When it comes to Bucket, Ostrum just can’t kick it

Peter Ostrum takes off his hay-scratched cap and gloves, then walks into a classroom at Lowville (N.Y.) Academy.

“This is the boy,” a teacher says, introducing a smiling, mustachioed 47-year-old man.

And 120 small fans start cheering.

Ostrum is the original Charlie Bucket, the boy star of “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” the forerunner of the new “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

Now he’s a veterinarian specializing in cattle and horses in New York’s dairy country. He’s also a husband and a father.

Just as Charlie Bucket was special by staying a normal boy, Ostrum very much just wants to be a regular guy. “No interviews,” he politely tells reporters as he drives from farm to farm.

He doesn’t feel like talking – except to one young, rural audience one day a year.

The second-graders crowd around him on the classroom rug. They don’t ask the reporters’ boring questions like “What do you think of the remake, Mr. Ostrum?”

They know what’s important: “The chocolate river, was it really chocolate?”

“Did the wallpaper you licked taste good?”

His visit is so special that they save him for the last day of school.

“Sometimes the moms say, ‘Can I come in?’ ” says teacher Carol Reed, who first invited Ostrum 15 years ago.

Ask around, and it’s clear Ostrum – a Cleveland native who moved here after college – is the most famous man in Lowville, a 3,400-person village known for its cream-cheese plant and snow.

There’s the new attention from the Tim Burton-directed remake starring Johnny Depp, including an invitation from National Public Radio to see a screening in New York City.

Ostrum even showed up on VH1, No. 78 in its countdown of “100 Greatest Kid Stars,” between Diane Lane and Menudo – for appearing in just one Hollywood film.

That and his rejection of a three-film deal after “Wonka” in 1971 bring an awe here that lasts long after second grade.

“We were just talking about it,” says Clancey Watkins, 17. “We were talking about our future plans. Because our goal is to get away.”

She and classmate Meagan Muncy sit in what might be the coolest place in town, a new coffee bar with “Friends”-like decor. They sum up Lowville pretty quickly.

“Your typical small farming hick town.”

“Cows.”

“Lots of them.”

“More cows than people.” (True, agricultural officials say.)

That’s why Ostrum, who used to lie about “Willy Wonka” and say his brother did it, now agrees to talk to kids.

At the end of a long day’s rounds, he pauses behind his vet clinic counter and explains: “It’s nice in a rural town like this – not that they’re stuck here – but, to tell them there’s a bigger world out there. You know, some of these kids will never leave the county.”

So they look for other ways to escape. At the local video store, a quiet town’s curiosity about its equally quiet star has worn out the “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” cassette. Twice.

And that, says manager Sharon Momeo, like many things in Lowville, doesn’t happen very often.

The birthday bunch

Director Paul Verhoeven (“Basic Instinct,” “Showgirls”) is 67. Actor James Brolin is 65. Singer Martha Reeves (Martha and the Vandellas) is 64. Country singer Ricky Skaggs is 51. Actress Elizabeth McGovern is 44. Actor Vin Diesel is 38. Actress Kristen Bell (“Veronica Mars”) is 25. Singer Ryan Cabrera is 23.