USC Medical School Marks 100th Year

The Trojan Marching Band, 15 strong, will be there right at the beginning. New York’s Michael Carney and his band pick up the musical beat a little later. Then comes the dining (food by Rococo), the dancing, the entertainment and loads of hurrahs.

And that’s the way the USC School of Medicine, founded as the university’s second school in 1885 by Dr. Joseph Pomeroy Widney, will celebrate its 100th birthday June 6 in the Central Plaza of the Health Sciences Campus. Centennial Year chairmen Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy Galpin and Centennial Gala chairman Mrs. John Kristoffer Popovich have decreed that it’s to be a Black and White Gala, which means black tie for the men and silver, white or black for the women. If everyone sticks to the dress plan it should be a feast for the eyes.

The good guy in this scenario is Richard K. Eamer, chief executive officer of National Medical Enterprises and the gala’s benefactor. The Parents Council and Dr. James Chinn get credit as Centennial scholarship sponsors. The USC board of trustees (among them Gavin S. Herbert, Gordon C. Luce, John C. Argue, Wallis Annenberg, Kenneth T. Norris Jr., Mrs. Simon Ramo, Raymond Watt, Gin D. Wong and William Wrigley) and the Centennial Gala Host Committee (Mrs. Walter Karabian, Wallace Booth, Dr. and Mrs. Allen Mathies Jr., Philip Hawley, Dr. John House, Richard Seaver and loads more) are all working mightily to make this a rah-rah night.

Monday night at the Mark Taper Forum, Gordon Davidson and some very talented people let members of the Music Center’s Amazing Blue Ribbon in on backstage secrets and what it takes to become an actor. What it all boiled down to was hard work (in addition to talent) with vocal, fencing, dance and exercise classes--and more. Choreographer-dancer Carmen de Lavallade was part of the lively demonstration. Later the guests, about 450 of them, walked across the plaza to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to dine on Brazilian food.

The evening was a stylish farewell for Blue Ribbon’s Nancy Livingston, who began this “Other Side of the Curtain” series during her term as Blue Ribbon’s executive president. (Actually Nancy has one more appearance to make, this one at the Blue Ribbon board meeting June 20 where she’ll turn over her presidential duties to Keith Kieschnick.) Nancy planned this final event with help from Terry Stanfill on the dinner arrangements.

Among those picking up on the theatrical know-how were Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Childs, Hannah and Ed Carter, the Eli Broads, Tamara Asseyev, Toni Zellerbach Haber, Mrs. Paul Erskine, Doris Factor, Dr. and Mrs. Jerome Fein, Doris Fields Heller with Jacques Camus, Lita and Morton Heller, Joan and John Hotchkis, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hunt, Carolbeth and Lester Korn, Roslyn and Henry Kramer, Keith and Bill Kieschnick, La Vetta King, Martin Manulis, Gladys and Armand Oppenheim, Beverly and Joe Mitchell, Rosalind and Dr. Hal Millstone, Nancy and Sid Petersen and Sylvia and Franklin Simon.

The Social Scramble: William H. Kobin, president and chief executive officer of KCET, will host a reception Wednesday night at the studio’s Stage B for the cast and creators of “Paper Angels,” a KCET production for “American Playhouse.” A screening of “Paper Angels” follows, and after that guests will feast on a Chinese buffet created by Madame Wu’s Garden, the gift of KCET board member Madame Sylvia Wu.

Tom Corcoran and his madcap sense of humor, his gold chains and bracelets and his managerial skills (for years he managed Carol Burnett’s career) moved to the East Coast a few years back, leaving a void here. Well, Tom’s coming back at least for the summer (as are Polly Bergen and her husband, Jeff Endervelt, who have leased a house for a few months). The other night Tom was at his best, hosting a party for Joan Rivers and her husband, Edgar Greenberg, with his good friend Marcie Goldberg at New York’s Le Club. “I promised Joan,” the host told us, “that I’d have a party for them when Edgar was well.” Now fully recovered from his heart problems, Edgar was happily mingling at Le Club with New York Daily News publisher James Hoge; Dina Merrill and Cliff Robertson; the Endervelts; the Astoria Studios’ George Kaufman and his wife, Cheri; Lynn von Furstenberg (Egon was in Milan, and she’s finishing up the redecorating on their New York apartment); Revlon’s Dan Moriarty; Kimberly and Jonathan Farkas of the retailing clan; Betsy von Furstenberg and her new husband, Jack Reynolds (he’s a business partner of real estate tycoon Henry Helmsley), and Robert Nederlander with Gladys Rachmil (they’ve been an item for some time).

The Wally Findlay Galleries in New York are throwing a preview party June 4 for one of their newest artistic finds. She’s Marie Griffith, an 88-year-old great-grandmother from Pearl River, N.Y., and the mother of Countess Aline Romanones who married into Spanish nobility and looks more noble than they do. Mrs. Griffith is often compared to Grandma Moses, but this great-grandmother’s landscapes and floral still lifes are bolder and more colorful.

Herbert and Juli Hutner cut a swath through New York last week. The momentum began at the Regency Hotel where the Hutners hosted a brunch for the likes of Bob and Joan Tisch; Phyllis George and her husband, former Kentucky Gov. John Brown; Gene and Joyce Klein (their horse ran in the Preakness); Herb’s brother, Dr. Simeon Hutner; Occidental Petroleum’s Zoltan and Aimee Merszei; Football Commissioner Pete and Carrie Rozelle; the Malayasian Ambassador and Mrs. Zain Azrai; Jackie (Getty) and Ivan Phillips (they’ve moved from Canada to Fun City, where he’s a vice president of the Wildenstein Gallery), and Jay and Kelly Tunney. The next day Juli was with Diane Anderson, Jackie Phillips and Robin Duke at Claudia Mirkin’s luncheon party at 21, and that night both Hutners attended David and Hilly Mahoney’s dinner at the St. Regis for the David Mahoney Institute of Neurological Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. Former Sen. Jacob Javits and his wife, Marion; Morton and Linda Janklow (she’s Mervyn LeRoy’s daughter; he’s the powerful literary agent); Chris-Craft’s Herb and Ann Siegel; columnist William Safire, and Time publisher Jack and Jane Meyers were all there. Finally, before moving on to Washington and the premiere of the four-hour-long “The Count of Monte Cristo” at the Kennedy Center, the Hutners were at the Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital benefit at the Plaza Hotel along with Suzanne and Huey Long, Bill and Barbara Harbach, Rodney Rood and a mob of others.

Past Tense: A delegation from France’s Rhone-Alpes region (it’s the size of Switzerland) has been touring the United States promoting the area’s beauties. Some of them were in Los Angeles last week, and Georges Charriere, chairman of the Rhone-Alpes Chamber of Commerce, and Henri Ducret, president of the French Tourism Delegation, hosted a luncheon at L’Orangerie, and Alain Chapel, one of the area’s most celebrated chefs, prepared the food. Later at a reception hosted by Gerard and Virginie Ferry, owners of L’Orangerie, the Ferrys and Beverly Hills Mayor Ed Brown received special medals from the cities of Lyon and Grenoble.

Barbara Lazaroff hosted a champagne reception (husband Wolfgang Puck’s Spago furnished the munchies) to celebrate the opening of Joseph Hawkins Flowers at Christmas Fantasy Ltd. on Burton Way.

It was a veritable fiesta, an annual rite-of-spring lunch, in Dr. Oscar and Ruby Magdison’s gardens. At poolside tables with giant Mexican paper flowers, feasting on chicken in mole sauce, tamales steamed in banana leaves, carnitas in green chile sauce, were Francine and John Maroney, Jane and George Sidney, Louise and Barry Taper, Alice Laykin, Miriam Parkes (Dr. Morey was lecturing out of town) with Carlo Celoni, Bijou and Wally Durden, Dr. and Mrs. Marvin Kaplan, Bob Gilbert and Connie and Leslie Martinson.

Zsa Zsa Gabor’s Harry Winston diamond choker (45 round diamonds adding up to about 100 carats) was bought by a private collector at a recent Christie’s sale in New York for $462,000.