By Arthur Spiegelman

LOS ANGELES, Aug 11 (Reuters) Just months after being freed from nearly six years in Iran's feared Evin prison, Iran's most prominent dissident, Akbar Ganji, found himself a guest of honour in a Hollywood producer's mansion.

A small, soft-spoken man who staged an 80-day hunger strike while in jail, Ganji appeared humble but unruffled on Thursday night as he stood among the Frank Stella paintings at the home of former Orion Pictures chief Mike Medavoy.

Invited by Medavoy and actor Sean Penn to meet the Hollywood heavyweights while on a visit to the United States, he debated foreign policy with the likes of billionaire media mogul Haim Saban and was even asked which foods he missed most while on a hunger strike.

''After 10 or 15 days you stop feeling hungry,'' he said.

His interpreter was not so relaxed. When actor-producer Warren Beatty jumped up to ask a question at the end of an hour-long speech by Ganji, she said, ''Is that Warren Beatty? My God.'' The actor-filmmaker asked Ganji whether Americans were taking Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seriously enough.

''Are we too afraid of what he says?'' Beatty asked about the man who has said the Middle East's problems could be solved if Israel were destroyed.

Ganji replied: ''You should not be afraid. ... It is us Iranians who should be. They can't do much against you ... But (the Iranian government) deprived us of human rights. They subject us to terror.'' But his criticisms of Israel sparked some controversy.

Ganji asserted that the formation of Israel in 1948 resulted in the displacement of Palestinians who are now seeking the right of return, an issue, he said, that the Jewish state should deal with.

When Medavoy suggested that his views on the Mideast were not going over so well, Ganji responded that he believed in Israel's right to exist and the need for peace.

Ganji, a journalist, was released last March after serving nearly six years in prison, mostly in isolation, on charges of ''collecting confidential information harmful to the nation and spreading propaganda against the Islamic system.'' Penn said that when he visited Iran, he was told to see Ganji but could not because he was in jail. ''I was told he was the free voice of Iran,'' Penn said.

REUTERS PB BS1056