Sarah Silverman and Jennifer Coolidge brought the laughs, Christina Aguilera the music, and Sharon Stone the drama to “An Evening With Women”

Wow. Christina Aguilera has got such a great voice and when she launched into her first song at last night’s LA Gay & Lesbian Center event “An Evening With Women,” the rowdy room finally quieted down to give the Grammy winner their full attention.

It was already 11:30 p.m. and the crowd at the glitzy event had already included a very naughty and very funny routine by Sarah Siliverman, a lovely musical performance by event co-chair Linda Perry, very witty and refreshing comedy from host Jennifer Coolidge, the first joint public appearance by Cybill Shepherd and her daughter Clementine Ford who recently came out as a lesbian, and a stirring speech by Lorri L. Jean.

But Sharon Stone, looking absolutely gorgeous in a tight red dress, had inexplicably lost the crowd about halfway through a live auction which took place shortly before Aguilera took the stage.

There’s a reason why so many charities want Miss Stone to be their auctioneer: absolutely no one does it better. But she was way off of her game at the Beverly Hilton Hotel Friday night and as she slowly moved down the list of items – including a Bette Midler concert package and a trip to next year’s Gay Games in Germany, plenty of people had left their tables and gone to the bar in the back of the room.

At one point the Basic Instinct star said to them: “When you people are out there chuckling it up, I’m up here working for free. I get paid millions when I get paid so shut the fuck up.”

They were being rude but Stone would alternate between being serious, funny and effective to silly and strange and rambling and back again. At one point she said: “Here I am, vapid and foolish.”

That kinda summed her up I’m sorry to say. I do not think I am alone in at times wondering if she was on some kind of medication. The live auction was cut short after just five of the 10 scheduled items had been sold and Stone said: “Because you people are so cheap, we’re not going to sell everything.”

Uh, if you ever see a tape of your auction appearance Miss Stone, you will know why you didn’t sell everything.

Okay, sorry to dwell on that but it was like watching a car wreck!

Now in to more positive stuff – and there is plenty!

I was at this same event last year when it was held at The Music Box @ Fonda in Hollywood. It was a nice event and it also had Sharon Stone as the auctioneer (she was really on fire that night). But this year’s edition was about four times the size! It was huge! Perry, who sang a lovely “Letter to God,” gave a lot of credit to Aguilera because “the fact that she jumped on took it all to the next level.”

The night raised money to benefit the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s women’s services and honored Dr. Katherine Gabel (Professional Achievement Award), Hannah Howard (Grassroots Activist Award), Anne Marie Williams (Public Service Award) and the one and only JD DiSalvatore (Community Service Award).

JD is an absolute force of nature whose many accomplishments include producing the film Shelter and who is instrumental in bringing so many people in the community together through her various activities. She only gave a brief speech on stage  including her reaction to a standing ovation: “Oh, sit down before I take my clothes off.”

During the video about JD, she had a line that still has me laughing a day later about participating in post-election Prop. 8 protests: “I walked the fuckin streets of LA for eight days and didn’t lose a pound!”

Before the show, I asked her if there was anything she had to say about being honored and JD said simply: “I owe it all to Greg In Hollywood!”

Ha! I love it!

Jennifer Coolidge was an inspired choice as host. So many funny lines such as: “Sharon Stone reminds me of a time when “Bush” was considered a good word.” She also remarked of Clementine Ford: “I never thought she was a lesbian. It seemed like only yesterday that she was listening to Melissa Etheridge and coming home exhausted from Dinah Shore (weekend).

When she was on stage briefly with Ford and her mom Cybill Shepherd, Coolidge said to the Moonlighting star: “Now you and Dick Cheney really have something to talk about!” To which Shepherd quickly replied: “…Maybe I can get him to repeal Prop.8!”

Cybill, who also starred in The L Word, is a longtime gay rights activist who was in the front lines at the 1993 March on Washington. She told the crowd how her the then-teenaged Clementine marched with her that day and said: “I just have to tell you how proud I am of Clementine. I have to brag and tell you how much this means to be here with y’all (she sounded very Southern last night).”

Before things got sappy, Cybill shared with the audience that her daughter was standing on her foot!

And finally, there was Sarah Silverman and various topics in a hilarious stand-up routine.

Her unibrow: “I am so happy to be here. When I moved to Los Angeles, I had an eyebrow. My roommate at the time said, ‘I’ll tell you what. This Saturday, let’s go make this into TWO – like one for each eye!” … I followed the lady into the room, she followed me in, and when we got in there she turned around and she said: “So what are we doing today? Just the mustache?”

On divas: “A lot of women call themselves a diva. Okay, unless you’re a singer, you’re not a diva. You’re a c**t! You can’t misbehave and be rude and thoughtless and selfish and then just say, ‘I’m a diva’ as some sort of excuse. You’re being a c**t!”

I have nothing else to say.