Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"Penelope Cruz might be the first victim of the Cannes Film Festival this year. The Spanish superstar got hit with severe stomach flu and was forced to miss most of her appearances at this year's extravaganza. And while she pulled herself together to be honored at the Night of Hollywood Domino event, Cruz felt so bad that she even forgot the name of her outfit's designer. 'I can't even tell you, because I'm blanking out,' she said .. Andrew Saffir and Daniel Benedict arrived from Antibes for the bash, before heading over to another gathering on Paul Allen's boat. Paris Hilton was the most excited player at the Akvinta-sponsored tables, alongside her boyfriend Doug Reinhardt. "This is the most decadent, fabulous, lovely film festival there is,' she said during the tournament's break. 'And I have a reason to be here--I came for my documentary called Paris, Not France. It was filmed three years ago when I was doing my album. I didn't want it to be released few years ago, but now I feel that I've grown up and I'm a totally different person.'" (Fashionweekdaily)

"PARIS Hilton is trying to stir up some cash and publicity. She hit Cannes last weekend and had reps go around asking event coordinators to pony up $100,000 for her to appear. 'No one bit. They aren't about to pay her. It's not 2002,' scoffed one event producer. 'We think she got some money from the club VIP, but everyone else is running for the hills.' Hilton then decided to go for free and showed up at the Vitamin Water event at Nikki Beach and the Hollywood Domino party with her latest accessory, Doug Reinhardt." (PageSix)



"Philip Marshall, the grandson of New York doyenne Brooke Astor, choked up recalling the last years of her life when she couldn’t recognize her family. The philanthropist’s twin grandsons, Philip and Alec, took the stand as prosecution witnesses in the trial of their father, Anthony Marshall, at New York State Supreme Court yesterday. In an emotionally charged session, the jury heard about the decline of Astor’s mental state and living conditions, restricted access to visitors and a fingertip bitten off by a dog. Both sons walked toward the witness stand without looking at their father, who watched them gravely. After their testimonies, Anthony Marshall emerged from the courtroom, on the arm of his third wife Charlene, looking exhausted and aged." (Bloomberg)



"There is now a long shelf of books about Warren Buffett, but this is the first time he has gone to any trouble to add to it. Reportedly Buffett now regrets his decision--he has apparently put some fresh distance between himself and his official biographer. If so, it's not hard to see why. Alice Schroeder is a former Morgan Stanley research analyst, able to understand and to explain Buffett's money-making, but she declined to confine herself to the business at hand. She has sought to describe Buffett's psychological landscape as clearly as his financial one. For the reader, the results are pretty terrific--there are not a lot of 838-page narratives that leave you wanting more--but for Buffett they are no doubt upsetting .. The young Buffett's ambition found a number of conventional if implausible outlets--bodybuilding, for instance; he devoured books with such titles as Big Arms and Big Chest--and one strange one, at least for a little kid: money-making. At a shockingly young age Buffett learned the pleasure of having more money than his friends. To accumulate it he worked paper routes, bought and managed pinball machines, and created a horse-racing tip sheet that he sold at the local track. Upon arriving in Washington he asked his father to use his congressional status to request from the Library of Congress every book it had on horse handicapping." (Michael Lewis/TNR)



"The Swiss jewelry company Chopard had a big party at the port, lighting up the night — if not spirits — with lights, flash bulbs and diamonds .. In the great Cannes tradition, it was now time for a little yachting. The party moved to Paul Allen’s gigantic vessel, the Octopus, one of the largest privately owned boats in the world, complete with its own helicopter, submarine, basketball court, swimming pool and dance floors — an invitation-only cruise ship where the powerful meet for a nightcap. There, Quentin Tarantino nestled between two blondes, Bryan Lourd occupied the dance floor, Willem Dafoe and Patricia Arquette arrived hungry from the Palais, Roberta Armani and her group started dancing while food, drinks, smoke and music filled the night. Or was it morning already?" (TheMoment)



"As a member of rock'n'roll royalty, he's not exactly used to being refused the star treatment. But Ronnie Wood found himself drinking with the regular Joes at Whisky Mist last night after being banned from the VIP area. The 61-year-old Rolling Stone guitarist, who was with 20-year-old girlfriend Ekaterina Ivanova, was given the cold shoulder by staff - as the club's PR Michael Evans is good mates with Ron's estranged wife Jo. We're told: 'Ronnie arrived shortly after midnight with his girlfriend. Everyone was staring at them and it looked like they were loving all the attention. A few minutes later a member of security came over to the PR of the club and told him that Ronnie had arrived. The PR was overheard telling security that they were not allowed in the VIP room under any circumstances.'" (Thisislondon)



(Whipple via JH/NYSocialDiary)

"Yesterday at high noon at the Plaza, the National Audubon Society’s Women In Conservation Rachael Carson Award luncheon convened to honor three women – Dr. Sylvia Earle, Sally Jewel, Elizabeth C. Titus Putnam and NBC Universal’s 'Green Is Universal' initiative which is under the direction of three women: Elizabeth Colleton, Jane Evans, and Susan Haspel. The Rachel Carson Award is perhaps the most prestigious award given especially to women in the fields of environmentalism and the natural sciences. I first learned about it from Allison Rockefeller .. Allison’s brother George Whipple .. is a media fixture in New York, appearing and interviewing on television for decades and now currently from New York One." (NYSocialDiary)



"On June 1, Mr. (Conan) O’Brien will debut as the new host of NBC’s Tonight Show. And since February, the majority of his New York staff has relocated to Los Angeles, where NBC is currently putting the finishing touches on a new Tonight Show theater. It’s housed in Stage One of Universal Studios, the original home of The Jack Benny Show and the home, for a time, of Knight Rider .. But the Massachusetts native and Harvard alum, who from 1993 to 2009 hosted more than 2,000 episodes of NBC’s Late Night from a studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, is fundamentally a creature of the East Coast. Here, we have comedy: cerebral, structural, neurotic. Out there in the 'entertainment factory,' it’s all razzle-dazzle, bouncy punch lines and soothing potted palms. In recent months, Mr. O’Brien’s developed something of a Los Angeles routine." (Observer)



"Jesse (James) said he'd been upfront about his past with his current wife, actress Sandra Bullock: I've always been honest with her right from the start. I was like, 'Hey, I dated a porn star' and 'Hey, we're having a kid.' At several points, I expected her to turn around and run. Jesse met her when her kid toured his shop: 'I kind of automatically figured she was a bitch...but she's smart and looks you in the eye when she talks to you...so I contacted her assistant and said, 'Hey, I wanna ask her out.' So I asked her out and she said no. Jesse kept asking: 'We kinda emailed back and forth for a couple months...it was the first relationship I've ever been in that was [precluded by] a courtship.' Jesse didn't get a kiss until the second date: 'And she kissed me. Caught me off guard, too.' He finally bedded her a couple months later: 'It was awesome.' Jesse added that he had a harder time winning over Sandra's pals: "All her friends. 100 percent. They were like, 'Absolutely no way.' Howard wondered if Jesse ever thought about Sandra's studly Hollywood boyfriends, but Jesse laughed then off: 'None of those dudes can weld.'" (TheHowardSternShow)



"Ebullient as usual on stage, Quentin Tarantino met the press today shortly after the overwhelmingly packed first screening of his new film, 'Inglourious Basterds' this morning at the Cannes Film Festival. He praised Cannes as the holy land and declared himself god. But, there’s more to the story .. Asked this morning whether he stands by a previous statement that he loves all of his characters, QT continued the steady stream of auterist language being found here in Cannes this year. Taken out of context (like in our sensational headline above), the quote might seem to rival the recent Lars Von Trier declaration that he is 'the best film director in the world.' In this case, Tarantino’s comment was a bit more nuanced. 'I love [my characters] from this god perspective because I am god as far as the characters are concerned, because I created them,' Tarantino said today." (IndieWIRE)



"Where there’s fashion, there’s music, if last night’s Style, Meet Sound Event hosted by ROXY and JBL last night was any indication. The event, held at the RedBull Space downtown heralded the partnership between ROXY and JBL, introduced via neon pink and green headphones that pretty young things like Erin Lucas, Julia Restoin-Roitfield, Genevieve Jones, Tess Brokaw, Leigh Lezark, and Byrdie Bell rocked out on the spot."(Guestofaguest)