WORKING IN L.A. : Guests Rely on Him Without Reservations : Hotel: The chief concierge at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel knows how to satisfy some very demanding requests.

The guests at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel tend to be kind of picky.

Although the famed hostelry in Beverly Hills provides elegant rooms, sumptuous dining, a heated pool, private saunas and a health club, sometimes even these amenities are not quite enough to satisfy.

That is where Thomas Warrick comes in.

The Beverly Wilshire’s chief concierge has provided guests with everything from luxury yachts and private jets to cans of deodorant and tubes of toothpaste. If the Beverly Wilshire does not have it, Warrick will get it for you.

Up to a point. Sometimes he has to say no.

“There was a high-fashion model from South America,” he said. “She asked if I could find her a tapeworm to help her stay slim.”

Warrick, a former actor with a flair for the dramatic, maintains an air of prim respectability as he mans his polished desk in the front lobby. His old-fashioned cutaway coat and striped pants are tailored to perfection and every hair is in place.

He is usually far tidier than his trendy clientele, who tend to favor loose jeans and baggy shorts as they stroll the splendid corridors of the hotel.

A lot of his work involves getting people reservations--for the opera, for the theater and for restaurants such as Spago and Chasen’s.

“You not only have to know what’s hot, you have to know how to get them in,” he said.

The 38-year-old concierge did not reveal how he accomplishes this, any more than he would reveal names of the famous guests whom he has served.

“Discretion is very important in this job,” he said.

Nonetheless, between the frequent phone calls and occasional in-person requests, Warrick let a few things slip.

He said that while he never--ever--provides a guest with a companion for the evening, he has been known to play cupid.

“One lady called and asked that I have the bed turned down and scattered with rose petals when she and her husband arrived,” Warrick said. “I took care of it.

“Another guest wanted to propose to his girlfriend while jumping out of an airplane. He asked me to arrange for a parachuting class and a guy with a camera to record it all.

“They jumped, he pulled out the ring, she accepted and the photographer took their picture,” Warrick said. “From what I’ve heard, they’re still happily married.”

The Beverly Wilshire, used frequently in motion pictures, is perhaps best known as the setting for “Pretty Woman,” a fairy tale romance about a wealthy businessman and a streetwalker.

“A few months ago, a man called to say he was coming in from Texas with his girlfriend,” Warrick said. “He wanted us to get that dress--the red one--that Julia Roberts wore in the movie when she went to the opera.

“I asked the studio. They said no. So the man said: ‘Get one made that’s just like it.’

“When they arrived, I had the dress waiting for them,” Warrick said. “She looked beautiful. Just like the movie, they hired a jet, flew to San Francisco and went to the opera. It was their ‘Pretty Woman’ weekend.”

The concierge said one request came from an executive with a large Canadian corporation who wanted to fulfill the wish of a longtime friend.

“The friend had always wanted to go to Hugh Hefner’s place--the Playboy mansion,” Warrick said. “They wanted to rent the whole place. I arranged it, but it wasn’t cheap.”

In Beverly Hills, where even a few bowls of flowers can cost a guest as much as $1,000, few things are. But Warrick said that he and the hotel never add a surcharge for the goods and services he provides.

“If you stop by my desk for a postage stamp, it’ll cost you 29 cents,” he said.

Warrick, who was born in Indiana, went to New York City in the late 1970s to pursue a career as an actor. When things did not work out, he got a desk job at a hotel.

He said that while he never lost his love for the stage--”I still do the Christmas show at the Beverly Wilshire every year”--hotel work began to intrigue him. Within a few years he found himself at the concierge’s desk at one of New York’s most elegant hostelries, the Mayfair Regent.

“The chief concierge there then was Bruno Brunnelli,” Warrick said with a touch of awe. “He was one of the greatest concierges in the country. He could get anything.”

Warrick said that under Brunnelli, he learned the art of his trade--”how to serve as the liaison between the hotel and the outside world.

“There’s no way you can ever know how to get everything that a guest might want,” Warrick said. “But if you don’t know how, you know where to ask.”