Hollywood’s own religious holiday

Late night scene at Nicolas Berggruen's annual party at Chateau Marmont.

The Academy Awards Night, Hollywood’s own religious holiday has been an event of national, even international interest for many many years, although in the past decade or more, it has flourished and blossomed into a national tourist destination — for people who either are in the entertainment business, or would like to be in the entertainment business, or even wannabe a wannabe, who descend on Los Angeles for, if nothing else, a ride down Sunset with the top down, and the ultimate Hollywood Party.

One such party is given annually by Nicolas Berggruen, a familiar figure in New York, London, Paris, etc. Mr. Berggruen, who has his own billion dollar business called Berggruen Holdings, is a son of the late Heinz Berggruen, one of the most successful international art dealers of the 20th century.


	Chateau Marmont

The elder Mr. Berggruen passed away about this time last year at the age of 93. His life was the kind of movie Hollywood would love to make — a German Jew who fled Hitler’s Germany in the mid-1930s, came to San Francisco where he met and married the very wealthy Lillian Zellerbach and embarked on his career as an art dealer.

Among his artists was a woman named Frida Kahlo, with whom he had an affair. After the war back in Paris, he was introduced to Pablo Picasso by Tristan Tzara, the Rumanian writer, one of the founders of the Dada movment. This introduction led to a very profitable association for both artist and dealer. At one point Mr. Berggruen owned 130 Picassos. In 2000 he sold his collection to Berlin’s State Museums for $120 million – actually a bargain price. Twelve years before he donated 90 works by Paul Klee to the Met here in New York.

Nicolas is one of two sons of his father’s second wife Bettina Moissi. His business takes him all over the world but, at this particular time of year, like so many others, he wants to be in Hollywood.

For the party, Berggruen took over the Chateau Marmont, and invited about 500. His guest list is considered one of the great mixes for Hollywood – pretty people, stars, goodlooking girls, power players. It “wasn’t very industry,” in the words of one guest, “but more of a social list; not being so uptight.” It started at 9 pm and went until about two – very late for L.A.

Bob Shaye and Nicolas Berggruen

Nicolas Berggruen, Jen McCurdy, and Martin Franklin

Paris and Nicky Hilton

Bobby Farrelly and Woody Harrelson

Ingrid Casares and Sofia Vergara

Nadine Coyle, Nicolas Berggruen, Lady Victoria Hervey, and Julia Verdin

Adrian Grenier

Tory Burch

Jamie-Lynn Sigler

John Mayer

Elisabeth Rohm

Tom Bugbee, Monique Lhuillier, Shell Cardon, and Craig Cardon

Caroline Roman and Michael Baruch

Russell Simmons and Porschla Coleman

Amber Feld and Tarajia Morrell

Amaury Nolasco

Brooke Davenport

Walton Ford, Daphne Guinness, and Carlos Souza

Rebecca De Mornay and Larry Gagosian

Shane West

Alina Puscau and Brett Ratner

Caroline Roman and Christoph Hargreaves-Allen

Amanda Braun, Blake Leibel, and Gina Clarke

Alexis Tziena, Christian Lamb, and Lizette Pena

Julia Clancey, Julia Verdin, Nadine Coyle, and Lady Victoria Hervey

Browne Andrews and Michael Baruch

Bobette Cohn and Kimberly Bini

Cornelia Gibrand and Aurelia Scheppers

Melissa Odabash

Devon Aoki

Michael Beaumont, Daryl Hannah, Beth McLaughlin, and Farhad Farman-Farmaian

Todd Meister, Jamie Tisch, and Tom Arnold

Marilou Bartoli, Fanny Gaillard, Chloe Bartoli, and Marjolaine Bui

Elizabeth and Colleen Murzyn

Daniel Benedict and Andrew Saffir

Max von Gumppenberg, Nicolas Berggruen, Lavinia Currier, and Paul Stephaich

Daphne Guinness

Hofit Golan

Kim Stainer

Magda Berliner and George Kotsiopoulos

DJ Frankie Inglese

Jim Coleman, Martin Franklin, and Richard Franklin

Dori Cooperman and Casey Johnson

Elizabeth and Colin Callender

Emilia Menocal and Kamil

Johan Lindeberg and Jonas Akerlund

Zeta Graff, Fawaz Gruosi, and Ujjwala Raut

Jason Binn and Ben Silverman

Jason Pomeranc

Jeff Stein and Angela Janklow

Linda Evangelista and Peter Morton

Andy Hewitt and soon-to-be-mother, Lara Shriftman

Monique Nguyen and Alexis Roche

Aleim Johnson, Stephanie Ittleson, and Farhad Farman-Farmaian

Karl Castillo and Oswald Boateng

Leven Rambin and Cameron Richardson

Matt Donnelly, Caroline Roman, and Christoph Hargreaves-Allen

Martina Borgamanero Basabe, Fabian Basabe, and Paoletta Borgamanero

Last week Manhattan’s indefatigable, peripatetic, ubiquitous photographer of (almost) all things social was in Los Angeles – Hollywood to you kids – where Leviev, the international jeweler, hosted a party for him and his latest photographic anthology, “Glamour Girls.”

The party which brought out the party-folk – and kids, that is a town doesn’t get enough partying in – was held at the ultra-chic, authentic (the way it really was) Art Deco Sunset Tower Hotel.

The Sunset Tower, for you movie buffs, opened its door in 1931 as an apartment house (known as the Sunset Towers Apartments). And it was gluh-morous – as in “Glamour Girls” roaming the corridors, behind almost every door. The pitter-patter of some of the most glamorous film personalities, many of the immortals of the silver screen lived or lived it up at the Sunset Towers.

Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe, Errol Flynn, Elizabeth Taylor, the Gabors, Paulette Goddard. Howard Hughes kept rooms there for his whatevers. John “Duke” Wayne once occupied the penthouse for his whatevers. Sinatra, even Bugsy Siegel could be found at the Sunset Towers. Raymond Chandler wrote about it in “Farewell My Lovely” and “Murder, My Sweet."

The Sunset Tower has had more than one incarnation in the past 77 years, including most recently as the Argyle Hotel and before that as the St. James’s Club (private club in the 1980s). However, it took a New Yorker, or now, I guess, a former New Yorker, Jeff Klein to restore and infuse those old bones of Hollywood glamour with some spit’n polish and the service and style that makes it the destination that it is today.