Snuggling next to Stewart was his immensely poised girlfriend, Caleigh Peters, a gravelly voiced high school senior who is the daughter of producer Jon Peters. Caleigh, 18 with a fledgling singing career, does not flinch at anything that comes out of her beau's mouth.
At the end of December, Sean popped the question to Caleigh. When that came up last week in an interview, Alana Stewart sighed. Sean's sister, Kimberly, had just gone through a two-minute engagement with Talan Torriero, a former star of MTV's reality show "Laguna Beach" (briefly a client of Weintraub's).
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday January 10, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 36 words Type of Material: Correction
'Sons of Hollywood': An article in Monday's Calendar section about the forthcoming reality show "Sons of Hollywood" gave the wrong first name for one of CBS Chairman Les Moonves' sons. He is Adam Moonves, not Andy.
"Kids today get engaged like we used to go steady," she said. "I don't know how serious it is. I know they have been hanging out and she is adorable."
Weintraub had conceived the show with two other pals, Andy Moonves and Bobby Heyward. Moonves, son of CBS Chairman Les Moonves, and Heyward, son of Andrew Heyward, chief executive of the children's entertainment company DIC, bowed out: "Being on camera wasn't the right fit for their lifestyles."
Although everyone insists the show was sold on its merits, not nepotism, its very premise has a certain poignancy, given the large shadows cast by the fathers of Stewart and Spelling. To their credit, the sons don't pretend otherwise. "My dad is one of the biggest rock and roll stars in the world," said Stewart. "It is very daunting. I used to look at him and go, 'I am gonna be up there one day,' but I never had the self-confidence or self-esteem to believe in myself until recently."
"It's like trying to fit into Shaq O'Neal's shoes," said Spelling. "Never gonna happen. I mean, my dad's in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most prolific producer in history. The man was a genius. I can't really compare myself."
For the show, which is scheduled to premiere April 1, the trio moved into a home in the Hollywood Hills for four months last year. What ensued was a heightened version of their already high-octane lives. Weintraub negotiated a music deal for Stewart and a movie deal for Spelling, Aaron Spelling died and Stewart appeared naked many times.
"Sean likes to be in the buff. There's no way to avoid that," said Taylor, the producer. "There is a lot of comedy in their relationships. Randy is very much the straight man. With Sean, you never know what you are going to get. And David is sort of the guy between them, holding it together, keeping the ship on an even keel."
For him, a good part of the drama is centered on the privileged lives of Stewart and Spelling: "It's watching how they handled the day-to-day access to privilege that they have. You have a unique opportunity to screw it up really badly or take advantage of it. It's really tough in this town."
Robert Sharenow, the A&E programming executive who bought the show, called it "a real home run" for the network, which has had other reality shows of varying degrees of success, including "Dog the Bounty Hunter" and "Gene Simmons: Family Jewels." "One of the reasons we are attracted to Sean, Randy and Dave is these guys just go," he said. "It's nonstop comedy and drama with them."
After their dinner at Koi, the Sons sauntered across La Cienega to Area, the latest Sam Nazarian-Brent Bolthouse hotspot. "Seany, Seany, Seany," a good-looking brunet murmured languidly to Stewart as he passed her on the sidewalk. "Again?"
Someone asked Spelling for an autograph. Sweeping past paparazzi and wannabes, past velvet ropes and bouncers, Weintraub led the way to a corner table, ordered good Champagne and surveyed the room while Spelling drifted off to chat with friends and Stewart and Peters plopped down on a sleek leather sofa. "I've probably had sex with half the girls in this place," Stewart said a few minutes later to no one in particular. Peters, either headed for early sainthood or too young to know she should be alarmed, did not react.
One table over, an MTV film crew had a camera trained on Lauren Conrad, star of its reality show "The Hills." (She was a breakout star from the first season of "Laguna Beach," which also, as mentioned, spawned Torriero, Sean Stewart's ex-future brother-in-law.)
In any case, no one even seemed to notice the camera.
