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The love of cinema was in Ed Limato’s DNA, the supernova agent for 44 years whose clients included Richard Gere for more than 40 years, Mel Gibson for more than 30 years, Denzel Washington, Steve Martin, and dozens of others such as Claire Danes, Liam Neeson, Kevin Costner, Diana Ross, Billy Crystal, Robert Downey, Jr.

At his Heather House mansionette off Coldwater Canyon, Ed created a jewelbox theater that he named after screen goddess Marlene Dietrich. The residence was built in 1936 by Dick Powell for wife Joan Blondell, and later bought by George Raft where he and pin-up beauty Betty Grable nested. (Amusing anecdotes abound about George’s “package” from Louie Alhamati, owner of the Parisian Florist on Sunset Boulevard, who was frequently asked by George’s friends to design “joke” arrangements about George’s “endowment.”)

Ed screened classic films at the intimate red plush and polished brass theater for his assistants (always three) to take pride in Hollywood’s historic artistry, and after the assistants became junior agents, he gifted them with Rolex wristwatches. On her must-read Deadline Hollywood blog, Nikki Finke reports that Ed earned $5 million yearly. A personal and professional friend, Nikki recounts Ed’s legacy in incomparable detail. Nobody like Nikki to get it first, and get it right.

Ed was awaiting a lung transplant at Cedars-Sinai, but elected to return home the week before his death. Home to be comforted by friends and family – brother Paul, sister Angela and his bedridden 99-year-old mom Angelina survive him. “The mold was broken with Ed’s loss,” Richard Gere says, “there’ll never again be anyone like him … he was the best of the best.” Steve Martin hails his “class and kindness,” Mel Gibson found that Ed was “all heart, in a city where they say agents have no heart,” and Denzel Washington loved him as “family.” “The last of a breed, a gentleman agent, who visited us every summer in Provence...we will miss him,” lamented Elton John.

Ed’s personal projectionist for 14 years, Ron Talavaro says, “Ed was the best person I’ve worked with in Hollywood for more than 35 years.”

In no time and on both coasts, phones began ringing about the “client poaching.” Who among the rival agents is scrambling to lure Ed’s favored clients?

We met Ed decades ago when we writing our thrice-weekly columns for the Hollywood Reporter, and he lived on Torreyson Drive in the Hollywood Hills. Ed had invited us to a birthday party that he hosted for Richard Gere, with Mother Moon catering, and that was when we tagged him the Barefoot Host in the Versace Shirt.

More parties followed. Among them were evenings at the Outpost Drive house that belonged to Bela Lugosi, who installed an outdoor fountain for his pet leopard that peed only when water was trickling. From 1998-2007, Ed hosted his infamous million dollar soirees on the Friday night before the Oscarcast, gathering four hundred or more guests at Heather House. We were privileged to be one of the only members of the press to be invited. Ed always called to check if we received the invitation. We’re proud that he was a loyal reader with our Hollywood Reporter columns, and now with the Beverly Hills Courier.

The mansionette, as always, was resplendent with luxurious furnishings and antiques and open for guests to enjoy, as were the cabanas and the guest house. His dressing rooms were in full view, and guests marveled at how organized his closets were. Here and abroad, Ed was lauded as a best-dressed Hollywood executive.

A gigantic party marquee covered the tennis court and swimming pool that were carpeted. The guest list included the highest quotient of Hollywood power and glamour, along with rock royalty and a sprinkling of politicos and literati. Wouldn’t you know that he was barefoot? Our tag line of the Barefoot Host in the Versace Shirt had stuck, even mentioned in Kevin Sessums’ Vanity Fair profile that acknowledged Ed as a star-maker. Ed consistently mused that, “Donatella Versace never fails to Fed-Ex me a new shirt the week before the party. ”

To this day, we’re bewildered that Architectural Digest’s Paige Rense nixed photographing Ed’s vast estate with its Hollywood splendor, which we had suggested. It’s a hell of a lot more exciting than those AD pages with the “cookie cutter” designer layouts, one issue often seeming just like the next.

Her 164-foot yacht, Barracuda, has purple sails, inspired as owner Angela Ismailos reveals, by a passage from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra when the Egyptian Queen sat on the royal barge and “purple were the sails.” Angela, the interviewer-director-producer of Great Directors, hosted guests on the Barracuda during the Cannes Film Festival this spring, and from the favorable press we’ve been reading, she’s the It Girl of the summer.

“I wanted Great Directors to be a celebration of their provocative filmmaking,” she says. “Initially, I approached Robert Altman, who accepted my invitation to appear in the film, but died before the filmmaking commenced.” Meanwhile, ten came aboard: Bernardo Bertolucci; David Lynch; Stephen Frears; Agnes Varda; Liliana Cavani; Todd Haynes; Catherine Breillat; Richard Linklater, John Sayles; and Ken Loach, who prefers watching football to Hollywood blockbusters.

Athens-born Angela Ismailos hails from a Greek shipping family, and her husband George Economou is in the shipping industry. During her youth, she became an impassioned cinephile, as was her late dad Nicholas, whose love for the arts was “unparalleled … my father was my teacher.”

For Angela’s two-year filming, she traveled between Europe and America, and admits that on her “wish list” for a Great Directors sequel are Michael Haneke, whose brilliant The White Ribbon was nominated for an Oscar, Francis Coppola, Wong Kar-Wei, Wim Wenders.

A striking blonde and lawyer by profession, Angela studied film, worked on movie sets in Los Angeles, and discovered that “directing is not something you learn in school.” For an upcoming project, she’ll star in and direct City of a Dead Woman – “about a parishioner’s complex relationship with her priest.”

“Witnessing a night like this gives you faith in the future … these young folks offer great hope,” says George Eaton of Canada’s Eaton dynasty, who flew to Los Angeles with wife Terri for a whirlwind visit to attend the Inaugural Thirst Gala at the Hotel Casa del Mare in Santa Monica. George was praising the twentysomethings who masterminded their successful nonprofit event.

The Thirst Project was founded two years ago by the Indiana-born Seth Maxwell, now 2l, with eight of his thespian classmates from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Hollywood. Raising funds with their creative endeavors, the members brought safe, clean water to 34,000 people in six countries around the world. “More than one billion people do not have access to safe drinking water...one in every six of us,” avers Seth, who co-hosted the gala with AnnaLynne McCord. “Water-borne diseases kill between three and four million people every year.” What dedicated the friends to this project was the heart-breaking photograph of a child in a Third World country drinking muddy water from a curbside.”

Actress Leigh Bush, the mate of George’s cinematographer son, David Eaton, chaired the festivities with vice-chair Tabitha Gonzalez. Leigh and David live in Los Angeles, where Leigh pursues her career. “They’ve been together for eight years,” offered George Eaton. “Longer than the marriages of many couples in Canada.”