Party for Hearty Miss Wood

The Scene: One hundredth birthday party for Ojai artist Beatrice Wood and the Los Angeles premiere of the documentary film, “Beatrice Wood: Mama of Dada” Wednesday night at the Pacific Design Center. In the 1910s, the rebellious, Vienna-born Wood, with artist Marcel Duchamp and others, was at the heart of the avant-garde in New York and Europe. The “Mama of Dada” producers are negotiating for national television rights. Who Was There: Orbiting close to Wood were the film’s producers Diandra Douglas and her husband, Michael, Amie Knox, Olavee Martin, Belle Deitch and director Tom Neff, as well as Danny DeVito, Jack Nicholson, Michael and Patricia Medavoy, David Crosby, Tippi Hedren, Leonard and Susan Nimoy, Estelle Getty, Paula Prentiss, Michael Viner and Deborah Raffin and Eric Douglas. Audience Movie Review: Completely and utterly enchanting. Quoted: Said the artist, whose relationships with diplomat Henri Pierre Roche and Duchamp (which became the Roche book and Francois Truffaut film “Jules and Jim”) scandalized New York 70 years ago: “Scientists have said time and space do not exist, so I am telling you happily I am 32.” Fashion statement: Wood wore a green sari, American Indian turquoise rings and four-inch dangling rhinestone earrings. Buzz: In a room full of people who work exceptionally hard at staying young, many were saying they had discovered an inspirational new role model--a bawdy, funny, romantic free spirit with wrinkles. “I don’t remember ever seeing anything that made me feel great about getting old,” Deborah Raffin said. “In America, we’re obsessed with this illusion that you have to be young, ruthless, that you are what watch you wear, what car you drive and whose shoes you wear, and I think we’re realizing that’s pretty empty,” Diandra Douglas said. Chow: Two huge birthday cakes--lemon chiffon with blueberries and chocolate with raspberries--frosted with Wood’s emblematic stick figure thumbing its nose. Plus tons of hors d’oeuvres.