A year ago no one knew anything about a French film called “The Artist” made in Los Angeles by French people for $15 million. No American knew the names of Jean DuJardin and Michel Hazanavicius or Berenice Bejo. Then in May, producer Thomas Langmann showed Harvey Weinstein this silent black and white movie about the end of the silent film era. And the rest is history.

Now DuJardin, a French TV star, told me at 4am Pacific, “I am shocked.” At a late late after party around the pool at the Chateau Marmont, cast and crew celebrated. Some jumped in the pool fully clothed. Almost everyone spoke French. DuJardin gripped his gold Oscar statue with a death grip. “Have you met my new friend?” he asked people as he showed off his prize. “I still cannot believe it.” His wife said that her emails from France were overwhelming. “They are so proud at home.”

Move up Move down  “The Artist” and the Medium-Agnostic Appeal of Old Tech  Allen St. John Contributor   The Most Controversial Dress At Oscars 2012  Jane Lee Forbes Staff  A little later, the cast and crew moved over to the Four Seasons Hotel for a live interview with Ann Curry on The Today Show. Harvey Weinstein accompanied them. Altogether he picked up 9 of the 16 Oscars for which his company was nominated including getting Meryl Streep her first Oscar in 29 years, and another for the documentary, “Undefeated.” For Weinstein, it was his second Best Picture in a row. Last year it was “The King’s Speech. ” Add these to “ Chicago,” “The English Patient,” and “Shakespeare in Love” — all Best Picture winners, plus dozens and dozens of nominees from “Pulp Fiction” to “The Cider House Rules” to “The Aviator”–Weinstein is the single most winning studio head in history.

Streep’s win is particularly poignant. She has two Oscars, from 1979 and 1982, yet with 17 nominations, the public perceived her as having many more statues. She’s come close with “Doubt,” “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Music of My Heart,” “Bridges of Madison County”–and so many more. Winning at last after 29 years meant beating her friend Viola Davis. But Streep is human and can only stand so much. The Academy obviously agreed.

More later this afternoon from my visits to the Elton John and Vanity Fair parties, all star studded…

read us all at www.forbes.com

Here’s the one person in the Whitney Houston story whose name you have not heard, and who has remained a mystery: a Dutch man from Amsterdam who goes by the name of Raffles van Exel. He is also known – in court records—as Raffles Dawson and Raffles Benson. He was on the fourth floor of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in one of Houston’s suites when she died. He appeared downstairs in the lobby shortly thereafter, wearing aviator sunglasses, sobbing.

As usual, he had an entourage in tow, including Quinton Aaron, the actor who played the football player in “The Blind Side.” Raffles, in one of his many PR Newswire releases, recently announced that he’s producing movies with Aaron. It’s just one of many ventures he announces regularly. For someone who has no obvious means of support, he is a regular on PR Newswire and You Tube. On the latter, you can find him interviewing friends of Michael Jackson. It is assumed that he sells stories to tabloids. He regularly includes names of tabloid reporters like Kevin Frazier of “The Insider” on his Tweets.

Despite the shock of Whitney’s death, Raffles still made it downstairs to Clive Davis’s party. He was dressed in formal wear, had Whitney’s tickets in his hand, and intended  to sit at her table. Just inside the ballroom he was comforted by celebrities to whom he related his story—“I found Whitney.”  Gayle King hugged him. Quincy Jones listened patiently to his story. A security guard told me later, “Well, he was up there.” He was also hanging around with Houston all week prior to her death. On Tuesday when she emerged from a nightclub, looking disheveled, Raffles appears in a photograph on TMZ like a deer in headlights. He is standing right behind her in a powder blue suit. On Twitter, he wrote: “STOP reading the stupid blogs.. Whitney had a great time, she looked amazing. Nothing was wrong, it was just DAMN hot in that club.”

But who is Raffles van Exel? He’s one of Hollywood’s mysteries. I first met him in 2005 hanging around the Jackson family during Michael Jackson’s child molestation trial. After Michael went abroad, Raffles was often seen with Michael’s father, Joseph Jackson. He trades on being an “insider” when there’s a scandal. No one really knows him, but he’s always where there’s action and celebrities. On the internet he claims to own a number of companies including Raffles Entertainment. He’s also been sued a couple of times, once by a partner in something called Max Records, Inc., and once by a private aviation company in Los Angeles. I spoke to the plane company and they said they can’t comment because the situation is ongoing. On Twitter he claims to be managing “my girl,” Chaka Khan. There are plenty of pictures of Raffles on the internet with celebrities. You can see him with everyone from Magic Johnson to Sandra Bullock. If ever there was a real life Zelig, he is it.

It’s  not a surprise that Raffles has turned up in Whitney Houston’s story. Last October, he and Whitney and others traveled to North Carolina with Whitney’s sister in law Patricia Houston for something called a Teen Summit. It was billed as part of The Patricia Houston Foundation, an organization for which there is no official 501 c3  registration. Pat Houston, married to Whitney’s brother Gary, has been Whitney’s manager for years.  (Whitney’s own foundation for children ceased functioning years ago.) She also owns a consignment shop in North Carolina, and a candle company called Marion P. Candles, with Whitney.

In the old days he used to wear a yellow jacket full of black question marks—like The Riddler. On Saturday night, as he pulled in various guests to Clive Davis’s party past the velvet ropes, he was wearing a Michael Jackson-like tuxedo. He lives in West Hollywood now, but his official domicile—and where he’s been sued—is Chicago. He has not responded to countless emails and phone messages.

UPDATE: Raffles indeed attended the funeral, riding with Pat Houston in a family car. Insiders are docked and concerned that he’s still hanging around. At the funeral he made a beeline up the aisle at the church at the end of the service, to have his picture taken with Cissy Houston. Security rebuffed him. I’ve since learned also that his family may be Dutch, but he is from Suriname in South America. More to come, both here and at Forbes.com

There are now two Spider Men on Broadway. Or are they two Spider Man(s)? Hmmm….Well, while Reeve Carney and his gang are swinging around at the Foxwoods Theater in “Spider Man: Turn off the Dark,” there’s a new webslinger up the street. At the Barrymore, Andrew Garfield has just started in previews for “Death of a Salesman” directed by Mike Nichols. Garfield is the new movie Spider Man. His girlfriend in real life and from the movie and from “The Help,” Emma Stone, was front and center on Saturday night for a sold out preview. So was the great character actress Caroline Aaron, who just closed in Woody Allen’s play and has been in lots of his films. Philip Seymour Hoffman is playing fifteen years older as Willie Loman in this new “Salesman.” Garfield is his ne’er do well son, Biff. Finn Witrock is the other son, Happy, and Linda Emonds is Willie’s long suffering loyal wife, Linda. Producer Scott Rudin was in attendance, as was Nichols. The doesn’t open until March 15th, but I can tell you this: expect a sonic boom that night and the next day. Late playwright Arthur Miller must be very happy up in heaven, signing Playbills and passing out cigars…

…Shat Happens: that’s the T shirt you can buy when you go to see William Shatner’s one man play on Broadway. It’s a short run, so get over to the Music Box ASAP. It’s well worth the price. Shatner is a real showbiz survivor. His show is really witty and fun. He’s very self deprecating. There’s a lot about “Star Trek” but not too much. You learn a lot about his life growing up in Montreal, how he got started, about one of his wives dying in his pool, and that George Takei doesn’t like him. Sadly, there’s nothing about his famous “Twilight Zone” episodes from 1960 and 1963. I guess they couldn’t get the rights to the clips. But there’s a lot about “Boston Public” and enough to stay fairly well amused for one hour, forty minutes. Not nearly as kitschy as I thought it would be. But very entertaining…

…Aretha Franklin rested all day Saturday, and put on one hell of a show at Radio City that night. She was sorry to miss Whitney Houston’s funeral, but it was a physical impossibility. She stayed a very short time at a reception in the lobby of her hotel–it had been planned for weeks. I ran into such luminaries as Vy Higginsen and George Faison, however. And Aretha reminisced about the days when Cissy Houston and the Sweet Inspirations alternated singing on her records and Elvis Presley’s before she called it a night.

Tonight’s Writers Guild Awards are sure to be lively, even though a number of Oscar nominated films–“The Artist” among them–are not eligible. Nevertheless, plenty of films are up for WGAW Awards. A few nights ago our LEAH SYDNEY went to the WGA’s  ‘Beyond Words 2012,’ in Beverly Hills.  Oscar nominees Alexander Payne (“The Descendants”), Aaron Sorkin (‘Moneyball”), Tate Taylor (‘The Help’), Steven Zaillian (Moneyball, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Annie Mumolo (Bridesmaids), Will Reiser (50/50), John Logan (‘Hugo’), and Stan Chervin (Moneyball’) were on the lively panel, which was moderated by Ron Bass (Rain Man, The Joy Luck Club).

Aaron Sorkin joked that when he got Steve Zallian’s version of the ‘Moneyball’ script before he did his part, “there were typos.”  Annie Mumulo– who wrote “Bridesmaids”– told the crowd that; “Kristin Wiig and I originally had a scene where Annie (Kristin’s character), goes through a forest to an open field where Christian Bale is waiting for her chopping wood.  Judd Apatow (the Executive Producer), put the kibosh on that, telling us…’hmmm, don’t think Christian Bale will do it.”  Annie also said of the megahit ‘Bridesmaids’, which she and Kristin were writing since 2006, “Kristin and I would have been happy if it made $50,000.”

At the after party, we caught up with the wonderful British actor Tom Payne, who plays the tortured jockey Leon Micheaux, on HBO’s hit series, “Luck.” He told us that Executive Producer Dustin Hoffman makes everyone feel comfortable and is just one of the guys.  “Dustin has this wonderful playful nature and it’s infectious on the set.”  “Luck” starts filming its second season next week. It’s an out of the box hit for HBO, and we’re thrilled because it also features our pal Richard Kind in a recurring role.

More from Hollywood last week…

The other night in LA was just like the kind of cliffhanger for a soap opera “Bold and Beautiful” producer Bradley could think up: President Obama tied up traffic going to Bell’s Holmby Hills estate. Meantime, tons of stars were jamming to get into “Characters Unite,” at the Pacific Design Center, given by The Moth theater company with the USA Network.  Storytellers told tales about their personal challenges.  The impressive group included ‘The Help’s’ Octavia Spencer and ‘J Edgar’ and ‘Milk’ screenwriter Dustin Lance Black.

Host Nathan Lane quipped to the crowd, “I guess we were the only ones not invited to Holmby Hills,” and went on to say, “They have Obama, and we have Octavia!”   Nathan said he was honored to be the host and then added, “As an actor who has a pilot on USA, I figured it couldn’t hurt.  Keep praying that I make it to a 14th episode which has never has happened. Cross your fingers.”  Openly gay Nathan added, “I’ve been faced with bigotry just recently… when I watched the Republican debates.”

Dustin Lance Black recounted his story about being gay and growing up Mormon in a repressive environment.  Sadly he told the audience that his brother, who also was gay and an addict, recently passed away. Octavia told the story of her doing the scene in ‘The Help’ in which she was about to be physically abused and how that changed her.

We asked Octavia how she felt about the night, ‘the more we talk about issues like this, the less taboo it all becomes.”

We asked her about it felt to be the odds on favorite to win the Supporting Actress award come Oscar night?

Octavia- “I never buy into that stuff.  The only time you can is when they call your name.  I’m not nervous about it because it’s beyond my control.”

Dustin Lance Black told us that, “The USA Network and The Moth know how to create change.  They understand that change comes from personalizing the struggle from storytelling.”

Black’s gay marriage play, “8” had a benefit reading in New York and will have one in Los Angeles on March 3rd that George Clooney, Jane Lynch, Martin Sheen, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Matthew Morrison, Jamie Lee Curtis, George Takei and Rob Reiner are in.  Reiner is also directing.

Black told me:  “I wrote it because the opposition works so hard to hide the truth, as soon as you know the truth, prejudice melts away.”

How does he feel about Obama? “We don’t have another choice.  The Republicans let a gay soldier be booed on stage and no one stopped it.  We have to re-elect Obama.”

Photo credit: Todd Williamson/WireImage