Ford, Others to Be Feted at Scouts’ Party

Just as a reminder, the Scout Oath is tucked in on its own little card in the invitation for the Diamond Jubilee Celebration on Dec. 9, recognizing the 75th birthday of the Boy Scouts of America.

Scouting’s Best Friends--former President Gerald R. Ford, Mrs. Margaret Martin Brock, and former Ambassador Leonard K. Firestone--all will be presented the 1985 Distinguished Citizen Award at the Century Plaza.

That means they’ll join Pat Boone, the late Justin Dart, Bob Hope, Mary Martin, former Sheriff Peter J. Pitchess, Jimmy Stewart, Frank Sinatra and the late John Wayne (and it’s a repeat award for Firestone) as prior recipients.

Right now, there is nice hustling going on to fill a maximum number of “Diamond Jubilee Circle” tables at $5,000. They come with a fillip--a platinum page in the testimonial journal. Your everyday average ticket is $300, but the cause is special--the Los Angeles Area Council of the Boy Scouts.

The Board of Directors of the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums hosts a very special dinner Nov. 1--a gala honoring the Most Rev. Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles. Cocktails and dinner will be at the residence of the Bob Hopes.

The Most Rev. John R. Quinn, archbishop of San Francisco, is expected to attend.

John L. McDonnell Jr. is chairman. Mrs. J. Thomas McCarthy serves as vice chairman of the committee. Virginia S. Milner is treasurer and Glen B. Regan is secretary.

Also illuminating the occasion will be Mmes. Howard Ahmanson, Patrick J. Frawley, Michael W. Wilsey, Robert Gallo, George D. Jagels Sr., Richard K. Miller, Ellen Davies Rush, Mrs. Hope, and Messrs. Charles F. Bannan, F. Robert Burrows, John L. Curci, Robert F. Erburu, Eugene St. John, Sir Daniel J. Donohue and the Rev. Miles O’Brien Riley.

The patrons raise funds for the preservation, care, exhibition and restoration of religious art with particular emphasis on the collections of the Vatican Museums and Art Galleries. This will do well at $500 per person.

Great musicians have always had benefactors. The Young Musicians Foundation exists to support the musically gifted young. Its 30th Anniversary Salute will be Saturday at the Century Plaza. All proceeds go to the various YMF projects: the Debut Orchestra, conductor-in-training, management-in-training, debut competition, scholarships, chamber music workshop and the Musical Encounter.

The Command Performance stars Herb Alpert, Lani Hall and Maestro John Williams. Miss Leah Yoon, 7, and Master Kaizi, 15, both pianists, will make their debuts.

The black-tie affair begins at 6:30 p.m. with a bazaar and auction, followed by dinner and a concert. Actress Florence Henderson and chairman Edye Rugolo are both involved.

The De Mille Dynasty Exhibition opens Nov. 5 with a gala in Century City (and then welcomes the public Nov 6.), but the curator, New Yorker Louise Kerz, put the accent on costume and gave nearly 400 Costume Council members at Los Angeles County Museum of Art a preview this week in the Bing Auditorium.

Showing rare childhood photos of Agnes de Mille (she attended Hollywood School for Girls and UCLA before making her New York debut in 1927 and becoming a legend in the history of American dance) in dress-up poses (in her mother’s and friends’ clothes), Louise Kerz also focused on the careers of Hollywood’s Cecil B. DeMille, Agnes’ uncle, and her father, playwright William de Mille, and her grandfather Henry C. de Mille, who collaborated with David Belasco.

Reveling in film clips from “Cleopatra” and a funny interview sequence with Cecil B. DeMille, were Mrs. Miguel Llanos, Costume Council president; Mrs. Anne Johnson, event chairman; Dale Gluckman, assistant curator of costumes and textiles; Mmes. Brian Corbell and Donald Pennell, who later hosted the tea in the museum atrium with music from “Oklahoma” and plumes on the tea table.

To work out details, a group lunched early at Trumps, including the De Mille Dynasty Exhibition executive producer Joyce Aimee. The Century City affair, whose chairman is Charlton Heston, is the premiere exhibition of the Americana Museum, under auspices of the Americana Dance Theatre Inc., a nonprofit corporation. They’re promising to turn the shopping center into “De Mille City” with holograms, videos, films, live dance and theater performances along the walking avenues.

Friend-raising for Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena was a laughing matter this week. That’s because cartoonist Mell Lazarus told all about how he created the cartoon strip “Momma,” describing with humor and love her hypochondriac complaints that she was a “victim” of neglect by her children. His mother, now deceased, always, he said (like many moms view their children), thought of him as not quite grown up.

Later the audience bought his drawings, with proceeds going to the Senior Care Network, which aids older people in the San Gabriel Valley.

Dr. Allen Mathies, new president and chief executive officer of the hospital, explained the “pediatric view of aging” (pediatrics is his speciality). Among the good-humored were Dottie Juett, Judy Morse, Eileen Zimmerman, Katie Tuerk, Liz Baldridge, Deborah Hollingsworth, Mary Kassabian and Elsie Sadler, all of whom have formulated an “Excellence in Caring” friend-raising support group for the hospital.

Sen. Barry Goldwater and George F. Moody, president and chief executive of Security Pacific Bank, are heading the chairmanship of the Air Force Ball on Friday evening at the Century Plaza.

Acceptances also have come from Secretary of the Air Force Verne Orr and Mrs. Orr; Gen. Charles Gabriel, Air Force Chief of Staff, and Mrs. Gabriel; the Charlton Hestons, the Lorne Greenes and John Schuck.

In the spirit of good times, more than 600 will don costumes Friday evening for a Halloween Ball at the home of Donna and Harvey Rosen. It’s a major effort to raise funds for Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times, a project of the Southern California Children’s Cancer Services Inc. The trick is a minimum $125 per person. The treat: dinner, dancing and auction.

So far, the indefatigable Pepper Abrams says, the group has raised more than $3 million toward its goal of $7 million for construction of a permanent Malibu camp for children with cancer. While the minimum $125 is certainly acceptable, we can’t tell you how arduously she is working at selling the $5,000 Founders tickets.

Fun galore: Halloween night, Ports O’Call Village in San Pedro promises 95 trick-or-treating spots for children. Disc Jockey MG Kelley of KOST-FM and Tony Nassour of A & A Productions will emcee the night as a benefit for victims of retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative hereditary disease which leads to blindness.