Spago’s War With the Paparazzi Reaches a Flash Point

Something’s missing at Spago these days.

No, it’s not the guacamole slathered over the gourmet Tex-Mex pizzas. Or chef-owner Wolfgang Puck overseeing creme brulees from the kitchen. Or regulars like Angie Dickinson, Joan Collins and Michael Caine playing kissy-face at the see-and-be-seen front tables.

What’s missing is the gaggle of celebrity photographers, who, like vultures circling their prey, have stalked the West Hollywood eatery almost from the day it opened, searching out the stars whom “enquiring minds” want to know about most.

Puck didn’t even bother to give them a catered farewell party. “Good riddance,” he sniffs.

In fact, the restaurateur recently hired a plainclothes guard to keep photographers off his property. Then he went so far as to ban-for-life two paparazzi who got into a shouting-and-shoving match with his staff when that camera-shy couple, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, sneaked into Spago two months ago. And now, after years of threatening to do just this, he is planning to build an elaborate back door entrance-exit to ensure the privacy of those patrons who don’t want to wind up on the cover of People magazine.

“I hope the photographers don’t come at all anymore,” Puck declared angrily. “If it was up to me, they could all go to Nicky Blair’s.”

In retaliation, the paparazzi have said good riddance to Spago.

“The best thing that could happen is for everyone to boycott the place. I think Wolf is going to hurt himself,” predicted Scott Downie, one of Hollywood’s shutter-bugging kings. “There are enough events in this town to keep us busy day and night without even having to go by his restaurant.”

“They’re just being such petty creeps,” grumbled Jim Smeal, a photographer with the Ron Galella agency and one of the two paparazzi- in-exile. “Over seven years, they’ve gotten a lot of publicity from us and they can’t say they haven’t liked that.”

Ever since the restaurant opened in 1982, Puck and his employees have gritted their teeth and tolerated the aggressive antics of free-lance and agency photographers who play cat-and-mouse with the rich and famous who pop in for a plate of trendoid pasta.

By law, the paparazzi must keep off Spago’s private property and stay on the public sidewalk outside. But, in a ritual that was repeated almost every evening, they crept into the parking lot to get a better angle of who’s hot (and who’s not). And the rewards were lucrative, especially if they spotted Vanna White being squired by her latest boyfriend, or Kevin Costner being schmoozed by super-agent Michael Ovitz.

“I’ve even been in situations when the stars call us onto the property,” Smeal noted. “One time, Clint Eastwood was coming out with his kids, and he called over seven photographers and said, ‘Hey! You want some pictures?’ We told him we can’t go on the property, and he said, ‘Nonsense!’ ”

But even such civilized disobedience went too far in late February when Smeal and Ralph Dominguez of Globe Photos swung by Spago as Hawn and Russell were leaving.

‘A Bit Out of Control’

“What happened was Goldie came out with one of the restaurant staff, and Kurt was dragging Goldie, and then things got a little bit out of control,” Smeal recalled. “We started going on the property like we always do to get a few shots, and then go back, when a car parker said, ‘Get off the property!’ Then Ralph was being very loud, and he started cursing out the restaurant staff, and they were yelling and screaming at each other.”

Smeal, meanwhile, said he found his shot was blocked by three beefy waiters standing in front of him on the sidewalk. “After asking them to move three times, I pushed one of them aside and told him to, ‘Get the hell out of my way!’ and that’s when they told us, ‘If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to call the police.’ ”

Puck, who that night was at his Westside restaurant, Chinois on Main, said his staff told him that the two photographers had even climbed onto the hood of the celebrity couple’s white Jaguar to get their shot--a charge Smeal denies. “That’s a total lie,” he stated. “We didn’t keep any car from leaving the premises.”

Smeal said he didn’t realize he had been banned from the restaurant until he tried to cover Irving and Mary Lazar’s annual Oscar night party at Spago on March 29, on assignment for the New York Daily News. “I had an invitation, but I’m in there five minutes, maybe not even that, and standing around the door area by the bar, when Wolfgang walked over to a security guy and said, ‘That’s one of them,’ and then I was asked to please leave the restaurant.”

Letter of Apology

A few days later, Smeal said he sent a “long, beautiful” letter of apology to Puck. “But I never heard any response. Here I’m trying to resolve this whole thing because it was just something that should not have happened, but they won’t even listen to me.”

In the end, Downie remarked, “We can live without Spago. But can Spago live without us? Nobody’s going to know the place is in existence. The tourists who come there because they think they’re going to see a star will look for other places when Spago stops getting the publicity and the attention.”

So where will the star-watching set go next? “Chasen’s,” Downie predicted. “For the chance to see Ronnie and Nancy.”