Celebrity from South America entertaining a sailor (9)
I believe the answer is:
superstar
'celebrity' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'south america entertaining a sailor' is the wordplay.
'south' becomes 's' (synonyms).
'america' becomes 'us' (abbreviation for the United States).
'entertaining' is an insertion indicator.
'a' becomes 'per'.
'sailor' becomes 'tar' (slang term for a sailor).
'us' placed around 'per' is 'upers'.
's'+'upers'+'tar'='SUPERSTAR'
'from' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for superstar that I've seen before include "Dazzling virtuoso" , "Very famous person" , "Extremely famous performer" , "Dazzling genius" , "Celeb" .)