Isaac Mizrahi: Isaac Does the Oscars

"Anyway, back to the point. So, it was three a.m. in my parents' house and I was watching TV in my bedroom reading the big fall issue of Vogue. Back Street was on. The one with Susan Hayward and John Gavin. So. there I was with the magazine, drawing sketches of women's hairdos, probably from movies, and watching Back Street, which was about a fashion designer. All of a sudden, it was like, "This is what I want to do. Poor thing, she has all these problems with men, but she's fabulous because she owns her own salon.' I thought, 'If I have my own clothing salon and line of clothing to focus on, I'll have a certain control over my life."'

Knowing that Mizrahi is a fan of the movie All About Eve, in which the conniving, young hopeful "Eve Harrington" rides the coattails of aging diva "Margo Channing," I ask what he says to those who snipe that his Unzipped director -- and old boyfriend -- Douglas Keeve, played Eve to his Margo? "Wow," he says, letting out a sigh. "I never heard that. I know the true story, so I don't think it's that at all. We had a really, really great relationship for two years until he decided to break up with me and forgot to tell me." Did Mizrahi get the tiniest twinge of satisfaction when Keeve was recently fired from the film Inconvenienced for allegedly getting leading man Rob Schneider dropped on his head? "I was thrilled to hear it, but only because I fell it was good that he's not making that trashy movie with, what's his name, Rob Schwartz? Who even knows who that is? And who needs another movie about a holdup in a convenience store? After Unzipped, Hollywood thought about Douglas, "Hmm. Idiot? Or idiot savant?' I know he felt he should strike while the iron was hot, but, in the end, if the iron is hot, it just gets hotter. I told him, "Take your time and get something really good that's worth devoting the energy to.'"

Has Mizrahi run into Robert Altman? It's a tantalizing notion, simply because so many critics thought Unzipped said everything about the zany, flea circus glamour of fashion that Altman's Ready to Wear didn't. "Here's what I remember about meeting him. I was with a beautiful woman, a real bombshell, and someone introduced us to Altman and it was like I didn't exist. He completely ignored me, which I thought was kind of cute, actually."

I've heard that since Unzipped was released, Hollywood's dangled such offers before Mizrahi as a role in the all-star black comedy The First Wives Club. "I went to Hollywood a couple of times over the summer for Unzipped and for launching my line of eyeglasses," he admits, "and you cannot believe the kinds of faxes people sent me, like, 'We were born to work together.' I can act, definitely, and be really good. On Unzipped. I knew Douglas, and Douglas put it together brilliantly. But there's always a risk when you don't know the director. [Still] if Stanley Kubrick calls me. I'm all his. Look what he did for Sue Lyon."

We've been having such a high old time, Mizrahi panics on realizing that he's late for a shrink appointment. "Oh, well," he says, shrugging, "this has been a shrink appointment." So. then, any last words? He squares his shoulders, flashes his eyes a la Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest and bellows. "Take that bitch of a bearing wall out and put a window where a window ought to be!" Exactly.

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Stephen Rebello co-wrote "Sex '96" for the Jan./Feb. issue of Movieline.

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