THB #449: Resurrecting The Golden Trough

Hollywood has always been a whore house of sorts.

Martin Mull said (we assume he is properly sourced), “Hollywood is High School with money.”

And when it came to award season, which was really just Oscar season, The Golden Globes were always the fart in church. It made people laugh and they had fun and it didn’t matter that it was a bit smelly.

But things changed. Since the year of my birth, in the 1960s, agent Swifty Lazar had what was undeniably THE party at which to watch the Oscars or arrive afterwards, often with a gold statue in hand. For decades. There were other parties, but that was The Party. It moved to Spago, back when it was just above the Sunset Strip near Holloway, in 1985. But the event was famously Swifty’s dominion. As big as it became, it was personal.

Then Swifty died. And in 1994, Vanity Fair took the lead.

Things changed forever. Instead of a man giving a party, it became an event, interested into promoting itself (and Vanity Fair) in a way on which Swifty Lazar w…