Ho hum.
Just another day at the office. Chatted up the daughter of Alfred Hitchcock, Clint Eastwood, Kirk Douglas, Tippi Hedren, and Angela Lansbury, among others, at the ArcLight Theatres last night where they had come - along with Warren Beatty, George Lucas, Jack Nicholson, Billy Crystal, and Sylvester Stallone - to introduce their classic films which screened at a an event that sold out 10 of the Arclight auditoriums.
"I think it's very exciting and wonderful that they're able to do this," Patricia Hitchcock O'Connell told me before she went into the theater. "I'm just happy that it is "The Birds" [screening] because we all loved that movie. [My father] made his movies for the audience, not for himself and that's why they've lasted because audiences do not change."
She walked the red carpet mostly unnoticed but I knew she'd be there and recognized her father in her eyes. I asked one of the PR folks, "Is that Hitchcock's daughter?" He said yes so I called her over and withins seconds, a group of us had recorders in her face. Sometimes, ya just gotta ask.
As an actress, O'Connell appeared in "Psycho" and "Strangers on a Train" as well as in several episodes father's television series: "I wouldn't have been cast if he didn't think I was right and I had training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. If you had training, then he loved using you."
She was delightful. O'Connell introduced the "The Birds" along with the film's star, Tippi Hedren, who had flown in from Frankfurt, Germany earlier Wednesday where she had accepted an award on Hitchcock's behalf at a film festival.
"He was not only my director, he was my drama coach and this was the first film I did so it was amazing to have that kind of support," Hedren said. She was so mellow and didn't display any jet lag. Tippi Hedren can't be that young anymore but she sure looks terrific. She who wore a gold broach of birds given to her by Hitchcock when she landed the role in "The Birds."

Kirk Douglas. Wow. Knock me over with a feather. His film, "Spartacus," had the honor of playing in the Cineramadome and he was tickled when I told him three young guys had come to the flick dressed as Spartacus. "They did? Where?" They were long gone though. Kirk said: "Maybe I'll see them inside." Douglas said he was "very proud and excited to be invited" but really, everyone seemed so excited to see him.
When asked what part of the script jumped out at him and got him interested in the part, Douglas said: "He had a speech, he was talking to the slaves and he said "we...will be free" and I think we are still fighting for freedom even today."
The amazing Angela Lansbury, a three-time Oscar nominee, was not there to introduce her classic "The Manchurian Candidate" but instead the 1991 animated Disney film "Beauty and the Beast." She liked the idea of "kind of trotting out our finest and our best now and again."
Nicholson, looking happy to be there to introduce "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," hurried down the red carpet smiling and waving but wasn't very chatty. But he did answer my question of where he'd rank "Cuckoo's Nest" among his films: "I don't rank my own films," he said, barely breaking stride.
Longtime AFI President Jean Picker Firstenberg introduced Nicholson at the event and told me it wasn't at all difficult to convince him to show up for the movie that won him the first of his three Oscars: "I sent a letter to Jack and asked him if he would join us and he called me up and he said,"Yeah, I'll come." It was that simple."

Clint Eastwood, unlike Nicholson, Beatty and Crystal, did not blow by much of the press and took time to reflect on what drew him to make his Oscar-winning western "The Unforgiven."
"It was the best western script that I had ever had maybe outside of 'The Outlaw Josie Whales' and I think that's the reason I haven't done one in 17 years because I haven't found a western genre script in that league."
Rob Reiner told me he was happy to be at the event to introduce his film "When Harry Met Sally" along with Crystal and Warner Bros. head Alan Horn who was a producer: "It was a real thrill, a real honor to be included with such great films as 'Cuckoo's Nest' and 'Bonnie and Clyde' and Spartacus.' These are classic films."
Sylvester Stallone did not walk the red carpet but I was really happy to see his leading lady in "Rocky," Oscar-nominated Talia Shire, chatting away. Is she ageless or WHAT? I asked about her role the "Rocky" films as well as in "The Godfather" trilogy.
"I'm very blessed," she said. "I used to think of Sylvester as like, the younger brother. Something about his mythology and his poetry and his language and his eloquence which did remind me of my own brother [Francis Ford Coppola]. Boy, what terrific movies. You have to remember, 'Rocky' was a low-budget movie and I don't know if that will ever happen quite like that again. We didn't have a lot of money so I got to get that hat and I went to my eye doctor and I got those glasses. In a sense, everything that sort of went wrong, went right. It was a very spiritual time."

Anywho, WHAT.A. NIGHT!