Quincy Jones Fete Is a Star Magnet

The Scene: Party Monday night at the Roxbury restaurant and club thrown by Time Warner executives Steven Ross and Nick Nicholas to launch the Quincy Jones Entertainment Co., a joint venture of Jones and Time Warner Enterprises. It was part reception, part dinner, part hype. In the words of one bartender, “This isn’t a soiree; this is a fete.”

Who Was There: All the Time Warner brass, including but not limited to Ross, Nicholas, Bob Daly, Rob Friedman and Terry Semel. Among the 550 others were Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw, Harrison Ford and Melissa Mathison, Clint Eastwood, Paula Abdul, Danny Glover, Mary and Irving Lazar (who explained the A-list crowd: “Big talent attracts big talent”), Mike Ovitz, George Schlatter, Tina Sinatra, Brooke Shields, Ashley Boone, Lou Gossett Jr., and Henry Mancini.

The Buzz: What will Quincy’s new company do with Time Warner? Whatever Quincy wants. Films, TV, plays, music--the way the Time Warner execs talk, if Quincy wanted to open a Taco Bell with singing waiters, they would say, si. “He’s one of the great geniuses of our time,” Ross said. It was all young love in bloom.

Dress Mode: Relatively business-like conservative. One fashion writer explained: “If this was New York, it would be what they wore to work. But this is L.A., so they went home and got dressed.”

Chow: Served buffet-style, there were two extensive menus that included grilled salmon, smoked ham, Southern fried chicken, short ribs, collard greens and seafood saffron rice. The food was bountiful; the trick was finding a place to sit.

Quoted: “I circled the field a long time,” Quincy Jones said. “It took 57 years to get here. Then the deal took 14 months to put together.”

Best Compliment: “When you have a body of work like Quincy has, you begin to appreciate it for all its facets,” Harrison Ford said. “It’s just the pure energy of goodness of soul.”

Glitches: The line for valet parking extended all the way up Sunset Boulevard to somewhere near the Nevada border. Retrieving cars was equally difficult. “I think they parked my car in the Central Valley,” one guest said.