The Valley Line: USC School of Libraries presents annual Scripter Awards
It has been a busy social season with award shows and philanthropic benefits. I will try to catch up with it all before a new spate of events unfold.
The annual USC School of Libraries recently held its annual Scripter Awards. This lovely black-tie event is held in the beautiful Edward L. Doheny Memorial Library on campus.
As in years past, this event has honored the best adaptation of the written word into film, but this year for the first time an award was added by recognizing television writers.
In her remarks, USC Libraries Dean Catherine Quinlan credited the addition to the growing recognition of excellence in adaptation for television.
“Among the incredibly well-written programs on the air, on cable, and streaming today, are many, many adaptations of the written word,” she said. “So, including television for Scripter consideration seemed a fitting and natural extension of this award that began 29 years ago with the inspiration of USC Libraries supporters Glenn Sonnenberg and Marjorie Lord.”
In the television category, the award went to journalist Lisa Belkin, author of the nonfiction book “Show Me a Hero: A Tale of Murder, Suicide, Race, and Redemption,” and screenwriters William F. Zorzi and David Simon, who penned the teleplays for the six-part HBO miniseries “Show Me a Hero.”
“John le Carré supposedly said that watching your book become film is like watching your oxen be turned into beef jerky. But it was not like that at all. And it was because Bill [Zorzi] and David [Simon] saw it as their mission to stick to history, to bring to life people who actually lived,” Belkin said while accepting the award.
In the film category, the winners were journalist Michael Lewis, author of “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine,” and screenwriters Adam McKay and Charles Randolph, who adapted Lewis’ book into the screenplay for Paramount Pictures’ “The Big Short.”
McKay and Randolph both spoke of the contemplative spaces that libraries provide.
“Coming to the library today was comforting,” McKay said. “Where the job of this place is to think, and to slow things down.”
Randolph then noted that, as a USC student, he wrote his first script in Doheny Library’s Los Angeles Times Reference Room.
(Speaking of the Times Reference Room, it’s always a thrill for me to experience it on award night. The books that line the shelves lend such a comfortable feeling to the room. The tomes with gold writing on their spines glimmer in the special lighting that’s always added for the festive evening.)
Sonnenberg presented an honorary Scripter to Lord’s daughter Anne Archer, in honor of her family’s support of Scripter and the USC Libraries.
Accepting the award, Archer said that her mother “knew that supporting the USC Library through this unique event would be a reminder to the next generation that great writing elevates a culture.”
I sat at Patsy Dewey’s table. Patsy is a trustee at USC and she brought along her lovely granddaughter Chandler Dewey, who is a student at UC Riverside. Also at our table were La Cañada residents Sue and Jim Stauffer, Jill Wondries, Janet and Frank McNiff, Phyllis Winnaman with her date Bill Halliday, and Marijane Hebert.
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Now on to another architecturally beautiful building in the City of the Angels, the historic Biltmore Hotel where the Hillsides gala raised more than $400,000 for this premier provider of child welfare services serving families in crisis and children in foster care.
The lovely event was chaired by Dr. Annette Ermshar, a Pasadena-based clinical psychologist who is active in the local music community who added many unique musical elements to the event attended by more than 400 guests.
The benefit, themed “Symphony of Dreams,” was kicked off with a performance by the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, Young Men’s Ensemble who serenaded guests as they entered the hall. As dinner started, 2015 “American Idol” finalist Rayvon Owen warmed up the crowd with Stevie Wonder’s song “Higher Ground” and later performed an original song about the redeeming power of love, “Rescue.”
A poignant point of the evening came when 2015 Rose Court Princess Donaly Marquez stepped to the microphone to tell the guests about her harrowing childhood spent on the streets with an abusive mother before she and her siblings were adopted. In high school, when her traumatic past began to catch up to her, she reached out to Hillsides for counseling.
Marquez credited her Hillsides therapist with giving her the courage to try out for the Tournament of Roses Royal Court, calling the therapist her mentor and inspiration. “I truly believe Hillsides has not only opened up doors for me, but has also assisted me in trying to find myself in the midst of everything else,” she said.
Joe Costa, Hillsides’ chief executive, commented, “We’d like to thank everyone who supported “Symphony of Dreams” which is Hillsides’ largest fundraiser of the year. The funds raised will be used to help the more than 6,200 children and families we serve throughout Los Angeles County.”
KNBC channel 4 weatherman Fritz Coleman acted as master of ceremonies. He enthusiastically led the live auction portion of the evening that featured 11 hotly bid on packages.
Going for the highest amount of $10,000 was a package personally designed by benefit chair Ermshar, a three-night stay in an exquisite private Napa Valley home for eight that included personal wine tours, a winemaker’s dinner prepared farm-to-table style by Bistro 45’s chef Ryan Bergunio and personally led wine tours with David Devan, right-hand man to world renowned winemaker Heidi Peterson Barrett, and also a red carpet experience at Stags’ Leap Winery.
It was an outstanding evening and some of the locals attending were Mark Martinez and Dee Fisher, Vince and Judy Dundee, Gina and Rod Guerra, Lori and Ed Patterson, Joan and John McCarthy, Dr. Henri and Donna Ford, Bryce and Stacy Canfield, Kitty Barr, Mary Dee Hacker and her daughter Kathryn Nishibayashi, and Courtney Diroll Saavedra.
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JANE NAPIER NEELY covers the La Cañada Flintridge social scene. Email her at jnavalleysun@aol.com with news of your special event.