United Way Marks 60 Years in L.A.

United Way has a special reason for celebrating: 1985 marks its 60th year in the business of helping people in Los Angeles County.

Ricardo Montalban will be named first Celebrity Volunteer of the Year on Thursday at the corporate annual luncheon meeting hosted by the board of directors. Dickinson C. Ross will be stepping down as board chairman; Roy Anderson will step in--with birthday cakes, balloons, music.

More than 700 are expected to attend the luncheon at the Biltmore Bowl. Mrs. Kenneth Leeuwenburgh is luncheon chairman.

Civic leader Ann Shaw will be honored with the Black Women of Achievement Award at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. luncheon Wednesday at the Century Plaza.

Altovise Davis will present the award to Shaw in recognition of her leadership and contributions to the community. She was the first woman and the first black to be appointed and reappointed to serve on the State Commission on Judicial Performance.

She also holds a Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year Award, a United Way Gold Key, a Los Angeles Sentinel Woman of the Year Award and served as president of the Los Angeles YWCA.

The luncheon also will recognize the achievements of other black women, including Johnnie Anderson, Kathleen Banks, Lea Esther Byrd, Alberta Christy, Mary A. Cryer, Pamela Elkins, Regina Jones, Amelia Phillips, Sherrie Michele Quander, Christine Tompkins, Barbara A. Watkins, Carolyn Webb de Macias, Clarice Smith, Janet Clayton and Bette Cox.

Linda Young is luncheon chairman.

About 120 children from Halldale Avenue, Hoover Street, Lenicia B. Weemes and Wilbur Avenue elementary schools will act, sing and dance in “Sir Vival, a Winner’s Tale” at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Mark Taper Forum.

The hourlong play is the culmination of a six-month pilot program in Los Angeles schools.

Performing Tree, the National Dance Institute, Center Theater Group/Mark Taper Forum and the Los Angeles Unified School District do the hosting.

More than 125 vintage and classic autos, valued at more than $800,000, will be displayed and judged at the 19th Invitational Le Cercle Concours d’Elegance today at Stengel Field in Glendale.

It’s a benefit for the Glendale Tournament of Roses Float Fund Committee, formed several years ago as a spinoff from the Days of the Verdugos Assn. The committee’s goal is to raise funds to keep Glendale’s float in the New Year’s Day Tournament of Roses.

Much like England’s London to Brighton Run, pre-1916 autos will buzz from Los Angeles City Hall to Stengel Field.

Carvel Gay and George McCullough, co-chairmen, are working with Marlene Hamilton, Jane Leggett, Bob and Johnnie Davidson, John and Joanne Sargeant, Paul Estep, Barbara Thompson, Jana Jordan Guest, Henry Agonia, Nello Iacono and Judie Estep.

Congratulations (and good luck) to all the new presidents being elected this season:

To Susan Seidel, Mayfield Senior School Mothers’ Auxiliary president (working with Sharon Pelton, Betsy Collins, Phyllis Krinock, Anne Kibler, Peg Rahn, Jane McAniff, Louise Bannan, Mary Loftus, Ann Hamilton, Virginia Jones, Rosemary Moreno, Pat Slocum, Jean Crabtree, Miriam Kelly, Susan Skenderian, Dorothy Shea, Carol Corral and lots of others). . . .

To Joyce Rosenblum, Center Theatre Group Volunteers president (with a board of Lee Hausner, Nancy Weakley, Genevieve McSweeney, Carol Sapin Gold, Diane Morton, Olive Varga and Judy Ruderman). . . .

To Mrs. Wheelwright J. Gerry, the Ebell of Los Angeles president (and directors Wilma C. Schmalzried, Helen A. Hogan, and Mmes. Warren S. Garrett, Ronald R. Cogswell, E. Earl Parish, Robert M. Parker, Lester R. Pickup, Frank L. Burke, August L. Musa).

The Hayden Barbecue, sponsored by the Sandra Hayden Memorial Foundation, has a fairly lofty and admirable goal: to raise funds for a community resident suffering from a hardship due to a catastrophic illness or accident.

Lots of city slickers will join the townsfolk of Pioneertown today on the Western movie set at the ranch. Admission is free (for sky-diving exhibitions, the U.S. Marine Drum & Bugle Corps concert, the children’s midway, live music, an art show, a stunt show), but steaks and hamburger dinners are yours for a donation of $7.50 or $3.

Says Gayle Anderson: “Forty miles from Palm Springs, and 20 degrees cooler. Interstate 10 to Route 62 to Yucca Valley; left on Pioneertown Road.” Y’all come.