Oscar night: 75 years of Hollywood parties from the editors of Vanity Fair

From The First Academy Awards Black-tie Dinner Dance In 1929 To The Glittering Vanity Fair Gala In 2004, From The 1940s Gatherings At The Most Fashionable Nightspots In Los Angeles--ciro's, Mocambo, Romanoff's, Chasen's--to The Star-studded Parties Thrown By Legendary Agent Swifty Lazar From The 1960s To The 1990s, Here Is A Photo History Of All Those Events, Presented By Graydon Carter And David Friend. More Than Five Hundred Archival And Personal Black-and-white And Color Photographs--many Never Seen Before--have Been Collected In Oscar Night. There Is An Afterword By Dominick Dunne And A Look At Every Detail, From Menus To Matchbooks To Seating Charts--jacket. By Graydon Carter And David Friend ; With An Afterword By Dominick Dunne. Vanity Fair Would Like To Gratefully Acknowledge Giorgio Armani For His Support Of Oscar Night.

Author : David Friend

Publisher : Knopf

Published Year : 2005

Format : print - Hardcover, 384 pages

Subject : Academy Awards (Motion pictures)--History, Academy Awards (Motion pictures)--History--Pictorial works, Motion picture actors and actresses--Costume, Motion picture actors and actresses--Costume--California--Los Angeles, PN1993.92 .C36 2004

Language : English

Dimensions : 384 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 35 cm.

ISBN : 1400042488

ISBN13 : 9781400042487

Overview :

Vanity Fair's Oscar Night will be a sumptuous collection of 400 black-and-white and color images that take the reader inside the Oscar party, starting with the first Academy Awards-night banquet on May 16, 1929, at the Blossom Room of the Roosevelt Hotel to Swifty Lazar's parties at Spago and the Bistro to Dani Janssen's dinners to the current Vanity Fair party held at Morton's.

We see this party in the '30s as it moves from the Roosevelt Hotel to the Coconut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel to the Biltmore Hotel and back to the Roosevelt. By the time of the war, in 1944, it was only a ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theater, with after-parties at Ciro's, Mocambo, and Romanoff's. By 1951 a radio simulcast was done, half in Los Angeles and half in New York, because so many actors were on Broadway.

In 1952, the first televised awards were given out in an RKO theater and in 1958, the first Governor's Ball was held by the Academy after the awards in the theater. Up until 1958 there had only been after-parties. Then by the early '60s, Milton Berle and the Billy Wilders were giving Oscar parties.

This book will show official Governor's Ball pictures from the '60s and '70s and pictures from Swifty Lazar's difficult-to-get into parties, first at the Bistro, in 1964, and later, starting in 1982, at Spago.

In addition to the photographs of the stars at the parties, there will be invitations as well as quotes from golden gossip columnists Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper, Liz Smith, and a variety of actors and Oscar party regulars such as Fran Lebowitz.

Oscar Night is a book that anyone who likes movies will want to have.

The Special Limited Edition of Oscar Night has:

• A special page signed by the authors, Graydon Carter, editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair and David Friend
• A unique, glossy red slipcase that matches the cover
• An 8 X 10 glossy photograph of Gwyneth Paltrow signed by celebrity photographer Jonathan Becker