More Important Than the Award Is Who’s Presenting It

“This is a wonderful event, but when they write the history of the feminist struggle in America, I always wonder how this lunch will exactly fit in,” joked writer-producer-director Nora Ephron Thursday at Premiere mag’s seventh annual Women in Hollywood lunch at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. “We are definitely the best-dressed oppressed group.”

Ephron introduced her friend, producer Lauren Shuler Donner (“X-Men,” “Free Willy,” “St. Elmo’s Fire”), who was honored along with Drew Barrymore, Holly Hunter and Amanda Peet. “I’d give an award to anyone,” Ephron said, “because getting an award is such a horrible experience. They call you up and say, ‘We’re giving you an award,’ and it’s great, you’re happy. It’s thrilling. Then they say, who can you get to give it to you? Do you think you could get Tom Hanks to give it to you? And you go through trying to find someone,” Ephron said. “So, I don’t care if I know you, I will give you anything, anywhere. Well . . . maybe not that Retinitis thing, but almost anywhere.”

Hanks was at the lunch to introduce Hunter. Before he did, he explained to the audience the three emotional stages an actor goes through while watching another actor’s work. The first stage is envy, the second is genuine admiration. But those are eventually replaced by . . . larceny. “That’s when an actor rips off emotion and ultimately takes from another actor’s performance.”

Unfortunately, said Hanks, Hunter is so good that “the only thing an actor could take from one of her performances is a hairstyle.”

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Author Karen Salmansohn hosted a martini-soaked party Wednesday at Lola’s to celebrate her new book, “Even God Is Single” (Workman, $8.95). The tiny, elegantly illustrated tome lists 26 feisty comebacks to single life’s most irritating question:

“Why aren’t you married?”

Comeback: “What’s the hurry? Thanks to medical advances--and the fine line of SnackWell products--we can all hope to live to age 80.”

Or: “Wedlock does not necessarily mean a lifetime of bliss.”

“I blame fairy tales,” writes Salmansohn. “They are false advertising for happily-ever-after marriagehood. . . . You know what I’d love to see? The sequel to ‘Snow White.’ ”

Salmansohn is “30 and a lotta, lotta months.” (My best guess: pushing 40.) She’s used her background in advertising to package herself as a feisty, female author, publishing such titillating titles as “How to Make Your Man Behave in 21 Days or Less Using the Secrets of Professional Dog Trainers,” and “How to Succeed in Business Without a Penis.” The Manhattan resident said she has become an expert on male/female relationships because she’s been on hundreds of dates. “I joked that if each of us had a one-in-a-million chance of meeting the right guy, I only had two or three guys left to go out with.”

Ironically, after finishing her new book, she met that guy (at a popular Manhattan club called Lot 61), and he put a ring on her finger. “I think on some level, it’s because the book was so cathartic,” she said. “Or, maybe it’s just because the fates have a really bad sense of humor.”

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SoCal Confidential runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Booth Moore can be reached at booth.moore@latimes.com.