PARTY LINES : 9/9/99: OH, WHAT A NIGHT.

Byline: David Bloom and Reed Johnson Staff Writers

There must have been something about the nonagonal relentlessness of Thursday's date. People just couldn't resist that 9/9/99 date as the most propitious time to kick off some sort of event.

For the game freaks, it was the new Sega Dreamcast machine's rollout. For the computer geeks, it was a painless mini-preview of Y2K fear and loathing. In New York, they had their own kind of wackiness, in the annual overhype known as the MTV Music Video Awards. And here in Los Angeles, well, they couldn't resist either.

For emotional poignancy combined with celebrity wattage, the premier mega-celebration on the Night O' Nines was the annual Dinner of Champions for the regional chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

The splashy shindig featured a healthy chunk of Hollywood's A-list, all called out to honor Fox Filmed Entertainment chairman and CEO Bill Mechanic, actor David L. Lander (who just disclosed his own 15-year battle against multiple sclerosis) and not incidentally, Fox vice president Tom Sherak, whose daughter Melissa also is fighting MS, an erratically degenerative, often fatal nerve disease.

Sherak, one of the best-liked executives in Hollywood, served as the dinner's chairman, enlisting an impressive array of donors, ranging from Peter and Bobby Farrelly (the brothers were among only five co-hosts of the event, the rest all corporations) to the National Football League.

All the work paid off handsomely for the MS Society. On the day when 53-year-old Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Jim ``Catfish'' Hunter succumbed to the related amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (known as Lou Gehrig's disease for one of its most famous victims), about 1,400 people filled a cavernous ballroom in the guts of the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City and helped raise an eye-popping $3.1 million for the cause.

Reality TV guy Byron Allen, now devoid of head hair, emceed the event ably, while Jon Bongiovi arrived considerably less hirsute than in his days leading hair metal band Bon Jovi. Bongiovi still wore the chest-baring, skin-tight black clothing of his now somewhat distant Jersey youth, along with a fair amount of easy brio.

He played a terrific, if little noticed, three-song acoustic set featuring a couple of his old hits in considerably more listenable form and, somewhat ironically given the proceedings, the old chestnut ``Money (That's What I Want).''

Earlier, Bongiovi, now embarked on an acting career to go with a forthcoming new album, had patiently waited with Sherak while Mariah Carey slowly worked her way through a gauntlet of media types.

Carey, busting out of a brown knit halter top and indefensibly odd floor-length olive skirt, slipped into the ballroom a couple of minutes after posing for a few photos with Sherak and his daughter, Bongiovi and others.

Lander, who played Squiggy on ``Laverne & Shirley'' among much else in a lengthy acting career, was supported most visibly at the event by Penny Marshall and Michael McKean, his former colleagues from the long-running '70s show.

Designated Movie Everyman Bill Pullman showed up, as did socially conscientious showman Steven Spielberg, ``Friends'' star Jennifer Aniston, string-pulling director Francis Ford Coppola, Disney film chief Joe Roth and a considerably cleaned up, if dressed-down Drew Barrymore.

Annette Bening accompanied her husband, presidential might-wanna-be Warren Beatty, who showed he must be serious about this politics thing. The Century Plaza Hotel, after all, bills itself as the Western White House, after serving as the West Coast aerie of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, among other Republican political notables, over the past few decades.

For good old-fashioned Hollywood spectacle, it was hard to top Wednesday's season-opening performance of L.A. Opera's ``Samson and Dalila.''

How old-fashioned? Well, for one thing, the lavish Act 3 set in this production of the stone-and-sandals epic looked like the remains of the Babylonian temple D.W. Griffith built for ``Intolerance'' way back in 1916.

The after-opera party picked up the theme of Middle Eastern intrigue, with fake Corinthian columns transforming the Music Center plaza into a kind of nouvelle ruin. Waiters in white jackets and red fezzes scurried in obsequious single file, bearing platters of stuffed grape leaves and other delicacies.

Hollywood was generously represented at the black-tie gala, with a guest list that included Faye Dunaway, Jacqueline Bisset, Charles Bronson, Sidney Poitier, Kathy Bates, Angie Dickinson, John Schlesinger, Angela Bassett, Courtney Vance, Julia Ormond and Harry Hamlin, along with various spouses and significant others. Also present were artist and opera director David Hockney, dapperly attired in red bow tie and white dinner jacket, and ubiquitous culturist Gil Garcetti, who finds time to run the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office.

The evening's stars, tenor Placido Domingo and mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, made grand entrances after doffing their makeup. After tearing down the Philistine temple, Domingo now will attempt to buff up L.A. Opera, which he'll take over as artistic director next summer after general director Peter Hemmings returns to his native England.

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5 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- color) Sharing a moment at the post-premiere party are the evening's stars, tenor Placido Domingo and mezzo-sprano Denyce Graves.

(2 -- color) Sidney Poitier and wife Joanna also attended Wednesday's premiere at the Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

(3 -- color) Lisa Rinna attended the opening night of L.A. Opera's ``Samson and Dalila'' with husband Harry Hamlin.

(4 -- color) Attending the Dinner of Champions for the Multiple Sclerosis Society are honoree and MS survivor David L. Lander, left Penny Marshall and Michael McKeon. The trio starred in the TV sitcom ``Lavern & Shirley.''

(5 -- color) Also at the Dinner of Champions are Fox Filmed Entertainment exec Bill Mechanic, left, Mariah Carey and Steven Spielberg.

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer