Hail to the Ex-Chief

It took the considerable draw of former President Bill Clinton to make it safe for our celebrities to come out and play again. Clinton picked up an award Tuesday night from American Oceans Campaign. Guests at the Century Plaza hotel gawked as stars plied the red carpet.

Without missing a step, Sylvester Stallone shook Gary Busey’s hand before heading to the VIP room, where he joined Clinton, Barbra Streisand, James Brolin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman, Jeff Goldblum, Dennis Quaid and a slew of other Hollywood luminaries.

Clinton lingered as the others filed into the dining room, treating a handful of hotel staffers to an impromptu musical performance when he picked up a saxophone and noodled “My Funny Valentine.”

Clinton had insisted to American Oceans Campaign founder Ted Danson that the show go on. The former commander-in-chief told reporters it was important to follow President Bush’s advice and resume everyday life.

After dinner, embattled “Politically Incorrect” host Bill Maher introduced the campaign’s executive director, Barbara Jeanne Polo. “I’ll be brief, and hopefully uncontroversial,” he said, referring to his widely criticized remark that the terrorists weren’t cowards.

Later, Charles McDowell, 18-year-old son of Malcolm McDowell, introduced the former president. Clinton is a friend of the family, McDowell said, and it was a longstanding tradition for him to hide Easter eggs for the McDowell kids. “You can tell a lot about an adult by how they hide Easter eggs,” McDowell said. Clinton did it “just right.” He ended by saying that Bush may be president, but “it’s Bill Clinton who’s my hero.”

The remarks moved Clinton and others to tears. “I may live several more years, but I don’t think I’ll ever be more proud of an introduction,” he said, wiping his eyes. Later, he echoed Maher’s controversial comment, saying that indeed the terrorists “were not cowards.” But, he added, “they were mad.”

At the end of his 30-minute speech about the future of the planet, guests were visibly moved. Maher gave Clinton a thumbs up. “Awesome,” he mouthed.

Stop the Presses!

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks “really made an American of me,” Talk magazine editrix Tina Brown told us by phone from New York. When two hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center towers two miles north of Brown’s Chelsea office, she was mulling over the previous night’s Marc Jacobs fashion show, where she chatted with Donald Trump about his bodyguards and overheard Monica Lewinsky bragging about her new handbag collection.

Suddenly, the magazine’s offices were evacuated, and Brown found herself standing outside her daughter’s school. She and the 10-year-old went home and took comfort in watching Fred Astaire movies. The next day, Brown scrapped 45 pages of the November issue--a tribute to New York’s diversity, featuring lavish spreads of jazz musicians, fashion designers and media machers . A tearful New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani replaced Michael Jackson on the cover.

Space was added for Stephane Sednaoui’s intimate photographs of the rescue effort. As one of the first volunteers on the scene, Sednaoui told the magazine he “dug until I couldn’t carry even one stone. Then I took some pictures.”

By week’s end, Brown was standing at the ruins, passing out sandwiches to famished firefighters. The magazine’s office kitchen became pasta central as staffers dished out carbs for volunteers.

“I’m still an English citizen,” Brown said, but “I felt such a tremendous empathy and bond for this town.”

No Mincing Words

Ann Coulter, the blond conservative commentator with the long legs, short skirts and barbed tongue, has lost her National Review online column. It was dropped following protests of her condemnation of Muslims who danced in the streets after the terrorist attacks.

Coulter’s friend, conservative Clinton basher Barbara Olson, was aboard the Dulles-to-LAX flight flown into the Pentagon, and her tribute to Olson included this hot-button line: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” Coulter followed that up with a recommendation that passengers carry passports on domestic flights so that certain “suspicious-looking swarthy males” could be checked out.

Trying for the last word, as usual, Coulter called her National Review editors “girly boys” and slammed the publication as spineless. But Jonah Goldberg, editor of National Review Online, said Coulter was not fired for what she wrote. “It was Ann who decided to sever her ties with National Review--not the other way around.”

Quote, Unquote

“The moment she walked into the restaurant I thought, ‘I’m a dead man, it’s over. I’m done’ .... Her eyes pierced my heart from 20 yards away.”--Red Hot Chili Pepper Dave Navarro, telling Jane magazine about his love at first sight for former Baywatch babe Carmen Electra.

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Times staff writers Louise Roug and Gina Piccalo contributed to this column. City of Angles runs Tuesday-Friday. E-mail: angles@latimes.com.