United We Stand

By Anna David

There may have been a woman on stilts, yellow-clad with face painted white, greeting guests from atop a contraption that seemed to be made out of a hula hoop and a slew of long, thin balloons, but the atmosphere wasn’t all play at the Second Annual Louis Vuitton gala for Lilly Tartikoff’s United Cancer Front.

After all, Tartikoff’s beloved husband, former NBC topper Brandon Tartikoff, died from Hodgkin’s disease in 1999, and she has been a crusader for cancer research ever since. Her Fire & Ice balls have been a part of the L.A. cultural landscape for years, and she has developed a reputation for being able to talk anyone into anything, whether it’s landing the celebrities of the moment as hosts, or selling every last seat. Tables at this event, held on a Universal Studios soundstage, went for between $10,000 and $50,000, and rest assured those seats add up: the First Annual Louis Vuitton gala raised more than $1 million.

Inside the orange-and-white hued cocktail area, Chloe Sevigny, Christina Ricci, and Regina King mingled with an assortment of other, equally eclectic celebrities — Kenny G held court, on one side of the room, while tennis queens Serena and Venus Williams bonded with Ananada Lewis from The Insider on the other. Local style mavens such as hairdresser Cristophe and chic boutique owner Diane Merrick were also there. Sevigny stood elegant in a flowery Louis Vuitton dress from the spring/summer collection, something she had ordered on style.com “from my New York apartment where it was freezing and thought, ‘Oh, in L.A. it will be warm and really fun to wear pink and flowers,’” she explains. Sevigny confesses that whenever she’s contacted about attending a cancer-related event, it’s nearly impossible to say no. “I lost someone in my family to cancer,” she says. “Everyone’s affected by the disease, I figure there’s so much more to learn. I just hope we can raise as much money as possible.” Ricci, who worked with Brandon Tartikoff on the Addams Family movies, supports the United Cancer Front because it’s “taking one of the more aggressive approaches I’ve heard of toward research and finding a cure.”

But it was a Broderick-less Sarah Jessica Parker who articulated most poignantly the reason for her involvement. “There’s a major difference between a diagnosis five years ago and one today,” she says. “That’s because of the extraordinary research that has been done in a really tiny period of time due, in large part, to great financial donors.” The UCF approach is “very different,” Parker went on to explain, “in that the information is disseminated not just for the privileged few who have the means to get to doctors who are doing research, but for everybody.” Asserting her political views with great subtlety, Parker added, “Science and research are our friends, they’re nothing to be scared of, and we all benefit from them.” While Parker’s intense commitment to the charity’s work surely wouldn’t surprise anyone who has been privy to the dedication with which she has pursued her acting career, the fashionista can still pull off some style surprises: Her black sequined LV top may have been brand new, but her cropped black tuxedo pants were “old Marc Jacobs from maybe 10 years ago?”