Liza and Friends

Liza Minnelli and David Gest celebrate their much ballyhooed engagement tonight at the Mondrian Hotel’s Skybar with a lavish poolside party. Co-hosted by retired sports agent Dennis “Mr. Baseball” Gilbert and CNN’s Larry King, the party has a guest list of 200 that features a who’s who of old Hollywood, Gregory Peck, Eva Marie Saint and Red Buttons among them.

Many are attending in lieu of flying east for the couple’s March 16 wedding at Marble Collegiate Church in New York. It’s the first marriage for Gest, 48, and the fourth for Minnelli, 55. (Numbers one, two and three are entertainer Peter Allen, filmmaker Jack Haley Jr. and sculptor Mark Gero.)

Guests will gather under a transparent tent raised over the Skybar’s outdoor pool for seven types of hors d’oeuvres, cocktails and a dinner of smoked salmon caviar, Cuban spiced chicken and grilled mojito rib steak. Party planners have arranged a poolside Baldwin baby grand piano for Michael Feinstein or impromptu performances by Minnelli and others.

Confirmed to attend are co-best man Michael Jackson, who will “give away” the groom with brother Tito Jackson, and co-maid of honor Elizabeth Taylor, who is sharing the role with Marisa Berenson. Bridesmaids Janet Leigh and Esther Williams are also expected.

The couple reportedly have been dating since autumn, but it’s unclear how the singer and the event producer originally met. According to some reports, they were introduced by Michael Jackson in September when Minnelli was performing at Jackson’s 30th anniversary concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Other reports state they met in the late 1980s, but didn’t hit it off until more recently.

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Fans to the Rescue

The latest installment of the great fan campaign to save endangered TV shows and characters appeared Tuesday in Daily Variety. “‘Stargate’ without Daniel is like ‘Star Trek’ without Spock,” read a full-page ad. “Find out how to help at www.savedanieljackson.com.” For the uninitiated, “Daniel” is Daniel Jackson, the character played by Michael Shanks on ‘Stargate,’ an MGM-produced show. And while “Stargate” stays, word is out that Daniel must go.

So fans have appear to have rallied. They may be heartened by another recent campaign, a plea to save ABC’s “Once and Again,” which was rumored to be headed for its last episode. Fans began passing the hat and in a week raised about $2,800 for a full-page ad that ran late last month in the Hollywood Reporter, says Lynda Shulman, a VP at a marketing company near Boston, who participated in the campaign.

“I’m not a crazed fan,” says Shulman, who connected with fellow “Once and Again” aficionados on the Web, “but I watched it from the beginning.” Campaigning on behalf of the show “doesn’t take a lot of time,” she adds, and the results are worth it. The show, which went on hiatus Jan. 11, returns early next month, and fans are taking out an ad, unpersuaded by network statements that the show’s planned hiatus would’ve ended without their efforts. Fan fervor has prompted a N.Y. company to found savethatshow.com, a site where viewers can vote on their favorite shows. Poll results are sent to the networks, and the company’s press kit promises: “No ballot stuffing,” with one vote on each show.

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Adults Only

Greg Salsburg is dressed to the nines in a crisply laundered suit with his hair slicked back. The buxom ladies in the tiny T-shirts know him by name. He has a handshake and a sound bite for everyone he meets. As Salsburg walks by, one man announces, “Everyone here is a friend of Greg.” Don’t be mistaken, however. The fresh-faced Salsburg isn’t running for office. He’s the president and CEO of a budding adult entertainment empire.

It’s Monday night, and Salsburg is the host of this jumping party at Moomba in West Hollywood, an intimate affair celebrating the launch of IVOLT Networks. The official line is that IVOLT is a multimedia distribution company. But Salsburg doesn’t hesitate to name his target competition: Playboy.com and Danni’s Hard Drive, a wildly successful Los Angeles-based porn Web site founded by model Danni Ashe.

IVOLT grew out of Salsburg’s own marketing know-how. (The 35-year-old spent nearly 10 years promoting dozens of celebrities as well as the celebrity-owned restaurant chain Planet Hollywood, Motown Cafe and the World Wrestling Federation.) Ultimately, he followed the market. And the market led him to the Internet’s thriving adult quarter.

During the last year or so, Salsburg collected about $4 million from private investors in Las Vegas, New York and Los Angeles. His goal is to have an IVOLT channel available in hotel rooms. “Everything we do is viral,” he says. “We have a 3.8-million-person database--3.8 million.”

He launched his Web site on Valentine’s Day.

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Oblivion, Anyone?

“Prozac Nation” author Elizabeth Wurtzel recently told a Canadian journalist that after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, “I just felt, like, everyone was overreacting.

“People were going on about it,” Wurtzel said in an interview with the Globe and Mail. “That part really annoyed me.”

Wurtzel, who lives in an apartment not far from the World Trade Center, said when her mother called to tell her that a plane had just crashed into one of the towers, “my main thought was: What a pain

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City of Angles runs Tuesday through Friday. E-mail: angles@latimes.com