The party came with an abundance of “Cs”-culture, charity, cocktails, celebrities and Courteney Cox Arquette–but it was A-List all the way.
Courteney and her husband David Arquette hosted a chi-chi-but kid-friendly-cocktail soiree at L.A.’s stately Hammer Museum in the heart of Westwood for a cause that was close to Courteney‘s heart: the EB Medical Research Foundation, which raises funds to study and battle the rare genetic skin disorder EB, which causes children to suffer from skin blistering at the slightest touch, among many other difficult complications, and require constant bandaging.
The EBMRF is headed by Andrea Pett-Joseph, a top-level talent manager at prominent Brillstein-Grey Entertainment whose young son Brandon is an EB kid, and whose sister is fellow manager Cynthia Pett-Dante, who guides the careers of stars including Courteney and Brad Pitt.
“I’m involved with the cause because my friend’s son has EB, and not that many people know about it because it’s very rare,” the former Friends actress told Hollywood.com as she welcomed such guests as Diane Lane and Josh Brolin, Maria Bello and Courteney‘s sister-in-law Rosanna Arquette. “There’s a really great thing that’s happening with gene therapy, and we just need to raise money and allow these doctors from Stanford to come up with a cure.”
“Courteney‘s the face of Kinerase and the spokeswoman, so they asked her what charity she wanted to support and she chose EB because,” added her dapper hubby David. “It needs attention, it needs awareness and it needs money to support the research, so that’s why we’re here tonight.”
“Kinerase is willing to back this and give money to the foundations, a percentage of their sales at Sephora and give a large donation, and hopefully great things will happen tonight,” said Courteney.
Great things were happening for many of the stars like Camryn Manheim, Lela Rochon and Dave Foley who showed up with their kids to celebrate with the Arquettes and took home a Wilie Wonka Gold Card entitling them to six months of unlimited free Wonka candy, and especially for those like Madeleine Stowe and Elizabeth Perkins, who’d never visted the museum before. “I’ve not been to this particular museum, ever, oddly enough,” said Madeline, who came with her husband Brian Benben and their kids. “We go to museums a great deal, actually. We’ve just never been here.”
“This is my first time at the Hammer,” confessed Elizabeth. “I tend to go to museums in New York more than I do in Los Angeles. I don’t know why. Maybe because you can just jump in a cab and go if you wanted to, but here you have to negotiate and you go ‘Oh, forget it. I don’t want to deal with the traffic.'”
Other guests were more work-minded: David Spade filled me in on his upcoming Comedy Central series The Showbiz Show. “It’ll be me and a desk, there’ll be a little bit of The Daily Show, a little bit of ‘Weekend Update’ kinda look,” said David. “I’ll have guests come on and go off, we’ll go into the field, jokes to camera…I’ll get some buddies to come on and do some bits as it comes along.”
I wondered if there were any celebs David was putting on notice that they might feel the sting of his sharp tongue, but David was in an appropriately charitable mood. “No, they’re all safe for now!” he laughed.
And I spotted James Marsden, on a two-month break from shooting the much-anticipated Superman Returns for director Bryan Singer in Australia, playing the man who threatens to come between Superman and Lois Lane. “It’s so much fun,” said James. “It’s always great working with Bryan, and you always feel like it’s a family at this point. This is the third movie I’ve done with him. There’s a familiarity on the set, and it’s a very comfortable one.”
What he wasn’t comfortable talking about was whether he’d be returning as Cyclops for the now Singer-less X3, to be helmed by Brett Ratner. “Um…I’m not allowed to say just yet,” said the poker-faced star. “These big movies-it gets tricky for the talent to talk about them. So we’ll see.”
And singer/actor Gavin Rossdale was enjoying his summer-though briefly without wifey Gwen Stefani, who was performing in Miami that evening-by both working and playing. “I try and do all of the above,” he grinned, “but I have a record coming out with Institute, my new band, coming out in September, so I’ve been getting ready for that, and that’s about it. But there’s always things bubbling.”
