The Ultimate--and Most Expensive--Grammy Date

When Grammy nominee Joshua Bell fell in love last fall, he had to get rid of the “old one” before he could pursue the object of his affection.

“I had feelings of guilt,” said 34-year-old violinist. “It was painful to let go ... but I was smitten by the new one.”

Eventually, Bell (who was judged among the most beautiful by People magazine two years ago) got what he wanted: the red Stradivarius that he will be bringing to the Grammys tonight.

“It’s a kind of chemistry that’s hard to describe,” he says of his feelings for the $3.5-million violin, “like love at first sight.”

Certainly, the 289-year-old instrument has had many suitors over the centuries.

First stolen in 1919, it disappeared again in 1936 Carnegie Hall in New York. Decades later, a cafe musician made a deathbed confession that he took the instrument, and had been playing it in cafes all these years. The instrument was returned to the insurer, Lloyds of London, which sold it to British violinist Norbert Brainin. In September, Bell bought the violin from Brainin.

“The relationship between player and instrument is very much like a marriage,” Bell said. “There are times when you’re getting along, and there are other times when you’re fighting. There are good days and bad days.”

The instrument is unique--a piece of science and art. Its perfect shape and varnish make it an acoustic marvel, he said.

“The instrument is your voice,” Bell said, adding that his violin equals “a transplant of Caruso’s voice.”

This year, Bell, who will play for millions during the telecast, received a Grammy nomination for the album “Bernstein: West Side Story Suite.” (He won a Grammy last year for his recording of the Nicholas Maw Violin Concerto.)

In addition to his beloved instrument, Bell will take actress Kristin Chenoweth to the ceremony. “All the money in the world might not buy me anything like it,” he said of the Strad. “It’s gorgeous. I am in awe.” Of his girlfriend, he added with a chuckle: “I don’t think she gets jealous.”

George’s Day

George Harrison fans huddled around a makeshift shrine, a collection of photos, candles, poems and flowers, at the Beatles’ star on the corner of La Brea and Hollywood boulevards Monday night in Hollywood. The crowd, mostly graying baby boomers, along with a John Lennon impersonator doing his best Liverpool accent, had gathered to remember the musician’s 59th birthday. Emcee Jerry Rubin, a longtime Santa Monica activist best known for his biannual Lennon memorials, hovered over a giant birthday cake as radio host Chris Carter sliced it. “Make sure you don’t eat the [melted] candles,” Rubin warned the crowd over a troublesome P.A. system. “They’re stuck in the middle!”

As a sitar player prepared to take the microphone, 17-year-old friends Avalon Blinn and Meredith McCall exchanged excited glances. “A sitar!” Blinn said. “I know! Sitars are so cool!” McCall said. Both considered themselves huge Harrison fans. “You have no idea!” McCall said. “We may be young, but we know a lot about him,” Blinn said. She dug through her purse for a donation for Rubin’s Come Together Beatles Fan Club and gave all she could find: six cents.

They’re in the Pink

On a recent evening slightly after 8 p.m., men in public relations and women in skimpy dresses gathered at Michael’s Room, a new bar on Vermont Avenue, in Los Feliz Village. Owner Michael Moore (not to be confused with the political activist and documentarian of that name; this Moore is a former Ford model) proudly gave the curious his tour of the nautical-themed cocktail lounge. Pointing out mahogany paneling and lighting fixtures, Moore exclaimed, “Oh, lighting is very important,” explaining that the soft, pink light makes guests look more attractive.

Most of the guests, sipping cocktails created especially for the evening, didn’t need the help from the purple bulbs, though.

Moore pointed to a wall of framed photos which turned out, on closer inspection, to be a retrospective exhibition of his magazine covers as a model in the early ‘70s. “The wall of shame,” he said.

He reminisced about his days as a Ford model in New York.

“They were all jocks,” he said of his former colleagues. “I didn’t believe in the style.”

In fact, he said, the reason he got started in the restaurant business was because of his hair.

“I didn’t want to get my hair cut,” he said, shaking white but still foppish locks. Because he didn’t want to cut his hair, he couldn’t get enough modeling jobs to support himself, he said, so he got a job in an old Irish restaurant near 2nd Avenue and 62nd Street, and from then on, the trajectory was upward.

His last creation, the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop, was “a phenomenon, a vortex,” he said modestly--”the scene of scenes.” This one, he promised, would be, too.

Stewart in Court

Rod Stewart’s son Sean is due in court today to be arraigned on felony charges that he attacked a young man outside a Malibu restaurant in December. The case earned notoriety because actor Dean Cain, known for his TV role as Superman, reportedly captured Stewart after the attack.

Stewart is facing charges of felony assault with a deadly weapon (his shod foot) by means likely to produce great bodily injury and felony battery on a person causing serious bodily injury. Both charges carry a maximum four-year prison sentence.

Stewart, 21, allegedly attacked Jason Rogland, 19, outside Nobu restaurant in Malibu. Rogland was knocked unconscious by boot kicks to the head and treated at the scene by paramedics.

Sightings

Gil Garcetti arriving just in time to hear the Rachmaninoff part of Renee Fleming’s recital at the Los Angeles Opera. (The former district attorney these days is at work on a book of photos of the ironworkers at Disney Hall downtown.) Also at the opera Sunday night was Barry Humphries, his alter ego Dame Edna nowhere in sight.... Kate Beckinsale, crouching in front of a surf shop in Venice, clutching a six-pack of Coke and a smoke.... Sean Connery having lunch at Delmonico’s on Pico Boulevard last week.... Hobnobbing at the NAACP Image Awards after-party Saturday at the Sunset Room: Angela Bassett, Steve Harvey, India.Arie and Debbie Allen.