A look back at the great party moments--premieres, fund-raisers, openings--and the overblown groaners that kept the beautiful people hopping in ’97.
Oh, how we partied. But as the year comes to a close, once again your RSVP writers hang up our tuxes and black stretch lace camisoles. We doff our red suede stilettos and become lost in reflection. We smile dreamily as we let it all go--the limo gridlocks, the clouds of expensive cigar smoke, the entrees that are said to have once ranged free. Here are some of the highlights--and low-lights--of the year gone by.
The Most Coveted Invite: The understated travertine-textured cream-colored cards summoned only 2,000 people in the whole world to pre-opening parties in early December at the Getty Center’s new city on the hill above Brentwood. Getty President Harold Williams was said to be the final arbiter of the list. In were directors of famous museums, prominent artists and Michael Eisner (Getty trustee John F. Cook is a Disney executive). Out were most politicians and entertainers and even major players in local arts fund-raising, like Royce and Jennifer Diener, who checked things out in advance of the party dates. “I talked to [Getty director] John Walsh and told him, ‘We’re planning on being in Hawaii. Should we plan not to be?’ ” said Jennifer Diener. “He said, ‘Don’t.’ ”
The Shrimp Fork Is Mightier Than the Pen: The premiere of Paramount’s “Kiss the Girls” in October on the studio lot was instructive. “I visited the set and found out that a novelist ranks somewhere below the caterer,” said James Patterson, upon whose book the film is based. “They know why the caterer is there. They don’t know why the novelist is there.”
Most Creative Crasher: Eight A-list parties, costing a total of about $1 million, followed the Golden Globe Awards in January, ranging from Disney’s all-white three-tent complex where “Evita” star Madonna reigned (cell phone in hand to check on her baby) to Miramax’s all-black decor--”the darkest, loungiest, latest and drunkest,” explained Paul Cunliffe of Merv Griffin Productions, which did all the parties. So who would notice the crasher who arrived at the awards dinner with a red parrot on one shoulder and a white parrot on the other, claiming to be part of the production? “This isn’t a bird show, buddy,” the unfazed chief of security told the man. Of course not. Everyone knows it’s a circus.
It’s Never Enough: When Nancy Davis went onstage for the finale at her Race to Erase MS benefit in November, she left her handbag on the head table and returned to find it missing. Her husband searched the room for the suspect, a known party crasher who had been seen hanging around the table. The man was stopped and held for police in the lobby, where, Davis’ purse in hand, he had stopped to try to talk his way into getting not one but two party gift bags. The LAPD detective on the case said the man admitted to crashing parties on a regular basis and told police that he thought the jewel-encrusted, egg-shaped Judith Lieber bag was part of the party decor.
When the Drama Is Backstage: For a while, it looked like opening night of Graham Reid’s “Remembrance,” at the Odyssey Theatre in September, was going off beautifully. The performance, starring Leo Penn and Eileen Ryan, was produced by their son, Sean Penn, and the house was packed with the likes of Chris Penn, Robin Wright Penn, Nick Nolte, John Travolta, Dick Van Dyke, Tom Hayden and Harry Dean Stanton. Then, midway through the second act, the former bad-boy actor turned mustachioed impresario got the nicotine jones. He tiptoed through the exit adjacent to the stage for what would have been a discreet smoke--until the door clanged shut and locked behind him, and the frantic metal rattling of his attempts to gain reentry accompanied Mom and Dad’s onstage endeavors.
Theme Run Amok: At the party for “G.I. Jane” in August in Westwood, a parking garage rooftop was modified with a techno-industrial design featuring camouflage netting, searchlights, black AstroTurf, pool tables, bullhorn-wielding “drill instructors,” chain-link fences and neon turquoise lighting. Parked outside was a twin-engine Nautica 27 inflatable boat--the attack vessel of choice for amphibious commandos everywhere (“custom built in Miami,” said Jim Pearson of Cinema Rentals). Thankfully, unless asparagus and heirloom tomatoes with lemon-basil vinaigrette is the cuisine of the new military, the menu broke ranks.
Wretched Excess as Usual: For an interlude of East Coast civility in March, we went to New York. There, rush-hour traffic on Seventh Avenue came to a stop for Howard Stern, launching his film “Private Parts” from a Popemobile escorted by eight police cars and an armored vehicle. Plans had called for Stern to float over the 10,000 or so frenzied fans in a chiffon-draped cherry picker, a scenario that was scuttled because of wind, obviously not because anyone thought it was in poor taste.
One Woman’s Comfort Food: At one Hollywood party, a minor TV actress was spotted grabbing a fifth of Jim Beam and half an angel food cake and stuffing them into her bag.
We Suspected as Much: In March, architect du jour and Getty Center creator Richard Meier brought his New York-based daughter to Vanity Fair’s glitzy Oscar night party at Morton’s and explained, “I wanted to show her this, even if it’s not real.”
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi: “Honestly, I wasn’t a big fan of the [director Anthony] Minghella movie. . . . I forget what it’s called, but I’m thrilled for Billy Bob Thornton,” said director Adrian Lyne at the triumphant Miramax bash at the Mondrian a couple of hours after “The English you-know-what” had amassed its pile of Oscars.
Directing 101: Steven Spielberg, sprained arm in sling, revealed one view of his trade after a car accident in September on the way to a screening of his film “The Peacemaker.” “We were pushed out of the intersection, spun 90 degrees, air bags went off, glass shattered, the car filled with the acid smell from the air bags and the horn stuck--which is a cliche I would never have put in a movie.”
We Learn How Films Are Financed: At the launch of “Liar Liar” at the Universal Amphitheatre in March, thoughtful hosts provided a free phone bank as part of the party decor. Writer-producer Lisa Haisha (“Psycho Sushi”) used the occasion to call her Japanese investors. “I told them to send more money,” she said.
In the Desert: We went to Las Vegas, the home of tasteful understatement, in June. For “Con Air,” premiere guests who arrived by chartered jets from Los Angeles were whisked away to the Hard Rock Hotel in Hummers, escorted by baton-wielding motorcyclists and helicopters. The celebs, that is. The rest of the party-goers arrived in black and white “Bureau of Prisons” buses. Later that month, dozens of stars converged at the MGM Grand for the Mike Tyson-Evander Holyfield fight. “It would be strange to be here and not be famous,” noted Paul Reiser. “This is a naughty boy weekend--real punches, real drinks and fake breasts,” said screenwriter Martin Bergman before the fight. Little did he know.
Benefit of the Year: The Fire and Ice Ball attendees--1,100 of L.A.’s Hollywood and social elite--entered a white tent the size of a football field on the Paramount lot, passing by fountains that spewed fire and water and a wall made of 15,000 pounds of ice. Huge tropical fish projected on screens gazed down at the crowd and a rain curtain opened to permit guests into the dining area, where they trod on a clear plexiglass floor above a 10-million-gallon lagoon. The bittersweet evening included a giant schmooze fest, an Isaac Mizrahi fashion show, and tears when ball founder Lilly Tartikoff spoke to the crowd about her husband, popular entertainment executive Brandon Tartikoff, who died in the summer at age 48 after a battle with Hodgkin’s disease. More than $2 million was raised for the Revlon/UCLA Women’s Cancer Research Program.
