Meanwhile, Back at the Reagan Ranch

The Reagan Regulars have flocked back for August to be here during President and Mrs. Reagan’s annual holiday at their Rancho del Cielo above Santa Barbara and to do a lot of socializing among themselves.

The First Lady finally gets to celebrate her July 6 birthday with her chums Aug. 17 at the ranch. The original party, you’ll recall, was postponed when a TWA plane and its passengers were held hostage in Beirut and the Reagans canceled their plan for a trip to California. Mrs. William A. Wilson, wife of the ambassador to the Vatican, and Mrs. Earle Jorgensen, wife of the steel tycoon, are co-hosting the birthday bash, which will have mariachis, margaritas and Mexican-style food. As always.

The arrival of Bill and Betty Wilson in Los Angeles set off another round of parties. Among those who’ve been--or will be--hosts to the popular pair are Bill and Mignon Winans, Chardee and Tuck Trainer and Erlenne and Dr. Norman Sprague Jr., Joe Moshay, the RR’s favorite band leader, will be contributing his danceable music at a few of the parties. Audrey (Meadows) and Bob Six had sent out their invitations for a Chasen’s party honoring the Wilsons too, but theirs had to be canceled at the last minute. Actually, says Audrey who’s as funny (and much prettier) in real life than she was as the wife of Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) on “The Honeymooners,” “the party’s just been postponed.”

Mrs. William French Smith had a birthday earlier in the week and one of her celebrations was a lunch at the Bistro Garden hosted by David Narva, the young man who owns the Yves Saint Laurent boutiques in Beverly Hills and Palm Springs. Jean Smith wore a YSL creation and so did Betsy Bloomingdale and Mary Jane Wick, wife of the director of the U.S. Information Agency. These ladies know how to play the social game.

Last week Rose Narva, David’s mother, who runs Washington’s Jefferson Hotel, was in town and quite a few of the Reagan Regulars showed up at Jimmy’s at lunchtime to say “hi.” Jean and Bill Smith lived at the Jefferson during his four-year tenure as attorney general and Jean still stays there on her almost bimonthly trips to the nation’s capital. On her last visit she was looking over the plans and fabric swatches for the Jefferson’s remodeling and suddenly got the idea that the swatches would make good place mats for the lunch. Rose Narva carried the idea a little further by using the fabric samples as wrapping for her gifts to the ladies--replicas of the Thomas Jefferson Cup (the Jefferson Hotel gave them to their guests during Reagan’s first inaugural and two of the originals are at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home). The gathering included Mignon Winans, Betty Wilson, Marion Jorgensen, Giney Milner, Mary Jane Wick, Chardee Trainer, Florence Hamilton, Beverly Morsey, Flora Thornton, Nanci Denney and Pat Mirisch.

The Social Scramble: Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, the multimillionaire art collector, is marrying his longtime love, Tita Barker (actor Lex’s widow), Aug. 16 at Bayelsford, his English country home outside of Oxford and the home the bridegroom-to-be loves the best.

In Aspen, Oklahomans J. T. and Anne Linn are having a weeklong house party for their new Steve Chase-designed home. (Chase also designed a home for the Linns in Palm Springs.) Among those ensconced in the lap of luxury for the duration are Nancy Holmes, the writer, and Dinah Shore, the entertainer and crackerjack tennis player.

On their first visit to Southampton, Count and Countess Chandon (of Moet & Chandon) are doing it right. They’re the house guests of Carroll and Milton Petrie and among their social obligations is a reception and dinner given at Pat Patterson’s home for Vice President George Bush plus Saturday night’s Midsummer Gala benefiting the Parrish Museum. Carroll Petrie and Jean Tailer are co-chairing the gala and Camilla Chandon is on the dinner committee. You can bet your boots the Moet & Chandon will flow freely. After all those festivities, the Chandons head West, to Los Angeles and to the vineyards of Domaine Chandon in the Napa Valley.

Lunching at Le St. Germain over the past few days: Olive Behrendt talking up the L. A. Philharmonic Pension Fund Concert on Sept. 8 at the Hollywood Bowl with her pal Danny Kaye as conductor (more about that later); Merv Griffin; Murray Schwartz, president of Merv Griffin Productions; Ruby Magdison with Beverly Petal; Henry Jaffe; perky blonde French actress-chanteuse Line Renaud and her husband Lou Lou Gaste here to talk about bringing her Paris stage hit (“Folle Amanda,” which won the French equivalent of the Tony) to the States with Zev Bufman (in the United States it will be known as “The Incomparable Loulou”).

Madame Sylvia and King Wu celebrated their wedding anniversary over dinner in the patio at Spago. Sons Patrick and George, both attorneys, were the hosts. Outside, the photographers waited for Jane Fonda to finish her dinner. And Wolfgang Puck, chef co-owner, worked hard at the open grill while his wife Barbara Lazaroff was elsewhere celebrating her birthday with some of her chums. Shrugging his white chef’s coat-covered shoulders, Wolfie said, somebody’s got to work.

Socializing over dinner at the Siamese Princess--Maurice and Sue Harwick with Philip Salet; former Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson with a group that included Bill and Gloria Allred; Broadway director Andrew Laszlo.

Now that they’re back home in Malibu, Norman and Eileen Kreiss have resumed the series of little dinner parties out on their glass-enclosed deck. The other night Norman prepared the Manhattan-style clam chowder and Eileen set the round glass-topped table all in white. And crowding in nicely were David and Yvonne Nelson (he has filmed a commercial that afternoon with his mother Harriet Nelson); Grace Robbins, who’s devoting her time to the Princess Grace Foundation Gala committee, and Mary Ann Mobley, who is working on “Diff’rent Strokes” while husband Gary Collins and their daughter Clancey were back East checking out the Ivy League schools.

The Really Good News: From Newport, R.I., Nancy Landry Powell reports that the Community Counseling Service Phantom Ball (no ball at all) raised more than $32,000.

Donald Hudgens, a Highland Park real estate salesman, won the big prize--a Lincoln Continental Mark VII donated by the Ford Motor Co.--at the Partners For Music Center Unified Fund luncheon.

And up in the Napa Valley they raised $412,000 at the Napa Valley Auction for the St. Helena Hospital and Health Center, the Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa and the Community Clinic Ole in Yountville. Henry and Geanne Beech, owners of the Henry Joseph Gallery in Napa, were the high bidders--$3,000 for the first case of Sterling vineyards’ first vineyard-designated wine, a 1982 Cabernet Sauvignon from Diamond Mountain Ranch.

Backtracking: Hernando Courtright, El Padrino de Los Angeles, received a star, a real one, for his birthday. No kidding. It’s registered in the copyright office of the Library of Congress. And there was more for the proprietor and managing director of the Beverly Wilshire, a Mexican dinner party in the hotel’s Hernando’s Hideaway given by his wife Fiorenza and his family. The celebrants included Courtright’s daughter Carina and her husband Wayne Quasha, daughter Stephanie and husband Jack Sisto, sons De Vigne and Hernandito and Hernandito’s wife Doreen, Judge McIntyre Faries and Dorothi Bock Pierre; Mrs. Courtright’s children John, Tom, April and Veronica, Tom Lewis, Father Pat McPolin and a few more good friends.