Welcome to L.A

Karl Lagerfeld

AN AFTERNOON COCKTAIL TO REMEMBER.

INTERVIEW AND KARL LAGERFELD CORDIALLY INVITED HOLLYWOOD'S HOLD-ONTO-YOUR-SEAT HOTTEST TO A PARTY FOR FIVE

THE GUEST LIST: JACK NICHOLSON, NICOLE KIDMAN, BENICIO DEL TORO, RYAN GOSLING AND SELMA BLAIR

THE PHOTOGRAPHER: KARL LAGERFELD

THE STYLIST: L'WREN SCOTT

THE B.Y.O. REQUIREMENT: TALENT BY THE TRUCKLOAD

THE RESULT: POWER-PACKED TABLEAUX YOU WON'T SEE AT THE CINEMA

Throughout this story: Jack Nicholson wears a shirt and pants by GIORGIO ARMANI. Shoes by PRADA. Fragrance: ARMANI MANIA. Benicio Del Toro wears a suit, shirt and shoes by HELMUT LANG. Nicole Kidman wears a dress by VERSACE. Shoes by JIMMY CHOO. Selma Blair wears a top and skirt by TOM FORD FOR YSL RIVE GAUCHE. Shoes by JIMMY CHOO. Ryan Gosling wears a suit, shirt, tie and shoes by DIOR HOMME BY HEDI SLIMANE. Nicole Kidman and Selma Blair in cosmetic colors by CLE DE PEAU BEAUTE. Page 148: Karl Lagerfeld wears a suit, shirt, tie and sunglasses by DIOR HOMME BY HEDI SLIMANE. Styling: L'WREN SCOTT. Hair: ODILE GILBERT/L'Atelier(68). Makeup: STEPHANE MARAIS/Studio 57. For Jack Nicholson: Hair: JOY ZAPATA. Makeup: MIKE GERMAIN. Manicurist: TERRY HUNTER/aRT miX/Lippmann Collection. Props: THOMAS THURNAVER. Styling assistants: LESLIE SUNGAIL, JENNIFER SEERY, LAUREN DUCOTY. Props assistant: BRANDON KLEIN.

Special thanks: SMASHBOX, L.A. For fashion and photo details see page 195.

Text on Jack Nicholson, Benicio Del Toro, Nicole Kidman and Ryan Gosling by Richard Dorment. Text on Selma Blair by Patrick Giles.

THE MEGASTAR JACK NICHOLSON

Don't call him a legend, because he's very much alive; don't call him crazy, brilliant or bombastic, because mere words simply can't describe him; and whatever you do, don't count him out, because Jack Nicholson isn't going anywhere. A product of New Jersey suburbia, Nicholson came to Los Angeles in the late 1950s and cut his teeth in a series of small pictures. It wasn't until Easy Rider exploded in 1969 that Nicholson became a star and ushered in what many cinephiles hail as a golden age in film. From Five Easy Pieces (1970) and Carnal Knowledge (1971) to Chinatown (1974) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and everything in between, Nicholson was a major player in this renaissance, its existence rooted in some of his bold and assured performances. Over the next two decades, bookended by The Shining (1980) and As Good As it Gets (1997), Nicholson delivered hit after hit after hit, never resting on his laurels or letting the occasional miss quell his need to experiment. He's won three Oscars, received 11 nominations and nearly every accolade imaginable--but those awards don't scratch the surface of his accomplishments. Renowned for improvisation, Nicholson can seize a second in time and never let it go, suspending the rules of physics and proving that on film, as in life, some moments can last forever. He'll star next in Alexander Payne's About Schmidt (December 13), the hot director's follow-up to Election (1999), before squaring off with Adam Sandler in Anger Management. Payne and Sandler in a single year? Talk about staying one step ahead. His private life as colorful as ever, Nicholson has maintained close friendships with Warren Beatty, Robert Evans and countless others from Hollywood's different generations, their affection for him resonating in their knowing smiles at the slightest mention of "Jack." See it on awards shows, read it in the papers, ask your friends and neighbors-people can't get enough of Jack Nicholson. Extraordinary and endearing and almost larger than life, he never fails to amaze.

THE DEFINITION OF HEAT BENICHO DEL TORO

It's all about the voice, isn't it? Sure, Beniclo Del Toro is a movie star, with smoldering good looks and an Oscar and a house in Los Angeles to prove it, but it's his voice that crawls under our skin, alters our chemistry and makes him a movie star. Born in Puerto Rico but raised in Pennsylvania farm country, Del Toro reveals these dual sensibilities in the fevers and chills of his varied career. After moving to L.A. in 1987 and studying with Stella Adler, he took small roles in forgettable films until breaking through in The Usual Suspects (1995), playing a miscreant with uncertain locution. Unpredictable, unnerving and surrounded by thieves, he nearly stole the film from his talented co-stars. Del Toro spent the rest of the 1990s quietly perfecting his scales in smaller pictures; his turn as Benny in Julian Schnabel's Basquiat (1996) stands out as a testament to nuance and support. His moment, though, arrived in 2000 with Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, when he achieved perfect pitch as a Tijuana cop caught in the ethical crossfire of the Pan-American drug war. In an extraordinary ensemble of veterans and newcomers, it was Del Toro, bleached out against a bleak sand-scape and speaking almost entirely in Spanish, who got a little golden man for his troubles (and, as the first Puerto Rican to win the Best Supporting Actor award, a place in Academy history). Up next he'll star as an assassin in William Friedkin's The Hunted, a cat-and-mouse thriller opposite Tommy Lee Jones, and then in Amores Perros director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's English-language debut, 21 Grams, with fellow heavyweight Sean Penn. Despite the awards and the acclaim, the general public knows little about Del Toros personal life, its particulars held out of the scorching heat of the limelight. But it's not for lack of curiosity that we know this man only onscreen. For the audience, caught up in the undulations of his voice and the weight of his presence, his life is onscreen. And that, after all, is why we can't stop watching.