A million-dollar spot to stargaze
Being a celebrity has long been likened to living in a fish bowl. But it has never been as true as Sunday, when guests and onlookers pressed against the windows that curve along the entrance to the Beverly Hilton to catch a glimpse of those who walked the long and winding red carpet.
From the small lounge off the hotel’s lobby, the view of stars for the 62nd annual Golden Globe Awards was just as good as for the media lined up outside. In a way, it was even better because the glass cut the noise -- the shouts of the photographers, the babble of the publicists -- in half.
The Globes have long had the reputation of being a friendlier version of the Academy Awards. At the Oscars, A-list stars are cordoned off. At the Golden Globes, everyone walks through the same doors and mingles. As a result, those in the audience -- the press, marketing executives, publicists and B-list TV stars -- have a pretty good chance of being trod upon by the likes of Mike Nichols, Meryl Streep, Morgan Freeman and Jamie Foxx.
One of the prime tables in the Hilton lounge was nabbed by noon by Joan Acklin, her daughter, Hayley, and Hayley’s friend Brianne Kopelson.
“We were fifth in line,” Joan Acklin said. “It was much calmer than it was last year.”
This is the second time the group has made the trek from Orange County, checking into the hotel to catch a glimpse of the stars and chat with them after the show. “They’re really nice about talking to us and letting the girls take their pictures,” Acklin said.
Stars brought in through the hotel’s back entrance ran a pre-gantlet of digital cameras and photo cellphones held aloft by onlookers who assumed the same stance as the professional photographers visible just outside.
Sherry Tamalonis, a teacher from New York City, showed off her “get” of Angie Harmon. Tamalonis was in town to visit her daughter and wound up at the center of the Golden Globes action: “I’m going to show the students my pictures, otherwise they wouldn’t believe me.”
Next to her, sisters Caitlin and Caroline Barrie rattled off the names of the stars that had walked within touching distance: Harmon, Minnie Driver and “the woman who played the girl in ‘Meet the Fockers’ ” (Teri Polo).
The Barries, Maryland natives, had coincidentally been in town last year during the Golden Globes. They were so enchanted that their father gave them a trip back this year, complete with a room at the Hilton, which he booked in June.
Hotel security tried in vain to keep people from literally pressing their noses against the glass.
Outside, gowns glimmered like a school of tropical fish, and the familiarly famous dutifully faced the cameras, trying not to squint into the light as photographers asked the same questions over and over.
Among those peering at the stars were people crowded on the balconies of rooms overlooking the red carpet. Valerie Irvin and Cal Foster, who both worked with the late Ray Charles, sipped wine in the lobby and watched the watchers watching.
“You’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all,” Irvin said. “But this year we’re excited -- Jamie’s going to walk out with one this year.” Her prediction would come true: Jamie Foxx won a best actor honor for “Ray.”
Nearby, Margaret Frasier from Scotland was on alert. This was Frasier’s second year of Globe hopping. Her daughter, Moira, who had a prime seat in the bleachers full of fans that line one portion of the red carpet, has been coming for five years.
“Just looking for famous faces, love,” she explained, her camera at the ready.
