"Denise!" Her father, an elegant man in head-to-toe black cashmere, calls sharply from the corner of the room. "Denise. Why are you crying? You have to realize that everyone will be unhappy and insulted wherever they're sitting." He pauses. "Enough already!"

As if.

Five hours later, a radiant Denise Rich, cloaked in fur-trimmed Escada, garnished with several pounds of diamonds and rubies, is greeting her guests at the Sheraton. Glued to her side is her boyfriend of seven years, Niels Lauersen, the Park Avenue gynecologist, fertility expert to the stars, and renowned author of The Complete Book of Breast Care. In a matter of weeks, Lauersen will be indicted for insurance fraud, but tonight he is all smiles, greeting the surreal assortment of boldface names streaming into the Sheraton ballroom.

Here's Milton Berle (celebrating his 90th birthday for about the 90th time tonight) chatting up Sabrina the Teenage Witch. The president -- the benefit's honorary chairman -- sharing the stage with Stevie Wonder, Star Jones, Plácido Domingo, and, yes, Robin Leach, who will auction off a Ferrari donated by Ivana's boyfriend.

Things couldn't be going better when flashing lights signal the guests to take their seats. Suddenly a look of sheer terror crosses Denise's face, as a functionary whispers into her ear what guests trying to locate their tables have already learned. The social equivalent of Armageddon has struck Denise's party: The seating chart is stuck in a cab in midtown traffic, leaving all 1,500 guests with no idea of where to sit.

Geraldo Rivera, who's been tight with Denise ever since Lauersen helped his wife get pregnant, tries to save the night by standing with a microphone and reading off 1,500 seating assignments ("Bill Cosby, table 3 . . .") from the just-arrived list. But finally, he gives up, advising the crowd to get their seats from Barbara Walters, who has another copy, or "just sit down anywhere."

By this point, even Denise's publicist, Bobby Zarem, is plotting a quick exit to Elaine's. No one can find Michael Bolton; Ahmet Ertegun is poking around the ballroom with his cane, trying to divine his table; a total stranger is eating Bill Cosby's appetizer. Backstage, Denise is "freaking." "All I could hear was people saying, 'Stevie Wonder's walking out. Milton Berle's walking out,' " she remembers later. "But maybe they were just going to the bathroom!"

In fact, everybody stayed. The following day, the gossips called Denise's party, catastrophe and all, the social event of the year. Jeannie Williams did a full-column gush in USA Today. "Woodstock for rich people," proclaimed the Daily News's Mitchell Fink. Better than Time's star-studded anniversary party, Liz Smith declared. And, not incidentally, it raised $3 million for Denise's charity.

An astounding feat when you consider how much easier it would have been for New York's swell set to dis Denise Rich. Go to her parties maybe; cash her checks for sure -- but in that time-honored tradition of New York society, trash her mercilessly. Which is precisely what happened when Denise returned to New York from Switzerland in the early nineties, having shed her fugitive husband, but not all of his billions, to re-create herself as a successful songwriter. "No one could believe she was really a songwriter," says her close friend the Broadway producer Marty Richards. At best, they assumed music must be "like, some hobby," says Denise.