Locals in Pawleys Island have a special affection for classic vehicles. The coastal South Carolina town is home to many nostalgic retirees, and on weekends its streets see plenty of restored ‘60s-era muscle cars.

Of all the classics motoring past Parlor Doughnuts on Ocean Highway, none has captured the community’s attention like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Volkswagen.

“Everybody in town rubber necks and waves when this Beetle drives by,” says Rev. Wil Keith, a 47-year-old priest. “It’s one of the much-adored cars in our little town right now.”

It is a 1971 red Super Beetle and its story is special.

Jeff Siegrist was a student at the University of Tennessee when he first set eyes on her at a Knoxville dealership.

Siegrist pounced, handing over his father’s old Ford Falcon and $2,278.54 for the Bug. He kicked in $67.45 for an AM radio and $5.95 for a cigarette lighter.

“So that was my car from that day forward,” says Siegrist, an executive search consultant specialising in the forest products industry.

The Beetle was a sales phenomenon and a pop-culture hit that ushered in the era of mass European auto imports. It was also a Hollywood star, thanks to Herbie from the “Love Bug” movie franchise.

Siegrist road-tripped his Beetle all over. When he met his future wife, Mary, he took her on a first date in the red Bug. When the couple had their first child, the baby boy came home in the backseat.

“It was part of the family,” says Siegrist. Mary gave the car its name, around Christmas time in 1972: Rudolph.

The couple had two more children and ultimately sold the car in 1996. “It just wasn’t practical anymore,” he says. “There were tears in my eyes.”

Up to this point, the story isn’t much different from many of the more than 21.5 million original Beetles that Volkswagen sold.

But during the pandemic, things got interesting.

“I kept thinking, ‘Boy, I wish I knew where my old Beetle was,’” says Siegrist. “I wondered whether other people loved it the way my wife and I did.”

Eventually he got serious. He dug up the car’s original bill of sale, which had a vehicle identification number. He had sold the car to someone in Georgia, a quarter century earlier.

So he called the Georgia department of motor vehicles. Turns out the car was still registered and on the road. But that’s all the office would say.

Siegrist got an attorney involved. Two weeks later, the lawyer called with a name and a phone number for a woman he believed to be the current owner. So Siegrist called.

“I was shocked,” says Tracy Swift, who teaches dental hygiene at Albany State University in Georgia. “He started the conversation with, ‘You’re going to find this phone call very weird.’” Swift thought she had a stalker, and recalls Siegrist saying, “I’m not crazy, I promise. Just let me tell you my story.”

Swift did drive a 1971 Beetle. She checked the VIN number and it was a match.

Siegrist traveled to Georgia, met Swift at her office, and drove the car in the parking lot. “I didn’t want to sell the car,” she says, “but because of his story, I felt like it needed to go back to its owner. It was the sweetest story.”

They agreed on a price (he says “many times over the original cost”) and the car showed up on a truck in Siegrist’s driveway days later. It was just before Christmas in 2022.

The first thing Siegrist and his wife did was drive around the block, with tears in their eyes. “Rudolph is back!” his wife yelled as they drove.

Siegrist went digging in a bucket full of coins and junk for a key chain. At the bottom, he found Rudolph’s original key. He didn’t remember saving it.

The Beetle needed restoration. So Siegrist asked advice from someone he trusted. Enter Keith, the rector at Siegrist’s church.

“When you’re at church,” Keith says, “and the service is over and everyone is filing out, that’s when folks share, often, important information about their lives.”

Keith, it turns out, had grown up the son of a car restorer and worked on cars himself in his garage. He was not a professional. He worried if he would have enough time. But a parishioner needed help. How could he say no?

It took about a year. “Aside from the paint and some engine work,” Keith says, “I ended up doing more than I was expecting, with no complaints whatsoever. In some ways, it was like I gained a parishioner. Only it was a car.”

In 2024, Siegrist began driving Rudolph around Pawleys Island. “Rarely can I go anywhere where somebody doesn’t stop me,” he says.

“Because probably 50% of the people of my generation have owned a Beetle or have had an adventure in a Beetle. People want to know the car’s story. So I tell it.”

As for Keith, he says, “It’s a point of pride that I had a hand in it.” Like most classic car stories, this one continues.

“As soon as Jeff stops finding little things for me to fix, then the story will be over,” he says. “But he keeps finding things for me to do! Which I don’t mind one bit.”

There’s one reliable group of moviegoers left in America—and they can’t go to the movies by themselves.

This week, the kids who make up the industry’s target audience will be heading to theaters for “Zootopia 2” and “Wicked: For Good,” sequels to box-office sensations that could be the highest-grossing movies of the year.

They also have something else in common that has become essential to Hollywood’s biggest hits.

They’re rated PG.

For decades, the movies that printed money were all rated PG-13. It was the rating of the most successful films ever made: superhero franchises, “Avatar” and “Avengers” releases, “Star Wars” episodes, “Titanic,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” the world of “Jurassic Park” and everyone from James Bond to Barbie.

But the entertainment business has never been so dependent on kids dragging their whole families to theatres for the latest PG movie.

Among the bright spots in a bleak year for Hollywood were “A Minecraft Movie” and “Lilo & Stitch,” which are currently sitting atop the domestic box office.

They may soon be jumped by “Zootopia” and “Wicked.” The list of PG hits this year also included the live-action remake of “How to Train Your Dragon,” which improbably beat the latest “Mission: Impossible.”

Meanwhile, last year was the most lucrative year of all time for PG movies, and there are more PG sure-things on the slate for coming years as studios pump out the movies that continue to defy the industry’s gravity.

To put it another way, the people with the most juice in Hollywood right now are 10 years old.

“Kids and preteens,” a recent National Research Group report concluded, “have been the driving force behind many of the biggest theatrical success stories of the past three years.”

The kids and preteens in the youngest generation have grown up with the ability to watch any movie on any device anytime and anywhere they desire.

As it turns out, the place they really want to watch movies is the theater. And theaters are perfectly willing to cater to their most loyal customers.

“If we have an R-rated or horror film on the same day as a PG animated film, I can promise you: We’re always going to try to play that PG animated film,” said Phil Zacheretti, chief executive of Phoenix Theatres Entertainment, which operates multiplexes across the country.

His strategy for those PG films is both simple and profitable.

“We basically try to play every studio’s PG films in as many theaters as we can,” he said.

By now, theatre owners understand those movies are their safest bets. Last year, “Inside Out 2” finished No. 1 at the box office.

The first “Wicked” was very, very popular, too. Anyone with young children was probably in theaters for “Moana 2,” “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” or “Despicable Me 4,” if not all of them.

The result was the first year that PG won the box office after decades of getting trounced by PG-13. And it might just happen again this year.

PG movies have always performed well. But once upon a time, they came with a stigma. “Older audiences thought PG was not going to be cool enough, and families with kids thought PG was going to be too edgy,” said Paul Dergarabedian , Comscore’s head of marketplace trends.

“It was the opposite of the Goldilocks rating.” Only recently has the rating of animated classics, Broadway musicals and video games become just right.

But their rising value isn’t just about PG movies doing better. It’s also about PG-13 and almost every other kind of movie doing worse.

At this point, not even superheroes are guaranteed attractions in Hollywood. Neither is Sydney Sweeney. There are still PG-13 juggernauts, like “Superman,” “Jurassic World: Rebirth” and the upcoming behemoth “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”

But every original PG-13 or R-rated movie like “Sinners” that gets adults to theaters without their children feels like a miracle.

Once they get to the theatre, children want different things than their parents. For them, moviegoing is deeply social, according to NRG’s study, and the single most powerful driver of their behavior is spending time with friends and family.

For as long as theatres have existed, kids have gone there to hang out. Until they couldn’t. In 2020 and 2021, a century of established habits was suddenly disrupted.

When family movies went directly to streaming, the industry feared that PG audiences wouldn’t come back when they could just stay home.

But in a dramatic twist, Gen Alpha now prefers theatres more than Gen Z, millennials or Gen X. If anything, they’re hungry for experiences that are more theatrical. They want immersive screenings—think IMAX , 3-D, Sphere. What they don’t want is to immerse themselves in phone screens.

“They’re not looking to replicate what they can get in their living rooms and bedrooms,” said Fergus Navaratnam-Blair, NRG’s vice president of trends and futures. “They’re looking for something that gives them a reason to disconnect.”

They’re also looking to engage in “participatory fandom.” PG releases meet that demand. Even theater-averse Netflix supplied Gen Alpha with limited theatrical runs of “ KPop Demon Hunters.”

In recent years, audiences sang along to “ Wicked ,” dressed up as Gentleminions and went nuts for Minecraft references their parents just wouldn’t understand.

Those full-blown viral frenzies help movies explode into movements. You might wait to see a movie if you can avoid shelling out for tickets, popcorn and a babysitter.

But your kids won’t. The whole point of seeing a movie is participating in the online memes around that movie, which means they must see it immediately.

This week, despite mixed reviews, “Wicked: For Good” was tracking for the highest ticket presales of any PG movie ever, according to Fandango.

As predictive indicators, those presale numbers are useful. Penn Ketchum, the managing partner of Penn Cinema, wasn’t sure what to expect from the upcoming “David,” an animated biblical children’s movie from a studio that specialises in faith-based content.

But when every showtime at his Pennsylvania and Delaware theatres had strong pre sales, he added screens. Then he added more. When it’s released in December, he predicts “David” will beat the box-office goliath of “Avatar” in some of his markets. “Which will be a massive upset,” he says.

Other PG titles have something else going for them. Navaratnam-Blair calls it “intergenerational nostalgia.”

When “Toy Story 5” comes out next year, for example, millennials who saw the original in theatres as kids 30 years ago will be accompanying their own kids.

Of course, not every PG movie goes to infinity and beyond. This was also a year when Pixar’s “Elio” flopped and Disney’s live-action “Snow White” was left for dead .

But those bombs were the exceptions that proved the industry’s rules of success. After all, today’s audiences don’t have a connection to Snow White. They care more about the star character of another PG movie coming out this year: SpongeBob.

Which means their parents will be taking Hollywood’s most reliable moviegoers back to theatres next month—just as soon as they leave Zootopia and Oz.

From a young age, Jeff Goldblum had an eye for clothes. Growing up in Pittsburgh, he wanted glasses like John Lennon’s and turtlenecks like the Rat Pack’s.

As a member of New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse studying under the legendary Sanford Meisner, he scoured vintage shops for Russian-style overcoats and aviator hats.

After his success in blockbusters like “Jurassic Park” and “Independence Day,” he went through a Japanese-denim phase and loved what he calls “I’ve-been-working-on-the-railroad-type vests.”

“I’ve swung wildly, and I’ve had a lot of bad ideas,” Goldblum said of his style on a recent Zoom. 

The 73-year-old wore a bespoke green shirt from Anto, a shirtmaker based near his Los Angeles home.

On his feet were light-green socks, and handmade shoes from Florence, where he lives part-time with his wife, Emilie Livingston, and their two sons. 

This month, he reprises his role as the Wizard of Oz in “Wicked: For Good,” the second installment of the film adaptation of the musical juggernaut. He insisted he’s not contracted by Universal Studios to only wear green on the press tour.

In the last decade the world has paid more attention to the actor’s off-screen style, which has evolved since he began working with stylist Andrew Vottero around 2014.

A silver-haired fixture on best-dressed lists, Goldblum often finishes his zany outfits with chunky black specs. He has collaborated with glasses label Jacques Marie Mage and formed a close relationship with Prada , walking its runway and appearing in a 2022 brand campaign.

Here, Goldblum, who regularly performs with his jazz band the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, talks cashmere, vegan Bolognese and handshakes.

Studying with Sandy Meisner was: a portal into my more-intense interest in clothing. Everything could be a key to finding a character, behavior and discovering who you are in the story – (for example) how the shoe felt and how it made you walk.

You don’t really see: a 1970s-style long shirt collar in stores. I had this green shirt I’m wearing made at Anto in Los Angeles. I have them in a bunch of flavors, including some with Western buttons. I’m thinking about getting one in orange.

I just read: James Kaplan’s two-part biography of Frank Sinatra, whose favorite colour was orange. I’ve always liked orange.

I like: that Marie Kondo book “Tidying Up.” In my youth, my family left me alone one day in the garage. It seemed messy to me. I started to throw everything away. I was sweating under my arms with excitement. I got a big kick out of it.

My kids: like to wear my band merchandise. They sometimes help me dress. I say, “Hey, pick out what I’m going to wear.”

I’ve had to get cozy with one or two: leather jackets for parts like Ian Malcolm in “Jurassic Park.” I have a Saint Laurent motorcycle jacket that I wore the other day that’s kind of tight. I like it a lot.

I probably wouldn’t want to wear: real fur. I’ve stopped eating animals except fish. It’s part health-wise from my nutritionist and part my own feeling about it.

My favourite meal is at: Craig’s in West Hollywood. My wife and I share a chopped salad, minus the cheese, to start. They have a spaghetti squash primavera with broccoli and a spicy tomato sauce. I get it with shrimp or vegan Bolognese.

I’ve always been hypersensitive to: certain fabrics, such as wool. I’ve recently accepted—what’s that wool called?—cashmere. I don’t like things that itch. And I don’t like tags in the back of my shirt. I use a professional seam ripper to cut out tags.

What drives me crazy are: printing machines and my phone, especially how it breaks down so often. I had to deal with that this morning.

My feet must be: comfy cozy. My wife, a ballet dancer, says we’re not really working unless our feet are bleeding. I can’t accept that. I really like these handmade shoes I had made in Florence. They’re the most comfortable ever.

Florence is: a jewel box of a city. I’ve found the people delightful and the quality of life great. There are so many artisans. My favourite hat is one I purchased at the Borsalino store. I don’t know any Italian. Just a word here or there.

I don’t want to get sick so I prefer: fist bumping to a handshake. My knuckles have hurt from a too-hard fist bump. So let’s fist bump gently. Let’s just fist touch.

I have to organise my: sock drawer. It’s in the research and development stage. I’m very into socks of one kind or another. I like to experiment with a colour, which is why I have a light green pair on now. For tight shoes, I like (thin) Pantherella socks . I like a shorter sock, too. Sometimes I make it look like it’s falling down.

For a while I had an aesthetic allergy to: cobalt blue. You’d see it on a lady’s blouse sometimes, and I would go, “That hurts! It’s too bright.” But yesterday, after going to the Dodgers game with my kids, I put on a Dodgers blue cobalt sock, and I was very happy. So I’m nothing if not changeable.

I love: pockets. I recently got a minty green chore coat by the Row that I really like. Its flap pockets are deep enough that things aren’t going to fall out. I’d never even heard the term “chore coat.” It carries my wallet, keys, maybe a Kleenex, a lozenge, a little pillbox with an aspirin and some hand sanitizer.

I never used: sunscreen. But my wife has got me using Sarah Chapman sunscreen , sometimes even tinted. I’ll use a Joanna Vargas serum of some kind. I’m not sure what it’s doing, but I put it on at night. I imitate Boris Karloff (in the “Frankenstein” films) and I make a joke with Emilie that I’m going to my laboratory to work on my new longevity theorem.

My acid-reflux man said: “Take care of your vocal cords.” So I’m off caffeine. I’ll have a Ryze mushroom coffee in the morning—a scoop with hot water and oat milk. Sometimes the kids will make me a decaf cappuccino with oat milk and a sprinkling of chocolate powder, and that is too delightful.

For many decades: I’ve been totally on the natch. I’ll have a sip of red wine if Emilie says it’s really fantastic, but I don’t want to get loopy.

I get the usual: seven or eight hours of sleep. I stopped wearing my Oura ring. I’d be in bed for 8 hours and it would go, “No, Jeff, let’s call it 5½ hours that you got.” It used to say, “You’re somewhat ready for the day,” and I’d say, “Go to H-E-Double Hockey Sticks.” I threw the darn thing away. I go with how I feel.

When I wake up: I go through the little vestige of transcendental meditation I learned decades ago. I crack my bones and do this stretching routine that ends with my taking a tennis racket and going through the motion of a backhand, forehand and serve. Then I take a Centrum for Men multivitamin, play my piano and work out in our gym.

Early on I was: a lanky guy. Then I started lifting weights. I wanted to steer some of those roles that were a little nerdy—even those scientist parts—in a cooler direction.

Am I: nerdy or cool? Well, these days, according to some circles, the two have overlapped. At this point, who knows?