San Jose Mercury News By Mike Antonucci Mercury News Popular Culture Writer At 25 years old, aspiring filmmaker Elizabeth Pike is too young to have the roller derby memories of people who were ardent fans in the sport’s 1950’s prime. But she feels like she remembers it. "I saw it on reruns of ‘Laverne & Shirley,’" says Pike with a laugh. Then, 3 1/2 months ago, she met "Banana Nose," who’s also known as Ann Calvello. Calvello, 69, is a legend in certain circles. Circles like the baby boom generation that was mesmerized by roller derby, to the dismay of parents, teachers and the producers of all those unwatched puppet shows on the other channels. Circles like the adult devotees who paid to see Calvello in skate-to-skate and elbow-to-elbow combat with the other "mean mamas" of the banked track. Circles, apparently, like little girls who thought, "Wow, I want to color my hair green and pink like that and knock someone over the railing." In those circles, and to Pike’s fledgling little film company, Calvello sit the living anti-Barbie – what a senior-citizen "Xena" would be in hot pants, minus the sword. Basically, roller derby is about jousting for position on roller skates while maneuvering around a banked, oval track. It was thought to sometimes be as fixed as pro wrestling; it was similarly beloved. Calvello joined up in 1948, got labeled "Banana Nose" on looks alone and evolved into the sport’s leading bad girl. Fifty years later, without any current broken bones to slow her down, the San Bruno resident is still skating. Competitively. As in "I had a brain tumor removed in December, but I’m in great shape." At 7:30 tonight, Calvello and other aged icons will skate at the San Jose Civic Auditorium in a match that benefits AIDS resources and services in Santa Clara County. Calvello is skating for the New York Demons in a loosely organized four-team league. It won’t be exactly like the days of yesteryear, but it will be redolent with attitude: "I always wear light lipstick," says the well-tanned Calvello, "but I was thinking of black this time." Why? Because – just as she has told people for decades – "I can’t wear dark red. It makes my mouth look like a baboon’s ass." That’s how she talks, that’s how she thinks. That’s the personality that Pike and her partners, Sharon Rutter and Christine Murray, want to capture in a documentary: "Demon of the Derby." They need more funding for the project, so they’ve been helping to promote Calvello’s appearance, hoping to find a roller derby connoisseur who wants to invest in three visionaries with cameras. But besides that, Pike is personally enthralled with Calvello, including the warmer human being underneath the sandpaper exterior. "Put it this way," says Pike, "wherever Ann Calvello is, she stands out, and everything else in the background is kind of blurry." Roller derby basically collapsed as a viable enterprise in the early 1970s. Attempts to revive it, says Calvello, have failed – at leas in part, because "they won’t listen to me." But when she’s around a track, everybody in the vicinity pays attention. Who needs red lipstick?