Mike Todd's Anniversary Party for Around the World in 80 Days in New York City, 1957

Some 365 days after his hit opened, the movie mogul invited 18,000 to Madison Square Garden for doughnuts and drinks. "It was something of a disorganized mess," recalls attendee Steve Allen. "But it was fun to witness."

Mike Todd's Movie Premiere at Battersea Festival Gardens, 1957
After the soiree for 2,500 to hype Around the World's London opening, a pregnant Elizabeth Taylor (flanked by third husband Todd, above left, and her ex Michael Wilding, standing, far right) quipped, "I'm not sure the world is ready for another Mike Todd." Douglas Fairbanks Jr. captained a toy boat with wife Mary (below), while Vivien Leigh (right) did a Scarlett O'Hara sidesaddle on the merry-go-round.

Richard Burton's Hawaiian Hoopla in New York City, 1958

"I'm never really comfortable playing people from the working class," Burton once said, and he didn't party that way either. When work kept him from taking wife Sybil on a promised Hawaiian vacation, he surprised her by bringing Hawaii to her. Some 200 stars did the hula on an indoor beach-with-pool. Unaware of the oncoming beach ball, Burton (near right) chatted with actress Susan Strasberg.

In a turban and a madcap mood, singer Lena Home jitterbugged with comedian Jules Munshin.

Richard Burton's Hawaiian Hoopla in New York City, 1958
Sliding into the fun, stripper-turned-actress Gypsy Rose Lee (right) was costumed in leopard spots and a necklace of bones; the host (far right) chose a garland of orchids and a mischievous smile. At a beachside banquette (below), Henry Fonda and wife Afdera (left) joined Peter and Suzanne Ustinov for a Hollywood summit meeting.

Mike Romanoff's New Year's Eve Party in Los Angeles, 1957
"Auld Lang Syne" will probably never get better—or more bittersweet—than this. Four kings of the big screen, when it really was big, rang in the New Year with flutes of bubbly, genuine smiles and an ocean of class at Romanoff's, the legendary Hollywood watering hole. (From left) Clark Gable had just appeared in Band of Angels; Van Heflin had shot his biggest hit, The 3:10 to Yuma; Gary Cooper was celebrating his star turn in Love in the Afternoon; and Jimmy Stewart had completed The Spirit of St. Louis. They were all flying high.

Suddenly Last Summer Premiere Party in Hollywood, 1959
Murder, she thought. At least that's what seems to be going through the mind of consummate Hollywood professional Angela Lansbury (near left) at this affair to launch the film version of Tennessee Williams's quirky one-act play. And no wonder. Summer, which starred Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, was a dark tale about madness in the Old South. But Audrey Hepburn (center, with husband Mel Ferrer) seemed much more at ease. An Oscar nomination for The Nun's Story that same year had put her in a prime Hollywood position. She was also about to start a family.

Elsa Maxwell's Liberation of Paris Celebration in Beverly Hills, 1944
"Parties to me have never been social diversions," the nation's Depression-era hostess-with-the-mostest Maxwell (attended by young acolytes, above) once proclaimed. "They have been works of art." She induced a grim, war-minded Hollywood, including the likes of Cary Grant, Judy Garland, Igor Stravinksy and Cesar Romero, to turn out in Beverly Hills for dinner and dancing. Orson Welles (left) cut a lean and mean rug with pregnant wife Rita Hayworth.

Mocambo Nightclub Dance Party in Los Angeles, 1949
Before she hit TV, B-movie player Lucille Ball was, she said, "dutiful Ball. If someone [from RKO, which then held her contract] said, 'Be there at 4 a.m.,' I was there. Or if they said, 'For gosh sakes, Lucy, go home,' I would." On this evening on Sunset Boulevard, though, she cut loose to the sounds of the Firehouse Five Plus Two jazz band, while Judy Garland took a more tenuous step.

Steve Rubell's Nonstop Party at Studio 54 in New York City, 1977
For the bored and the beautiful, the disco epicenter of the '70s was Studio 54, where regulars included (from left) designer Halston, Bianca Jagger, film producer Jack Haley Jr. with his wife, Liza Minnelli, and Andy Warhol. "I don't want any polyester types in here," owner Rubell said in 1977. "A year ago I wouldn't have let myself in."

Florence Pritchett Smith's Cuban Fiesta in New York City, 1958
Mrs. Earl E.T. Smith, the wife of the U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, threw a society gala for 474 of the nation's elite to raise funds for a deserving Cuban student to attend a U.S. fashion design school. After an elaborate floor show imported from Havana's Hotel Nacional, guests including socialites Porfirio Rubirosa and Douglas Burden Jr. danced until 3 a.m. Young actress Jane Fonda (right) got into the swing too. Enjoying the fare at the Waldorf-Astoria (below), David Niven sat with Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of Senator Jack. Three months after this party, Castro's rebel forces took over Cuba, and four years later, then-President Kennedy would be forced to deal with the Cuban missile crisis while America held its breath.

Truman Capote's Black and White Ball in New York City, 1966
No wonder he was known as the Tiny Terror. A month before his masked gala at the Plaza Hotel, the diminutive author-gossip-celebrity (fox-trotting at left with Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham) crowed, "People are practically committing suicide because they didn't get invitations." Among the 500 charmed ones cavorting in black and white to the Peter Duchin orchestra: Rose Kennedy, Henry Ford II, poet Marianne Moore, Candice Bergen and (above) well-seasoned party girl Tallulah Bankhead.

Francesca Hilton's Birthday Celebration in Beverly Hills, 1958
"I'd never dreamed about motherhood," Zsa Zsa Gabor wrote in her 1991 autobiography One Lifetime Is Not Enough, "but when I looked into Francesca's little face, I felt complete." The emotion was evident at Francesca's 11th-birthday party (Zsa Zsa had divorced her father, hotelier Conrad Hilton, in '48). Mom (foreground) and Francesca (at her left elbow) unwrapped gifts including a gold watch and two Pat Boone records, while Grandma Jolie Gabor looked on.

Clifton Webb's Sunday Lunch in Hollywood, 1955
Actor Clifton Webb's mother, Mabelle, called Hollywood the Land of Nod, referring to the preponderance of yes-men and the slow pace. But the A-list group that often assembled on Webb's lawn on Sundays was a lively bunch: (from left) Laurence Olivier; Webb; director Richard Sale (behind Webb); Olivier's wife, Vivien Leigh; actress Joan Bennett; Vivien's daughter Suzanne (behind Bennett); Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart; producer Charlie Feldman (behind Bogart); Nadia Gardiner; Lucia Davidova (against the tree); Mary Loos Sale (niece of screenwriter Anita Loos); urbane British actor Reggie Gardiner; and Mother Webb.

Rocky Cooper's Musicale in Beverly Hills, 1951
"I have to be a star like another man has to breathe," Sammy Davis Jr. once wrote. Although he was not yet a major player on the Hit Parade or in Hollywood, he already knew how to work rooms big and small. At the evening Mrs. Gary Cooper put on at her home (above), Davis let it rip for, among others, Merle Oberon, Janet Gaynor, Gloria (Mrs. Jimmy) Stewart and movie costume designer Adrian (applauding).

Rock Hudson's Barbecue in Hollywood, 1952
Two years before his first starring role (in 1954's Magnificent Obsession), the former Illinois truck driver told a reporter, "I can't make [onscreen] love very well. I just go in and mash the makeup." But at a backyard cookout, he handed out the hamburgers with his usual steady charm to (clockwise from Hudson) actor Bob Preble, screenwriter Leonard Stern, actresses Lori Nelson and Julia Adams and script girl Betty Abbott.

Malcolm Forbes's 70th-Birthday Celebration in Tangier, 1989

It took a celebrity capitalist to put a fabulous lid on the decade of conspicuous excess. Before they began concealing their assets and halving their kitchen staffs to get neat for the '90s, some 800 glitterati attended one last, over-the-top magic-carpet ride in Morocco. The publishing magnate's $2 million, three-day affair was marshaled by his five children, including current presidential-runner Steve (at the microphone, above).

Puttin' on the Ritz with 200 Moroccan horsemen, 150 cooks (who barbecued 100 lambs and made a whole lot of couscous) and a rendition of "Happy Birthday" by Beverly Sills were Henry Kissinger, Lee lacocca, Calvin Klein, Rupert Murdoch and Forbes's then-frequent companion Elizabeth Taylor (above, in a green caftan). And what fun they had! They viewed the host's 117,000 toy soldiers, watched fireworks and saw skits by 750 folkloric performers. The festivities left guests divinely exhausted and media pundits ranting about the morality of big spending. "I'm just doing what most people do," said Forbes (in kilt, center), "but on a different scale."