A School Play With Special Stars and Special Students

When Landmark School West did its annual holiday lunch Sunday at the Beverly Wilshire, the school play was special--special because of the guest stars and because all the students at Landmark are dyslexic. Headmaster Davis Drake of the Culver City campus told the overflow crowd that the luncheon-- chaired by Sue Robertson--was both a commitment and celebration “that we care and we understand this challenge, this difficulty.” Actress Joyce Bulifant had written and directed the play--taped for use in the public schools and for broadcast on public TV--as part of the Learning Disabilities Foundation’s Public Awareness Program. It played to not-a-dry-eye. Actors Ed Asner, Patty Duke and Jack Warden took the roles of dyslexics Tom Edison, Amy Lowell, Albert Einstein--scientific and literary greats who had the same difficulty in “processing information” now recognized as dyslexia. TV’s Stephen Cannell received the Hans Christian Andersen award for famous dyslexics from his daughter, Tanya. Cannell thanked his parents and his wife, then reminded the audience that “when I was in school, it was not called dyslexic. It was called stupid.” Drake stressed that dyslexia affects many people, perhaps 20 million to 25 million in the United States, and that programs like Landmark make the difference because they stress literacy and “literacy is becoming the latchkey to success.”

WEDDING, ROUND II--It just couldn’t have been more traditional when Sly Stallone and Brigitte Nielsen got married Sunday. They said their vows under a pink and white flowered arch in the living room of Irving and Margo Winkler. A similar arch covered the front door, with the legend, “Together, Forever.” The bride--stunning in a white, pearl-beaded gown, pearl handband-hairdress and matching flats--and groom danced first to “True Love,” then to “My Girl.” There were not too many familiar star faces besides Morgan Fairchild, John Travolta (apparently solo) and Jerry and Jane Weintraub.

AND DIVORCE--It was a quickie for the much-touted political consultant firm of Pat Cadell, David Doak and Bob Shrum, split up less than six months after it was formed. Sen. Alan Cranston, one of the firm’s five clients nationally--Cadell’s polling operation is a separate business--looked for a while to be center of a custody fight. But now, those inside the Cranston operation say, campaign manager Dary Sragow believes it possible to sign up Cadell for “strategy” and sign up Doak and Shrum for “media.” The original firm stood to make about $120,000 in general fees and would have made upwards of $350,000 as their percentage of the media buy. How would the split entities now divide the cash? “Ah that’s the problem,” one Cranston insider said. . . Also on the media front--Cranston old hand Lu Haas has left his post as press secretary, and the name of Roger Carrick--with the attorney general’s office until Dec. 31--is being mentioned as a press person both within the Cranston and Tom Bradley campaigns.

MORE HUDSON BOOKS--Jerry Oppenheimer--former investigative reporter with the Washington Star--is out here doing a bio on the late Rock Hudson for Random House with Jack Vitek. This is not the so-called authorized biography, which Sara Davidson is penning for Morrow.

POLITICAL GET-TOGETHERS--Local Republicans are planning a January kickoff for the L.A. version of one of five large-scale fund-raisers Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole will hold next spring. It’s all designed to meet his $4 million fund-raising effort to keep the Senate Republican majority.

. . . Kicking off the April 12 dinner for Municipal Elections Committee of L.A. at the Bel-Air home of Ray Edelman were dinner chairs Bill Melamed and Carol Poet and MECLA co-chairs Larry Sprenger and Carol Childs.

OPEN HOUSE--More than 500 supporters turned out Sunday for a preview look at the Downtown Women’s Center Residence, which will provide permanent housing for 48 women on Skid Row. Director Jill Halverson handed out Olympic-style pins with a likeness of the residence. The rooms and hallways had been decorated with flowers sent down by David Jones; the Musicians Union provided the music; Laurent Quenioux, who takes over as owner at Seventh St. Bistro, had sent over plates and plates of wonderful desserts, and Bob Carter of Van Herrick’s plantings had provided ficus trees and poinsettias in abundance. Old friends like Olive Behrendt, Kelli and Allen Questrom and City Councilwoman Joy Picus and her husband Jerry, Joan and Marco Weiss, architect Brenda Levin and Neil and Joanie Baizer were on hand to celebrate the center’s success.

HOLIDAY KUDOS--To Rogers & Cowan, which this year gave up the usual holiday gifts to friends and clients and instead made a substantial contribution to the Scott Newman Foundation for Drug Abuse . . . To Ben B. and Joyce Eisenberg, who have donated $1 million to the Jewish Homes for the Aging of Greater L.A. . . . And especially to that group of struggling actors who put on their annual play last weekend at places like the Hathaway Home for Children, St. Joseph’s in Burbank and Ronald McDonald House at Childrens Hospital. They worked on the play for weeks--and it was received with great appreciation at their five stops. We can’t give you their names or any other identification. They refused the publicity. Said that’s not what their Christmas present to children and older people was all about.

Happy Holidays.