Royal Time for Monaco First Family

The red and white flag of Monaco is flying over the Camino Real driveway of the Beverly Wilshire, indicating that the Monegasque princely family is in residence. The heir apparent, Prince Albert, and his younger sister, Princess Stephanie, arrived Wednesday night with Robert Marx, Barbara Sinatra’s son and chairman of tonight’s Princess Grace Foundation Gala junior committee. Prince Rainier III, accompanied by daughter, Princess Caroline; her husband, Stefano Casiraghi; their baby, Andrea Albert; and Monaco’s Consul General in New York (and a crony of Prince Rainier’s), Frank Cresci, arrived Thursday evening.

Prince Rainier loves to play tennis and plays the game very well. And that’s why Wendell Niles Jr., who stages a yearly tennis tournament in Monte Carlo (His Serene Highness has won a few of them), set up a tennis game for the family. They all showed up at Jerry Buss’ Pickfair after attending Saturday’s brunch for Princess Grace Foundation trustees and gala benefactors. It was hosted by Epicure’s Stephan Tomek at his newest hotel, the Epicure Granville. At Pickfair, they were welcomed by co-hosts Wendell Niles and his wife, Nelle, and Reebok’s Paul Fireman. John Forsythe and Charlton Heston, who are no slouches on the tennis courts, were honorary chairmen for this sporting foray and Linda Evans was honorary referee. Between sets, champagne and light refreshments were served.

The princely schedule included much more. Friday night, Robert Marx escorted Prince Albert and Princess Stephanie to the La Prairie reception at the Beverly Wilshire. (The Swiss beauty care line turned over $50,000 to the Princess Grace Foundation when Princess Stephanie posed for one of their ads.) Among the guests were Liza Minnelli (star performer for tonight’s gala) and Johnny Carson. Then Marx escorted Albert and Stephanie to the Hard Rock Cafe where owner Peter Morton and Maxim’s des Mers (Pierre Cardin’s seagoing yacht) hosted a sit-as-you-will dinner-dance for about 250 of the jeunesse doree. Marx, Cecilia Peck and actress Catherine Oxenberg (her uncle, Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia, will be attending the gala) said a few words. Princess Caroline and her husband had promised to look in. Saturday night gala sponsor Gene Washburn was in the entry of the Regency Club greeting the older set, members of the foundation and benefactors. The entire family was invited.

This morning, the Church of the Good Shepherd’s Msgr. Peter Healy will hold a private Mass for the Monegasque family. And later they’ll meet with the recipients of the Princess Grace Foundation scholarships and attend a meeting of the foundation’s trustees. Soon after they go on to the Beverly Hills Hotel for the Pierre Cardin fashion show and luncheon. Cardin will be there to oversee it all. Tonight, it’s a photo call, a VIP reception and finally the gala. On Monday the family visits the Warner’s lot for lunch with some Hollywood royalty, namely the Carringtons and Colbys of “Dynasty.” And then, it’s finally bye bye.

Picture this, a series of table tops created by a group of painters, sculptors, ceramists, graphic, fashion and interior designers. “Designers as Diners” is the brain child of Design Center showroom owner Mark Krasne and the Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design.

Using some of their favorite creations, objects from their own collections and artifacts, dinnerwear, flatwear and antique furniture from the Krasne showroom, artists Billy Al Bengston, Nancy Monk, Rick Oginz, Mim Spertus, George Herms, Bob Walker, Laddie John Dill, Woods Davy and Bob Walker will be setting their own tables according to their own fancies. Add to the creative input interior decorators Jack Lowrance, Barbara Lazaroff and David Jones. Plus more artistic types--Kent Twitchell, Betye Saar, Peter Shire, Sheila de Bretteville, Scott Grieger, Aida Grey, Jo Ann Callis, Gale Hayman, Karla Champion and Ralph Bacerra. Otis/Parsons board members Marjorie Lyte, Elaine Goldsmith and Joan Selwyn, and Marilou Yoell and Virginia Babbitt are all helping put the project together.

The preview on Nov. 16, from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m., is a benefit ($25 per person) for the school. But all those fanciful table tops remain on view at the landmark Design Center on Spring Street through Nov. 30.

Tuesday is a big day for the Los Angeles Orphanage Guild, which will be honoring its 1985-86 advisory board at a luncheon in the home of Mrs. Earl Russell. It’s the opening gun of the guild’s new season.

Mrs. Robert Ganey heads the receiving line. And Jessie Blakiston is chairman for the board which includes Mrs. John Bogue, Mrs. Henry Dockweiler, Dolly Green, Irene Dunne Griffin, Marilyn Hilton, Mrs. David Hearst, Mrs. Norman Herman, Mrs. Howard Keck, Sally Moore, Mrs. Harold McAlister, Blanche Seaver, Mrs. Joseph Tanzola, Marie Verheyen and Mrs. Olin Wellborn III.

Frances Klein, who has a sense of drama, wanted her party to be pink, pink, pink. And when the doors leading to Jimmy’s private party room were opened, the guests who’d been sipping and munching in the adjoining Malabar Room drew in their collective breaths and gave the decor a well-deserved round of applause. What Flower Fashions had created was the essence of pink--more than 5,000 tiny pink lights covering the ceiling, more lights obscuring the pink carnations that were massed petal to petal into topiary trees. There was more pink in a variety of blooms.

New and old friends mingled at the party as Sid Klein, Frances’ husband and the evening’s co-host, pointed out. And you’ve never seen such a shower of pink on the ladies--chiffon, feathers, beads, sequins. Socializing like crazy were Rosemarie and Danny Thomas, June (Haver) and Fred MacMurray, Mary Carol and Mickey Rudin, Frances and Happy Franklin, the S.J. Gaidos, Eva Gabor with Palm Springs plastic surgeon Borko Djordjevic, Contessa Cohn with Terry Leone, the Arthur Gilberts, Ellen and Berny Byrens, Sybil Brand with Cesar Romero, Aida (Grey) and Doug Behrend, Amal Ad-Shathry, Grace and Merrill Lowell, Zena and Rusty Hoffman, the Jess Marlowes, Henry and Sedge Plitt, Maggie and Jean Louis, Dr. and Mrs. Steven Genender, Jane and Bob Kramer, George Page with Ruth Tullis, Guadalupe and Darwin Shannon, Fred Gibbons with Gail Simms, Geri and Dick Brawerman and many more.

The Social Scramble: Mrs. Theodore Cummings, widow of the Republican Party bigwig who became the U.S. ambassador to Austria, will be entertaining U.S. Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and his wife, Ursula, at a dinner-dance at her home later in the month.

Father Maurice Chase, the only man in a group of women, had more fun than anyone. Coca-Cola’s Lucy Boswell had time only for “hellos” as she rushed off to UCLA where she was making a speech. Everybody else stayed on and on at Sachi Irwin’s birthday lunch at Jimmy’s for Kathy Finley Matsumoto. In that lunch bunch were Kathy’s mother, Doris Finley; her mother-in-law, Grace Lowell; her best friend, Nancy Kasden; plus Dale Snodgrass, Jasmine Niklas Runnels, Anne Jeffreys Sterling.

House Speaker Tip O’Neill was at Jimmy’s the other day attending a small luncheon given by Charles Manatt, the lawyer and former chairman of the Democratic Party, in the restaurant’s Malabar Room. The faithful were all around.

Paul Mitchell was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame and the whole family (wife, Ingrid; daughter, Heidi) accompanied him to Minnesota for the big honor.

Lunching at the Bistro Garden--Geary’s Ruth Meyer with Madame Marie Claude Lalique of the French crystal firm. Earlier, Ruth, son Bruce and his wife were there with Juan Lladro of the Spanish porcelain factory.

David and Betty Rose, who’d just returned from London where he conducted two concerts with the BBC Orchestra, were dining at the Italian Fisherman restaurant in Old (as opposed to New) Pasadena. Others finding refuge in the restaurant after exhausting trips--Wendell Niles Jr., who had been at the White House conferring with Nancy Reagan on next year’s second annual tennis tournament on behalf of her anti-drug campaign; Count and Countess de Warren, who’d been in Paris visiting his parents; Efrem Zimbalist, who’d been in Virginia City for a concert honoring his late father.

Dining at Melvyn’s restaurant in Palm Springs’ historic Ingleside Inn: Roberto de la Madrid, former governor of Baja California Norte, with his family; Joseph and Patricia (Medina) Cotton; Tony Holt Yantas with divorce attorney Arthur Crowley; “Love Boat’s” Gavin MacLeod.

Red Letter Days: This afternoon, when UCLA’s Gold Shield Alumnae honor Dr. Paul A. Dodd, dean emeritus of UCLA’s College of Letters and Science, and his wife, Bonnie Jennings Dodd, at a reception on the lawn of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library on West Adams Boulevard. Bonnie Dodd, a member of Gold Shield, was president of the UCLA Faculty Women’s Club and a charter member of the UCLA Art Council. The Dodds, with a gift of $25,000, established the Paul and Bonnie Dodd Scholarship for UCLA students in the College of Letters & Science.

Monday, when Hollywood Heritage and Harper & Row celebrate the publication of Richard Alleman’s “The Movie Lover’s Guide to Hollywood” at the DeMille Barn/Hollywood Studio Museum.

Friday, when Arthur Simon hosts a festive preview of his White Christmas Collection (a white fox table cover is one of the luxurious surprises) as a benefit for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. The party place is Simon’s studio on North Robertson Boulevard.