At Last, It’s Harriet Luckman’s Turn
She’s easily the most understated and dedicated and certainly the quietest of volunteers. If there were a way to add up the time and talent that Harriet Luckman has contributed to good causes, the total would be staggering. She also manages to run various Luckman homes with skill and grace. And in between she turns out some of the most beautiful needlepoint we’ve ever seen.
Her husband, Charles, the charismatic architect, has reaped hundreds of awards and honors during his distinguished career (it’s still going full-steam ahead). But finally it’s Harriet’s turn. And we hope she’s going to enjoy the kudos.
On Feb. 8 the board of directors of the Los Angeles Child Guidance Clinic will be celebrating Mrs. Luckman’s “three decades of devoted service” at a black-tie dinner in the new Century Plaza Hotel Tower. Harriet’s friends are planning the tribute dinner, and among their ranks are George Page, Dr. and Mrs. Franklin Murphy, Mrs. Maurice Machris, Mrs. Sinclair Jardine, Lucy and Herbert T. Boswell, Betty and Rodney Williams, Mrs. Edwin Pauley, Mayor and Mrs. Tom Bradley, the Cecil Browns, Mr. and Mrs. Howard Edgerton, the Elbert Hudsons, Merle Kingsley, Mr. and Mrs. Mark S. Louchheim, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Ralphs, Rodney Rood, Jean and Irving Stone, Mrs. Hideo H. Kodani, Mr. and Mrs. Victor Carter and the Joseph Sinays.
The L.A. Child Guidance Clinic was established 60 years ago “to provide services for emotionally disturbed children and their families” and is affiliated with the USC School of Medicine, department of psychiatry.
Amen Wardy, the El Paso boy who came west and made good, is sparing no expense for the party he’s giving Feb. 2 to celebrate the opening of his newly expanded (at a cost of $2 million) Newport Center Fashion Island boutique. About 350 of the Beautiful People will frolic under a tent with an umbrella of lights. And Amen will show off his new David Webb salon (the only one on the West Coast), his Venetian Ballroom (yes, we said ballroom) with eight recessed chandeliers, and his new Galanos, Valentino and Chanel salons. Making their debut that night will be Wardy’s new perfume (bottled in French cut crystal), an Andrea Phister shoe salon, and an expanded Judith Leiber handbag and belt gallery.
To keep interest high there will be mini-fashion presentations by 10 American designers. And to keep those fragile out-of-towners comfortable they’ll be put up at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in nearby Laguna Niguel and provided with limousines. Hedonists rejoice.
The Yad Vashem Museum of Jerusalem, the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles and L.A.’s Martyrs Memorial and Museum of the Holocaust are honoring Otis Chandler, chairman of the board and editor-in-chief of Times Mirror, on Tuesday at a dinner in the Beverly Hilton’s International Ballroom. Chandler has been chosen for this tribute, according to the council’s Lauren W. Deutsch, for his “continuing championing of human rights through editorials appearing in the Los Angeles Times . . . and his sensitive understanding of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany as evidenced through a paper he presented in 1950 while still a student at Stanford.”
Producer-manager Jerry Weintraub is general chairman for the dinner committee, which also includes Mayor Tom Bradley, Dr. Armand Hammer, Tom Johnson and Dr. Franklin Murphy, plus the museum’s Abraham Spiegel, Yad Vashem’s Dr. Yitzhak Arad and council president Bruce Hochman. The tribute dinner’s sponsors include, among many more, Paul Ziffren, Gray Davis, Supervisors Deane Dana, Ed Edelman, Kenneth Hahn and Mike Antonovich. Also Martin Gang, Norman Lear, Marvin Braude, Robinson’s Michael Gould, Nathan Shapell and Benjamin Stansbury. Ron Rubin and his orchestra will provide the musical interludes that night.
Eleanor Wasson, former head of volunteers at UCLA Medical Center, has joined Dorothy Kirsten French in helping plan the March 3 gala benefit at the Beverly Hilton hosted by the Associates of the John Douglas French Foundation for Alzheimer’s Disease. Lillian Prusan is chairing the evening, which will bring operatic star Dorothy Kirsten up on stage to entertain along with such other extraordinary talents as Jack Lemmon, Helen Hayes, Carol Burnett, Julie Andrews and a few surprise extras.
Eighteen new benefactors (individuals and corporations who have donated $100,000 or more to the Music Center Unified Fund) will be thanked properly at a reception in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion’s The Founders on Jan. 28. Doing the thanking will be Harry Wetzel, chairman of the Performing Arts Council Board, who will present each of the benefactors with a bronze plaque signed by artist Robert Graham and fashioned after a section of his Dance Door sculpture that stands in the Music Center Plaza, and members of the council’s board of governors. And on the receiving end will be Sue and Samuel Kaplan; Wallis Annenberg; the Miller Brewing Co.; Beverly and Joseph Mitchell; Sadie and Norman H. Lee; Stuart M. Ketchum; Michelle and Sherman Mazur; NBC and the RCA Corp.; Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co.; the Tushinsky family; Nahumcq Zimmer; the Arthur Young Co.; Coopers & Lybrand; American Medical Intl.; Arthur Anderson & Co.; American Medical Intl.; American Honda Motor Co. and Sears, Roebuck & Co.
The Social Scramble: Talking over plans for the upcoming Robinson’s-Music Center Fraternity of Friends and Downtown Women’s Center fund-raisers at the pretty new restaurant at Robinson’s Beverly Hills were Joan Weiss and Maureen Wright.
Paul Thompson hosted a birthday lunch at Chan Dara on Larchmont for Jack Lowrance. The noon time lunch group included Max Eckert and Janet Lohman, who is Jack’s interior designing assistant. That night Jack hosted his own dinner party at Jimmy’s where he’s doing the decor on the new expansion.
