Rosenman,
who exec
produced 1990
Oscar-winning
doc Common
Threads,
with Gal Gadot
(left) and
Patty Jenkins
at January’s
AFI Awards.cheeks, held me with both her
arms and said, “My, oh my! So tall
and so handsome, like Hubert.
I must introduce you.” I had no
idea whom she was talking about
— of course it was the couturier
Hubert de Givenchy. Eliza Doolittle
and Gigi told me, little Zvi Howard
Rosenman from Far Rockaway,
that I was tall and handsome!
For a few years, I went to Allan
Carr’s party and Sandy Gallin’s —
stars by the yard at both. Then in
1982, Irving “Swifty” Lazar started
throwing his annual Oscar party
at the old Spago. All those limos
chugging up the Hollywood Hills
to deposit A-listers and some not-
so-A-listers — from Raquel Welch
and Gore Vidal to Goldie Hawn,
Kurt Russell and Oprah Winfrey, all
there in that cramped horizontal
room overlooking the Strip.
If you were extra special, Dani
Janssen, widow of stunt driver
Hal Needham, had an intime din-
ner at her Century City apartment
after the other afterparties were
over. She cooked spaghetti and
served it in her living room for the
likes of Clint Eastwood, Anjelica
Huston and Warren Beatty — very
cliquey but warm and with booze
flowing as well as other stuff. One
year I was Diana Ross’ date and
found myself, very late at night or
early in the morning, among this
stellar group, having a hilarious,
delicious time of it. Uncensored.
Call Me by Your Name is the first
best picture nominee I’ve pro-
duced. Since Sundance 2017, it’s
been a nonstop roundelay of
lunches, dinners, cocktails and
awards — for the film, Timothee
Chalamet and James Ivory — that’s
fulfilling and brings my Oscar
experience full circle.
A Hollywood
Wife’s Awards
Circuit Diaries
Since Swifty’s at Spago, she’s seen
every surprise and scandal the
red carpet has to offer By Irena MedavoyDesigner-activist Diane von Furstenberg on her Oscar week agenda
(with husband Barry Diller) and two A-list fetes As told to Booth Moore1 Universal’s
Donna
Langley (left)
with von
Furstenberg
at the 2016
female
nominees
lunch,
hosted by the
designer at
her home
in Coldwater
Canyon.
2 Ava
DuVernay at
2015’s lunch.I only went to the
Oscars once, and it’s
the least glamor-
ous thing, all these
people moving
seats. I wore my own
dress. It was 1979,
when Barry, who was
head of Paramount,
had Heaven Can
Wait nominated for
nine awards.
When we started
our pre-Oscars
Saturday picnic, it
was like 10 people in
Malibu. Eventually
it got big, too big.
But the picnic is the
nicest because there
are no photogra-
phers, people bring
their kids and put
their blankets on theFor four years, I’ve
also been having
my women’s nominee
lunch. No one ever
thought of doing that
before, can you believe
it? It started in 2014,
the year my “Journey
of a Dress” exhibit
came to the May Co.
Building, the future
home of the AcademyM
y first Oscar party was Irving “Swifty”
Lazar’s at Spago with Wolfgang
Puck. My husband at the time, Harris
Katleman, ran Fox TV, and Irving liked him.
We were TV and not film, but Irving didn’t care. If
he and his wife, Mary, liked you, you
were golden.
Swifty took the Academy Awards
very seriously, the way everyone took
the theater seriously in All About
Eve. If you had to go to the bath-
room during an acceptance speech,
I don’t think you’d be back the next
year. He loved everybody who was a
movie star, and he was close to all
the wives, too. I remember someone
once came up to him and said, “Why is so-and-so
here?” and he replied, “Why are you here?”
Spago was high on the Sunset Strip then.
It was an intimate place. Sitting next toGregory and Veronique Peck would be Sidney
and Joanna Poitier, Warren Beatty and Andy
Warhol. Wolfgang was more than a chef; he
contributed to the atmosphere, the way he and
his wife, Gelila, will do again this year at the
Governors Ball. I remember when he first served
his smoked salmon and caviar pizza. He would
say, “It’s my Jewish pizza.” Nobody had seen
anything like it.
A divorce or two later, I married my endgame,
movie producer Mike — 25 years together —
and the party switched to Vanity Fair at Morton’s
and later Jeff Klein’s Sunset Tower. That party
mixed society and scandal all in one. When
Monica Lewinsky came one year, everyone
gasped and ran into the bathroom to gossip. The
recipe was in the throwing together of what you
don’t expect. Exploit it. Invite it. Seat it. And it
worked. Whoever was in the news was at Graydon
Carter’s Oscar parties. This year, though, I doubtWhen Your Party Becomes a Platform for Activism
lawn. Industry friends
from many differ-
ent generations come
— Warren Beatty,
Steven Spielberg,
Jack Nicholson, Meryl
Streep and Bradley
Cooper. What makes
a good party is if the
hostess manages to
have fun and behave
as a guest, and I do.1 21DillerM. MedavoyDernAbout Town
People, Places,
PreoccupationsTHE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 52 FEBRUARY 28, 2018