for 25 concerts, Signal 8 has only had to forcibly remove two people from the venues.

  'One was just drunk and unreasonable,' recalls Kim. 'It was at The Wedding Present concert and he set fire to the hair of the guy in front of him - and then he couldn't understand why I wanted him to leave!'   Kim first got involved in karate when she was 10.

  'There was a bad rape in our area and dad took me to karate lessons. I really got into it.

  'The more you learn, the more you realise you don't know.'   For seven years, Kim was the Australian & N. S .W Kumite and Kata Champion, before winning the Women's Free-Fighting World Championship crown in 1988 and 1989.

  Then, she dropped out of competition to enter the world of film.

  'I'm always the baddie, always,' she says of her work in Hong Kong movies.

  'I'm either strangled with barbed wire or stabbed with a screwdriver. I once played a character who kept a live cobra for a pet.

  'They had stitched up its mouth and kept prodding it with a stick so its neck would flare out and it was twisted around my arm, getting angrier and angrier by the minute.

  'When I tried to find the cobra later, I discovered it had been barbecued and the crew was tucking in.'   McLaren, a former marine engineer from Scotland, is still aglow after Linda Evangalista told him he looked like Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard.

  'She has a reputation for being difficult, but she was nice and considerate,' he says.

  'These people are only human; their job is to entertain, and it is rarely you'll find a prima donna,' he adds.

  'Carlos Santana went past a blind beggar in Causeway Bay playing a banjo and he dropped US$300 in her cup.

  'Peter Gabriel had Rolls-Royces lined up for him and he just wanted to get into the van with the rest of the lads.

  'He was dancing away in China Jump and nobody bothered him.

  'People just stared at Cindy Crawford, but nobody came up to her - and most people here look to see what everyone else is looking at.'    Bruce likes his bodyguards to work in teams of two.

  'The last thing you want to do is get involved in a confrontation,' he says. 'We don't want to create a scene. We want to get the artist out of the way as soon as possible, which is why we like to have two people; one to get the star away and the other to block the path.

  'But we've had a few panics, like when Sylvester Stallone did a walkabout at the Star Ferry and we only had four bodyguards on duty.

  'It was totally impromptu. It was also absolute pandemonium.'   Signal 8 Security has worked with Canto-pop stars on personal appearances. 'It's like the days of the Beatles all over again with them,' says Bruce - and a lot of businessmen.

  'We get some strange calls sometimes,' says Kim.

  'Like men wanting an escort to the airport with their suitcases, but what's in the suitcases?   'We make discreet enquiries before we handle jobs like that.

  'If they're doing something illegal, then, by definition we are as well and we don't want to get involved with anything like that.' Bruce and Kim met through Bruce's wife Belle and started out doing concert security.

  It was a success, although Signal 8 Security often has a hard time at rock concerts.

  'People want to get up and dance in the aisles, and artists want everyone to come to the front,' says Bruce.

  'But the promoters have charged a lot of money for the front seats.

  'People get upset and we're stuck in the middle.'   Signal 8 also does security for unlikely places, like the Hotel Furama on the night of the St Patrick's Day Ball. 'It's crazy in there,' says Kim. 'People climbing up fire escapes . . .'   Bruce says: 'We aren't paid for what we do. We're paid for what we might have to do.'   So the price depends on the risk involved.

   'It varies,' he says, 'but it's a minimum of $3,000 for 24 hours, where you're with them the whole time.

  'For high risk jobs, someone more visible like Bruce or Sly, we charge more.'   If there is a common ground for all the Signal 8 employees, it is that most have a background in martial arts or personal fitness.

  So it is logical the next move for Bruce and Kim will be training self-defence classes.

  'Hong Kong is still a safe city, but it doesn't do any harm to be prepared,' says Kim. 'You get fit and learn a lot at the same time. And the main thing is how to avoid the trouble in the first place.

  'There are tricks, and it doesn't matter how small or how strong you are, they're easy to learn.

  'If you're grabbed from behind or by the wrist, there are simple but effective ways to shake the attacker off.'   Kim's had her nose broken, but she did not lay down her looks for a star she was guarding - she was attacked on the street one night in Sydney.

  Needless to say, she won. 'The last thing people expect from Kim is that they'll be out-gunned,' laughs Bruce.

  'They learn their lesson quickly enough.'   Bruce reckons the downside of the job is sitting outside hotel rooms for hours on end, unable to move until someone comes to relieve you.

  'It can be boring, to put it mildly,' he says. But the varied nature of the work compensates.

  Of all the jobs he has had, one stands out as the strangest.

  'You have to wonder why we were asked to protect the fighters from the World Wrestling Federation,' he says.

  'I mean, that was an odd one. I was with The Undertaker, who is 6 foot 10 inches tall, with long, wild hair and covered in tattoos. And he wanted to go to the Wan Chai bars.

  'Obviously, looking like he does, nobody would bother him. But it took us an hour to get a taxi back to the hotel - nobody would stop for him.' 



The gentle persuaders