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If the death that soon followed CAA bigshot Bryan Lourd's pre-Oscar party last year didn't prove that socializing with agents the night before the ceremony is a potentially fatal undertaking, this item from today's Page Six should serve to remind us of the spectre of imminent doom that accompanies each encounter with the ten-percent class:

On Saturday night, the beleaguered blonde, clad in black pants and a black, sleeveless top, was dining at the Sunset Tower Hotel's Tower Bar with Barry Diller and high-powered CAA agents Kevin Huvane and Bryan Lourd. (George Clooney was supposed to be there as well, but didn't show up, we hear.)

All of a sudden, [actress Ellen] Barkin jumped up from the table and screamed, "I'm going to die!" before falling silent - a sign she could no longer breathe.

"At first I thought it was some sort of joke until she started shaking with spasms and waving her arms in the air," a spywitness told PAGE SIX's Jared Paul Stern. "It was really terrifying. The whole restaurant went dead silent."

Action hero Sylvester Stallone, who was dining a few tables away, sat dumbstruck. But Huvane quickly leapt to Barkin's rescue and performed the Heimlich maneuver. "He saved her life," says our witness.

Did we expect that Stallone would unsheath a Rambo utility knife and perform an emergency tracheotomy on the suffocating Barkin? That would've made for a great story, but he is, after all, just an actor, and his steak was undoubtedly getting cold. Much more interesting was the emergency cost-benefit analysis being performed by the two agents (Barkin is repped by CAA), who had to quickly decide if the actress was worth more to them alive and sporadically working or dead and racking up a burst of DVD residuals spurred by the tragedy of a sudden passing. Luckily for Barkin, her agency apparently still believes in her ability to earn.