Styles & Scenes

Annette wins Best Speech at Women In Hollywood Awards

Attention, Golden Globe and Oscar voters. Want to have a great awards show? Give one to Annette Bening.

But a word of caution.  Leave room in the broadcast.The speech might run a little long.

The three-time Oscar nominee (“Being Julia,” “American Beauty,” “The Grifters”) wrote and delivered the most amusing and self-deprecating acceptance speech at the recent Premiere magazine “Women in Hollywood” Icon awards.

Hers was hands down the highlight of a long night that also honored Icons Sofia Coppola, Cate Blanchett, and Sally Field as well as Evan Rachel Wood with the Chanel Spotlight Award for Emerging Talent.

A past Icon, Gwyneth Paltrow, who appears with Bening in “Running with Scissors” (“I’m completely jet-lagged and a breast feeding mess”), introduced her idol by gushing about being in awe of Bening, adding “I have never worked with an actor who has as much force as she does.”

Bening then demonstrated her admirable force.

“When I heard that Nora Ephron had written a speech for a past recipient, I felt so jealous because I knew it was probably very witty and funny,” said Bening. “Then I thought, That’s okay. I can write the speech myself because I know Nora and I've read her new book, “I Feel Bad about My Neck,” which is so inspired, funny and poignant.”

In “Neck,” Epron mentions ""The Golden Notebook.” So Bening read Doris Lessing's book that divides the author's life into notebooks; one a diary, another about writing, another fictionalizes her life and one on her politics.

“The last notebook integrates all aspects of her life and I thought, ‘Self-integration. That’s a good thing to talk about.’ Then I thought, ‘But I don’t really understand it.’ And then I thought, ‘But that doesn’t matter because I’m a celebrity!”

The room sputtered and roared as Bening went on about a a recently conducted study on narcissism and celebrities that she’d read about in the LA Times.

’The headline of the article was Celebrities: Legends in their Own Minds.” Bening recalled. “And I thought, ‘Well, that’s appropriate. So it’s okay if I talk about integration of self, even if I don’t understand it, because I’m a celebrity and am a legend in my own mind.”

“The article went on to ask if the industry creates the narcissism or if we come in narcissistic to begin with,” Bening said, pausing for “Rest assure, we bring it with us!”

The study also addressed the issue of men being more narcissistic then women. “As you can imagine, in my household,that's a very touchy subject," Bening admitted. "So Warren and I decided to sit down and discuss it. In front of a mirror, of course. And well, all I can say is that it got very ugly.”

Best runner-up speech? Angelica Huston, who introduced her friend Sofia Coppola:

“Sofia and I share so many things in common.We have Oscar winners in three generations of our families, we're fans of rock and roll, fascinated with Japanese culture and tend to wear black clothing. We both had grandfathers who sang opera, and adventurous groundbreaking fathers who gave us starring roles in their films which were met with a volley of hurtful criticism at a vulnerable time in our lives when we had not yet grown into our noses.”

Photo Credits: Bening brings down the house at the Women in Hollywood Icon awards at the Beverly Hills Hotel
Jeff Vespa/WireImage
Photo Credits: Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who's the most narcissistic of them all in the Bening/Beatty household?
Gred Deguire/WireImage
Photo Credits: Evan Rachel Wood, Annette Bening, Sally Field, Sofia Coppola and Cate Blanchett do a group shot at the Premiere WIH Icon Awards.
Jeff Vespa/WireImage

Armani sees RED in London

I'm sure you're as thrilled as I am to hear that - for the first time like ever - Giorgio Armani will show his ready-to-wear collection (Spring/Summer 07) on a London runway.

The astonishing and positively historic event wil occur on Sept 21.

But trust me, this is way more than just a runway show. The designer will close the London Fashion Week with a big blowout "One Night Only" charity event, featuring his RTW show, several VIP musical guests, celebs and a sneak peek at the latest Armani Prive couture collection.

Hollywood stylists, start your awards season shopping engines!

So far, attending stars will include Beyonce, who is skedded to perform, Alicia Keys, Leonardo Dicaprio, James Franco, Ashley Judd, Clive Owen, 50 Cent and other Armani pals from the worlds of film, music and sports.

I’d say it’s a good bet that Sienna Miller (and maybe that Nanny Humper Jude Law) will attend Armani’s One Night Only. After all, Armani did the costumes for “Camille,” due out next Valentine's Day, which stars Miller and Franco. The Armani dress Miller wears throughout the film reportedly becomes more tattered and torn as her lot in life worsens. Hey, I can relate.

So what’s the big whoop about this One big night?  The star-studded Armani fete will benefit RED, Bono and Bobby Shriver’s economic initiative to create a sustainable flow of private sector money to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS in Africa. The event will be filmed for broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK and syndicated for worldwide distribution.

In support of RED, Armani is designing a special Emporio Armani RED capsule collection of clothing, accessories, eyewear, watches, jewelry and fragrances. Forty percent of the profits will go to the RED global fund to fight AIDS in Africa.

Keep an eye out for the RED seal on products you’re considering buying. Anything with a RED mark contributes a portion of sales to the fight AIDS in Africa with a focus on women and children.  Other companies involved in the One Night Only event include Samsung, Audi, Grey Goose Vodka, Motorola and American Express.

Hey, it takes a shopping village.

By the way, I'm sure its just a coincidence but there will be other Armani events in London that week. Three flagship stores will swing open their doors:  Armani Casa and Armani Collezioni  on New Bond Street and the newly refurbished Emporio Armani reopening on Brompton Road.

But it's not all charity and store openings for Armani. He's been busy, according to Barry Frediani, Armani’s Senior Director of Entertainment Industry Public Relations (whew), designing and providing lots of costumes for upcoming films.

He did Michelle Pfeiffer’s costumes for “I Could Never Be Your Woman” and he’s dressing long-time fashion fan, George Clooney, for “Ocean’s Thirteen.” The House of A also dressed Jackie Chan in “Rush Hour 3” and Russell Crowe for his comeback film, “A Good Year.”

I just got the digital press kit for “Good Year,” which sounds like a real Baby Boomer crowd-pleaser. Based on Peter Mayle’s (yes, that Mayle) novel about a successful, driven London banker who inherits a small Provencal chateau and working vineyard,"Good Year" is produced and directed by Ridley Scott, who also directed/produced “Gladiator,” that won five Oscars, including a Best Picture and Best Actor. So no pressure there.

But here's the great bit: the cover of the CD-rom press kit features a shot of Crowe’s amiable, smiling face, light by golden sunbeams, the actor looking incredibly relaxed and happy. Not at all like his usual surly phone-tossing I-loathe -all-journalists self.

And the fim's tagline? “Everything matures. Eventually.”

A sly reference to the reformed rage-aholic's new calmer, married-with-kids state-of-being?

Or just wishful thinking.

Only time will tell.

Let’s hope Scott steers clear of lingering shots of Crowe picking up handfuls of the good French vineyard soil and rubbing it between his fingers, the way he did every few minutes in “Gladiator.” That metaphoric imagry is a bit like dropping an egg. You can only do it in one movie.

Oh, back to Armani. Gosh, it's so easy to get off on an 'As The Crowe Flies Off The Handle' tangent. Seems Armani dressed Wentworth Miller for the recent Emmy Awards and outfitted Josh Hartnett for the recent Venice Film Festival. Both wore classic bow ties, so you can officially call the bow tie a major formalwear trend for the upcoming awards season.

“Venice is always a good predictor of fashion direction for the awards season,” states Frediani, who certainly should know.

Photo Credits: Armani with new pal Clive Owen at the Fall/Winter menswear show in Milan. Owen will reportedly attend Armani's One Night Only charity fashion fete in London on Sept 21. 
UnoPress/WireImage
Photo Credit: Russell Crowe, looking either very happy and/or very heavily mood-medicated in "A Good Year" poster. This is Ridley Scott's new film about a man who discovers that running a small vineyard in Provence can make you much happier than being a busy London banker. Like, duh. I assume Armani did Crowe's suits for the London banker scenes. Looks like J. Crew may have made this Yuppy vineyard stuff.
Photo courtesy of Fox Studios