June 6th, 2007

Is Lukas Haas finally putting aside his wild, wild ways and settling into a serious relationship? That is the way it appeared at a pool party when Elite model Lindsay Lullman sauntered over to where he was talking with Leonardo DiCaprio and gave him a warm embrace. The lanky, six-plus-footer still retains that youthful look (he 's 31) that recalls the 9-year-old Amish boy who stole our hearts in Witness starring Harrison Ford in 1985. He has worked constantly ever since, dividing his time between big-budget blockbusters, T.V. gigs, and small independent pictures. Lukas is currently starring in The Gardener of Eden, directed by Kevin Connolly, and has movie contracts that will keep him busy through 2008.

The penthouse at the Chateau Marmont was the setting for the launch of our friend Paula Thomas's (of Thomas-Wydle) new book, Death Valley (Flaunt Publishers). First a chic, exclusive cocktail party, then a small, intimate dinner party hosted by the author and attended by Marylin Heston, Danny Huston, Vincent Gallo, Diane Kruger, Kelly Lynch, and Mitch Glazer, Marley Shelton, Eric Dane, Balthazar Getty, and David and Courtney Cox Arquette, whose marriage is not, repeat not, in trouble despite what you may have read in the rag mags. Some of these spurious reports had Courtney and Jennifer Aniston buying a house together. The Arquettes pronounced the stories "pure rubbish."

Despite the contention of a certain veteran, syndicated gossip maven that pop heart throb Rufus Wainwright dissed his idol Judy Garland in a Q&A piece in Radar Magazine, we have it from an unimpeachable source that Rufus's tongue was planted firmly in his cheek. That is the word from the singer/songwriter 's long-time muse, ex-punk rock star Cherry Vanilla who's known Rufus, 33, for more than half his life. She said, "It's totally crazy to think Rufus would disparage Judy. He adores her. He worked for months and months on his sold-out, Carnegie Hall concert last year, a tribute to Judy 's 1962 Carnegie concert, and went out on a limb financially to put it together. He often jokes about himself and his talents being 'the greatest,' especially in interviews, not unlike Muhammad Ali's 'I'm the Greatest!' But it's all in jest, a big joke. His ego is more in check than any of the stars I have known and I have known many in my life time. " [Sting and the Police opened for Cherry on more than one occasion during the Seventies.] For Rufus 's fans who were unable to get to the East Coast for his Carnegie Hall homage to Judy last June, you should know that he is repeating that concert which was staged by film and opera director Sam Mendes, song-for-song, at the Hollywood Bowl on September 23. So, be warned, order your tickets now! They 're flying out the Bowl's ticket office.

With his new CD, Release the Stars, poised for an assault on the Top Ten list, Rufus's PR machine has been hard at work--a front-page, full-page, pix-and-profile in the Sunday Los Angeles Times Calendar, a double Q&A [with Sienna Miller and Amy Poehler asking the questions] in Interview, the aforementioned Radar feature, at least a half-dozen other magazines, music videos airing on the Internet, and TV appearances both in the U.S. and Europe. His management team should stand and take a bow. Wainwright has already had five sold-out concerts at London 's venerable Old Vic Theatre where he also conducted a master class. Tonight he begins an already sold-out four-night stand in the Big Apple at the Gramercy Theatre before traveling to Toronto, Montreal, and Boston, the latter stop, along with one in Cambridge, Maryland, as part of the True Colors Tour which supports the Human Rights Campaign.

It is really hard to be objective and not gush when writing about 26-year-old Jessica Alba whom GQ magazine named the "World's Sexiest Woman." She is the polar opposite of Lindsay Lohan in commitment to her work and dedication to whatever picture she is currently filming. Not only is she drop-dead gorgeous, she 's just so damn nice, a real throwback to the long-gone stars of the silver screen, true pros like Barbara Stanwyck and Katharine Hepburn. Like them, Jessica actually enjoys being an actress and like them, she keeps busy, with six films in various stages, the first being Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, a sequel to last year's Fantastic Four. Others include Good Luck Chuck, Awake, Bill; [in a role that Lindsay Lohan walked away from], The Eye (replacing Renee Zellweger]) and Sin City 2, another sequel.

Jessica was in rare form when we talked to her at The Lot on North Poinsettia in WeHo [The Lot being the Warner Bros. lot], where Hennessy, the world 's most popular cognac, kicked off its Artistry Concert Tour with Keli's and the Brazilian Girls on stage with celebrated D.J. Samantha Ronson (Lindsay Lohan's B.F.F.), in an exclusive private engagement before 400 invited guests. Jessica told us, serio-jokingly, that she 's concentrating on"getting past my hotness," a reference to all the magazines' and polls dubbing her "the most beautiful" or "the sexiest" or "the hottest" or "the most this or that." With the current G.Q. magazine's shots [by Terry Richardson] of her looking sultry and sexy in a Dolce and Gabbana swimsuit, Jessica comments: "As ridiculous as it sounds, this 'hotness thing' has apparently closed a few doors [for me]. Right now, I'm just exploring what my contribution to this business is, other than wearing a bikini and getting caught by the paparazzi. "

"The movie business gives a lot of people power," Alba opined. "But often it's not always the right people. You can tell who to trust. You can tell when people have the right things in mind and when they 're just pricks for pricks' sake, and in all honesty, for the sake of art or a great movie, you still have to hold onto your dignity and who you are. If you lose that [dignity] to be in a great movie, that 's your journey, not mine," said the delightfully outspoken beauty.

Ready or not there's another reality TV show centering on the fashion industry coming to the small screen in July. It is called The Fashionista Diaries and will join such successful shows of the genre as Project Runway, America's Next Top Model and if you stretch it a bit, The Agency, Janice Dickinson's slugfest about launching her own modeling agency. The Fashionista Diaries is a co-production of SOAPnet and Buena Vista (Disney) Television and will air on the former 's cable channel. The premise of the hour-long program: Chronicling the lives of six men and women, fashion assistants, as they put together a fashion show and after-party for Charlotte Ronson (twin sister of D.J. Samantha Ronson, mentioned earlier) during New York Fashion Week in September. Advance word is great for the show, even being described as a reality version of Ugly Betty, with the coffee-grabbing, clothes-fetching administrative duties of six low-level employees at Flirt Cosmetics, Seventh Avenue Public Relations, and Jane magazine. The series also owes something, a bow or a thank you, to the success of The Devil Wears Prada which mined the same motherlode.

Comic Dane Cook was lunching with pals at Il Pastaio, a fortuitous happenstance for us since his new feature, Mr. Brooks, had just hit the nation's cineplexes. The psychological thriller stars Kevin Costner and Demi Moore as a serial killer and the cop out to catch him.

By day, Mr. Brooks is a successful Portland, Oregon, business man; by night the infamous "Thumbprint Killer." Dane Cook told us about his own role in the movie: "I play this salacious, deviant guy who happens to photograph [Mr. Brooks] during the commission of one of his grisly murders. I say to him, 'Teach me how to be you, or I'm exposing you.'" Whether hype or seriously ambitious, Mr. Brooks, according to Dane Cook, is the first of a three-part franchise with future story outlines already mapped out by the writers. We guess that Costner must have concluded: "What's good for Anthony Hopkins and Hannibal Lechter is also good for Kevin Costner and Mr. Brooks."

At the same restaurant we saw Woody Harrelson and collared him to check out a film he made called The Walker. We received a call earlier informing us of the film about walker(s), those socially-positioned young men who serve as companions of wealthy matrons or celebrities of a certain age, escorting them to social events --the opera, charity functions, private lunches, dinners, fashion shows, openings and closings --when their husbands or boyfriends are either out of town or have begged off. The person who called us remembered reading an article, published in G.Q. and written by Sharon Churcher, based on her interview with us, calling us "a new breed of walkers in the Big Apple." Our caller wondered if the picture is about the two of us. It is not. The Harrelson project, written and directed by Paul Schrader, is a contemporary drama set in Washington, DC, and stars, along with Woody, Kristen Scott Thomas, Lily Tomlin, Willem Dafoe, and Lauren Bacall. Harrelson is the well-born, gay walker whose client, Scott Thomas, finds herself on the brink of a scandal that could destroy her reputation and her husband 's career. It has already played the Berlin Film Festival and will be released here in December to qualify for Academy Award consideration.

Man about Manhattan, the late Jerome Zipkin, the 'original walker' was the escort to such ladies as Betsy Bloomingdale and Nancy Reagan and became a confidant to both. In fact, Jerry introduced us to the stylish, graceful Mrs. Bloomingdale back in the 80s during lunch at Mortimer 's. We were delighted when Betsy put us on the guest list to attend the C.H.I.P.S. annual spring luncheon benefiting the Children 's Institute, Inc, at the spectacular Brentwood home of Catherine and Robert Beyer where they honored Betsy for her philanthropy. Best friend Nancy Reagan and Betsy were both in Valentino as the designer's Fall/Winter 2007 collection was paraded down the runway. We escorted Taryn Rose, dressed in a stunning French-lace Valentino, who though absent from the proceedings was quite in evidence in spirit as many of the ladies on hand were wearing his designs, including Melissa George, carrying a Taryn Rose crocodile bag, and Camilla Belle. Joining in the festivities were Colleen Bell, Cara Esposito, Anne Johnson, Pat Ryan, Lynn and Stanley Beyer, Deirdra Dinaoli, Jamie Tisch, Libby Doheny, Onna Lee Doheny, Shirlee Fonda, Katrina Cord, Alexanda Dwek, and Christina Cord. A delicious lunch of Italian chopped salad with grilled chicken, topped off with a luscious lemon cake, was served, after which the guests shopped for Valentino dresses, a portion of the sales going to the Children 's Institute.

Meanwhile, in Cannes at the film festival, Valentino was showcasing a capsule collection of dresses inspired by 10 of Chopard's 60 fine jewelry pieces. Valentino recently turned 75 and rumors have been bandied about that he 'll announce his retirement in Rome July 6-8 which marks his 45th anniversary in fashion, but a source close to the designer debunked that notion. Valentino will host a retrospective installation inside the Richard Meier-designed Ara Pacis Museum and on July 7 he will present his fall couture show, and host a black-tie dinner later that same evening. Suites at the Hotel Eden and the Hotel de Russie have been already booked. Valentino said this is going to be "the best event in the history of fashion."

Karl Lagerfeld presented Chanel's latest cruise collection here in California, marking the second time he's debuted the collection in the U.S. Last year, he held it on the East Balcony of Grand Central Terminal in N.Y.C. This time, Lagerfeld took over Hanger 8 at the Santa Monica Airport where two airplanes pulled into the hanger had models disembarking, wearing the collection. Models included Sasha Pivovarova and Lily Donaldson. Some of the 500 guests included Victoria Beckham, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Jessica Alba, Rachel Bilson, Diane Kruger, Demi Moore, and Camilla Belle. Lagerfeld remarked, "I did New York before and everybody followed me there. So now I can go somewhere else. We ran into him at the pool of the Beverly Hills Hotel and told him how great it is that he one-upped all the European fashion houses by showing his collection in N.Y.C. last year.

This year Chanel flew in more than 50 of its top executives, headquartering them at the Beverly Hills Hotel, making sure everything would go off without a hitch. From the line of sleek, black Lincoln Town Cars on the front drive from the street to the valet station in front of the hotel, Karl and his crew of stylists and publicists seemed to be oozing the spirit of Chanel.

He ruminated on his decision to choose L.A. for the introduction of the 2007 resort collection, about how he arrived in tinseltown as a teenager and what it came to mean to him, still means to him even to this day. "For me, L.A. is something exotic, but at the same time, it's not strange or unknown. I feel at ease here," he said. He always stays at the same suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel. As for his food choice, he says it 's Japanese as served by his favorite restaurant, Matsuhisa on La Cienega. As for friends, the list is endless, from Betsy Bloomingdale to Lindsay Lohan. He went on to speak about how Hollywood has impacted him: "Hollywood is so international now. It's the ideas of the past, of what it is now, who the movie stars are today, those of the silent era. "I'm very much in touch with the silent era, but the [cruise] collection has nothing to do with that. It 's not at all retro. It's a line composed more of elements than a total look," he said. "The line for me is a puzzle. You put the elements together; they can be alone and you put them together in a certain way. "

For the show here, he reconnected with Claudia Schiffer, who was once the face of Chanel and with whom the designer was said to have a falling out in the late Nineties. "People thought I had a fight with her, but I never did," he said. "A former assistant of mine invented lots of stories, things I had never said. We never lost touch complete. I did this big campaign with her for Dom Perignon and thought she looked younger and more beautiful than ever. " Schiffer was in the front row of his show here.

At the Beverly Hills Hotel pool, we overheard a couple from Greenwich, CT, discussing the new book by Susanna Salk, Celebrating WASP Style: A Privileged Life [Assouline Books], arguing about who was on the book's cover. "It's Cornelia Guest," said one." No, it's her mother, C.Z. Guest," said the other. We understood their dilemma when we looked at the photo on the book jacket. Though we 've known both mother and daughter for many years, we were amazed at how much Cornelia resembled the photo of her mother on the cover. Cornelia has two dramatic films to be released this year, I Know Who Killed Me starring Lindsay Lohan, opening in July, and Gardens of the Night with John Malkovich and Jeremy Sisto, scheduled for later in the year.

Vanity Fair's editor-in-chief, Graydon Carter's love for Hollywood will be given the acid test when Jeff Bridges' fictional biopic of the influencial arbiter of taste hits the nation's screens. Bridges' character will be named Clayton Harding, but there's no doubt as to the identity of the protagonist. Adapted from one-time V.F. contributor Toby Young's roman-a-clef, titled How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, the author is depicted as status-obsessed and wildly inept, even as it skewered the New York media and celebrity scenes. The cast will include Simon Pegg as Young's character, Kirsten Dunst, Gillian Anderson, and Danny Huston. When we tried to contact Carter for comment, we were told he was in Cannes for the film festival, where the magazine was hosting a party. We also wanted to ask Graydon where he 'll be moving the location of the hot-ticket Oscar party, now that his usual spot, Morton 's, has been permanently usurped by The Soho House.

The Julie Hewett cosmetics company has just announced the addition of "Annette" to its Icons of Beauty lipstick line, perfectly named for Annette Bening. The "Annette" lipstick was in the gift bag at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation gala tribute to Annette and husband Warren Beatty who received the Stem Cell Champion's Award from Larry and Shawn King. Also honored were George Schlatter and Natalie and Paul Orfalea. Among the well-wishers were Nikki Haskell, Jolene Schlatter, Barbara Sinatra, Kirk and Anne Douglas, Nancy Mehta [who flew in from Italy] Veronique Peck, Seth Baker, Sarah Purcell, the Wayne Gretskys, Joanna Poitier, and Neile Adams McQueen, who took time out from rehearsals for her August one-woman show at Casita del Campo to attend. At press time, the amount of the money brought in was still being counted, which must be considerable since everything at auction sold. Tonight Jerry Weintraub receives the Vanguard Producer Award at the opening night festivities of the CineVegas Film Festival following the screening of Ocean's Thirteen. The event benefits Not on Our Watch, a philanthropy that targets the genocide in Darfur, is supported by Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Don Cheadle. All the cast of Ocean's Thirteen gather at the Palms Casino Resort tonight to honor Weintraub, the picture's producer, who said, "Living and working in Hollywood, it's easy to lose sight of what is happening in a world away. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be a part of something that has the potential to make a difference. "

Wardrobe-wise this summer, amongst the more fantastical webbed suits, pirate blouses, and outsized ogre sacks, is some latter-day brat packer style, courtesy of Giorgio Armani and his collaborator, designer Louise Frogley, who created the Danny Ocean look for George Clooney in Ocean's Thirteen. Clooney is usually a front-rower at Armani's fashion shows and is a longtime friend of the designer. Armani said, "Dressing George Clooney is every designer's dream. He inspires me, as Cary Grant did a generation ago." High praise for a high-style maker, we think.

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