Is life getting back to normal in La-La Land? You betcha. Just ask the stars, who have been out and about with a vengeance recently.
We caught George Clooney, looking very buff in a tight black T-shirt, dining on a sumptuous Italian meal at the venerable West Hollywood eatery Dan Tana’s with his father, American Movies Classic host Nick Clooney, and friends. The congenial–and charitable–George discreetly slipped the maitre’d a $20 on his way out the door. Meanwhile, actress Natasha Gregson Wagner, the pixie-ish daughter of the late Natalie Wood, hobnobbed outside with the spillover crowd from the Lounge next door.
Clooney’s Ocean’s Eleven co-star Brad Pitt and his missus, Jennifer Aniston–Hollywood’s ultimate power couple–were spied browsing the art galleries along Third Street in West Hollywood. The married hotties were dressed oh-so-casually in jeans and relaxed clothes, looking adorable, content and very much in love.
Dinner with Opie? Splash andApollo 13 colleagues Tom Hanks and Ron Howard–heard of them?–were the center of attention dining at the Peninsula hotel’s Belvedere restaurant in Beverly Hills, cracking raucous and slightly naughty jokes and otherwise having a grand old “boys being boys” kind of time.
L.A. Laker great Ervin “Magic” Johnson also stopped into the Peninsula recently, but rather than enjoy his own adulation, he instead made a great fuss over boxer Sugar Shane Mosley, who clearly appreciated the kind words from his fellow athlete. They got along as well as you’d expect two guys named Magic and Sugar would.
I had to keep my TV producer friend–an edgy gal who loves the bad, bad boys–from going into a full-on hyperventilation fit when we spotted Jackass’ lean and leathered Johnny Knoxville strutting out of The Rainbow, the legendary rock-and-roller hang-out on Sunset. Although encouraged to chase down the object of her prank-loving lust, she reminded us after a heavy sigh that Johnny is happily married.
Even the otherwise celebrity-jaded waitresses at the restaurant in Shutters On the Beach in Santa Monica were excited when Harrison Ford stopped by for dinner. They were even more dreamy-eyed when they saw that his date was “age appropriate” and not a generic, too-young wannabe actressy type.
Was that Britney Spears in the Porsche flying past the Four Seasons Hotel just outside Beverly Hills–she drove too fast for us to tell for sure, but if so she should drive more carefully. It was definitely Julia Louis-Dreyfus that we passed as we walked in, however.
Who was that silver-haired driver tooling around in one of his classic antique roadsters along Rodeo Drive while waving to tourists the other day? This one was easier: none other than Tonight Show host Jay Leno. Also spotted on Rodeo recently: 90210 homegirl Tori Spelling, NFL great Terry Bradshaw, producer Brian Grazer, actress Lori Loughlin and Mission Impossible’s Peter Graves, walking a small dog with an animal-print scarf (the dog, not Peter) outside Van Cleef & Arpels..
Hard-to-find Oscar winner Benicio del Toro made the scene at North, a slightly cooling Hollywood hot spot on the Sunset Strip, complete with his entourage. Our spies report
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that the scruffy, baseball-cap wearing Traffic star was either unconcerned with looking fashionable or consults a stylist of severely limited skill.
Personal shoppers? Buffy, at least, says no fangs–er, thanks. Tiny TV titan Sarah Michelle Gellar was spotted in the fruit and vegetable aisle of a Vons supermarket in the San Fernando Valley. Stocking up on garlic, perhaps?
Also deciding on paper or plastic were those loony lovebirds Drew Barrymore and Tom Green, although their Ralph’s was in a slightly more chic zip code, one block outside 90210.
If you think you’d be pleasantly surprised to see Frasier’s proud papa John Mahoney dressed as casually as his TV character, perusing CDs at Tower Records in Santa Monica a block east of the Third Street Promenade, imagine if a few minutes later you almost walked into a very L.A.-incognito Friends star Lisa Kudrow (in shades and baseball cap) coming out of the Santa Monica Place Mall’s food court.
It was hard to miss towering supermodel-turned-actress Rebecca Romjin-Stamos slinking through Barney’s New York, all dolled up for a private event at the Beverly Hills store’s famous Barney’s Greengrass restaurant. Every head turned as the Rollerball star passed–even the mannequin’s, we think.
Speaking of Rollerball, is Rebecca’s co-star LL Cool J a rapper-turned-actor or an actor who used to rap? Either way, he was the height of hip-hop cool strolling through the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel one recent afternoon.
Donald Sutherland must have had a hearty hankering for dim-sum a few Sundays ago. We spotted the esteemed actor way, waayy across town, leaving Monterey Park’s packed Ocean Star restaurant.
Meanwhile, Sutherland’s M*A*S*H co-star Elliott Gould–the Robert Altman movie, not the Alan Alda TV series, for you confused Generation Y-ers–sipping latte at the Starbuck’s outpost in L.A.’s Farmer’s Market. Must be all that face time on Friends as Ross and Monica’s dad had Gould longing for a coffee-shop hang of his own.
Tasty French pastry Julie Delpy (Waking Life), the alluring European who stars in too few films to suit her male fans, was on the scene, talking with friend over drinks at the cozy, smoker-friendly (shhh!) bar HMS Bounty on the edge of Koreatown, one of L.A.’s best-kept secrets.
OBSCURE-BUT-COOL SIGHTING OF THE MOMENT: For star-spotting, the previously mentioned Dan Tana’s is tough to beat, especially when you walk in and spot former Welcome Back, Kotter star Gabe Kaplan sitting at a plush red banquette and breaking bread with the venerable stand-up comic Shecky Greene. Once a superstar of the 1970s stand-up circuit himself, Kaplan has returned to his roots recently, playing shows in Las Vegas and elsewhere. Hey, if John “Vinnie Barbarino” Travolta could make a comeback, why can’t we welcome back Mr. Kotter?
