Oscar Night: 75 Years of Hollywood Parties (Hardcover)

~ (Author), (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Four years after Carter, Friend and Dunne weighed in with the impressive Vanity Fair's Hollywood, they top themselves with this superb collection of in situ celebrity photographs. Parties that begin right after the Academy Awards have long been a Tinseltown tradition; the electricity and glamour of those events is captured in this hefty assemblage of b&w and color images. Dunne provides anecdotal memories from 1955 to 1994, an era when agent Swifty Lazar's Oscar-night parties moved from Romanoff's to the Bistro to Spago. After Lazar's 1994 death, VF editor Carter stepped in as host; darting through decades in this lavish book, he now invites everyone to the party. Here is a "celebrity gridlock" of famous faces—from Marilyn Monroe to Anna Nicole Smith, Brando to Brad Pitt, Judy Garland to Monica Lewinsky. In a bedsheet-size format (10 1/2"×13 1/2"), photos are displayed full-bleed; the authors also include insets of such totems as matchbook covers, programs and seating charts. Captions deliver details, but regrettably, the photographers who took these memorable pictures get little or no copy, and their credits are buried in the back. Although several blurry shots suffer when expanded to full-page size, this spectacular book, sprinkled with star dust, is well worth its high price tag.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description

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.

You’ll see intimate and unposed photographs of such classic icons as Cary Grant, Elizabeth Taylor, John Wayne, Gloria Swanson, David O. Selznick, and Alfred Hitchcock, among many others, at the formal dinners of the 1930s through the 1950s. Here also are amazing photographs of another generation of icons at the exclusive Governors Balls: Jack Nicholson, John Travolta, and John Belushi, Dennis Hopper with Michelle Phillips, and a very young Ali MacGraw dancing with Robert Evans. And here is a mix of New York and Hollywood at Swifty’s parties, with pictures of Bianca Jagger, Sam Shepard, Michael Caine, David Geffen, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the Ahmet Erteguns. Here, too, is the Hollywood that gathers today at the Vanity Fair Oscar party: Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger, Oprah Winfrey, Nicole Kidman, Scarlett Johansson, Charlize Theron, Sofia Coppola, Sigourney Weaver, Fran Lebowitz, Sean Combs, and Renée Zellweger.

Irresistibly sumptuous–and juicy–Oscar Night is a book full of elegance and egos, of glamorous pictures that you will want to look at again and again.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; illustrated edition edition (October 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400042488
• ISBN-13: 978-1400042487
• Product Dimensions: 13.7 x 10.9 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #601,278 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book, January 17, 2005

By	W. Oliver (Alabama) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a beautiful coffee table book and any Oscar or film fan will love it. From the opening photo of producer Buddy Adler's Oscar sitting on the shelf of a hat rack at Romanoff's Restaurant to the final now famous photo of Faye Dunaway sitting by her pool the morning after she won her award, this is a very special book. It is filled of course with great photos of the winners themselves but also contains other interesting mementos, like ticket stubs, seating programs, invitations, dinner menus, sample ballots, telegrams, memos, etc. Also photos of Hollywood landmarks, like Ciro's, Ambassador Hotel, Biltmore Bowl, Beverly Hills Hilton and the Beverly Hills Hotel are included. Most of the early celebrity photos were taken at the banquets and formal dinner celebrations and it is funny seeing all these people smoking and surrounded by liquor bottles on the tables. The book is in chronological order and the photos near the end of the book (from previous years parties) are smaller but much more numerous. The captions that accompany the photos are fantastic - they are not mere snippets but interesting lengthy paragraphs full of fascinating information. Included throughout the book are sketches and essays written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and quotes from the columns of Louella Parsons and Hedda Harper. An afterword by Dominick Dunne and a list of winners, year-by-year compelte this fascinating book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful, September 16, 2005

By	William Gazecki "Doc maker" (Hollywood) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I work in "the business", and have been nominated myself for the great gold statue (Best Documentary, 1997). This is one of my faavorite books on Hollywood history. Not only does it show many of the great stars and movers-and-shakers of the different eras, but it shows them at their most relaxed, spontaneous andpersonal best. A very well designed and thoughfully annotated book- a deserved element for a lifeloing collection.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent look into years gone by, May 31, 2009

By	Holly K. Lee (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A coffee table book! Being a book lover I love to collect beautiful coffee table books to display in my home. People just can't resist grabbing them and flipping through, looking at all the pictures and commenting.

Anyone in Hollywood will tell you that the Vanity Fair Oscar Party is the place to see and be seen. The invitations are highly coveted. After all, the biggest stars in Hollywood are all over this party!

This book shows the last 75 years of the party in pictures. The photos are supplemented with cute stories about the people in the photos.

Anyone who enjoys fashion would love this book. The photos are extremely high quality, and it is amazing to see stars of years past in such clear detail. The way the fashion alone evolves is worth a look at this book.

Get a couple coffee table books for yourself. I promise you that you and your guests will gain hours of entertainment from them.