The Shape of Shapes to Come in West Los Angeles

From the Never-Too-Thin file: The Sports Connection-owned Sports Club L.A.--a posh, $18-million gym--opens in West L.A. in 1986 and will offer one unusual amenity--valet parking (so exercise patrons don’t get tired walking from the parking lot). . . . Singer David Lee Roth obviously loves “California Girls,” because he frequently can be found in a Venice gym well-known for its female body builders. . . . When the Bev Hills Chamber of Commerce stages its first race for the U.S. Cycling Federation Labor Day, it will be called “The Wheat Thins Mayor’s Cup.”

GUESS WHO--In the collegiate fund-raising sweepstakes, Pepperdine’s a winner--the Malibu school ranking No. 2 among small colleges with $46 million raised in the last three years. (No small feat, since there are 1,200 colleges in that category, places like Vassar, Radcliffe, Swarthmore--and Smith College, which beat out Pepperdine for No. 1.) To complete the university’s current $100-million “Wave of Excellence” campaign, $54 million will be raised in the next 3 1/2 years. “Gift opportunities” outlined in a new brochure range from a possible $25 donation for a library book, to a possible $5 million for the building to house the Fine Arts Center. More than 75% of the $46 million cash in hand came from Southern California, but college officials say there is suddenly a lot of interest from national foundations and non-hometown individuals. The local success came from a concerted effort--or, as Michael Adams, the v.p. for university affairs, told us, “When a cultural event, a social event happens in Los Angeles, some major person affiliated with Pepperdine will be there.” This tactic has given Pepperdine the highest of profiles. Leonard Straus, chairman of the Thrifty Corp. and one of three people sharing the office of the chairman, said the fund-raising success could be credited to both the school’s academic programs as well as its “value system. I believe the country is increasingly in tune with institutions like Pepperdine.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WHEN? Carol Burnett’s next birthday April 26, 1986, will be celebrated by UCLA’s Royce Two Seventy with a tribute to Carol and a benefit for the Center for the Arts. Ginny Mancini will announce the details at a birthday party for Carol today. One minor note: Burnett’s in N.Y.C., so kick-off party will be held without her. . . . When Maggie Weitzman turns 30 (for the first time, as the invitation reads), she’ll be surrounded by a lot of good friends at Spago on Saturday night. Her lawyer-husband, Howard L. Weitzman (lead defense counsel for John DeLorean), has made sure of that by taking over the entire restaurant for the evening. We repeat, a Saturday evening.

WISH-CRAFT--Assistant U.S. Atty. Steve Czuleger is known as El Tigre in the Mexican press for his ardent prosecution of ex-Mexico City Police Chief Arturo Durazo in extradition hearings here. On a recent flight from Mexico City last week, Czuleger’s fellow passengers found out he was on board. Throughout the three-hour flight, passengers came up to congratulate him on his efforts to extradite Durazo to Mexico. A woman--self-described as an exotic dancer at a Moroccan nightclub in Mexico City--decided to give Czuleger a hand in his legal efforts. She leaned over his seat from behind and briefly laid her hands upon his shoulders. “For luck,” she explained. “I’m a witch.” The general commotion distracted El Tigre, and he forgot a small package. In it were seven little Durazo dolls, the product of Mexico City folk artists. One showed the pot-bellied ex-chief in a tiny jail with toothpicks for bars. The cell came complete with a back door and the inscription, “Here today, gone tomorrow.”

BERRY GOOD--You might not have heard, but last weekend’s California Strawberry Festival in Oxnard picked the two Berry Best Strawberry Blondes, Jeanne Kleine, 24, from Ventura, and Victoria Stegeman, 5, Oxnard. About 130,000 folks celebrated the ubiquitous berry (3,000 acres of them produced on the Oxnard plain), eating delicacies like shortcake, ice cream, and egg rolls with strawberry sauce. Two other areas produce lots of strawberries--Orange County and Watsonville-Santa Cruz. But as Kathy Burris, the city’s spokesperson, put it, “When they think of strawberries, we want them to think of Oxnard.”

POWEREATERS--Hottest table this spring--once again, it’s the “corner table” at the L.A. Country Club, where Mrs. Republican, Margaret Martin Brock, conducts her business. Making their way to lunch, one at a time, are potential U.S. Senate candidates: state Sen. Ed Davis, economist Art Laffer, Assemblyman Bob Naylor, Rep. Bill Dannemeyer, Rep. Bobbi Fiedler, state Sen. Bill Campbell and Rep. Dan Lungren. Like faithful Republicans nationwide, Brock has already been deluged with money requests from candidates planning to run in ’86. The reason for the early money requests: The federal limit on congressional candidates is $1,000 for the primary, $1,000 for the general--and smart candidates figure they will let contributors max out, and then gain interest on the money in the bank. Up next year are 32 Senate seats--22 now held by members of the slight GOP majority.

MORE GOP FUND RAISING?--The Republican National Committee--the doyenne of direct mail--has a new gimmick--a credit-card-style membership card with a potential donor’s name and “sustaining member, 1985.” With it--a letter from President Reagan, asking for “your special strength and commitment. . . .” One Santa Monica recipient--”Mr. Tom Hayden,” addressed to his old hangout, the Campaign for Economic Democracy office.

PLAYING SAFELY: The billboards, with a lineup of attractive young men, the motherly Tangina Barrans (from “Poltergeist”) and the slogan “Play Safely. L.A. Cares . . . like a mother” are part of an educational campaign. Running it--the L.A. Cooperative AIDS Risk-Reduction Education Service--a joint effort of the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center and the AIDS Project/LA. Its target: high-risk populations (homosexual and bisexual men). Similar posters are going up in gay gathering places. AIDS Project Executive Director Bill Misenhimer said the advertisements are “creative enough to get attention . . . while not saying ‘don’t do something.’ People don’t hear that.”. . . Mayor Tom Bradley will be the honorary chair of a 10K walk to benefit the AIDS Project/L.A. in July.

CABINETMAKERS--Missing from Sen. Pete Wilson’s recent fund-raiser were the familiar faces of the Reagan Kitchen Cabinet, with the exception of Earle and Marion Jorgenson (she is the mother of Wilson dinner co-chair Donald Bren). However, one Reagan old hand is involved in the June 4 Northern California dinner for Gov. George Deukmejian--S.F.’s Jaquelin Hume, seen at a recent reception for the Duke’s dinner table sponsors. Next weekend, Deukmejian’s finance chair, Karl Samulian, hosts a similar pre-dinner reception for table sponsors for the Southern California June 7 dinner. The Century Plaza $1,000-a-head party is set to draw upwards of 1,500. Last year’s $500-a-seat dinner raised $1.2 million. Get out your calculators.

ROASTED PEPPERS--The “Big Apple” invites go into the mail this week for New York Gov. Mario Cuomo’s roasting at the Washington Hilton on June 19. It might get a li’l hot in the kitchen. The roast, benefiting Independent Action (Rep. Mo Udall’s political action committee), will include roasters like Sen. Bill Bradley and House Speaker Tip O’Neill. But the scorching come when Cuomo gets introduced--doing the honors will be former vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro. Cuomo and Ferraro do not share warm political feelings. Ed Coyce, the exec director of Independent Action, said Cuomo was picked because “he’s a curiosity here in Washington.”

HART-WRENCHING--Friends of U.S. Sen. Gary Hart get a chance to help him retire his presidential campaign debt--and maybe boost his new novel onto the best-seller lists--at a reception hosted by attorney John Emerson tonight at the Westside home of Celina and Saul Bojarsky. Book buyers will get a chance to see Hart--if a Senate vote doesn’t delay him. Pundits will also get a chance to size up the California Hart, state Sen. Gary K. Hart, a gubernatorial hopeful, along with his potential primary opposition, Sen. John Garamendi. Now that’s the stuff novels are made of. And, in the current flocking of U.S. senators to our neighborhood, wasn’t that New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley with Jane and Mike Eisner at the Little League game in La Cienega Park last weekend?

CONFERENCE ON, BY AND FOR WOMEN--State Sen. Bill Campbell will be sponsoring his now-annual Conference on Women, in Anaheim on May 8. The printed invitation--a lengthy list of prominent women (and a few men) set to speak--spotlights astronaut Sally Ride and the Rev. Terry Cole-Whittaker. The rev returned to the TV airwaves Sunday, looking a little tired after the recent disclosure that her congregation was reported to be about $400,000 in debt. Cole-Whittaker promoted, as the bumper strips told us, “Prosperity: Your Divine Right.”