Glamour Is in the Giving at Tinseltown’s World Premiere
Legendary film producer Cohnwarner Mayerwyn Selznuck--head of Tinseltown Studios in Anaheim--wants to make you a star.
Billed as a “famous Hungarian producer who has never gotten things quite right” in La La Land, Selznuck is the persona at the heart of a new entertainment complex aimed at adults with stars in their eyes.
Opening this fall, Tinseltown Studios is based on a concept developed by former Disneyland President Jack Lindquist and business partner Jim Garber. “Selznuck is a famous Hungarian producer who loves Hollywood and films,” Lindquist explains.
Six nights a week, two Academy Awards-style shows will be presented in a theater with seating for 700. Of those attending, eight will be singled out to star in clips from such Universal Studios films as “Somewhere in Time,” “Field of Dreams” and “Liar, Liar.” Highlighting each evening will be the presentation of “Oggies” to the best actor and actress.
The $15-million Tinseltown, to be located near the Angels ballpark, will be built by Ogden Entertainment in New York.
The premiere of the facility is set for Nov. 11 at a black-tie benefit--”The Envelope Please . . .”--on behalf of Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Margo Chamberlin of Newport Beach is gala chairwoman.
Arriving guests will stroll down a red carpet lined with television interviewers, spotlights and paparazzi. There will be cocktails in an Art Deco lobby and dinner in a theater area that resembles a sound stage--complete with catwalks.
Among those at the dinner: the eight guests who will appear in film clips to be shown on twin 9-by-12-foot screens.
In advance of the gala benefit, “producers” from the Orange County community will be invited to make donations to CHOC, thereby guaranteeing a starring role for the person of their choice in a film clip.
During the gala, the would-be actors will be escorted backstage, fitted with costumes and given their lines.
“The wardrobe people will have created a costume that is as close to the movie part as possible,” Lindquist says. “It will be one of those slip-your-arms-in-the-sleeves numbers with Velcro up the back.”
Once recorded, their images will be slipped into the film clips.
During the course of the three-hour evening, the clips will be shown to guests, much the way clips are presented at the Oscars, Lindquist says.
Between clips, guests will be entertained by dancers in a Las Vegas-style cabaret show. “Instead of doing the best songs [like the Oscars], we do production numbers that will feature 20 to 25 songs from Hollywood films from the ‘30s to today,” Lindquist says.
For the opening-night gala, the Oggie winners will be determined by a vote taken before the benefit. “Once the eight people have been selected by the paying producers, we will present them to the Orange County community and invite people to vote--at $5 each for CHOC--on who should win the best actor and actress awards,” Chamberlin says.
What to wear to the world premiere of Tinselton Studios? Black tie and pull-out-the-stops glitz. “They can wear their most glamorous evening gowns,” Chamberlin says. “That’s what this event is all about--glamour, celebration and raising funds for CHOC.”
Information: (714) 532-8690.
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Nifty 50: Standing beneath a ballroom arch at the Hyatt Regency Irvine, philanthropists John and Donna Crean of Santa Ana Heights renewed their wedding vows Friday at their 50th wedding anniversary celebration.
Donna Crean marched down an aisle in a white silk gown with lace sleeves. Waiting for her onstage was a beaming John Crean--retired chairman of Fleetwood Enterprises.
During the nuptials, he presented his wife with a pear-shaped, 21-carat diamond ring.
Among the 500 guests: fashion arbiter Mr. Blackwell, who quipped: “I cried when you got your diamond tonight. And not because you were getting remarried. Because you [Donna] were getting the ring.”
