Hollywood Hits the Red Carpet

No, it wasn't a Twilight premiere. But when Water for Elephants author Sara Gruen looked outside her hotel room the night before the premiere of Fox 2000's adaptation of her best-seller, she discovered a hardy bunch of Twi-hards camped outside the Ziegfeld Theatre awaiting the next day's arrival of star Robert Pattinson. Despite sheets of rain, Gruen decided to run out to sign books and take a few photos -- and ended up with laryngitis. "That's what I get," she said at the Le Cirque afterparty. When Pattinson finally arrived at the Midtown Manhattan theater for the premiere, he obliged his throngs of fans by spending nearly an hour signing autographs before walking the red carpet arm-in-arm with co-star Reese Witherspoon, his love interest in the Depression-set Elephants. But the film's Christoph Waltz was well prepared for any mayhem that might ensue. In preparing for his role as animal trainer/schizophrenic August, Waltz traveled with a Swiss circus. "I'm sure I was in their way, but I got to see how it was done in reality," he said. "They didn't ask me to do any horrible tasks like shoveling manure, thank God. I would have felt obliged to." -- Randee Dawn and Pamela McClintock