The Kid and His Admirers

Some were left standing in the rain on Sunset Boulevard on Wednesday night as more than 100 friends and fans packed Book Soup to hear legendary producer Robert Evans talk about his memoir, “The Kid Stays in the Picture.”

“I’ve known him for 15 years and I can’t get in,” said Dan Ramsey, 52. Looking at the people in the rain, Ramsey said pensively, “He knows a lot of people.’

Certainly, many in the crowd were friends (or claimed to be) of the 71-year-old who famously went from hotel guest to actor when he was discovered by actress Norma Shearer in the 1950s at the Beverly Hills Hotel swimming pool.

Then, just as famously, he went from actor to studio chief at Paramount, overseeing the making of “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Love Story,” “Harold and Maude,” “Serpico” and the “The Godfather” before a very public fall from grace. A business partner was convicted of arranging the murder of New York impresario Roy Radin in the notorious “Cotton Club” case of the 1980s. Evans wasn’t indicted.

Along the way there were liaisons with Lana Turner, Grace Kelly, Ali MacGraw, Raquel Welch and Margaux Hemingway.

A new documentary on his life (with the same title as his 1994 memoir) screened at Sundance this year, prompting many in the crowd to pronounce Evans the ultimate comeback kid. Another member of that fraternity, Variety editor Peter Bart, made his way to the front and stood among the young and the old during the 45-minute talk.

Tina Barr, 25, an aspiring actress from Florida, mused that she wished for “just half the life that he had.” At the table at the back, Evans said he was pleasantly surprised by the turnout. He signed a book, then with characteristic voice and diction said, “There are no highs or lows like this racket.”

Cultivating the

‘Wow Factor’

Spero Plavoukos looked smooth in his gray suit, his hair slicked back. He had the streamlined appearance of a man going places.

And he was.

Walking through the crowd at the Pacific Design Center on Tuesday night, Plavoukos shook hands firmly as he greeted the two categories of guests: friends and potential friends.

Plavoukos is the right-hand man of restaurateur Charlie Palmer, and in charge of Palmer’s West Coast expansion: Astra, a venue for upscale private parties that opened in January.

Plavoukos’ boss gained fame with the townhouse restaurant Aureole on Manhattan’s Upper East Side before expanding with his first Astra in New York. The L.A. expansion, said Plavoukos, is not a stretch.

“We’re entertaining the same people on the two coasts,” he said of parties that have included fetes for movies, including “American Pie,” and private shindigs for Madonna. (Later, Madonna acolyte Britney Spears breezed through.)

On this night, the private party was a RealNetworks launch of new technology for its Internet media service, with more than 500 guests from all corners of the entertainment industry--music, TV, video games, even the World Wrestling Federation--as evidenced by a range of fashion from Adidas to Prada.

Plavoukos beamed, explaining what he called Astra’s “wow factor”--its modern design and edgy culinary creations.

He brought over chef Dan Shannon to explain the edge.

Customizing is key, Shannon said: hors d’oeuvres for a younger group, foie gras for an older party. But no matter the demographic, there are still a few unassailable culinary rules.

“Cream and butter is over,” he assured us. With emphasis: “All over the country.”

On the dance floor inside the see-through plastic tent, behind Plavoukos and Shannon, a man in black swayed to the music while his blond dance partner ran her fingers through her hair.

“Beverly Hills 90210” star Ian Ziering arrived.

“Great space,” he said, slowing down just a little on his way through. “Great people. Great flow. Potential for lots of fun.”

*

Leaving, and Not Leaving, the South

Novelist Richard Ford sat carefully poised on the small stage with L.A. Weekly critic F.X. Feeney, his interviewer, who had settled on a topic familiar to Ford: the South.

“Southerners tell a story in a sort of explanatory way,” said Ford with characteristic deadpan, prompting audience chuckles. “But I’ve never found that particularly satisfying.”

A small crowd had gathered Tuesday night at the UCLA Hammer Museum to watch the interview, a promotion for Ford’s new collection of short stories “A Multitude of Sins” (Knopf, 2002).

The 58-year-old writer grew up in Eudora Welty’s Mississippi neighborhood, but has spent most of his career working hard to avoid being categorized as a Southern writer. While Ford maintains a home in New Orleans, his stories are set elsewhere, including New Jersey, Paris, Chicago, and Montana. After his first novel, he “left” the South, because, Ford said, that territory had been thoroughly mined by the writers before him. In the South, “you couldn’t pick up a leaf without there being a story under it,” Ford said. “Everything was a provocation to write about something else.”

Later, Feeney took questions from the audience. When one man questioned Ford’s lack of grammatical correctness in his new book (one story features a series of sentences that end in propositions), the Pultizer Prize-winning novelist answered: “I’m the novelist, the keeper of the language.... My nature as a writer is to violate these rules.”

*

City of Angles runs Tuesday through Friday. Email: angles @latimes.com