The climate plays with the yet strong nerves of Hollywood: all week, California has experienced exceptional flooding after series of storms.
Donatella Versace, whose house paraded exceptionally in Los Angeles, had to advance her show by 24 hours at the last minute due to the announced rains.
But yesterday, Saturday March 11, no deluge on the horizon despite an ominous morning drizzle.
Yesterday evening, therefore, no need for an umbrella, not a drop of water in the anthracite gray sky, at the Beverly Hills Hotel – the mythical pink palace which sheltered the brief loves of Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand – where one of the dinners took place before -The most select Oscars in town: Charles Finch's dinner, in association with Chanel, the guarantor house of
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We dine early in Los Angeles: around 7 p.m. a procession of celebrities began to arrive flanked by their stylists who hastily arranged a pleat, a collar, a lock of hair before the stars rushed into a photo call on the background lush vegetation – the signature of this hotel known for its beds of banana trees and its huge palm trees that seem to want to touch the clouds.
Chanel and Charles Finch's Pre-Oscars 2023 Dinner
In images, in pictures
See the slideshow10 photos
See the slideshow10 photos
A cinephilic mirage
The ambassadors of the house on rue Cambon, present or past, had arrived almost together.
Clutter on the red carpet.
Marion Cotillard, the first, wore a tiara in white gold and diamonds.
She divides her time between Paris and Los Angeles where she has acquired a house.
Kristen Stewart let go of her
girlfriend's
hand to join the French actress, Oscar winner for
La môme
, and very popular in the United States.
It was impossible not to notice the super spectacular Nicole Kidman - who was the face of Number 5 before Marion Cotillard -, rare lately, sumptuous in a mini Haute Couture tweed suit that bared her endless legs.
Kidman, Cotillard, Stewart: a cinephilic mirage to see these three accomplice actresses reunited for the space of a few minutes.
Three short laps and then gone, the star Kidman disappearing before dinner in the leafy alleys of the Beverly Hills Hotel, her agent following in her footsteps.
There were also prestigious directors, Darren Aronofsky, Ruben Östlund, Ava DuVernay, Patty Jenkins, couples, Hugh Grant and Anna Elisabeth Eberstein, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann, and a multitude of familiar faces, Michel B. Jordan, the star of
Creed
, Sigourney Weaver – the ultimate chic in a black Chanel suit –, Andrew Garfield, Vicky Krieps, Ariana Debose, Riz Ahmed, Daniel Brühl (actor in Nothing New in the West, nine Oscar nominations, and future Karl
Lagerfeld
in a TV series) or the taciturn Harvey Keitel.
Mick Jagger, announced, never arrived.
And almost no one noticed the discreet presence of Andrea Riseborough who is nevertheless competing this evening for the Oscar for best actress against the behemoths Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh.
Jeff Bezos and his new girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, were chatting happily with the host of the evening, Charles Finch, producer and powerful businessman in the entertainment industry.
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A Sweet Hollywood Night
In the ultra-subdued lounges of the Polo Lounge, we dined American:
Caesar Salad
, pepper steak or chicken wrapped in mozzarella, followed by a
Marilyn's ice-cream sundae
that seemed to come out of Willy Wonka's laboratory.
The very sonorous conversations of the guests unfortunately drowned out the superb voice of Beatrice Granno, actress in
The White Lotus
, who valiantly sang jazz standards on the piano.
Before midnight, the waiters were already clearing the tables in the main dining room.
Marion Cotillard, jet lagged, had spun before dessert.
Kristen Stewart was lingering on the illuminated patio in the garden when a cluster of admirers held Sigourney Weaver back.
A sweet Hollywood night was coming to an end.
The next one, that of the 95th Oscars ceremony, this Sunday, March 12, promises to be much more bloody, with its chosen ones and its failures, the rule of the game. Verdict within a few hours before the “awards season” (“ awards season”) ends and the Hollywood dream machine starts spinning again on Monday morning, with or without rain.