Hadley Freeman spends a surreal week in LA, bumping into her teenage heroines, sampling the gifting suites, and getting to hold Colin Firth's Oscar
Was there any way a movie that involved Nazis, a physical disability AND British royalty could fail to win all the awards? Would Natalie Portman make another embarrassing reference to her fiance in her speech? Hollywood is, at heart, a traditional town and most questions asked in the run up to the event are pretty much known in advance. But not all. I arrived in Los Angeles armed with two, I believed, intractable truths: it is impossible for celebrities to be worse than I already imagine them to be and the Vanity Fair party is the only after-Oscars party to attend. Dear readers, prepare to have your core beliefs shaken to your, er, core. It has been a long week.
Wednesday
I arrive at my hotel at the same time as a mysterious sleek car, out of which emerge Joan and Jackie Collins (Jackie in the driving seat ? natch) "We're frantic, darling, frantic!" trills Joan, trailing embalming powder in her wake.
When trying to describe what LA is like during Oscars week, one can only reach for analogies with the keenness of Melissa Leo grasping for an Oscar: It is like Disney World for fans of the E! channel, Glastonbury for Grazia readers. Even aside from the inability to move without bumping into one's teenage heroines, it is difficult to find anything in town that is not shamelessly dragging itself through the mud after desperately hitching itself to the Academy awards bandwagon.
MOCA, is not another trendy coffee shop but LA's Museum of Contemporary Art and, funnily enough, it just happens to be having a party tonight for its new exhibition dedicated to the label Rodarte who just happen to have designed the costumes for Black Swan which just happens to be nominated for some Oscars. What an incredible co-inky-dink! And down the road, the Gagosian Gallery is opening an exhibition by the real life Zelig and Oscars co-host, James Franco. What scheduling serendipity!
Many famous people are at MOCA's exhibition, though few are concentrating on it 100%. "I'm planning my annual Oscars brunch for Saturday," says designer Diane von Furstenberg. "I do it for Graydon [Carter, editor of Vanity Fair]," she adds, for no obvious reason. Don't you adore it when famous people name-drop each other?
Thursday
Early afternoon, just off Rodeo Drive, Nick Jones, founder of Soho House, and his membership director, Markus Anderson, are having what they describe as "a top level meeting" about the Oscars party they're hosting that night. However, they appear to be spending more time talking on their phones, fielding a stream of pleading calls from the uninvited. "Right!" announces the indefatigably friendly Jones, ending another call. "Another one to add to the guest list!" Anderson rolls his eyes, beleaguered as a parent.
Fortunately for Anderson, all of Jones's friends appear to be ridiculously famous and I mark my arrival at the party by stepping on Jon Hamm's foot, Liz Lemon-style.
I attempt to sound out among the guests who will win at the Oscars. Who Cares, What After-Parties Are You Going To? appears to be a shoo-in for Best Picture.
"Vanity Fair? Please. You need to go to the Elton John party after the Oscars ? it'll be great," says a gentleman whose name is apparently "The DJ."
"Nah, it's all about Guy Oseary these days," his friend adds, referring to Madonna's manager.
"I call Oscars week the Cacophony of Egos," says Helen Mirren, who happens to be sitting within spitting distance of, on the one side, Leonardo DiCaprio and, to the other, Piers Morgan. "When you're nominated, everyone wants to talk to you, about you, and it's hard not to think, well, aren't I fascinating?"
But not even the force-feeding diet of Oscars fizz and puffery could alter Mirren's intractably British DNA: "At night I would get in bed and say to myself, No! Don't listen to the cacophony of egos!" God bless you, ma'am.
Friday
In a hotel suite, a shower is filled with handbags. A bathtub has been covered with a wooden plank to support more shoes, and a side room is filled with more than 400 shoe boxes on which Post-its are scrawled with gnomic instructions such as "Gwyneth" and "Liv". Welcome to the fashion side of Oscars week, second only in importance to the parties side of Oscars. I'm in the Jimmy Choo suite, where stylists go to procure shoes for their clients to wear to the ceremony, be photographed sporting, and thereby allowing everyone to live happily ever after, amen.
Next door to Jimmy Choo is the Calvin Klein room and down the hallway is the Marchesa suite, co-designed by Harvey Weinstein's wife. It is like a shopping mall where no money is exchanged and almost no one is admitted. There is solemn discussion among the Choo staff about celebrity neuroses that a shoe company has to consider: "Some hate their ankles and some won't show their toes ? they're literally just like normal people." A knock on the door: "Hi, I have a men's shoe opportunity for you ? Darren Aronofsky needs a shoe," says a young woman. And some celebrities, it seems, have only one foot.
The celebrities have truly infested LA by now. In the hotel lobby, within the space of five minutes, I spot Colin Firth, Joan Rivers, Helena Bonham Carter, Werner Herzog and Kim Kardashian. Truly, all churches worship the Academy awards, and I sincerely hope that is the last time I ever write the words "Joan Rivers" and "Werner Herzog" in a single sentence.
The big parties tonight include a women in film event, one held by agent Ari "the one who inspired Entourage, brother of Rahm" Emanuel, and a frankly terrifying sounding one hosted by Wendi Deng and Arianna Huffington. I decline to grace any of the above with my presence for two reasons: one, I am not invited, and two, none of them can guarantee the presence of Joan Rivers and Donald Trump. Happily, the QVC Red Carpet Style Party, fulfils all of my criteria.
If you have devoted serious chunks of your life to reading reports of the birthday parties and barmitzvahs of children of the phenomenally wealthy ? the offspring of Philip Green ? then the QVC party would have felt deliciously familiar. If you have not, your reaction may have been more along the lines of WTF. As in "WTF is that random little bridge doing across that random little moat?" It takes a special kind of party to unite the likes of US reality TV Avatar Kim Kardashian, and Helena Bonham Carter and her mother.
I spot Donald Trump, by which I mean "Donald Trump's hair" which is not so much hair as a small straw hut that has landed atop his scalp. "I am considering running for president very seriously," he informs me.
Saturday
I waken to a thrilling missive under my door, informing me that a letter from Vanity Fair awaits me at the concierge's desk. I am Charlie Bucket, gifted with a golden ticket.
"Yes, Ms Freeman, a letter from Vanity Fair did arrive for you but you cannot have it. When we saw where it was from we put it in the hotel safe and only the manager has the key and he won't be back for a few hours."
Whilst musing on the thought that an invitation to a party is probably more secure than my life savings, I check out some gifting suites where, for no obvious reason, celebrities are bestowed with luxury gifts.
If you want to know why so many famous people in the entertainment business behave like such self-entitled assholes, go to a gifting suite. And if you want to see the definition of "venality" but can't be bothered to look it up in a dictionary, stand outside a gifting suite and watch the likes of those notorious paupers, Trump and Paris Hilton, turning up to be given free jewels, iPads and holidays. It's like a soup kitchen for the homeless, where the homeless are millionaires and the soup is made out of molten diamonds.
By the time I deal with my nausea and return to my hotel, my Vanity Fair ticket has been liberated and it informs me that I will be allowed to attend the party . . . between 12 and 12:30.
"The Vanity Fair party? Please, that is like, so two years ago," I am reliably informed at Harvey Weinstein's party that night. The fact that the person then tells me I am not allowed to use his name in this piece suggests that maybe Vanity Fair hasn't lost all of its power but, nonetheless, my half hour pass is looking yet more tarnished.
Slightly scared after Harvey charged up to me like a rabid bull and demanded my name ("Press," I bleat), I get in the lift to leave. Just as the door is about to shut, Sir Ben Kingsley and Colin Firth get in, surrounded by what I believe is called "a coterie". Colin cracks a small joke about his suit and the whole coterie laughs. But a flicker in Colin's eyes suggests he knows the comment does not merit the reaction. Cacophony of egos, Colin. Beware the cacophony of egos.
Sunday
"Yeah, that Vanity Fair party is over," says an LA friend with pity in his voice. "And Elton John's party is totally over, too. Are you going to Guy Oseary's party? Only 300 people, much more low-key ? nobody knows about it. Really? You're not going?" In LA, concepts of "low key" and "nobody knowing about it" are relative. Being a mainstream kinda gal anyway, I go to the terribly pass� Vanity Fair party.
Outside a fairly unimpressive building on Sunset Boulevard, security is hissing down a walkie-talkie. "We are NOT letting Ozwald Boateng in." Lo, when the designer turns up, he is duly sent packing.
Past the red carpet, which is lined with paparazzi who shout exactly like the fans outside but with more desperation ("Colin! Please! Colin!"), is an oak-lined gentleman's bar where a surprisingly normal looking Matt Damon is talking to a bunch of friends, and Anne Hathaway is braying, "And they said I couldn't tell jokes!" They were right, Anne, and please stop hitting me in the face with your giant waving hands. Photo?Me machines are scattered about, in case any celebrity doesn't feel they've been photographed enough and apparently many don't, as there are long snaking queues. Out the back is a covered garden where pretty much every celebrity you can think of is standing and smoking with a self-consciously devil-may-care air. "Pass�", I'm beginning to suspect, is as fluid a term in LA as "low key." In classic Vanity Fair high?low culture style, the canapes are a mix of cheeseburgers from a fast-food outlet and disgusting things like tuna tartare. I wait at the bar for a glass of champagne and hear a woman's voice next to me: "I don't know what you're talking about, I WAS polite!" Ladies and gentleman, I give you Jane Fonda.
Well, hello again, Colin Firth, congratulations. "Thank you, that's very kind of you." I try ? how are you feeling? He shakes his head, a little dazed: "It's all pretty strange, really." Oh, I don't know, Colin ? seems pretty low key to me. Can I hold your Oscar, Colin Firth? "Of course you may," he smiles warmly, and my knees slightly buckle, from both Colin's smile and the Oscar, which weighs about the same as an obese toddler. "You didn't expect that, did you?" he says, referring to the Oscar. No I didn't, I reply, referring to something else. I head back to the bar to recover. Behind me, I hear Jake Gyllenhaal talking to a friend. "So," says Jake, "what other parties are you going to?"
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