A green limo is no stretch

Hollywood wants Y Fray.

Leonardo DiCaprio has arrived at awards night parties with her. So have Oscar winners Steven Spielberg and Charlize Theron. Jake Gyllenhaal has been seen all around town with her.

When Al Gore, among filmdom's newest stars, comes to L.A., Fray sometimes is the first person he sees.

But Fray isn't an A-list star or a big-time agent. She owns Eco- limo, a Santa Monica-based limousine service that combines privilege with environmentalism.

When she or one of her drivers pulls up to the door, the limo isn't a super-elongated Caddie or tricked-out Hummer. It's a gasoline-electric hybrid or a vehicle fueled by walnut oil and reconstituted chicken fat. Ecolimo exclusively uses cars that are seen as environmentally friendly.

"Other limousine drivers laughed at me when I first showed up at events," said Fray, 48, who started the service in late 2004 with a single Toyota Prius hybrid. "They aren't laughing anymore."

Ecolimo is on the move. Fray, who shortened her first name from Yvette to a single letter in the 1970s, has nine vehicles, including two in her newly opened San Francisco branch.

She employs eight full-time drivers and takes turns at the wheel herself. She has her sights on expanding to Washington and New York -- places where green isn't guaranteed to translate into gold.

Fray's operations are relatively small but get noticed in the highly competitive chauffeured limousine business, in which low gas mileage has practically been a badge of honor.

It's not just Hollywood hotshots who are using her service but also executives in other industries who want to travel in eco-style.

On a recent day, Fray's first client was Steve Miller, the owner of a Beverly Hills business that provides administrative services for physicians. He was waiting in front of his hilltop home in the Santa Clarita Valley as Fray arrived at dawn.

Behind him in the driveway was his own vehicle: a black Hummer H2.

"I love my Hummer," said Miller, settling into the back seat of an Ecolimo bio-diesel as Fray, dressed in a dark limo-driver's suit, held the door. "But this balances out my life."

He wasn't exactly slumming. The alternative-fuel car Fray was driving was a four-door Mercedes -- a former fleet vehicle that she bought used. It didn't provide the legroom of a Lincoln Town Car, the standard in the industry, but there was no shortage of the niceties that go with a chauffeur service. Waiting for Miller in the back seat was a cup of coffee, just the way he liked it. There was also bottled water (in biodegradable bottles) and a selection of the day's newspapers.