After Screening, Stars Gather for One Party, One Night

The Scene: Monday’s premiere of Touchstone’s “Six Days, Seven Nights” at the Westwood Avco. A party followed at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Star Harrison Ford called the evening “a critical moment in the path of the experience of the film,” surely one of the more cerebral definitions of a premiere.

The Party: The hotel’s pool area was redone by Merv Griffin Productions as a Polynesian resort with a small forest of thatch and bamboo, screeching parrots, sushi and seafood buffets, Tiki god ice sculptures surrounded by shrimp and the five-piece Mambo Dread Band playing with Taj Mahal.

Who Was There: The film’s stars, Ford and Anne Heche; co-star David Schwimmer; director Ivan Reitman; producer Roger Birnbaum; plus 700 guests including Ellen DeGeneres, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Melissa Etheridge, k.d. lang, Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, Sydney Pollack, Brian DePalma and Tom Pollock.

Theme: As Heche and DeGeneres are in the planet’s most publicized gay relationship, TV crews outdid themselves in the arena in which they excel--repetitive, one-note questioning. To wit--”Will audiences accept a lesbian as a heterosexual romantic lead?” The number of times this was answered “yes” is incalculable.

Quoted: Reitman on Heche--”She comes to it first as a dramatic actress, but she has the heart of a clown. That’s what great actresses like Carole Lombard had.”

Fashion Statement: What one guest described as the look of the “hard-edged Hollywood career woman.” The uniform includes a black BCBG suit, white shirt, Kate Spade bag, cell phone and an attitude that says, “I have an agenda, and I am with talent.”

Overheard: A producer recently returned from France said that “going to Cannes makes you yearn for the depth and sincerity of Los Angeles.”