Hillary Goes Hollywood
| Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., speaks to preschoolers at UCLA’s Kreiger Center on Wednesday. (AP) |
The Left Coast showed Sen. Hillary Clinton the love Wednesday night as director Brett Ratner (“Rush Hour,” “Red Dragon,” “X-Men: The Last Stand”) opened his Los Angeles home for a star-studded fundraiser.
Ratner’s mansion in Benedict Canyon, called Hillhaven Lodge, is the former home of Ingrid Bergman. More recently, it was the site of a scene in last week’s episode of “Entourage” on HBO.
But the Clinton fundraiser eclipsed the starpower that “Entourage” brought to Ratner’s backyard.
Ratner co-hosted with Hollywood mogul (and Elizabeth Hurley’s baby-daddy) Steve Bing and supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle.
Among the other bold-faced names smiling for the cameras: director Kevin Smith, “Entourage” star Jeremy Piven, Pauly Shore, “24” producer Brian Grazer, NFL quarterback Rodney Peete and his wife, actress Holly Robinson Peete, Rebecca Gayheart and Quincy Jones.
A source involved with the party said about 500 people were expected, but “it looked like it was way over.”
What did it cost the attendees? The general reception sold out at $250 a pop, as did an after-party for another
| Brett Ratner (Getty Images) |
$250. To hang with the other beautiful people at a VIP pre-reception set them back $2,300 — the legal
maximum for the primary campaign.
And, no, one star-studded fundraiser wasn’t good enough for Clinton while she was in La-La Land. Before the Ratner party, which started at 9 p.m., filmmaker Steven Spielberg, News Corp. President Peter Chernin and billionaire TV producer Haim Saban threw a dinner fundraiser at Chernin’s home. (Spielberg thus made good on his promise to co-host an event for Clinton, after he raised eyebrows in February by hosting an event for Sen. Barack Obama.)
On hand at Chernin’s: actor Ben Stiller, Oscar-winning actress Jodie Foster, “Grey’s Anatomy” star Eric Dane and producer James Brooks. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who had just endorsed Clinton at a media-ready event, even showed up to reiterate his announcement.
And the Democrats’ battle to win over Hollywood votes and money continues apace: According to Variety’s “Wilshire and Washington” blog, Obama and Bill Richardson return to Los Angeles on June 11, while Clinton will come back June 22 for a fundraiser at the home of director Roland Emmerich (“Independence Day,” “The Patriot,” “The Day After Tomorrow”).
