Tarantino Takes on Presley

PRESLEY | SPOILS | STAR

"Kill Bill" and "Pulp Fiction" director Quentin Tarantino isn’t just directing the finale of CSI, as previously reported. I can tell you that he also signed on to guide Lisa Marie Presley through her video for her new single.

Tarantino has directed Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley, the king of rock 'n' roll, in a version of Don Henley’s old hit, "Dirty Laundry." A sneak audio peek of "Dirty Laundry" can be heard in promos for ABC’s "Desperate Housewives."

Tarantino once told an interviewer that when he met Lisa Marie years ago he was "star struck." Evidently, it stuck.

Spoils of a Hollywood Good Life

"Have you people seen Robert Downey Jr.? He was supposed to take me home." That was what a perplexed Val Kilmer asked two security people Friday night at talent agent Ed Limato’s annual bacchanal up in the Hollywood Hills. It was quickly established that Downey and his fiancée had left Val hanging. “How do I get a cab up here?” asked the one-time Oscar nominee.

Kilmer and Downey were but two of the many well-known faces and actual stars who filled a humungous tent behind Limato’s massive Coldwater Canyon mansion. Limato is living off the hard-earned spoils and deals he’s derived from big deals for clients such as Mel Gibson, Denzel Washington, Richard Gere and others. You could almost call his spread “The House that 'Lethal Weapon' built.”

Guests dined from two elaborate buffet stations filled with sliced filet mignon, various pastas, salads, succulent lamb chops and lots of tantalizing dessert. As in most Hollywood parties, the latter table was mostly untouched.

So who did we spot? Sir Ben Kingsley, Jackie Collins, Orlando Bloom, Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi, George Hamilton and ex-wife Alana Stewart, Sam Neill, Sophie Okonedo, Winona Ryder, James Woods, Jamie Foxx, Vince Vaughn, Aidan Quinn, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Laura Linney, Anthony LaPaglia, “Aviator” producer Graham King, the ubiquitous Nicky Hilton (whom we mistook for Mischa Barton), ICM chief Jeff Berg, producer Steve Tisch, manager Benny Medina, publisher Jason Binn, agent Toni Howard, press agent Ronni Chasen, Rod Stewart manager Arnold Stiefel, and lots of nice, good-looking young men in expensive suits.

Who we didn’t see: Limato’s all-star client list of Gibson, Gere, Washington, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sylvester Stallone. Neither did we see his ex-client Jennifer Lopez. They each had excuses for not being there. Also unseen: Limato’s oldest client, David Selby, of "Falcon Crest" fame, but I’m sure he was there.

All right, so it wasn’t a grand slam home run, but the Limato party was still pretty cool. If nothing else, it was an eclectic mixture of old and new Hollywood. The most interesting item of the night? A clipboard at the entrance with a printed admonition. “Absolutely not allowed in: Lizzie Grubman, Richard Johnson, Barry Josephson.” But someone insisted they saw Josephson, a producer and former partner of Barry Sonnenfeld who once dated Sharon Stone, so who knows how effective that was. Grubman, a New York publicist, and Johnson, editor of the New York Post’s Page Six, were nowhere to be seen and probably unaware of the ban.

Star Jones Gets Her Fur Up

Yes, that was the ever-shrinking Star Jones looking ravishing in a Fendi chinchilla last night at L’Ermitage hotel in Beverly Hills. She was attending the rooftop dinner thrown for “Ray” actress Regina King by enterprising publicist and movie producer Marvett Britto.

Marla Gibbs, of “The Jeffersons” fame (she played the maid, Florence), was dripping in diamonds; Hill Harper — the hottest young black actor in town — told us all about being on “CSI: New York” with Gary Sinise (he loves it); Angela Bassett got high praise for her many terrific roles; Heavy D pushed the idea of a Hillary Clinton-Barak Obama ticket; and the crème de la crème of black Hollywood talked about the new multiculturalism sweeping this sleepy town.

But, oh, that Chinchilla. Soft and plush. Who knew "The View" would turn into such a payday when we went to that press preview eight years ago? I hope Barbara Walters, who invented the show, and Star have at least the snout or a paw of that thing mounted in platinum in their penthouses.