The "Devil Wears Prada" star was headed with friends to the Gramercy Park Hotel. But while Sean Penn and his party of eight were allowed in right ahead of them, door staff failed to recognize the dressed-down starlet. The velvet rope stayed tightly clamped shut.

Undeterred, her friends (who we can safely say were fans of her role in "Brokeback Mountain") took her instead to Snaxx - a W. 23rd St. bar for burly gay men known as "bears."

"No one hassled her, and she had a great time," said a witness. "It was beer night."

Clearly this anonymous witness must have been new to the sleuth, as any bear worth his berries knows every night is beer night. (For more on bear behavior, watch this short, informative video. SFW!) Still, we'll take his word that she had a hassle-free great time, and that Hathaway wasn't tackled on her way to the keg line by a formation of bearded linebackers insisting she divulge, "OK. Who's the bigger diva...Jake or Meryl?!?!?"

• Anne grins and bears it [NY Daily News]
• Mystery Date for Bears [YouTube]

ANNE Hathaway says Stanley Tucci was a real hands-on guy when they made "The Devil Wears Prada." "He would just smack me in my boob and elbow me," Hathaway told journos at the New York premiere. "If you're a girl, you know that hurts, so, after about the fourth time, I finally said: 'Stanley, can you please stay away from my t - - s?' He got really flustered and said: 'What do you expect? You're flinging those melons around like it's harvest season.' "

It's really the perfect premiere-night anecdote, a light-hearted tale from the set that demonstrates the chemistry between the movie's charismatic, up-and-coming star and her quirky, supporting castmate with an endearing, if occasionally violent, breast-on-elbow fetish.

• MELON HARVEST [Page Six]