Waving from her car window as she pulls into the parking lot of Hollywood's famed Formosa Café; a beaming Christina Chambers (Maria, SUNSET BEACH) exudes the glamour of a goldenage Tinseltown movie star. She is, in a sense, arriving for her own premiere (in this case, her first Digest Interview) - perfectly at one with the ghosts of so many famous actresses who routinely haunted this popular eatery. As she slides into Lana Turner's booth (so claims a waitress), Chambers finds herself mesmerized by candid black-and-white photographs of Marilyn Monroe hanging on the wall. Spirits lurking everywhere - how appropriate for a young lady who's been playing a rather ghostly figure since joining BEACH in July.

"I would have liked to have come to Hollywood during that time," chimes in Chambers, a self-proclaimed romantic who can't get enough of the American Movie Classics cable channel. "The stars. The wardrobe they got to wear - just beautiful."

In contrast, Chamber's BEACH wardrobe has consisted mainly of frumpy hospital garb and soaked skivvies. Keeping the presumed-drowned amnesiac carefully hidden from her community has required Chambers to play the majority of her scenes either confined to a hospital bed, staring longingly out at sea, carrying on a conversation with a statue of the Madonna (as in the blessed virgin, not the Material Girl) and drowning in flashback after flashback. But that's all about to change. Last week, Ben Evans got the shock of his life when new bride Meg threw her bouquet into the arms of his first, presumed-dead wife, Maria. And show sources promise that Maria's memory will be returning soon. It's a rather farfetched scenario, but Chambers learned to expect the unexpected long ago.

"I believe there's a lot to life we don't know," muses Chambers. "A lot that can't be proven by a2+b2=c2." That's right - and Pythagorean theorem! Beauty and brains. Which makes sense; both her mother and father are mathematicians. But for Chambers, it was always what wasn't on paper that provoked the most fascination. Her artistic, fanciful, wide-eyed persona chased after dreams and ran fast from ghosts.

When she was just 12, she even encountered a poltergeist living in her friend, Amy's attic. "Amy's family lived in an old farmhouse, where years and years ago, a man was murdered in the master bedroom," remembers Chambers, as if her spooky story had happened recently. "One day, my friend and I crawled up to the rafters. We discovered this box filled with all his old papers dating back to the 1800's. One of the papers revealed that the day we were up there was the anniversary of the day he'd died - August 24, I believe. Then downstairs, the TV started going on and off. Doors started opening and slamming shut. And my friend turned to me and said, 'Oh, that's just George.'" Even though George was more Casper than Creepella, Chambers ran out of the attic, screaming bloody murder all the way home.

Raised in Alexandria, VA, with brother Charles, sister Catherine (both math-minded like parents) and brother Carlton (a student of opera at N.Y.C.'s Juilliard School), Chambers has lived in many places: Washington, D.C., where she attended Catholic University; London, where she studied with the Royal Shakespeare Company; and New York City, where she jump started her career as a working actress.

That's some impressive schooling, but it was her job waitressing at a Virginia restaurant, The Chart House, that has had the most profound and lasting impact on her life. In 1993, amidst hustling baked potatoes and poached salmon, Chambers fell in love with fellow waiter Brian Logue, with whom she's currently planning a wedding.

"Brian bought my [engagement] ring in New York and was planning on proposing when I learned I got [the role of] Maria," she happily recalls. "All of a sudden, we had to prepare for our move to California, so he really had no time to wine and dine me. Once we got to Los Angeles, our new apartment turned out to be a total disaster. The movers had broken our things. The front door didn't lock. The plumbing wasn't working. None of the toilets were flushing. Everything was going wrong."

Then, on June 27, Logue whisked his princess off to Palm Springs for a much-needed day of pampering. "He began the morning with my favorite breakfast - French toast," smiles Chambers. "While he went golfing, he bought me a day at the spa. Afterward, he took me to Dairy Queen - Dairy Queen, my other favorite! Then, back at our hotel, I was sitting out on the terrace when he just dropped down on his knees - both knees, because he loves me twice as much. He said 'You've got to say yes before I give you the ring.'"

Not surprisingly, she gave him the answer he was looking for. The Chambers-Logue nuptials are now planned for October 1999, in their native Virginia. "October's the most beautiful month of the year - it's still warm, but chilly." Notes Chambers, her eyes sparkling as she envisions her picture-perfect day. "The colors in the trees are like fire."

Back in the here and now, the actress is having to deal with fears instead of dreams: namely, a dread of the deep that she shares with her water-weary character. "I can doggy paddle and tread water for as long as I need to, but the thought of drowning or suffocating really makes me panic," Chambers admits. "I've been caught by the undertow a few times, and it's scary spinning under the water, not knowing which way is up. I can remember my uncles holding me under the water when I was young. It was all done in fun, but I still ran out of the water crying to my mom."

Chambers taped Maria's drowning scenes in the very tank where fellow BEACHcomber Melinda got her leg chomped off by a shark - talk about dangerous waters. "They had me die - struggling, struggling under water, then closing my eyes and settling," explains the actress. "But the whole time, I was very conscious that I could always stand up if I needed to."

It's a little unnerving to listen to a woman who resembles the late Natalie Wood discuss a fear of drowning. Wood, who drowned in 1981, feared waterthroughout her life. And the coincidences don't end there: Both actresses gained fame as non-Latinas playing Latina women named Maria (Wood's Mariawas in West Side Story). Chambers prefers to use the comparison as a way of defending her casting, shrewdly noting. "If Natalie can do it, then so can I! I have a lot of Polish heritage, but then my Dad's side also has a lot of Scottish - with a little French and German thrown in. Basically, I'm a mutt."

No doubt BEACH fans would disagree with any canine comparisons. This is one actress with beauty, brains and media savvy. Stir the cement - there's a new set of famous prints to preserve on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.