Getting a Head Start on the Holiday Season

Les Amies, a support group of the Colleagues and indefatigable workers for the Children’s Institute International (for abandoned and abused children), are usually so busy with so many activities they only schedule two social get-togethers a year. One took place a few days back with Mrs. Mortimer Kline, hospitality chairman, hosting a luncheon gathering at Jimmy’s. On everybody’s mind was the upcoming Christmas Gala, which is always held at the Bistro on the first Sunday of December. This year the date is Dec. 1, giving Les Amies a head start on the holiday season. Ring those sleigh bells.

Everyone turned up looking like a fashion plate, a given with this stylish bunch. Among the standouts were red-haired Katie Kline in a pink suit and Gloria Holden and her guest, Barbara McElnea, who both wore Chanel berets.

Gala plans were shared by co-chairs Ruth Cutten and Margo Hirsh, who’ve been in charge of this holiday celebration for many years. They talked at length about prizes, Mrs. William Murphy’s wintry decor, Christmas music, good cheer and an elaborate buffet. It sounds as if another winner is in the works.

New members were introduced and welcomed by board president Mrs. Michael Guarini, vice president Mrs. Heinz Russell plus Mrs. Wayne Dinsmore, Mrs. Hayden Scott McComes, Mrs. William Whedon and Mrs. Montgomery Fisher. And also Ceil Moore, Katherine Hearst, Connie Maschio (who was just back from Brazil), Mrs. Michael F. Rogers, Colleagues president Noona Eversole and Frances Skipsey (they’re liaison between Colleagues and Les Amies), and Mrs. Homer Toberman, who founded the group in 1962 and looked mighty pleased about what she’d created.

The new members are an interesting lot--Mrs. Walter Hinds; Mrs. Gilman Alkire, an art consultant; Mrs. Robert Sully; Mrs. Anderson Zellers, who spent the summer in France learning to speak French; Mrs. Glen A. Holden, wife of the polo player, and Mrs. John Payne.

Mrs. John I. Moore is up to her bejeweled ears in parties--a series of little black-tie bye-byes to her pretty home (next year she’ll be commuting from Dallas to L.A.) and the upcoming Dec. 1 Los Angeles Pops Orchestra Christmas Gala which she’s co-chairing with Mrs. Happy Franklin at the Beverly Hilton.

Tiffany’s and Paloma Picasso gave a party the other night--another kickoff, you might say--for the Pops evening and the turnout was, as Ceil Moore put it, “fabulous.” In that crowd were Mr. and Mrs. Richard B. Coyle, Mr. and Mrs. Bob Ray Offenhauser, Midge and Bob Clark, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Liff, Doris Fields Heller with Jack Lowrance, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Borden, Sid and Frances Klein, the Ted Leavers, James J. Foster, Mr. and Mrs. S. J. Gaido and scores more who can’t wait for Dec. 1 to hear the Pops, Vic Damone and the USC Chorus trill away.

As for Ceil’s little at-homes, so far they’ve included Belle and Seymour Owens, John and Louise Good, Father Maurice Chase, the Henry Bergers, Julie Maxwell, Si and Virginia Ramo, Harriet and Charles Luckman, John Wiegman, Mr. and Mrs. Doyle Cotton, Mary and Bradley Jones, Marilyn and Glen McDaniel, Mrs. Waldo Avery, Loretta Young and Curtis Kent. The food has been, well, what else can we say but--fabulous!

Paul Bruggemans, owner of Le St. Germain and a man who loves to travel, is off to Cairo in a few days to finalize plans for that cruise down the Nile he’s organizing for early next year. Bruggemans (who, by the by, says his restaurant is definitely not for sale) is a believer in the good life, and what he’s putting together is no mere excursion.

Already set to accompany Paul on this luxe adventure are Vincent Price and his wife, actress Coral Browne; Mr. and Mrs. Robert Stivers; the Baron Stefan Janssen; Milton and Gloria Gunzburg; Mrs. Sidney Brody; Palm Springs’ Kay Obergfel; Mr. and Mrs. Dick Coburn; the Neil Rosensteins; Patricia Gentry; Paul’s mother, Josephine; Tita Cahn; Mr. and Mrs. Ken Edwards and Mr. and Mrs. Kent Jordan, all of Texas; Mr. and Mrs. Rob Podosin, and Rayed Ghali, who will be the cruise’s guest of honor. He is a nephew of the late King Farouk of Egypt.

The trip begins in New York where Paul’s group will be staying at the Plaza Athenee and dining at Le Cirque. Next stop is Cairo where they’ll be guests at the new Cairo Marriott, located on 12 1/2 acres on Gezira Island. The son et lumiere at Giza and dinner at the Mena House, facing two wonders of the world--the Sphinx and the Pyramids--are all on the first day’s itinerary. There’ll be time aplenty to visit Cairo’s Museum, to shop the bazaars and do more sightseeing. U.S. Ambassador Nicholas A. Veliotes and some other notables have invited the travelers for drinks before they fly off to Abu Simbel and then Aswan where they’ll board the Nile Princess. Egyptologist Safaa Abo Shadi will be the resident expert for the sail down the ancient river and visits to the treasures on its banks.

Heads spinning with ancient lore, the group returns to Cairo for more parties before the flight to Paris, a stay at the Hotel de Crillon and a black-tie dinner at Maxim’s. Wowie.

The Social Scramble: Owner Peter Morton, sporting a pale blue pullover, dropped in to his Morton’s on Monday night to find the place packed to the palms with the likes of Peter Bogdanovich; Gene Kelly and Sandi Bennett; Sam Bretzfield; Corinna and Freddie Fields at a large table that included producer Elliott Kastner; Pia Zadora with husband, Meshulam Riklis; Tom and Pam Korman; Jackie and Matty (Matteo’s) Jordan.

A few nights earlier, Michele Willis gave a party at Joe Allen’s to celebrate best pal Chris Taylor’s promotion to vice president at Financial News Network. Joining in the toasts were Chris’ proud mother, Juli Hutner; her husband, Herb Hutner; his twin brother, Curtis Taylor; Herb’s son Jeffrey Hutner; attorney Peter Soli; actress Heidi Mitchell and FNN’s president Arnie Rosenthal and his wife, Carrie.

Monsieur and Madame Alain Mauboussin are picking up some of the most dazzling of the jewels from their shop on Paris’ chic Place Vendome and bringing them to Los Angeles to thrill us all. The first to see the dazzlers from the Mauboussin 1986 collection will be those invited to a preview party on Nov. 19 at the Westwood Marquis.

Nanci Denney, Claudia Mirkin, Florence Hamilton, Barbara Richardson, Diana Anderson, Kathy Kilroy and Pat Moller were all lunching at the Bistro last week and toasting the sale of the Beverly Wilshire. (Nanci’s husband, Corwin, owns a chunk of BW stock.) And down the street at the Bistro Garden, Peggy Stevenson was lunching with best pal Kay Brown; Tony Holt Yantis was with Arthur Crowley, the divorce attorney, and Prince Nicky Toumanoff was with Arthur Spitzer.

Everybody had a whale of a good time at Paquita Machris’ spooks-and-goblins party at the Bistro Garden. Stanley Kersten flew back from Rome to do the eerie decorating--clusters of black balloons; spider webs, tarantulas and green snakes curling around tree-like arrangements of autumn flowers and leaves. The guests got into the spirit of the game--Art Linkletter wore a green wig and green-striped glasses; Bill and Shirle Ridgway came as senior citizens in reverse roles; Margo Hirsh (her date was Macdonald Carey) and Barbara Richardson were geisha girls; the hostess wore a black sequined dress, a wig and green makeup; Jean Trousdale (with Dr. Ed Hill) and Jane del Amo (with John Hessel) were dance-hall girls and Mrs. Roger Converse was dressed as a Rams football player. Some were too shy to dress up so they wore black tie and carried masks. In that group were Fred and Lotsie Giersch, Mort and Katie Kline, Alice Hartfield with Panama’s honorary consul Charles Lee, Henry and Jayne Berger, Father Maurice Chase (he did wear a pirate’s hat and an eye patch), Onnalee Doheny, Dee and Stuart Cramer and quite a few more.

Rabbi Jacob Pressman and his wife, Marjorie, might just as well have stayed home. On their first tour of the Orient they kept running into Californians, including California’s Secretary of State March Fong Eu and her husband, Henry, who were on their way back from China; Max and Janet Salter; Marshall and Sue Temkin; Bonnie Karp and a few more Westsiders.

In the Limelight: William F. Kieschnick, who is retiring as president and CEO of Atlantic Richfield, received the Center for National Policy’s 1985 Public Service Award Tuesday at the center’s annual dinner in Washington. Kieschnick, a director of the American Federation for Aging and chairman of the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art, was rewarded, said center chairman Edmund Muskie, former U.S. senator and Secretary of State, for his “contributions to public service.”

Dennis Stanfill was recently appointed by President Reagan to the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Stanfill, president of Stanfill, Doig and Co., an investment firm, is also chairman of the board of KCET, a trustee and member of the executive committee of the California Institute of Technology and a member of the board of governors of the Music Center’s Performing Arts Council. From 1971 to 1981 he was chairman and CEO of Twentieth Century Fox.