Elton John Oscar party success

Elton John's annual Oscar party attracted a galaxy of stars.

The cream of Hollywood including Sharon Stone, Sean Penn, Harrison Ford, Calista Flockhart and Heidi Klum attended the charity bash at Los Angeles' Pacific Design Center on Sunday (24.02.08).

Elton's party, now in its 16th year, is known for its auction centrepiece which raises money for the singer's AIDS Foundation. This year's prizes included a 1975 vintage Corvette Stingray car, five celebrity-designed pairs of Chopard sunglasses and a much-coveted Helmut Newton photograph of naked women.

During the auction, Elton offered to take his trousers off to encourage bidders to raise the stakes. Referring to her infamous flashing scene in 1992 thriller 'Basic Instinct', Sharon laughed: "I would do that too, but you've already all seen that before."

Guests, who paid a fortune to attend the star-studded event, were also treated to a performance from the singer. Elton said: "I've never played at my own Oscar party. It was so uncertain as to whether the party was going to happen, because of the recently resolved writer's strike, so we didn't have enough time to ask a younger act to do it. So I said, 'I'll do it!' "

Sharon, who has attended Elton's annual party for the past few years, said the highlight of the evening was when Elton performance of 'Benny and the Jets'.

She said: "I looked around and saw the whole audience in black tie just singing their hearts out with youthful abandon. It was like everyone was at their high school dance. It was brilliant." Unfortunately, rumours that Prince would also perform on stage failed to materialise.