Elton John

Madonna, Julia Roberts, Michele Pfeiffer, Kim Basinger, Richard Gere, Cindy Crawford – all of them owe their fame in some measure to the late Herb Ritts, the renowned photographer whose portraits for the likes of Vanity Fair, Vogue and various fashion houses in the '80s and '90s helped turn many of his subjects into icons. A new book by Charles Churchward, Herb Ritts: The Golden Hour, is a lavish scrapbook / oral history looking at both Ritts' life, legacy and work. Along with some of the well known celebrity and supermodel poses the book's 200 images include intimate portraits, images of extravagant Hollywood parties, travels to exotic locales, and other unforgettable moments from an extraordinary career, many from Ritts' personal archive and previously unpublished. Richard Gere provides an introduction and there are scores of interviews from Ritts' friends including Annie Leibovitz, Elton John, kd lang, Helena Christensen, L'Wren Scott and more.

Dateline Hollywood: At the Golden Globes this year, Julianne Moore stopped on the red carpet to inform RSVIP that Bruce Cohen, the co-producer of this season's Academy Awards, who won an Oscar himself for producing "American Beauty," wanted this reporter on the red carpet at his Oscars. "He's really trying," she said.

The Backstory: I won't give the year, but in High School, back in Falls Church, Virginia, Cohen introduced me to his close friend, then known as Julie (nee Smith), a sweet redheaded sophomore. We went on exactly one date, Homecoming. Bruce was always the hyper-organized one, who made all the posters for class elections. At Yale, we were in the same film class. As RSVIP practically lives on the red carpet, I have run into both him and Julie (now Julianne Moore) every few months over the past 20 years.

And on Oscar Sunday, Februry 27, true to his word, Cohen invited RSVIP inside the world's largest red-carpet media bubble.

Sir Elton John will become the latest celebrity to take a spin at guest editing the Independent newspaper in the U.K. John will guest edit the World Aids Day version of the paper and its new sister paper i, on December 1. The themed edition will include news, features and commentary relevant to the fight against Aids as well as other news and pieces curated by Sir Elton. All circulation revenues will benefit the Elton John Aids Foundation.

John has been in the United States recently touring with country singer Leon Russell. He had a bit of an inside track on getting the editing gig, he's friends with Evgeny Lebedev, chairman of The Independent. "We are proud to have Elton editing the paper for a day," said Mr Lebedev in the Independent. " In 2006 Bono edited an issue of The Independent, to raising awareness for project (Red) to help fight Aids in Africa.

John was suited up in tennis gear this week in Washington DC for the 18th annual World Team Tennis Smash Hits benefiting the Elton John AIDS Foundation. His two foundations in the U.S. and the U.K have raised over $220 million since inception in support of projects in 55 countries around the world.

Sometimes when parents are moving into a smaller place they need to get rid of some of their children's belongings but it doesn't usually attract as much attention as the downsizing of Sheila Farebrother. That's because Farebrother is the mother of Sir Elton John and she is putting her son's platinum records up for sale. The Daily Mail reports that Farebrother used to store the memorabilia in her home but she has moved into a smaller property and no longer has the room. The items will be sold through the Gorringes auction house. The October auction will also including items that belonged to John's ex-manager Bob Halley, including a diamond-studded crucifix valued at £3,000. John himself is no stranger to auctions. He has auctioned off jewelry before and he and his husband David Furnish have held several auctions of clothing to raise money for the Elton John Aids Foundation.

Elton John's Academy Awards Viewing Party is an annual tradition and now, if you are willing to wait a day, you can dine like the celebrity attendees. This year marks the 18th year of the party for the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the party is being catered by Crumble Catering. Crumble Catering is co-owned by Vermont Restaurant chef/owner Wayne Elias. The day after the Oscars, March 8, Vermont Restaurant in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles will serve a four-course menu with items served at the fete. The LA Times reports that the menu costs $45, with $5 of each order going to the Elton John Aids Foundation. The menu includes a spring vegetable compote with red pepper coulis and arugula pesto; risotto Carnaroli with saffron licorice and king prawns; Tagliata New York steak with candied green celery and Amarone wine sauce; and crispy milk chocolate bar with bitter chocolate glaze, meringue sticks and apricot. The official winery of the party, Sterling Wines is also offering a wine pairing for $25, with $5 going toward the Elton John Aids Foundation so you can get the full Oscar experience.

Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish are cleaning out their closets for a good cause. The pair is holding a wardrobe purge in the form of a pop-up shop at Covent Garden, London, on the former site of the Theatre Museum. The pair amasses quite a bit of clothing and every so often they sell off part of their wardrobes. So far they have raised millions for the Elton John Aids Foundation. According to the London Times, thousands of items of clothing and accessories have been shipped in from the couple's properties around the world for the sale. The booty will include stage costumes created for Sir Elton by Versace and Yohji Yamamoto along with Etro shirts and ties.

Elton John has decided to part with a complete collection of vividly printed silk shirts by Gianni Versace. Other items include dressing gowns, shoes, belts, bags, sunglasses and more, all priced from £30 to as high as £750 for the suits. The shop opens on December 12 and will be restocked daily until everything is sold. On December 19 any unsold items will be marked down to clearance prices.

The rainbow fourth generation iPod nanos now have an even brighter look. Elton John has created a special Swarovski crystal covered version of the music player. The nanos have his signature etched in the bank and each comes loaded with Rocket Man: The Definitive Hits. Best of all, some of the proceeds (12.5 percent) go to the Elton John AIDS Foundation. The 8GB version sells for $565 and the 16GB model is $636. Now if only they came with matching sunglasses...

[via Mobile Mag]

The flashy piece shown above is a sapphire-and-diamond brooch worn by singer Elton John and now up for auction. Sir Elton wore the 1930s Art Deco piece in his 1988 music video "I Don't Wanna Go on With You Like That." A photograph of him wearing this clip during the filming of the video accompanies this lot. The piece will be auctioned at Bonhams in London on Thursday, September 25 and is estimated to sell for £12,000 - 15,000.

UPDATE: The brooch did not sell at the auction.

Talk about the trip of a lifetime! The "Around the World in 80 Ways" package is, of course, a tribute to the famous film "Around the World in 80 Days," and was created by The Leading Hotels of the World Ltd. as part of a fundraiser benefiting Elton John's AIDS Foundation. The trip was created as a celebration of the coinciding 80th anniversaries of the Academy Awards and The Leading Hotels of the World Ltd., and is LHW's effort to combine film and luxury travel into an extraordinary "Oscar-worthy" experience. The package covers the globe with gourmet meals, luxurious spa treatments, and tours of the local landscapes in exotic locales like Jaipur, Dubai, and Hong Kong, plus some more close-to-home destinations like London, New York, and San Francisco. Sounds like a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience -- see the details below.

Very few celebrities have only one home -- owning multiple residences in locations around the world is key to keeping any sense of normalcy and routine in their lives. But although first homes are usually in cities like New York and LA to be close to work, where do celebrities like George Clooney, Johnny Depp, and Oprah choose to buy vacation homes? Where do they go when it's entirely up to them and they want to relax?

Well for Clooney it's a waterfront villa in Lake Como, Italy, for Depp it's a 50 acre farmhouse in France, and Oprah prefers her ocean-front ranch in Santa Monica. Where would you live? Check out this list of celebrity summer homes and see who's taste is closest to your own.

When I read about some of these auctions I get so envious! How fun would it be to go to one of these events with a flag or paddle to wave around and practically unlimited funds to play with! Case in point, at a recent charity auction to raise money for the Elton John AIDS Foundation a Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe sold for $1.6 million. Not that it's not a great car, but it's since the actual value is estimated between $400,000 and $500,000 that's a pretty big jump for charity. And these Phantom Drophead Coupes are making of habit of selling high -- back in January a couple got $2 million for theirs at the Winter Wine Festival. I guess if you gotta have one then you gotta have one!

Sir Elton John is a noted art collector with an impressive collection and as, has happened to many avid collectors, he found himself in possession of some fakes. A French court has awarded Sir Elton John $500,000 in compensation for the purchase of four marble statues of Olympic gods that bore the signature of 18th century artist Luigi Grossi but were in fact, fakes. He had bought the four-foot-high statues in an antiques store in Paris in 1996 while shopping with another dedicated art and antiques collector, the late designer Gianni Versace. A valuation of John's collection turned up the fact that the sculptures were worth not genuine and worth just $20,000 (he had paid $360,000). Dealer John Renoncourt will be paying Sir Elton John the compensation.

Unfortunately, fakes, looted antiquities, and questions of provenance can be a risk when shopping for art and antiquities. I'm currently reading The Medici Conspiracy, which is a fascinating account of the story of Giacomo Medici, an antiquities dealer who illegally dealt in a wide variety of antiquities, real, fake and those that were a pastiche of real and fake elements. Often with faked works, like Sir Elton, the buyer only finds out when they have a valuation done of their collection. Unfortunately, not even the signature of a famous artist on a work proves that it is the real deal.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Sarah Ferguson is buying a large two-bedroom apartment in the Cipriani Club Residences at 55 Wall St., where she already stays while visiting Manhattan. The asking price is $2.95 million asking price.
--Billy Joel has lowered the price on his Centre Island mansion by $5 million.
--Developer Steven Roth's Park Avenue apartment, which was originally listed at $9 million, finally has a buyer.
--"Dora the Explorer" co-creator and head writer Eric Weiner has $4.4 million penthouse on upper Broadway.
--The brownstone where Katherine Hepburn lived for seven decades is available for rent for $39,500 per month. The listing for this classic home is here.

From The Real Estalker:
--Britney Spears and Kevin Federline have reduced the price on their Malibu house to $11,999,999 from $13,500,000. Britney has also taken her Beverly HIlls home off the market.
--Daniele Gaither, formerly of MAD Tv has put her Los Angeles home on the market for $1,099,000. The listing is here.
--Television producer Phil Rosenthal and his wife Monica have put their Hancock Park mansion on the market for $5,950,000. The listing is here.
--Celebrity hairstylist Jonathan Antin has put his Los Angeles home on the market for $1,699,000. The listing is here.
--Cheech Marin and his wife Patti have listed a four-bedroom Malibu home for $3,595,000. The listing for this intriguing Craftsman home is here

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Figure skater Scott Hamilton has sold a house he owns in Thousand Oaks, Calif. for $3,295,000.
-- Sir Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, are the latest celebs to buy in at the Sierra Towers in Los Angeles, purchasing a two-bedroom, 20th-floor unit in the Sierra Towers condominium building that had been listed for $2,497,000.
--TV director James Burrows has listed his gorgeous Bel-Air mansion, shown above, for $12,850,000. The listing is here.
--A lovely two-bedroom contemporary house in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills that actor Joel Grey remodeled during the 1990s has been listed for $1,895,000. The listing is here.
--A five-bedroom, midcentury house in the Hollywood Hills area that the late singer Bobby Darin lived in in the 1950s and actor Brock Peters owned until his death in 2005 is on the market for $3,689,000. The listing is here.

From The Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Ellen DeGeneres has put her Montecito house on the market for $24 million, less than six months buying it for $15.75 million. It's our estate of the day later today.
--Former basketball star Latrell Sprewell has put his house in Purchase, New York on the market for $4.99 million. The seven-bedroom home is still being lived in by his girlfriend who is the mother of four of his children. The listing for the large Colonial is here.
--Memphis Grizzlies forward Mike Miller and his wife, Jennifer, are asking $7.99 million for a six-bedroom home in the pricey Lake Sherwood area. The house has a dedicated website that showcases the brand spanking new home.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
-- Scottish comedian Billy Connolly and his wife Pamela have bought a loft apartment in the Flatiron district for $3.85 million for a 10th-story loft at 105 Fifth Avenue.
--Seema Boesky, the ex-wife of Ivan Boesky, has sold he penthouse in the Belaire building where Cory Lidle crashed his plane, for $4.3 million.
--Billionaire philanthropist Jon Stryker has sold his 62nd-floor apartment in the south tower of the Time Warner Center for $8.55 million.
--Party-planner David Tutera has picked up a full-floor condo at East 21st Street's Infinity Flats listed at $4.495 million.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Beach Boy Bruce Johnston and his wife have listed their Santa Barbara home for nearly $4.4 million.
--Xorin Balbes, a designer-developer has renovated the El Cabrillo bungalows in Hollywood. Seven on the ten courtyard-style units
have already been sold and the three left are selling for $745,000 to $999,000.

Some celebrities go into the wine business, some open restaurants, others have clothing or accessories lines. Music legend Elton John has finally created a product line. Fashion Week Daily reports that Elton has teamed up with Bath & Body Works to create the Fireside Collection. The line of candles and other home fragrance products will benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation. There will also be a Legendary Rock Sweepstakes that gives consumers the chance to win a$75,000 5.5 carat diamond pendant by designer Daniel K. You can register for notification when the products launch at the Bath & Body Works website.

A drivable piece of rock memorabilia is going on the block on May 24. That's when H & H Auctions is selling the red 1985 Bentley Continental that used to tote Elton John around. This drophead coupe was featured in the video for his song "Nikita" and is estimated to sell for £44-48000 ($81,162-$88,540). The car was sold to its current owner back in 2002 so it's not Elton-fresh although they promise it is in top condition.  The car has 33,500 miles on it and has a ten-disc CD player and extra speakers. The car also has a  B20 ELT registration and is offered for sale with history file and MOT certificate valid until May 2007.