A Special Award for Nancy Reagan

The Entertainment Industries Council, which has practically every big show-biz executive on its roster, is getting into the fight against drug abuse, particularly among young people. To that end, it’s creating a special award recognizing individuals who have helped wage the good fight. The first recipient is to be Nancy Reagan in recognition of her crusade against drug use. The award, which the council plans to present annually, will be named after the First Lady.

Mrs. Reagan will receive her tribute Sept. 26 at a dinner at the Sheraton Premiere Hotel, says Lew Wasserman, chairman of the board of MCA and chairman for the council’s award committee. The money raised that evening will help further the work of the Nancy Reagan Drug Abuse Fund and the council’s drug education programs. Helping Wasserman as co-chairs for the event are such industry biggies as Aaron Spelling, Anthony Thomopoulos, Jack Valenti, Frank Wells, Guy McElwaine, Frank Mancuso, Mike Medavoy, Barry Diller, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Alan Ladd Jr., Michael Eisner, Sherry Lansing, Frank Rothman, Suzanne de Passe, Frank Price and Barbara Corday. Plus quite a few others.

“Never again. Positively,” wailed a harried Mrs. Rodney Williams, echoing the cry of every hard-working benefit chairman in the midst of a big event.

It was the opening night for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus, a benefit for the Children’s Bureau of Los Angeles. And at that moment Betty Williams, Mrs. Arthur Linkletter and committee members like Mrs. Robert Johns Clark and Vera O’Larry were hectically trying to control the logistics of a circus party that also included a Rococo-catered picnic in the Sports Arena’s Clipper Club. A few husbands were valiantly acting as backups--Art Linkletter, who strutted manfully around in his ringmaster’s red tail coat, white pants tucked into high boots, black top hat; Rod Williams, who reminded his wife she’d need her backstage pass, the one she was generously about to pass on to a Times photographer; Bob Clark, who was hosting their table since Midge, clipboard in hand, never got to taste her vittles until it was almost time for the celebrity elephant walk.

And while those gals worked, some committee members who had finished their chores and a lot of other guests were having a swell time. Bonita Granville Wrather positively beamed when grandson Christopher acquitted himself admirably riding around the rings in a carriage; George Page, smiling happily, was surrounded by little ones; John and Louise Good who arrived with pals from Florence, Italy, Pat and Beppe Bellini, claimed this year’s European jaunt had been “the best ever”; Dr. and Mrs. Kenneth Morgan were announcing the engagement of their daughter; Nanci Denney was hilariously funny, commenting on the circus acts to Florence and Bones Hamilton; Stuart and Mary Davis ate their popcorn peacefully and John Hessel snapped photos nonstop.

More around the Clipper Club and the Sports Arena: Norma and John Bowles, Nelly Llanos, Ronnie and George White, Eric and Frances Skipsey, Sue and Tom Somermeier, Stu and Dee Cramer, Lehman Katz and Elin Vanderlip, Margo and Michael O’Connell (standing in for her mother, Mrs. Howard Ahmanson, who was the evening’s honorary chairman), the Fred O’Greens, Merle Kingsley with Bob Meyers, Margaret Pereira with daughter Monica Ferraro, Florence and Marion Malouf, Happy and Frances Franklin, Ted and Bonnie Leaver, Bradley and Mary Jones, Claudia Mirkin, the Mortimer Klines, Tom and Travis Kranz and First Hairdresser Julius Bengtsson who has a hectic schedule next weekend (after primping Nancy Reagan’s hair for her birthday party, he takes off for Napa and the Saturday wedding ceremony for Judge Mariana Pfaelzer and Frank Rothman).

“Everybody’s asking where my whip is,” commented Art Linkletter, who took over the ringmaster’s job to introduce the celebrities riding elephants. (Phyllis Diller and Zsa Zsa Gabor, pretty smart cookies, gave up that privilege to ride around comfortably in chariots.) “Well, the whip’s not important. What is important is the whistle.” And with that Art puckered up his lips and whistled.

Summer Pleasures: Blue Ribbon executive president Keith Kieschnick is entranced by John Updike’s “The Witches of Eastwick.” Gale Hayman hasn’t been able to put down Lee A. Iacocca’s biography. Nancy Vreeland, who is chairing the Chanel benefit for the Amazing Blue Ribbon, finds a moment here and there to bury her nose in Marguerite Duras’ “The Lover” and we’re staying up late keeping up with Isabel Allende’s “The House of Spirits,” Les Whitten’s “A Day Without Sunshine” (a thriller about the American wine industry) and Kit Konolige’s “The Richest Women in the World,” which has its moments of wit in spite of its heavy subject matter.

The Social Scramble: Santa Fe, N. M., has been abuzz with social activity. It’s the opera season, don’t you know. Harrylou and Bill Egolf, oil people from Oklahoma, have a splendid house there with a view to infinity . (Harrylou’s on the national advisory board for the Santa Fe Opera.) The Duke and Duchess of Bedford bought a “plaque” (historical) house in Tesuque, a chic little enclave, which they’ve called Rancho Viejo and where they spend at least three months each year. Both couples are keeping busy with the opera and entertaining each other’s house guests. Los Angeles’ Peggy Ward and New York’s Irene Roosevelt (she’s John Roosevelt’s widow) were in Santa Fe, as were the Egolfs, for the American

premiere of Werner Henze’s “The English Cat.” Giney Milner of Beverly Hills, Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Forbes of Far Hills, N. J. (he’s Malcolm’s son and is on the Santa Fe Opera board) and Geri and Pat Frawley are expected any moment. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester will be with the Egolfs for the opera company’s final production, Offenbach’s “Orpheus in the Underworld.” And interior designer Donald Murphy will be doing his Indian Market Week luncheon as he does each year.

Contemporary art collectors Joan and Jack Quinn have been in London and Paris, and they’ve bumped into all sorts of fascinating people. Mr. and Mrs. Donald Pleasence, Lauren Bacall (she arrived after curtain call on “The Sweet Bird of Youth”), director Tony Richardson with producer Neil Hartley, man-about-town Jerry Zipkin (he was on his way to Ireland) and Eve Rafael were all at Caprice the night the Quinns dined there with television personality Janet Street-Porter and artist Allen Jones and his daughter Sarah. It’s been the same thing in Paris where Conde-Nast’s Leo Lerman was with David Hockney at Brasserie Lipp on the Left Bank and Emanuelle Kahn, the designer, French Vogue editor Jean Pontiowsky, New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and Paloma Picasso’s husband, playwright Rafael Lopez-Sanchez, and his best friend Javier Arrouelo were all at Castel’s.

Palm Springs artist Gant Gaither has been in Marbella and Monte Carlo and is now heading for Salzburg. Mrs. Arthur Rubinstein, widow of the famed pianist, gave a cocktail party in her Marbella villa, La Rueda, overlooking the sea and prepared the hors d’oeuvres herself. (She’s a super cook.) Gant was there along with the Baron Guy and the Baroness Marie-Helene de Rothschild, concert pianist and Rubinstein protege Daniel Barenboim, Nela Rubinstein’s daughter Eva who is a photographer and the Baroness Jeanne de Koenigwater. In Monte Carlo, Gant has had a ball. With Prince Rainier he whizzed over in Prince Albert’s boat to Lucille and Freddie Heineke’s La Garoupe (years back it was Cole and Linda Porter’s winter villa) for lunch and met up with former Iranian empress Farah Diba and her youngest son, who is a student at Princeton, and with Mme. Raymond Barre, wife of the former French premier. On a mellow evening, Gant and Princess Caroline drove off to Menton for a Rostropovich concert performed in the courtyard of an ancient cathedral.

It was a little crowded in the Westwood Marquis’ Erte Room, but it seemed to make Belgian Consul General and Mrs. Andre Adam’s dinner party for a batch of local diplomats all that much more fun. Also in the group were the hotel’s general manager Jacques Camus with House & Garden’s Joyce MacRae; the mayor’s chief of protocol Bee Lavery and Ed Ridgway, who is on the city’s International Hospitality Committee. Representing the local consular corps were Korea’s Kwang Han Hwang and Mrs. Hwang, Sweden’s consul emeritus Walter Danielson and his wife Beryl, Canada’s Joan Winser and her husband Frank, Luxembourg’s Marie-Ann Pitz Palmatier and her husband, Austria’s Dr. Nikolaus Scherk and Mrs. Scherk, Switzerland’s Joseph P. Lustenberger and his wife and a few more.