Everyone from Felicity Huffman to Lea Michele, Mark Salling to Gina Gershon, and Christina Ricci (who rarely hits the scene) and Kristin Cavallari (who always does) got their hands on the new BlackBerry Torch 9800 Wednesday night, 12 hours ahead of the public launch. (Photo of Huffman courtesy Faye Sadou)
BlackBerry/RIM marketing VP Geoff McMurdo smartly forked over hundreds of the $200 devices (fully charged) to lucky VIPs like Rashida Jones and Anna Kendrick right at the entrance to the custom-built venue on Wednesday night. Naturally, this led to a sea of screens test-driving the much improved 5 MP camera to record his welcome and the hour-long performance by Drake (one of TheWrap's top 10 Canadians in Hollywood.) By Thursday morning, several likely unauthorized clips were already up on YouTube.
Though the new device is the first to have both a touch screen and a keyboard, the perennial high demand for actual keyboards amongst the industry’s executive, agent, and legal communities has made the Canadian-based RIM a perennial “top Canadian” in Hollywood.
Inside, Coveroo provided instant engraving. Mario Lopez went simple -- “Lopez" -- while tennis champ Venus Williams asked for the unguessable email handle she uses to disguise her private account.
AT&T activated its own geek squad to make sure sister Serena Williams, Adrien Grenier and anyone else could swap their phone on the spot. (AT&T has the exclusive for the moment, but expect the device to permeate across carriers within a year.)
Earlier Wednesday, Disney CEO Bob Iger made a midday appearance at the launch of “Disney-Pixar’s World of Cars Online.” The online virtual world and video game is a spin-off of the 2006 film "Cars" and potential bridge to the 2012 sequel. At right, Iger is joined by the face of the one-time ABC mainstay “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” Melissa Joan Hart. (Photo courtesy of Wireimage)
Celebs with kids in the target demographic like Tori Spelling, Dean McDermott and Joey Lawrence test drove the site at the car-hop style venue Flo’s V8 Café (the “Bob’s Big Boy”) on Wednesday afternoon.
Meanwhile back in West Hollywood, Jay-Z’s newest discovery, Hugo, performed a showcase at the Viper Room featuring a bluegrass version of his rap mogul boss’s hit “99 Problems."
A few steps awa
y down Larrabee at the London, Drew Barrymore drew pals Eli Roth, Brit tabloid darling Peaches Geldof, and “How to Make it in America” castmates Bryan Greenberg and Lake Bell to celebrate Nylon Magazine’s Denim Issue on Tuesday night. At left, the fashionable mag’s publisher Jaclynn Jarrett and editor-in-chief Marvin Scott Jarrett flank their August cover-star. (Photo by Wireimage.)
Express co-hosted the bash and sent every single party-goer home with new jeans, a stunt that had the normally thirsty Nylon crowd choosing the denim bar over the Van Gogh vodka-bar. While Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne were across the street at a pre-Ozzfest gathering at the Roxy, daughter Kelly was at Barrymore’s rooftop soiree with Carmen Electra.
