Even in normal times, most of the movie stars' palaces in Beverly Hills and Bel Air are heavily gated, with signs on lawns reading "Armed Response." But over the weekend and today, the enormous chasm between the super-rich overlooking the city and the underclass living in it seemed to narrow just a bit.

Although many in the film industry hunkered down even further than usual while the city burned and others fled north to Santa Barbara, a number of prominent figures in show business sought to help out in the riot-torn areas of South-Central Los Angeles.

"In this community there are two different worlds," said Josh Baran, a public relations executive who works in the entertainment business. "Some people on the west side of Los Angeles have never once been in South-Central L.A. They don't know where it is. This has forced them to face that reality. The irony is, some people in Hollywood feel powerless. What can they really do? How can they really make a significant difference and change things?"

The Hollywood Women's Political Committee, a liberal group whose members include numerous movie stars, sent van loads of food to the South-Central area. "Some people didn't want to stay home and feel paralyzed," said Marge Tabankin, executive director of the committee. "They went and helped clean up and brought in food. A lot of people didn't know what to do. And, unfortunately, too many people just stayed home and did nothing."

Michael Tolkin, the author and screenwriter of "The Player," drove into ravaged Koreatown with his 5-year-old daughter over the weekend to help shopkeepers and residents clean up. "One of the things about a lot of people in Hollywood is, they don't live in Los Angeles; they live in area code 310, a small island between the Santa Monica and Ventura Freeways," he said, referring to the area that includes Beverly Hills and Bel Air. "I don't think they have any sense of the larger city."

Barbra Streisand, citing the "hopelessness and disparity that we have been witnessing over the past few days," donated $100,000 for relief. Lindsay Wagner, the actress, and a group of colleagues stood outside Gelson's, a fancy food market in the fashionable Pacific Palisades section, and collected food that was hauled by the truckloads to churches through the weekend. A nonpartisan Hollywood group, Show Coalition, sent 75 actors, agents and producers into stricken areas over the weekend and cleaned up.

Among the more visible members of the entertainment industry who volunteered their services through the weekend were the talk show host Arsenio Hall and the actor Edward James Olmos, who was perhaps the most active celebrity on the streets. Many others showed up on a sound stage at Warner Brothers to tape 60-second advertisements saying essentially, in their own words, that the verdict in the Rodney King police brutality case, which set off the riots, was wrong but that rioting and looting had had a horrific impact. The ads were shown through the weekend on local television. The stars included Clint Eastwood, Anjelica Huston, Blair Underwood, Jimmy Smits and Wesley Snipes.

But what was surprising, in some ways, was that so much of Hollywood, with its wealth, seemed paralyzed and unable to help out. There were rumors of a concert by Michael Jackson and Hammer to help rebuild the community. There were rumors that the Disney Company was planning to open a factory or some other business in the riot-stricken area, but Disney executives declined to discuss it.

One well-known producer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: "Oddly enough, no one was oblivious, no matter how comfortable or well off. It was very hard to be oblivious. No matter where you lived, you weren't totally safe. Anybody could come by and throw and firebomb. Everyone felt just a little bit unsafe, no matter how much money you had, no matter how protected you are. That's never happened here before."

One well-known screenwriter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he doubted that the concern in Hollywood would have any long-term effect. "The riots didn't go on long enough to have people really shaken up, and this will all blow over," he said. "In a funny way, it's a culture adrift, including the people in Hollywood."

But Grant Tinker, the founder of MTM Entertainment and former NBC chairman, disagreed. "This is bound to have an impact, and it goes beyond Hollywood to Los Angeles itself," he said. "There has been a quick, sympathetic response in the creative community. Perhaps it's self-serving. But if we don't do anything about this situation, the whole town will go down eventually. We'll all pay a terrible price."