SWIFTY’S STAR-STUDDED, TRIPLE-A LIST SOIREE

To hear Irving Paul Lazar (a.k.a. Superagent Swifty) tell it, he can’t fathom the fuss made each year over his little Oscar-watching party. “It’s not that important,” he’ll say.

Right. But to say that Lazar and his wife, film maker Mary Lazar, make a few calls to their pals, throw a couple bowls of peanuts around, crack some beers and turn on the tube somehow doesn’t capture it.

Oscar watching at “Thelazars”--one word to Hollywood’s Establishment--is as much an institution as the awards ceremony itself--and much tougher to attend. For 28 years, in several different locales (now in its third year at Spago), a select 200 Triple-A List types have amassed for drinks, dinner, schmoozing and, of course, a bit of Oscar-watching.

The guests run the gamut from rich, famous and powerful to the very, very rich and legendary. Past guests have included: movie stars Elizabeth Taylor, Warren Beatty, Barbra Streisand, Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, George Burns, Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson; movie power brokers and moguls Barry Diller, Mike Ovitz and Jeff Berg; international jet-setters Sir James Goldsmith, Sid Bass and Mercedes Kellogg; business moguls Malcolm Forbes and David Murdock and all-around celebrities Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, Walter Cronkite, Johnny Carson and ad infinitum.

Explains Lazar, “We limit our invitations to people we personally like and care about, then we also invite people that we might not know, but whom we admire.”

The early crowd, the one arriving at 5:30 at the West Hollywood restaurant, sips cocktails and nibbles Wolfgang Puck-style hors d’oeuvres--tiny pizzas of duck, salmon and sausage. Many of the invited guests are downtown as nominees, presenters or heads of studios with nominated films; therefore, the dinner itself won’t be served until after the show.

Lazar, who turned 80 last week, can be found in close proximity to the front door greeting guests while keeping a bespectacled eagle eye on the TV broadcaster or two allowed to do interviews in the restaurant’s foyer.

Unlike the Oscar show, which credentials hundreds of journalists for backstage reporting, Lazar is very particular about who covers his affair and how it’s done. One false move can cause the gracious host to become a tiny tyrant.

Reporters may not take notes or pester guests. One complaint from a reclusive star about intrusive questions and the media person in question may find himself/herself quickly shown to the door. Several years back, “Entertainment Tonight” reporter Barbara Howar ventured inside Spago with her camera crew after Lazar told her expressly to keep cameras outside. Infuriated, Lazar made every journalist at the party leave mid-evening immediately after the Oscar telecast ended. That was before the fun started, because the party really jumps into full gear about an hour after the show ends. Traditionally, Oscar winners not originally invited to the Lazars find themselves miraculously “one of the gang.”

“We can’t ask everybody, “ Lazar insists, “but this is an industry-related event.”

So the tiny gold Oscar statuette becomes an automatic ticket. In fact, some of the party’s more interesting moments have been provided by initially uninvited guests.

When then-hot Michael Jackson arrived with invited guest Liza Minnelli in 1984, normally unflappable superstars turned into unabashed autograph hounds. The scene so unnerved the reclusive pop star that he ended up hiding in the ladies room.

The after-Oscar party gets so thick with famous faces that unknowns begin to stick out like sore thumbs. It’s such a celebrity-feeding frenzy that even Spago First Lady Barbara Lazaroff confesses that she and husband Puck get awe-struck.

“We are never ones to get impressed with celebrities; we have them in here all the time,” Lazaroff explained. “But we get excited about seeing all those people in one room at the same time. I love to watch the body language as they all talk to each other.

“Last year I watched Audrey Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor schmoozing for a long time; it’s fascinating to watch legends like that.” Lazaroff laughed. “Usually, the conversations are very average--that’s what people don’t realize. They have families, children; they talk about problems with their kids.”

But even Lazaroff acknowledged that “only 1% of the population lives like that. They just ain’t regular folks.”