Hanks, Hudson Party at DreamWorks Shindig
January 22, 2001 -- DreamWorks came, saw, and conquered at the 58th Annual Golden Globes, with dual best picture winners Gladiator and Almost Famous, so it's no surprise that the studio's party at Trader Vic's in Los Angeles, thrown jointly with Universal, was one of the hottest tickets in town. Among the guests were winners Tom Hanks and Kate Hudson and Contenders Joan Allen and Jeff Bridges.
The awards show audience could easily have spilled over from the Beverly Hills Hilton to adjacent Trader Vic's, or to another studio party on the premises, and spill over they did — at least those buxom young things with soon-to-be-75-year-old Hugh Hefner nearly threatened to.
Gleeful Hudson, Grim CroweBubbly newlywed Hudson, who wore a black slip dress, said that "of course" she'd already called her mother, Goldie Hawn, about her best supporting actress win, since her actress mom wasn't at the ceremony itself. Kate and her new husband, Chris Robinson, stopped to swap congratulations and pose with Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, providing one of the night's best photo ops.
DreamWorks studio heads Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg were on hand, but Spielberg skipped the press line, as did Gladiator star Russell Crowe.
An unsmiling Crowe, who lost to Hanks in the best dramatic actor category, headed into the party before the awards ceremony had even ended. Dressed all in black and followed by an unidentified group of four or five men, the grim-faced Gladiator looked like he was on his way to a hanging — or a shootout. Crowe was sans girlfriend-of-late Meg Ryan, to whom he's rumored to have — if you'll pardon the Gladiator joke — given the axe.
No Party Time for Spider-ManOther stars on the go included a famished Joan Allen (who later said she was happy that Ang Lee, who'd directed her in The Ice Storm, won the best director award), a too-shy-to-talk Thora Birch, and Tobey Maguire, who apologized for virtually running from the press. "I have a 5:30 a.m. call," explained the Wonder Boys star, who is currently filming Spider-Man. He said he was on his way to the DreamWorks party merely to congratulate a friend — perhaps Hudson? — and left a short time later.
Also attending the soirée were Vince Vaughn, Faye Dunaway, Angus McFayden (Braveheart, Titus), Bill Paxton, Rosanna Arquette, and Office Space's Ron Livingston, who tells us he's also one of the grunts in the Hanks-Spielberg HBO project Band of Brothers.
Just entering as we were leaving was Erin Brockovich and Traffic director Steven Soderbergh, looking stylish in a dark tailored suit and his trademark dark specs and seeming not to mind his double loss to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon director Ang Lee.
After all, the Academy Awards are just around the corner.
Gladiator Was a 'Companywide Effort'Gladiator's husband-and-wife producing team, Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, noted, "Last year['s winner] American Beauty [and this year's winner, Gladiator] are kind of the two poles of what the studio can do. American Beauty was almost like an independent movie, a brilliant script that was the work of one person, and a personal vision that you just support, and Gladiator … because of its scale and size, is really a companywide effort."
Hefner: Globes Like the Academy Awards Used to Be "The Golden Globes were of no significance 10 years ago," says Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, "but now they've been embraced by Hollywood [and have become] a precursor to the Academy Awards. But they're a little more personal version, like the Academy Awards were in the old days."