The Power of the Purse

A cadre of the most powerful women in Hollywood descended on the Beverly Hills Hotel Tuesday morning for the Hollywood Reporter’s annual celebration of the top 100 women in the industry.

Studio heads, assistants and publicists schmoozed and air-kissed while clutching mimosas and the ultimate power accessory: the handbag.

Stacey Snider, chairman of Universal, topped the power list, but Dawn Tarnofsky-Ostroff, of Lifetime Entertainment Services, carried the supreme accessory: an off-yellow Hermes Kelly bag. (Expected wait for the bag at Hermes in Beverly Hills: between six months and a year.)

The black, quilted Chanel was favored by Paramount’s Sherry Lansing, second on the list, but bags were not the only way to make a fashion statement.

Paula Wagner, partner in Cruise/Wagner Productions with Tom Cruise, wore a necklace with a diamond-encrusted peace symbol. Wagner, who came in at No. 47, gave us her take on feminism, power and style: “A true feminist conducts herself femininely but doesn’t allow [her gender] to become an issue.”

A publicist wearing a black skirt, spiky boots and her boyfriend’s tie looked around the room, judging the dress sense of her peers. “There’s definitely a new school, and an old school. The old school has more sensible shoes and clothes.”

One corner, though, was more high school than new school.

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, the teenage multimillionaire entrepreneurs, showed up in matching Dolce & Gabbana pinstriped suits.

The twins were ranked at the bottom of the list, but still were tickled. “It’s pretty good, given that we’re only 15 years old,” Mary-Kate said. Asked to name their heroes, they responded in unison: Julia Roberts and Drew Barrymore.

“My husband is my hero,” said Gail Berman, president of entertainment at Fox, ranked at No. 4 by the Reporter. “He makes it possible.”

Behind every powerful woman....

DNA Test, Anyone?

The plot thickened Wednesday in the Elizabeth Hurley paternity controversy when the model-actress issued a statement claiming to be “deeply distraught” that her former lover Stephen Bing had publicly cast doubt on whether the unborn child is his.

On Monday, Bing, a film producer, said in a statement that he and Hurley weren’t in an “exclusive relationship” when she got pregnant last summer. The baby is due in April.

“This is the first I had heard of this, and the implications are very painful, especially as I am shortly to give birth to his child,” Hurley, 36, said in a statement issued Wednesday by Simian Films, the production company she co-owns with another former lover, Hugh Grant.

Bing, who is expected to inherit a property fortune between $400 million and $3.5 billion, stated that it was Hurley’s choice “to be a single mother.”

Cuisine for a Cause

Eleven of Los Angeles’ top chefs donated their services to produce a lavish, six-course meal for 120 Tuesday night to benefit a new culinary scholarship named for the World Trade Center restaurant Windows on the World and its surviving executive chef, Michael Lomonaco.

Guests paid $150 each for the meal created by the head chefs from Campanile, Spago, Melisse, Napa Valley Grille, JiRaffe, Patina, La Cachette, Granita, the 20th Century Fox commissary and Zax.

All the food was donated by the chefs and by the Saddle Peak Lodge in Malibu, site of the dinner, which was hosted by the James Beard Foundation.

“These things just don’t happen in L.A.,” the foundation’s West Coast representative, Andrew Harris, said. “Especially these days when business is down and people are canceling functions.”

The New York-based culinary group established a scholarship fund for aspiring chefs with a portion of the estimated $19,000 raised by Tuesday’s meal.