There was also a Jan. 10 benefit concert featuring the Wilson clan and Broadway singer Sarah Berry, to benefit Florida's hurricane victims, many of whom are still homeless (see pictures on Page B1).

To say the pace was hectic, especially the day of the "sneak peek" premiere, would be an understatement. "Patrick was on Good Morning, America! the morning of Dec. 20, arrived in Tampa at 6 p.m. that night, and was greeting the press at the private screening of the movie, really the Tampa premiere, that same night at 7:30.

"I couldn't believe it. Here were all these elegant parties, and here was little old me, right in the middle of it all. They spoiled me rotten. But by the time the hurricane benefit was over on Jan. 10, I'd been there a month, and I wanted to come back home. I was ready to get back to work (Wilson has volunteered for years as a member of the Wellmont Lonesome Pine Hospital Auxiliary), and to playing bridge with my friends. I play in three clubs, you know."

IN THE LIMELIGHT

Although she's back to her regular routine, things are far from normal by most folks' standards. As publicity increases about Phantom, she's seeing her grandson on television more often, and reading about him in the press. She has stacks of material - magazines, videos from Patrick's previous Broadway and film projects - which John sends as he accumulates them in Florida.

He'd prefer she read what he sends, and not what she sees in publications she can buy locally, she said. Phantom coverage, especially, has been widespread, from Reader's Digest to her daily newspaper.

"John Wilson told me, 'Mother, don't read those reviews. Some will be good. But some won't, and those will make you mad. You will get upset. I'll send you the good ones, and you read those. It's all just part of the business. You don't take it personal.' But I do. I want everybody to like Patrick, and be as proud of him as I am," she said.

There's a lot to be proud of. Patrick's credits include a starring role in a movie released last year, The Alamo; Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for Angels in America, directed by Mike Nichols for HBO, and Broadway starring roles in The Full Monty and Oklahoma! for which he received back-to-back Tony Award nominations. Currently, he's in production on another film, Hard Candy.

"I look at pictures of my grandsons out at the club (Lonesome Pine Country Club) when Paul (the late Paul J. Wilson) and I managed it back in the 1970s and early 80s, playing with the ducks and on the golf course, and it just seems unreal to see what those boys and John Wilson are doing now," she said.

Even from a distance of hundreds of miles, she does an amazing job of keeping up with what's going on in everybody's lives. She's in Florida several times a year, and family members are in Back Valley every couple of months. "They always want to play golf at the club. I cook a lot. And we just enjoy being together," she said.

In late summer, Patrick and his girlfriend, actress Dagmara Dominczyk (The Count of Monte Cristo, Five People You Meet in Heaven, and starting this month, the hit television series 24), came for the better part of a week. "She reads all the time. Patrick and she rambled around in the attic, in the boxes of books I don't have space for downstairs, and they read and enjoyed being home. We got out a little bit, but mostly they stayed at the house."

When Carol returned from Florida in January, daughter-in-law Mary K. came back with her on the plane and stayed through the weekend.

"I had my bridge club coming on Friday, and she cooked lunch for them. It was incredible. She set up a buffet with roast pork, a spinach and egg dish with a cream sauce, marinated asparagus, brandied fruit, you name it. The table was full. One of my friends said, 'I can't believe all this.' I said, 'I can't believe it either. Don't expect anything like this again when you come to play bridge.'"

A GENERATION OF SUCCESS

Framed pictures fill the tops of virtually every flat surface in Carol Wilson's home - photos of son John in high school and college; John and Mary K. performing at a variety of concerts in the Tampa Bay area; dozens of photos of grandsons, Paul Burton, Patrick and Mark, from the time they were tykes up to formal occasions where they're decked out in tuxedos. And there are plenty of photos of her four great-grandchildren and their moms as well.

Patrick was born in Norfolk, Paul Burton and Mark in Richmond, during the years when John worked as a prime time news anchor on CBS, NBC and ABC affiliate stations, a career that would also take the family to St. Louis and Charlotte before settling in Florida.

She and her husband went to visit often when the boys were in school in Norfolk, she said. "Patrick was always in plays. We used to fly down there real often to see him perform. And the boys would fly out by themselves, tagged, and I'd go pick them up at the airport. They'd spend the summer at the club."

Now, John and Mark are co-anchors on Fox13, and Paul Burton heads a successful advertising agency, Wilson Media and Advertising. But the whole family has been drawn into Patrick's rising career.

"When Phantom was being filmed in London, John and Mary K. went for six days to visit Patrick, and got invited on to the set. They sat next to Director Joel Schumacher and watched the filming of the rooftop scene where Patrick and Emmy Rossum sing All I Ask of You. John and Mary K. had been singing that onstage in the Tampa Bay area for 16 years, and they got to see Patrick sing it for the movie.

"We all got to go to Phantom premieres. John and Mary K. went to the world premiere in London Dec. 6 with Dag (Dagmara Dominczyk). Paul Burton and Mark and their wives and Dag went to the U.S. premiere Dec. 12 in New York City. And I got to attend the 'sneak peek' premiere in Florida with everybody."

Through it all, she said, "Patrick's just Patrick. He works hard. He's already doing another film. It's just hard to believe, when you see him up on that screen, that you're looking at your grandson. I can't describe how that makes you feel."