Dance Lover to Direct Debutante Ball

Mrs. George Acker loves ballroom dancing, designer gowns and raising funds for charities. She literally danced her way through Beverly Hills schools, first in a Beverly Hills children’s dance troupe, later as a jitterbug dancer in high school and then as a ballroom and adagio dancer.

Along the way she was a World War II WAVE. Married 34 years, she has five adult children and has adopted a host of charities--the National Charity League, PTA, Cub Scouts, Los Angeles Retarded Children’s Foundation (her second child, Mary, is mentally retarded), Achievement Awards for College Scientists and Les Dames de Champagne. For years, she has been a deacon at Bel-Air Presbyterian Church.

Now, she’s agreed to be 1985 ball director for the National Charity League’s 37th annual Coronet Debutante Ball.

She’ll be in one of the spotlights (there are several) tonight when the Coronet Patronesses host their traditional Parents Party at the former home of Mr. and Mrs. Norton Simon in Malibu. The residence recently was given to UCLA.

Mrs. W. Malcolm O’Donnell is party chairwoman and heads the receiving line with Mmes. Robert L. Humphreys, Patronesses chairwoman; Philip S. Kamm Jr., president, and Nadine Acker.

More on the committee are Mmes. Robert J. Botdorf, Francis Ravel and James Joseph O’Reilly.

The cocktail dinner party honors parents of the 31 debutantes to be presented Nov. 30.

Former First Lady Betty Ford speaks on the Betty Ford Center of the Eisenhower Medical Center when she addresses USC’s Town and Gown on Nov. 5. It’s a return engagement, according to Mrs. Jack F. Conley, president. Mrs. Ford was an honored guest in 1979 when a scholarship was established in her name. It’s held currently by Elise Clayton, a sophomore education major.

ADWEEK magazine and Screenvision Cinema Network will host the first Los Angeles premiere of winners from the 32nd International Advertising Film Festival.

The black-tie affair will be Oct. 23 at 20th Century Fox Studios. Cocktails in the Fox Commissary precede the screening at Zanuck Theater and dinner and dancing to Clark Keen.

Proceeds will be used to establish an advertising scholarship at USC’s Graduate School of Business Communications, according to W. Pendleton Tudor, chairman of A/S/M Communications and Terry Laughren, president of Screenvision Cinema Network.

Enthusiasts are Hugh Duncan, Richard Edler, Dennis F. Holt, Philip Joanou, Craig Mathieson, Donald C. Mitchum, Tom Patty, Charles W. Reynolds Jr., Nelson Riddle Jr. and Richard Robertson.

New and Lively: That’s Con Brio (“with spirit”), the new support group for the Pasadena Chamber Orchestra. Co-chairwomen are Joni Baker, past president of the Pasadena Junior League, and Giny Marum.

Liaison with the orchestra’s directors will be Kaholyn McKissick, in charge of board special events and benefits, and Kathy Gillespie, board subscription chairwoman.

About 100 guests are expected to attend Con Brio’s first major event, today’s wine-and-cheese party at the San Marino home of Vicki Livingstone honoring Robert Duerr, chamber music director. Debbi Perkins is party chairwoman, assisted by Anita Fromholtz and Judy Kelly.

What’s it like to start a new support group in the mid-’80s? Well, members say it involves brown-bagging it at meetings with board president Al Koch at his downtown office.

Super honors: Frank Price, chairman of the MCA Motion Picture Group, will have a park and recreation center established in his name in Israel. The center will be financed from the proceeds of Tuesday’s testimonial dinner at the Sheraton-Premiere. Price will also receive the Tree of Life Award from the Jewish National Fund. Joining in the tribute will be entertainment industry leaders Marvin Antonowsky, Michael D. Eisner, Michael S. Ovitz, William C. Soady, Brandon Tartikoff--all co-chairmen.

Rona Barrett receives the Steps to Independence award at the Work Training Programs Inc.’s sixth annual fund-raising luncheon Sunday at the Beverly Wilshire. Work Training Programs is a private, nonprofit organization which has “prepared hundreds of developmentally disabled individuals to live full and productive lives working as clerical support, assemblers and hospital housekeepers in the community,” according to Harriet Rechtman, project manager for program’s Woodland Hills branch.

The Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce Award of Merit will be presented to Ernest Fleischmann, executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, chamber president Debra-Lynne Solis has announced. He’s the 27th recipient. The dinner party is Oct. 21 at the Beverly Wilshire.

In 1976, Don Kubley led the Art Center College of Design to its dramatic location in the hills above Pasadena’s Rose Bowl, developing enrollment from 700 to 1,200 full-time students. He also directed planning for the proposed establishment of an affiliated campus in Switzerland, scheduled to open in 1986.

Kubley will retire in December after 22 years as head of the college which provides professional training for artists and designers. David R. Brown, most recently vice president-communications at Champion International Corp. in Connecticut, will take over as president Dec. 2.

Longtime Downey residents S. T. and Dorothy Ziler were honored recently at the Charter Ball, sponsored by the Memorial Trust Foundation, the fund-raising arm of the Downey Community Hospital.

Margie Hoffman and Bruce Jeffery invited a host of friends to see her recent paintings at the Great Frame Up in Santa Monica.

Robinez Williams, Eula Cazenave and Vennie Russell say everything’s coming up roses for the Tiffany Guild luncheon fashion show today at the Beverly Hilton International Ballroom. Michael Novarese is the couture star. It’s a benefit for the Harry A. Mier Center in Inglewood in association with the Crippled Children’s Society of Southern California.

Samuel W. Lewis, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, is to deliver the keynote address tonight at the American Technion Society Healing Arts Division Maimonides Award Tribute Dinner in honor of Dr. Leon Morgenstern at the Beverly Hilton. Dr. Kenneth Adashek is dinner chairman.