Tired of war, they just want some fun

The week after Baghdad fell, hundreds of party guests spilled into the enormous and ornate rooms of a Los Feliz mansion, hushed by its Old Hollywood lavishness, which was made more dramatic by candlelight and eclectic performances.

An aerialist suspended over the backyard pool wound around a long piece of scarlet fabric. Off the balcony, in a bedroom bordered by a trickling stream, a harpist played next to a roaring fire. “I’m ready for my close-up,” murmured one man as he traipsed upstairs, where a violin trio played haunting classical pieces in a bare room.

Outside on a small patch of grass, attorney Robert Drexler and his friend, interior designer Lewis Wallack, peered through the window of a room featuring a man naked except for a black and red feathered headdress. An artist sketched the model.

“It’s a wonderful escape,” said Drexler. “It’s a fantasy in every sense of the word. And it drags you away from CNN.”

The April 12 Project Angel Food fund-raiser, with designer-philanthropist Xorin Balbes and physician Brian d’Angona as hosts, was just one of the events this month that granted news-weary locals a much-needed reprieve from nonstop war coverage. In fact, some Los Angeles club promoters, party planners and hoteliers say the reports of chaos in Iraq have actually helped fuel nightlife here.

“If anything, I think it falls under the category of during stressful times ... people go out for a cathartic experience,” said Ivan Kane, owner of the Hollywood nightclubs Deep and Forty Deuce. Kane says his clubs have been booked solid during the last two months, a better turnout than last year. “I wouldn’t wish for business to improve for those reasons, but I think people find they can’t sit at home in front of CNN for hours and hours,” he said.

On a recent Thursday in Hollywood, White Lotus was packed with hundreds of people for a “casino night” hosted by the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. Women in feathered headdresses and sequins walked the nightclub, while guests played blackjack and roulette to win free weekends at the luxury hotel. Eventually, scene mainstays Vince Vaughn, Nicolas Cage and Paris Hilton arrived, lending the party their celebrity. And after their win against the Sacramento Kings, Lakers Robert Horry and Derek Fisher showed up to celebrate.

“It’s almost like a release to go out and get [the war] out of their minds,” said party promoter Herman Orjuela. “Everyone knows it’s happening. It’s just not something people want to talk about, because it’s a downer. People want to go out and have fun. People just want to live every minute like it’s their last.”

Hotelier Efrem Harkham, owner of Luxe Summit Hotel Bel-Air and the Luxe Hotel Rodeo Drive, has booked more rooms in his boutique hotels to locals looking for a getaway close to home. “We’re sold out,” he said. “We’re really not suffering.”

The only complaint from guests, said Harkham, was the fact that the mini-bars were stocked with French bottled Evian. “A lot of the East Coast guests were offended, so we immediately took care of that,” he said. Now Arrowhead water is stocked.

Meanwhile, image-conscious Hollywood appears to be the lone conservative on the party scene, removing press lines at film premieres and in one case canceling a premiere altogether. Columbia Pictures did away with the red carpet for the Los Angeles premiere of “Anger Management.” In late March, Sony Pictures canceled the New York premiere of “Basic.”

With summer blockbuster season around the corner, studios are now in wait-and-see mode, said Mary Micucci, whose events planning company coordinates a majority of L.A. movie premieres.

Movielink, a new Web movie download service offered by a partnership of MGM, Paramount, Universal Studios, Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures, canceled an April 1 launch party and hasn’t rescheduled. At the time, U.S. troops were getting pounded by Iraqi gunfire and “the executives did not feel that a celebration was appropriate,” said spokesman Michael Lawson. “I think people are really going day by day with this whole thing.”

Back at the Los Feliz party, Project Angel Food’s executive director, John Gile, watched the aerialist. The event was expected to raise $40,000 to deliver free meals to patients suffering from HIV and AIDS.

“It’s easy to get depressed by the things happening in the world,” he said. “But there’s an awful lot of good happening in L.A.”