Party-Goers Face a Choice of Women in Film Benefits

There will be the usual profusion of Oscar-watching parties tonight, but Hollywood revelers will have to choose between two separate parties benefiting the same organization--Women in Film.

The dueling parties: the “Women in Film First Annual Academy Awards Viewing Party” at the Beverly Hills Country Club, which the nonprofit professional organization has had in the works for a year. Sophia Loren and Gale Anne Hurd are honorary co-chairs. Across town, the Roxbury club is hosting an Oscar fete that will also benefit Women in Film, although none of its members were invited.

To further confuse matters, Roxbury will honor producer Debra Hill, whose film “The Fisher King” is nominated for five Academy Awards, and director Randa Haines (“Children of a Lesser God,” “The Doctor”).

The Beverly Hills Country Club event will honor 20 women--Women in Film members who are past and present Academy Awards winners and nominees. The honorees include Diane Ladd, Eileen Brennan, screenwriter Pamela Wallace.

Harriet Silverman, executive director of Women in Film, says she gave the Roxbury permission to hold a party benefiting the organization when the event’s producer, Steve Valentine, told her he could raise about $20,000 for the Women in Film Foundation. “Somebody made us a generous offer, and I had to make a judgment call,” said Silverman. “We’d love to have more scholarship money, so for that reason we lent out name.” One caveat: the club couldn’t use Women in Film’s mailing list, so as not to detract from their own party.

What Silverman didn’t know was that Roxbury would be handing out awards--crystal pyramids, to be precise--a turn of events that sent shock waves through the organization, since Women in Film has worked hard to turn the presentation of its Crystal Awards, announced next month, into a respected annual event.