Dinosaur Ball a Historic Occasion : Event Raises $150,000 for the Natural History Museum

If you lost your way en route to the Natural History Museum on Saturday night, all you had to do was look up at the Columbia, the Goodyear blimp hovering over the Exposition Park museum like some psychedelic prehistoric monster, and follow it. Brightly traced images of brontosaurus, stegosaurus, triceratops and tyrannosaurus followed each other around the bulging roundness of the blimp, and every so often, blinking bright and clear, came the message: “Discover the Magic of the Natural History Museum.”

The magic was contagious, and the message came through loud and clear. And the Dinosaur Ball, hosted by the museum’s trustees and Museum Alliance, was oversold.

“We had to spread out into three rooms,” said Mrs. James Stewart, wife of the actor and a museum trustee. “We have 700 people here, and we had to stop at that figure.” Irving Stone, author of a multitude of best-selling tomes, and his editor, wife Jean, stood at the top of a flight of tube-lighted stairs pointing the way toward the hors d’oeuvres and drinks. “We had to move upstairs because we had so many reservations,” Jean marveled. “It’s a triumph,” she added, “to get them downtown to see this gorgeous museum which I always thought was the best-kept secret in town.”

In the downstairs rotunda Betty and former Police Chief Tom Reddin stood by a 20-foot-tall green brontosaurus decked out in a tiny top hat, white collar and black tie. In the Hall of Mammals and everywhere else, mimes--wearing black or white formal evening wear--guided guests through the museum’s halls. Rococo’s Ray Henderson also seemed to be everywhere supervising the hors d’oeuvres tables, dinner and the well-stationed bars.

One gentleman from Pasadena, a native Angeleno, told Jim Wharton and Connie Wald this was his first visit to the museum, but that he was so impressed it wouldn’t be his last. Mrs. William Winans mentioned to Jimmy Stewart, the only authentic movie star in this non-Hollywood gathering, that she didn’t like going to “big parties. But I like going to the Zoo Ball and to this one, and I always have. Stewart, who was telling Tucker and Chardee Trainer about the projected expansion of one area of the museum into a huge bird cage filled with mostly birds native to California, smiled. And then he moved over to take ABC Vice President Gary Pudney’s seat at another table where he charmed Gary’s mother, Agnes Pudney, and his sister, Judith Laurence, no end.

Between dinner and dancing (Ron Rubin had strings playing everywhere, and there was a band for the dancing in the marble-floor rotunda), museum director Craig C. Black took his show on the road, hitting every one of the halls to thank Pat Herbert, ball chairman, and the volunteers and staff members who’d helped make the ball such a success. He announced that the party had raised $150,000, which will help underwrite such exhibitions as “Ban Chiang: The Lost Bronze Age of Thailand,” now on view, and “Maya: Treasures of an Ancient Civilization” which opens Aug. 27. Then KABC Radio’s Barbara Esensten narrated a slide show about the museum and the George C. Page Museum in the La Brea Tar Pits. Page was in the audience, escorting well-traveled Merle Kingsley.

“I wish this were a Ray Bradbury scene,” producer Bill Frye said to Giney Milner as they sipped their drinks in the Hall of Mammals, “and all these animals would come to life and tear out of their cases.” Jacques Camus and Newport’s Doris Fields shuddered just a tiny bit. Rebecca and Ernest Lever talked about his new volunteer job--creating support councils for the Natural History Museum. And early on some of these people were nodding “hello” and “how are you?” to each other: County Museum of Art Director Earl Powell III and his wife, Nancy; Dr. and Mrs. Kenneth Morgan and their daughter; architect George Vernon Russell and his wife; Britain’s Consul General and Mrs. Donald Ballentyne; Sweden’s Consul General Emeritus and Mrs. Walter Danielson, and Senegal’s Consul General and Mrs. Joseph Bolker, just back from Manila.

Also attending: West Germany’s Consul General Gunther Joetze and his wife, Christine; Union Oil’s Fred and Peggy Hartley; former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Robert Finch and his wife, Carol; Betty and Robert Strub; the Michael Fasmans; Mr. and Mrs. David Jacobs; Dr. Richard Call and his wife, Nancy; Mrs. Richard Barton; Travis and Tom Kranz; Happy and Frances Franklin; Norma and Richard Coyle; Paul Thompson with Anne Moses; the Frank Vodhanels, and the Philip Kennedys.

A lot of those same people had spent some time admiring the party decor, dinosaur-oriented of course, and supervised by Shelton Ellis and David Grady of Gump’s in Beverly Hills. (There were red Gump’s tote bags filled with goodies for guests to take home.) On each of the tables, on beds of moss and blooms, were sculpted wire animals by Oakland artist Elizabeth Berrian.