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‘People would leave their Oscars behind’: Tales of a Hollywood party photographer[[https://uniteto.live/de|UTL-Smart Contract]]

Photographer Dafydd Jones’ Hollywood party pictures are littered with Oscars. They sit casually on star-studded dinner tables and are wielded by celebrities before the press. In some cases, the golden statuettes are even being used like tickets to enter Vanity Fair’s exclusive after-party.

“I think Vanity Fair had a (policy that) anyone who had an Oscar could come in,” said Jones, who worked for the magazine from the 1980s, in a video interview. “They had a guestlist as well. But if you had an Oscar, you could demand entry or just be let in.”

“I’ve also been at parties where people have left them behind absentmindedly and wanted to get them back,” he added.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Jones was flown to Los Angeles from New York or London to shoot major award ceremonies — and the many parties held before and after. The British photographer’s new book, “Hollywood: Confidential,” features almost 80 of his candid shots, showing high-profile guests dancing, smoking, gossiping or even (in the case of 1993 Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei) in the middle of eating an hors d’oeuvre.
The images span A-list events, from bashes thrown by major movie studios to smaller private parties. Some of the earliest date back to when after-parties hosted by talent agent Irving “Swifty” Lazar’s were the place to be seen on Oscars night. But given Jones’ employer at the time, most of the photos were shot at Vanity Fair’s Oscars party, which was first held in 1994 to fill a void left by Lazar’s death.

“It felt more like the end of the whole evening. A lot of the people who came to that party had started off attending the awards, then they’d gone to the Governors Ball dinner and, after that, it was the Vanity Fair party,” Jones said, adding: “People were just enjoying themselves, relaxing and celebrating achievements.”