1,300 Show Up at ‘Rush’ Premiere

The Scene: The premiere of MGM’s “Rush” Wednesday at the just-opened Hollywood Galaxy Cinema on Hollywood Boulevard. This is in the neon-studded complex near the Chinese Theater that’s either a shopping center or the world’s largest mini-mall. Whatever the theatrical equivalent of new car smell is, the Hollywood Galaxy has it.

Who Was There: The film’s stars, Jason Patric, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sam Elliott and Max Perlich; first-time director Lili Fini Zanuck and her husband, producer Richard Zanuck; and MGM chairman Alan Ladd Jr.; plus 1,300 guests including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, Dana Delaney, agent Paul Schwartzman, attorney Howard Weitzman, Laura Dern and Julia Roberts, who as the world knows, is Patric’s girlfriend. The couple was wisely kept incommunicado--the less said about the movie the better.

The Locale: A party followed at the nearby Hollywood Athletic Club. VIPs went upstairs, the masses stayed down where three dozen pool tables fill the massive rooms. One woman described the scene as “a pool hall filled with people who never shot pool before in their lives trying to look like they know what they’re doing.”

Quoted: “If they (the VIPs) are so afraid of mixing,” said a woman exec from a another studio, “why did they invite these people? Why not just have the 40 or so they wanted?”

Fashion Statement: Schwarzenegger came as the world’s highest paid billboard. He wore a green leather jacket with the name of his new Venice restaurant, Schatzi on Main, embroidered on the chest.

Chow: A halfhearted buffet in the bar--chicken sate, quesadillas, and California roll sushi. It was more a drink-beer-lean-on-a-pool-table kind of evening.

Buzz: The film’s narcs-on-drugs theme was a bit strong for a Christmas movie. Alternative film titles guests came up with were “Heroin 101” and “Really Awful Things You Can Do to Your Arm.”

Irony: The Hollywood Galaxy Cinema was built on the exact spot where MGM co-founder Louis B. Mayer once lived at one of early Hollywood’s most chic addresses, the Garden Court Apartments. After all that’s happened to MGM, who knows what ghosts lurk within the popcorn machine.