Flower power

There are no guarantees in Tinseltown, so, true to the classic Hollywood story, Samantha Lockwood stayed solvent by waitressing at a Brentwood burger joint. While waiting for her big break, her grandmother gave her the best advice ever.

“She said, ‘If you want better tips, wear a flower in your hair,’ and my customers loved it. I got better tips from everybody,” Lockwood said. “It was only a difference of $1 or $2 per person, but I think it was because I actually looked like I wanted to be there. They noticed that I took the time and cared how I presented myself.

“I found out it’s something everybody in the industry knows. That’s why you always see flowers in the entry of hotel lobbies and at the dinner table, any place where you want to people to stay, feel at peace and happy.”

But she had trouble keeping her flower in place throughout the day, and it would wilt by the end of her shift. She wanted to find a way to address both problems, and in 2006, after some clunky trial-and-error prototypes, Lockwood came up with an elegant pendant necklace ideal for holding Mother Nature’s jewelry. Its vase shape held just enough water to keep her flowers fresh, and her jewelry line, Fleurings, was born.

“L.A. is the kind of place where people are always looking for the next big thing, and cities, especially, are disconnected from nature, so here was something nice and very relaxing.”

Her design caught on and her line has expanded to include necklace and earring styles in leak- and tarnish-proof stainless steel plated with silver, gold or black rhodium. Pieces range from about $68 to $120.

Perfect for Hawaii, Lockwood’s jewelry is available at Riches in Kahala Mall, for whom she’s developed a Hawaii-exclusive design in duotone color, specifically to hold a plumeria. The design will be introduced next month in celebration of Riches’ 25th anniversary.

When she’s here, Lockwood enjoys discovering and experimenting with tropical flowers. Whether a wearer’s preference is for a dramatic orchid or fragrant tuberose, Fleurings pieces are designed with differing peduncle, or stem, widths in mind. A pendant with a larger opening might also contain a grouping of three flowers, rather than just a single. She particularly loves to wear her Fleurings with orchids because of their shape, size, durability and range of colors.

EMBRACING flower power came easily to Lockwood.

Although her bio notes she comes from an acting family — her father is Gary Lockwood, one of the stars of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and her mother is Denise DuBarry, whom he met on the set of the film “Top of the Hill” — she said they were also a family of gardeners. “My grandmother’s garden had every kind of fruit tree and every kind of flower. She built her own trellis. Both my mom and my grandma had a little of that 1960s and ’70s hippie vibe.”

Although it’s logical for those who grew up here to think of the idea of wearing flowers as a “Hawaii thing,” Lockwood spends a lot of time thinking about their universal appeal.

“You can go to any place on the planet and see how flowers are part of daily routines. Flowers are treated like holy things, placed on altars in many parts of Asia.

“They’re really designed to be attractive to insects to help them procreate, but we’re all attracted to flowers. Even my dog likes to smell them.”

Although Lockwood’s jewelry career took off first, she finds herself increasingly busy with film projects, and she’s glad it worked out this way.

“They kind of help each other. When I talk about my business, people get excited and seem to have newfound respect for me because they usually think of actresses as being so into themselves and having an airhead vibe.”

Lockwood appeared in “Lords of Dogtown” and, more recently, starred in Showtime’s “Shoot the Hero,” an action-comedy about a couple that unintentionally becomes involved in a jewel heist while shopping for wedding rings. After a summer stay at her family’s Kauai home, she returned to L.A. last week to start work on the indie film “I’ll Take Romance,” and she’s also slated to appear in Oliver Stone’s “Savages,” about a Mexican drug cartel that enlists the help of two pot growers. The film’s A-list cast includes Emile Hirsch, Uma Thurman and John Travolta as a burned-out DEA agent, with Salma Hayek as a drug boss and Benicio Del Toro as a strongman.

Even so, she humbly notes that in Japanese celebrity magazines, she shares photo pages with superstars like Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Rihanna, not because of her screen work, but because she created Fleurings.