By KATHLEEN CRAUGHWELL, Times Staff Writer
The grand and storied Canfield-Moreno estate in Silver Lake proved the perfect setting for the Wednesday night post-premiere party of director Tim Burton's spooky fairy tale "Sleepy Hollow."
The 4?-acre hilltop estate, now called the Paramour, was built in 1923 by Charles Canfield as a wedding present to his daughter Daisy and silent film star Antonio Moreno. Daisy died in a car wreck in 1933 and the house was turned into a school for girls run by Franciscan nuns. The site has been abandoned and in disrepair for almost a decade and has only recently been reopened by new owner Dana Hollister for private parties.
Guests included the film's Johnny Depp (and his girlfriend, French singer-actress Vanessa Paradis), Christina Ricci, Martin Landau, Casper Van Dien (with wife Catherine Oxenberg) and Burton and his companion Lisa Marie (who portrays Depp's Wicca-inclined mother in the movie's flashback sequences). Party-goers romped through the 22-room mansion and, poolside, ate sumptuous dishes of oak-planked salmon with horseradish-mustard glaze, sage-roasted whole turkey and cured Virginia ham. (Cienega catered the party.)
A fog machine produced atmosphere, literally, and a headless horseman (not literally, we assume) circled the grounds on a gorgeous black stallion.
On the way out (guests were shuttled down the hill to their cars in mini-buses), everyone received a 6-inch "Sleepy Hollow" action figure, in likenesses of Depp's Ichabod Crane, Christopher Walken's Headless Horseman (yes, head detachable) and Miranda Richardson's Crone of the Western Woods.
