On the Town: L.A. Zoo group holds wildly successful gala
What do you get when you treat more than 1,000 people to an electrifying night of music performed by Slash from Guns N’ Roses, Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band from the TBS late-night show “Conan” starring Conan O’Brien, Grace Potter, the lead singer with the Nocturnals, Bernard Fowler, who has been a longtime backup singer with the Rolling Stones, and actor Jack Black?
You get a wild ball of beastly proportions.
And that is exactly what took place as the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn., known as GLAZA, presented its 47th annual Beastly Ball this past Saturday evening.
Supporters of the Los Angeles Zoo, including Burbank residents and businesses, joined in the party that, along with the concert, gave them the opportunity to observe animals, watch feedings, chat with keepers and get up close and personal with some of the zoo’s “residents.”
Along with being the zoo’s signature fundraiser, this annual event also honors an individual with the bestowal of the Tom Mankiewicz Leadership Award, which recognizes outstanding leadership in local or global wildlife and environmental conservation, or for efforts to promote civic pride and harmony in the community.
This year, for the first time, the association honored an organization instead of an individual as it presented its highest honor to the National Geographic Society, which was represented by Gary E. Knell, who serves as the society’s president and chief executive.
The seventh recipient of the award, the society joins past recipients, actor and environmentalist Ed Begley Jr., singer and philanthropist Lance Bass, attorney Ken Ziffren, actresses Pauley Perrette and Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Slash, who serves as a GLAZA trustee.
The award was established in memory of the late GLAZA chairman Tom Mankiewicz, a highly regarded film and television writer and director who championed the cause of saving and protecting wildlife and the environment through education and conservation.
Representing Burbank at this year’s ball were actress Carolyn Hennesy, who plays attorney Diane Miller on “General Hospital,” Jacqueline Lewis, president of the Burbank-based Jacqueline Lewis Productions, former Burbank community development director Joy Forbes, who now serves as vice president of global real estate planning and development at NBCUniversal, and numerous representatives from the Walt Disney Co., including Alan Horn, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, and Kevin Callahan, Joan McCarthy and John Sims of Disney’s corporate citizenship and community engagement division.
The evening also included fare provided by Simmzey’s restaurant and Yummy Cupcakes, both in Burbank.
Proceeds from this year’s ball will help support the zoo’s new Species Conservation Action Network, and pay for a dedicated curator of conservation, whose sole focus will be to identify and respond to urgent animal-conservation issues around the world.
Having recently completed a $172-million master plan that significantly improved the zoo, the Griffith Park complex is now in the early planning stages of a new master plan for the facility that draws nearly 1.8 million annual visitors and is home to a diverse collection of 1,100 animals as well as a botanical collection made up of more than 800 different plant species.
DAVID LAURELL may be reached by email at dlaurell@aol.com or (818) 563-1007.
