Anti-Defamation League gives Steven Spielberg its top award

Colin Powell, Ronald Reagan, Walter Annenberg, Henry Kissinger and John F. Kennedy.

Steven Spielberg joined that list Wednesday when the Anti-Defamation League awarded him its highest honor, the America’s Democratic Legacy Award, at a gala at the Beverly Hilton.

“We picked him a long time ago, and waited with patience,” said ADL’s national director Abraham Foxman, at the cocktail reception. Guests included dinner Co-Chairmen Sid Sheinberg, Bruce Ramer, Harold Brown and Jeffrey Katzenberg; DreamWorks partner Stacey Snider and President Jeff Small; ADL national Chairman Robert Sugarman, and ADL’s regional board Chairwoman Nicole Mutchnik, director Amanda Susskind, and Vice-Chairman Steven Nichols; plus Richard Dreyfuss, Noa Dori and Adam Lambert.

Invited to sing “The Star Spangled Banner,” Lambert said he was a “big fan.” Clearly, he was also the ideal choice for the job, as Spielberg later said from onstage, “What my kids will remember is that I met Adam Lambert tonight.”

Over dinner, Dreyfuss, Drew Barrymore, Kirk Douglas, ADL representatives and dinner organizers took turns at the podium to praise Spielberg for his work as a filmmaker and humanitarian.

“You have guided all of us in showing what kind of people we should be in the world through your filmmaking,” said Barrymore, who starred in Spielberg’s “E.T.”

In his remarks, Spielberg reminded people to pay attention, which he said could be a difficult task “in this new and wildly expanding digital universe,” where multi-tasking is the rule.

“We e-mail, we hyperlink, we blog and yet xenophobia exists, bigotry endures, racism endures, anti-Semitism endures,” he said. “They endure in societies and cultures all around the world, and they have found a new frightening home in cyberspace.”

Spielberg called bigotry an acquired condition that can be eradicated only through education, experience and mindfulness, and accepted ADL’s honor “in mutual recognition of our ambitions to dedicate ourselves to the defense of human dignity, human rights and human life -- all human life.”

With 1,200 guests paying a minimum $500 each, the event netted $2 million for ADL’s coffers.

A women’s who’s who

Power players in Hollywood were on the agenda when guests gathered for the Hollywood Reporter’s recent “Power 100 Women in Entertainment” breakfast at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

And in keeping with the title of the event, Halle Berry received the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, Hilary Swank gave the keynote address, Eva Longoria Parker spoke about philanthropy and the magazine introduced its new mentorship program with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles and the Inland Empire.

“The times called for something different,” said Elizabeth Guider, the magazine’s editor in chief. “We wanted to do something beyond ourselves and beyond who’s ranked where on the list.” Hence the morning’s agenda, which had as much to do with community service as with naming this year’s women with clout.

On arriving, Amy Pascal began ticking off names of some women in entertainment who’ve had a very good year: Nancy Meyers, Nora Ephron, Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, Kristen Stewart, Gabourey Sidibe and Susan Boyle among them. Pascal, co-chairwoman of Sony Pictures, and Anne Sweeney, co-chairwoman of Disney Media Networks, shared this year’s No. 1 spot on the power list.

Sweeney, a mentor, said she arranged for her little sister to visit the set of “FlashForward,” where her first reaction was to notice opportunities, commenting: “There are so many jobs.”

“Mentoring is one of the most important things you can do for a child,” Berry said in her talk, painting a grim picture of her childhood. The only black child in an all-white school, Berry credited her fifth-grade teacher, who singled her out, in helping her to feel valued, loved and worthwhile.

Guider estimated that the crowd of 600 -- many of them teary-eyed after Berry’s speech -- included 75% to 80% of the “Power 100,” including all the new program’s mentors, among them herself, Sweeney, Sue Kroll of Warner Bros. Pictures, Andrea Wong of Lifetime Networks, Cecile Frot-Coutaz of FremantleMedia, Leslie Siebert at Gersh, Donna Langley of Universal Pictures, Nancy Josephson at WME, Linda Bell Blue of “Entertainment Tonight,” Amy Baer at CBS Films, Mary Parent of MGM and Melanie Cook of Ziffren Brittenham.

ellen.olivier@society-news.com