TINSELTOWN SPYWITNESS.

PARENT TRIP: The Directors Guild of America building on Sunset Boulevard hosted the premiere party Thursday night for the latest Denzel Washington vehicle, ``John Q,'' which opens in theaters Friday. Washington plays an uninsured blue-collar father fighting a money-hungry hospital to get his dying son a heart transplant.

Daniel E. Smith portrays the young boy and said Washington really was like a father to him. ``He was great and he told lots of jokes and stuff,'' said the 11-year-old, who also has a regular spot on ``The Bold and the Beautiful.''

The Oscar-winning father of four said 17 years of parenting helped him understand the plight of his character. He added that getting to know Smith was another perk of the job. ``I took him on a trip to Niagara Falls in my pickup truck. That sort of broke the ice for everybody, and I think it reflects on the screen.''

Smith mingled like a pro at the party, where guests including Gena Rowlands, Tobey Maguire, Eriq La Salle and Peter Falk dined on Asian fare and apple cobbler a la mode. Former tabloid darlings Denise Rich, who wrote a song for the film, and Marla Maples soaked up the Hollywood scene, as did director Nick Cassavetes and co-stars Ray Liotta and (a very pregnant) Anne Heche and her husband, Coley Laffoon.

SNAP JUDGMENTS: It was definitely Ladies Night at the gala opening of the ``Great Women of Film'' photo exhibit at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills on Thursday night. Portraits of 30 female filmmakers (on view through April 21) - including Jodie Foster, Joan Allen, Susan Sarandon, writer/director Allison Anders, and producers Christine Vauchon and Jane Rosenthal - were displayed in the ground-floor reception room, selected from the new book ``Great Women of Film'' (Watson-Guptill; $29.95) by Helena Lumme and Mika Manninen.

``We wanted to elevate women filmmakers' status and give them more power in Hollywood and this is our way of doing that,'' says Lumme. The couple worked for two years to produce this intimate and revealing photo book, complete with insightful interviews and career retrospectives for the female actors, directors, producers and many lesser-known screenwriters, prop masters and film editors.

Oscar-winning actress/producer/director Foster (``The Silence of the Lambs,'' ``Nell,'' ``The Accused,'' ``Taxi Driver'') was by far the most famous femme in attendance. Her hair in a shaggy bob, wearing an ice blue Armani pantsuit, Foster posed with the authors in front of her Dr. Zhivago-esque photo taken as she hiked through a blizzard on a frozen mountaintop, swathed in white fur, carrying a canteen and snowshoes. Foster dubs it ``luck'' that on the day of the photo shoot on Mount Baldy, the weather turned remarkably foul, creating a total white-out.

To her, the difficult shot is symbolic of her rugged pioneering journey.

``People don't realize how hard making films is,'' Foster explained. ``My whole life growing up was about waking up at 3 a.m., throwing on boots and drinking bad coffee, being in really weird weather situations. It felt like survival, like being out there on your own, almost like a mountain guide. So that's the image that came to my mind. Also when I started in films, there were no women on the set. Maybe one played my mom or the script supervisor but it was usually me and 120 guys. I was out there on my own and this photo captures that feeling.''

When a young couple with a swaddled babe approached Foster for an autograph, the mother of sons Kit, 4 months, and Charlie, 3 years, cooed, ``Oh, look! What a tiny baby! I won't get too close. Germs!'' - then signed her name with a big heart on her photo page. Foster, who has two films coming out soon, ``The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys'' (she plays Sister Assumpta) and ``The Panic Room'' (she plays a divorced mother outwitting robbers), is learning to walk the motherhood/career tightrope.

``It's hard,'' she admitted. ``I don't work as much as a lot of people, maybe a film every one or two years. Charlie came with me to do 'Altar Boys,' and 'Panic Room' was shot here. But I was pregnant during filming so that was very hard. And dumb. I will not do that again!''

GRAND OLD BOOTY: Forget big entrances.

On ``The West Wing,'' it's all about the sexy exit. Last week on the NBC show, Republican White House attorney Ainsley Hayes (played by Emily Procter) proved that not all political conservatives are stuffed shirts. The shapely blond actress, who's been sorely missing from the show much of this season, turned up wearing a knockout dress that was proper from the front but tres provocative from the back.

In a scene at the end of the show, Hayes is called into work one evening and reports to Sam Seaborn's (Rob Lowe) office wearing a long black evening gown with a square neckline. After their brief all-business conversation, she turns to leave the office and drops her wrap, giving the startled Seaborn a good long look at the dress' dangerously low rear view.

``The $250 black jersey fishtail-hem gown (size 4) with leather spaghetti straps is by Laundry,'' says the show's costume designer, Lyn Paolo, who picked it up at Bloomingdale's and lowered the ruched back by an inch and a half to reveal the base of Procter's spine for a more dramatic effect. ``It's a great dress,'' says Procter with a mischievous grin. ``It would be great for a prom.''

But only if you want all the boys to follow you home!

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1) LA SALLE, WASHINGTON: ``John Q'' meets his public.

(2) HECHE, LAFFOON: With coming attraction.

Chris Pizzello/Associated Press

(3) FOSTER, LUMME, MANNINEN: Snow joke.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer