TINSELTOWN SPYWITNESS.

Byline: Jenny Peters and Joel Stratte-McClure

A PIRATE'S LIFE: ``Can I borrow a pen, please?'' Johnny Depp asked when he ran out of ink after giving hundreds of autographs on the animated 1,000-foot-long red carpet during the outdoor premiere of ``Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest'' at Disneyland last Saturday. Depp then signed a young girl's pirate hat before handlers rushed him past thousands of other fans to the tail end of the pre-screening Pirates Ball party in Adventureland.

The star was as almost as popular as Mickey Mouse. ``I love pirates, and I'm definitely into Johnny Depp,'' said Marilyn Manson, who walked the red carpet in the company of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, James Cameron, Kate Bosworth, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Roseanne Barr.

While awaiting Depp's arrival, scores of celebs feasted at the Cafe Bayou in New Orleans Square and took multiple trips on the just-reopened Pirates of the Caribbean ride that inspired the film. It now features improved sound, novel special effects and new animatronic figures, including three of Depp's character, Capt. Jack Sparrow.

```Pirates' isn't bigger than Mickey Mouse, but it's certainly creating all sorts of opportunities for Disney,'' said Bruckheimer, while discussing the new ``Pirates'' suite at the Disneyland Hotel, where the doorbell plays ``Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life for Me.''

After ``Pirates'' opens on July 7, Depp plans to spend time at his home in the south of France before completing studio work on the third film in the franchise.

And what will co-star Keira Knightley miss most when that film's wrapped for release next Memorial Day?

``Acting with Johnny and living lavishly in the Caribbean while making (`Pirates' wasn't my worst assignment,'' Knightley said before the midnight fireworks. ``I'd like to rewind and do it all over again.''

``Pirates 4,'' anyone?

STAR-CROSSED OPENING: What's the sure sign of a good Hollywood launch party? Fire marshals closing down the place, of course!

That's just what happened at the Social Hollywood grand opening event on Tuesday night by about 11 p.m., which meant a sea of overdressed people (the night's theme was vintage Hollywood glam) hoping to get into Jeffrey Chodorow's latest restaurant/nightclub.

Naturally, the famous faces didn't get caught in the crush but were swept inside to the Sunset Boulevard space that was once the Hollywood Athletic Club. From the evening's hostess, Charlize Theron (the night was a benefit for her Africa Outreach Program), and her fiance Stuart Townsend, to the post-BET Awards latecomers -- P. Diddy, Jamie Foxx, Russell Simmons, Eve and Nas -- everyone jammed into the multilevel space to check it out.

Cool jazz played, and burlesque acts took the stage upstairs in the normally members-only game and party rooms, while the cavernous downstairs ballroom revealed scantily clad go-go dancers and a dance floor teeming with extra-tall partiers (the L.A. model contingent was definitely making the scene). Nicole Richie did her waif thing perched in one corner, while Lindsay Lohan, Serena Williams and Rebecca De Mornay wandered the hallways and checked out the silent auction filled with memorabilia from Theron's films.

Gorgeous ``America's Top Model'' winner and recent Playboy centerfold Adrianne Curry pulled off her sky-high stilettos and laughed, saying to her ``Brady Bunch'' hubby Christopher Knight, ``If we're going to wait forever for the car, I can't wear these things for one more minute!''

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3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) DEPP: Left the puffy shirt home

(2 -- color) MOUSE and KNIGHTLEY: Big date at Disneyland

(3 -- color) THERON: Playing hostess