10am on the Thursday before the Oscars – oh my God, only three days to go! – and a high-pitched frenzy has engulfed L’Ermitage hotel in Beverly Hills, otherwise known as the unofficial Fashion HQ for this, the most important week in the Hollywood year. The Chanel beauty team is moving into room 218, trailing trolleys of make-up in its wake; while rival hairdressers from Frédéric Fekkai, Charles Worthington and Vidal Sassoon are taking up residence in strategic suites (“Scissors at dawn,” mutters a passing stylist, scuttling, silent, along the carpeted corridors). There’s a gridlock of wardrobe rails in the lobby, the lifts are packed with racks of shoes, and all the while, as tension rises, rumours slither around the hotel fast as poisonous snakes, about which star is wearing what dress, how their hair will be primped and by whom. “Hey, it’s marketing, it’s the big sell,” says Patrick Cox, an amused observer from his room on the second floor, who is in town for the parties rather than business, this week. “The Oscars are all about turnover for designers – get a celebrity in your dress and it’s worth more than millions of dollars of advertising because, these days, Hollywood stars are walking billboards. Everything is a photo opportunity, a freak show, but it’s kind of fun, isn’t it?”
Along the hall, Italian voices are tumbling like light opera through the half-open door to room 200, while piles of chiffon frocks are whipped in and out for secret celebrity approval elsewhere in the hotel. The designer of these dresses, Alberta Ferretti, checked into L’Ermitage last night and is here for the Oscars for the very first time. “I felt it was important to come this year,” she says, as a stack of silver Ferretti shoes and handbags threaten to topple beside her. “I have brought 22 couture dresses, and another 40 from the main collection. Mainly long, because that’s what the actresses want, and a few vintage pieces in black, but this season they like colour – pale pink, rose grey, light lavender. It’s interesting, no?”
Not far from the hotel, over on Melrose Avenue, the action is hotting up at Decades, a place described to me as “a tremendously exclusive vintage store” that is run by a man named Cameron Silver, whose A-list clients include Cameron Diaz, Renée Zellweger and Marisa Tomei. “You just missed Gina Gershon,” says the proprietor, lounging on a sofa in an immaculate suit, handing me his card that reads “vintage couture and accoutrements” (except there are no spaces between the words on the card, as is fashionable these days). “The true sophisticates feel comfortable here,” continues Silver. “The scene at the hotels like L’Ermitage is such a zoo, just a smorgasbord. Cool girls don’t want to look like they’re trying too hard.”
And lo, Chloë Sevigny arrives, along with her friend Tara Subkoff, who remakes vintage clothes for the much-desired label Imitation of Christ. Chloë is wearing leather hot pants and high-heeled clogs that offset her very long, very tanned legs; Tara is in a tiny miniskirt and something that she calls a “trash-queen top”. Both of them are coolly confident; both want to wear vintage for the all-important Vanity Fair party on Oscar night. “Let me see if there’s anything in the back that’s really exciting,” says Silver, who returns from his secret storeroom bearing a floor-length cream dress from the early Seventies. “It’s by Holly Harp,” he explains, “LA’s version of Ossie Clark. She got Stevie Nicks into chiffon and dressed Grace Slick and Janis Joplin. Everyone is referencing her this season – Gucci, Marc Jacobs – they’re all trying to get the Holly Harp vibe.”
Chloë tries on the dress and declares it perfect; Silver agrees that she can borrow it for Sunday night. One actress down, lots more to go. Fortunately, he has granted space at Decades for Emanuel Ungaro to set up shop this week – “a fabulous label,” he concedes – and Sydney Goldman, vice-president of public relations, has flown in from New York to negotiate between celebrity stylists. “Carolyn Murphy wants that dress,” she murmurs into her cellphone, “and so do three others but I’ll do my best OK?” Sydney prefers being here, she says, instead of in a hotel suite, “but still, it’s such a frenzy, so completely neurotic. I’ve just had one stylist ring and shriek, ‘I have to have that dress – it’s my dark horse!’” (“Dark horse”, in la-la land, means the dress you keep secret, the one you hold in reserve for the surprise attack.)
Across town, meanwhile, the red carpet is rolled out on Hollywood Boulevard, ready for the ceremony on Sunday afternoon. The setting is a curious mix of decrepitude and burgeoning enterprise: although the street is the abandoned home of old Hollywood, it is a new location for the Oscars, held for the first time this year in the recently completed Kodak Theatre, which was built to the multimillion dollar specifications of the awards’ organisers, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Security is tighter than ever, in the wake of September 11, and part of the street has already been cordoned off. Security men with dogs check the cars that come into the area.
On either side of the red carpet, business continues amidst the Hollywood flotsam. Hustlers mingle as the tourists shuffle past a Budget car rental concession, a tattoo parlour, a booth selling maps of the stars’ homes, and the Hamburger Hamlet restaurant that overlooks the Kodak Theatre. “Why are you taking a picture of that thing?” demands a girl of a news photographer snapping a row of giant fibreglass Oscars being craned into place along the red carpet. “Why don’t you take a picture of me, instead?” continues the girl, dwarfed beneath a hoarding for Disney’s Return to Never Land.
Beside the theatre is a large shopping mall, designed to bring back prosperity to an area that has declined into dusty poverty over the years since the studios moved out, followed by the lawyers and the agents and all the other money men. “This is so not what I expected,” says a sightseer to his wife, as they stare, disconsolate, into the windows of the Fort Knox shop selling copies of designer jewellery. “It doesn’t look like I expected,” she replies. “It’s like anywhere – Minnesota, I guess.” But in the distance, you can still make out the Hollywood sign in the hills, reaching up to the clear blue sky.
“I smelled Los Angeles before I got to it,” wrote Raymond Chandler, chronicler of the city’s dark corners in 1949. “It smelled stale and old like a living room that has been closed too long. But the coloured lights fooled you. The lights were wonderful.” In 1924, three years before Louis B Mayer set up the Academy – what was to become the most famous sign in the Western world went up, framed by four thousand light bulbs, spelling out “Hollywoodland”. Each of the letters was 50 feet tall – big enough to see from Hollywood Boulevard, the movie capital of America. In 1929, the year of the first Academy Awards ceremony, Millicent Lilian Entwistle, a promising New York stage actress, arrived in Hollywood determined to break into films, like thousands of others. But nothing worked out as she had planned, and in September 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression – when those fortunate few with money were already moving west to Beverly Hills – she climbed up onto the H of the Hollywood sign and threw herself to her death. The sign itself seemed equally doomed in the years that followed, as holes appeared, the last four letters were removed, and the light bulbs were stolen.
It took until the late Seventies for a campaign to reverse the decay, both of Hollywood Boulevard and the sign in the hills above. “If you can’t save the sign,” said the president of the local chamber of commerce, “then you can’t save Hollywood.” The sign was restored in 1978, but it was another 22 years before the money was raised to begin the Kodak Theatre, on the site of the razed Hollywood Hotel. That was where Rudolph Valentino spent his wedding night, Louis B Mayer shared a makeshift office with Irving Thalberg, and Greta Garbo checked in incognito.
Nowadays, the celebrities stay at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard, a mock-Gothic hotel with its own share of history. Tonight the penthouse suite has in residence Baz Luhrmann, director of the Oscar-nominated Moulin Rouge, and his wife, Catherine Martin, the film’s costume and production designer. It’s half past six, and the candles for their party have already been lit downstairs and the cocktails are ready to serve. “We’ve got the whole of Hollywood arriving in half an hour,” says Catherine, still breathless from scrambling into her Collette Dinnigan party dress. “LA is always on time for parties – no-one is ever late here, except Baz, and Baz is always late, of course.” She goes to find her husband, who is out on the roof terrace looking at the city lights below. “You could fall over the edge here,” he says, gazing at the neon that twinkles in the distance. Across the road from the Chateau – a hotel playing host this week to Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, Sean Penn, Ben Kingsley and assorted members of the Missoni family, here to clothe the famous – is a neon sign for a local strip joint. “Live Nude Girls Girls Girls” it flashes. Alongside is a billboard that reads “Hollywood has always been a cage to catch our dreams”. (It is not clear who, or what, is being advertised here: the city is full of such signs, as if the only way to be heard is to spell things out in blazing neon.) Baz turns his back on the view, and examines his toes for a moment. His toenails are painted pale blue. They go very nicely with his Prada suit.
Across town at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills, another party is starting, to celebrate the opening of Julian Schnabel’s latest exhibition. There are four pictures on the walls and no drinks. The pictures are variations on a theme: a girl with her eyes blanked out by a bandage of paint. Elton John and David Furnish are in the crowd, as are Farah Fawcett, Dustin Hoffman, Marisa Tomei, David Lynch, Dennis Hopper and Mickey Rourke, surrounded by a throng of party-goers who are people watching, rather than studying the paintings.
Friday morning at half past eight. Tom Wilkinson, nominated for Best Actor for In The Bedroom, is stepping outside the Four Seasons hotel to be photographed beside a bus stop. There are few buses on the streets of Beverly Hills, though many limousines drive past. “I wish I were waiting for the 137 bus back home in Muswell Hill,” says Wilkinson, improbably wistful. He is wearing black trousers, a black polo shirt and brown suede shoes. He looks terribly, terribly English. “It’s my first time at the Oscars,” he says. “I suppose it should be sublime, but it seems rather ridiculous, too.”
In 1973, Joan Didion opened her essay, In Hollywood, with a quote from F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon: “You can take Hollywood for granted like I did, or you can dismiss it with the contempt we reserve for what we don’t understand. It can be understood, too, but only dimly and in flashes. Not half a dozen men have ever been able to keep the whole equation of pictures in their heads.” I try to remember this as we say goodbye to Tom Wilkinson and head out to Malibu along the Pacific Coast Highway. By 10.30am, we have reached Robert Altman’s beach house, overlooking the ocean, where pelicans skim the waves. He is eating breakfast on the south-facing deck with his wife, Kathryn. Inside, their house is full of orchids and sunlight. “Two days here, and I’m bored,” he says. “I prefer London. I love the grey days and the rain.” Altman will be attending the Oscars on Sunday for the fifth time, having been nominated for Best Director for Gosford Park (which is also up for Best Picture). He is 77 years old and has never won an Oscar before, despite previous nominations. When I express surprise, he says, “My dear, just remember, several years ago Titanic won Best Picture, and then there was American Beauty. I don’t think I want to be part of that club.” He makes himself another cup of instant coffee with hot water from the kitchen sink. On Sunday night, he will be wearing a suit sent over by Versace. Kathryn will be wearing Versace, too. “It’s kind of sage-coloured matt satin,” she says. “Well, maybe not sage, but sea-foam, perhaps?”
Later, at a lunch party in Beverly Hills, Anjelica Huston eats cold chicken salad with Diane von Furstenberg and James Coburn sits beside Kelly Lynch in the dappled shade of a bougainvillea arbour. There is much animated talk of the Vanity Fair party on Sunday evening, and the precisely coded hierarchy attached to each invitation. Only the grandest are granted entry to a 5pm dinner; thereafter one may enter in tightly controlled time slots (a midnight invitation being a bit of a social downer). “I’ve been shortlisted for the dinner,” says a lunch guest, “but I hear someone offered over $200,000 for a ticket – refused, of course.” The conversation moves to other stories: a jewellery company promising $50,000 to an actress to wear its diamonds to the award ceremony; a celebrity stylist demanding cash upfront from a fashion designer, just to show a dress to an Oscar nominee.
5pm on Friday afternoon in Santa Monica, and as the sun is beginning to sink, a chill descends. Helen Mirren, whose apartment overlooks the beach, has been nominated, alongside Maggie Smith, for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Gosford Park – and although this is her second time at the Oscars, she is astonished at the volume of gifts arriving at her apartment. “Look at this case,” she says, gesturing to a large, chintz-covered chest. “You take it to the Estée Lauder suite at the Four Seasons and then they fill it up with beauty products. The problem is, you couldn’t really take it on an aeroplane, now, could you? You’d have to cover it with a black plastic bag, which would spoil the effect.”
Last time she was nominated, in 1994, “it was far less frenzied. No-one had a stylist – they didn’t even exist. But my agent suggested I use one this time. The stylist says Escada or Armani – I’m not sure which, though I’ve decided not to get stressed out about it.” She reaches into a bag and pulls out a tiny, state-of-the-art, silver Motorola phone. “Look, I got sent this yesterday!” She smiles, and then sighs, very quietly. “It’s a celebration. Not that I fully approve – it’s terribly excessive. But the Oscars are like going on a ride in Disneyland – you get on with slight trepidation and fear, and get off breathless, saying, ‘Wow, can I go on it again?’”
The following morning, we are on our way to photograph another British actor, Jim Broadbent, who has been nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as John Bayley in Iris. Like Tom Wilkinson, he is wearing brown suede shoes and a polo shirt. He, too, looks more English than ever on the streets of Beverly Hills. “I got sent some flowers yesterday with a note saying ‘To steady your nerves’,” he remarks, mildly bemused. “Do you think I’m missing something?”
For all its signs and neon messages, this is a place designed to make you feel that you might be missing out. At 11am on Saturday, we’re back on the beach in Santa Monica for the Independent Spirit Awards – a pre-Oscar celebration of “visionary filmmaking”, a snub to the stuffy major studios. That’s the theory, anyway, but you still need passes to get past the initial cordon of security guards; and then there are barriers beyond barriers, and carefully graded badges for further access – 15 of them, colour-coded according to your importance. Backstage, very many tense people shout into their mobile phones. “There’s a food problem,” cries a man wearing an apron and earpiece. “Debbie, this is a 911. We need lentils, grab the lentils.” The awards are to take place in a large tent, which is surrounded by a number of smaller tents; it looks as if an army has pitched overnight, ready for battle. “You can’t go in there,” says a security man, as I peer into one of the sponsor’s tents – the Motorola tent, decorated like a Bond movie set with silver chairs and a large fake fur “M” on the wall. My escort backstage, a publicist, says, “Everything in LA is a big production. Of course, it has to be perfect – this week, Oscar week, pays for the rest of the year. It looks silly, I guess, just a big hoopla – but it’s a serious business.” Just before noon, the black limos draw up. Helen Mirren is here, and John Waters, and Heather Graham, and Nicole Kidman. Nicole Kidman! The walkie-talkies buzz as she is escorted backstage. She looks like a rare piece of porcelain. Someone asks her what she is wearing, and she shrugs, “Oh, just a mishmash of stuff I grabbed from my closet – a Dior coat, Dolce top, Dolce pants, I think. This is crazy,” she adds, saying it over and over again. “This is just so crazy.”
Hurry, hurry, time is running out. Back to the Four Seasons, quick, quick, up to a corner suite, where Dames Maggie Smith and Judi Dench are being prepared for tomorrow’s festivities. A man from Harry Winston arrives with their Oscar diamonds – he needs to know the exact size of Maggie Smith’s earlobes. “I think I was sent Jim Broadbent’s gift by mistake,” says Judi Dench. “I opened it, and it was a lovely key ring with his initials on it. JB, JD – it’s an easy mistake to make.” The Dames are to be groomed beside the hotel’s rooftop pool. “The gifts are rather nice this year,” says Maggie. “When I was here for the Oscars in the ’70s, I arrived at my hotel room to find a bottle of warm fizzy wine and two plastic glasses. When I returned later after winning my Oscar, I was amused to see a huge bottle of champagne in a silver bucket instead.”
Sunday morning: more sunshine, more gifts. Hugh Jackman – the Australian actor who stars with Meg Ryan in Kate & Leopold and currently on the Hollywood ascendent list, as evidenced by the fact that he is to be a presenter at today’s awards ceremony – recalls what he has received so far by way of reward. “A bed,” he says, sipping his freshly squeezed breakfast juice at Beverly Hills’ Urth Caffé, “some watches, a facial, a cashmere wrap, a voucher for teeth-whitening, one chair, no, two, a lounge chair and a chair for meditation. There’s more – too much to remember. You get into your car after the Oscar rehearsals, and it’s filled with all this stuff.” He pauses, and says, “Let me tell you something interesting. At the rehearsal last night, they had actors standing in for the nominees, and these actors really prepared for it – they made speeches, they cried, they thanked their producers – they believed.”
Sunday lunchtime. Jackman’s co-presenter, the actress Naomi Watts, is getting ready in her suite at the Chateau Marmont with the help of her stylist, Jessica Paster. Jessica is also dressing Helen Mirren (who will be in Armani, it turns out). Jessica is stressed, very, very stressed. “I’m exhausted, I’m working 20-hour days. I’ve got four assistants, but it’s not enough.” Her voice is hoarse; she is wearing flat black boots, “because my feet are swollen from running all day”. She manoeuvres Naomi into a tight, complicated Gucci corset dress.
3pm. So, they’re off, Hugh and Naomi, and the other 3,000 very important people allowed into the Kodak Theatre. I go back to my hotel room to watch the Oscars ceremony on television, like a billion others. You’ve seen it all before by now: the tears, the laughter, the frocks; no shocks. It all runs smoothly, like a beautiful machine.
I get to go to the Vanity Fair party at 11.30pm, clutching the magic ticket that allows you past the police checkpoint to Morton’s restaurant, though it might as well be the Promised Land. On the way there, the Vogue photographer tells me that his little boy was looking at the bright lights in the sky from his bedroom window; the big spotlights shining from Hollywood Boulevard. “He said, ‘Daddy, I can see the ghosts!’ ‘They’re not ghosts,’ I said, ‘they’re the lights of Hollywood.’ ‘What’s Hollywood?’ he said. I told him it’s the place where Superman comes from.”
All the superheroes come out to the Vanity Fair party: Gwyneth, Renée, Denzel, Nicole, JLo – the whole damn lot. Outside, there are banks of photographers and, beyond them, on the dark, far side of the street, behind a barricade, the fans, queuing to see a flickering of a cinema screen made flesh. Inside, everyone – everyone – is fabulously famous, apart from the waitresses bearing trays of champagne (though they look like rising starlets) and a handful of journalists and photographers, here to witness the strange social conjunctions of the night (Maggie Smith brushes shoulders with Donatella Versace beside a table where Uma Thurman is deep in conversation with Oprah Winfrey). So many stars, it is dazzling; oh, and the lights are amazing, as well. They have been designed, so I am told, “by the guy who works for The Rolling Stones and Queen Elizabeth II”. At 2.30am, everything goes dark. I think this must be planned – a final dramatic effect, perhaps, ready for the entrance of someone so famous that even this crowd would be impressed (Elvis returns, at last!) – but no, it is a power cut. Sometimes, even in Hollywood, the lights go out…
