Pasadena League Readies ‘Center Stage’

Nothing but “Center Stage” will do for the Junior League of Pasadena. Mrs. Anton C. Garnier, chairman, has energized an extensive team planning to return $100,000 to community projects with the fashion musical extravaganza Feb. 22 at the Westin Bonaventure.

Based on the benefit’s extraordinary success last year, Bullock’s Pasadena has agreed to underwrite the entire production, and that’s a major gift Anita Garnier is extremely pleased about.

Currently, league actives and sustainers and husbands and children are astutely studying how to trip the fantastic as models, and that’s a bunch: Debbie Clemo, Lynne Denker, Candida Genzmer, Bettye Hill, Betsy Livadary, Michelle Liset, Jennifer Murphy, Susan Ralston-McCormick, Ann Weir, Sydney Wilson, Susan Seidel, Katie Tuerk, Clayton Marquardt, Timothy Morphy, Donald Payne, Terry Perucca, Fred Schoellkopf, Catherine Baker, Sarah Clark, Rebecca Mielke, David Ebershoff, Scooter Hollingsworth, James Sonne and Karolyn Baker, to name a few.

Silver Birches has been signed to create the floral fantastics.

Mrs. Tony Garnier’s “A” team is polished and orderly: Susan Schnee, Gioia Pastre, Joni Baker, Victoria Phelps, Cynti Oshin, Kate Regan (production chairman), Diane Scott, Sue Guglielmo. Also taking heavyweight responsibilities are Cynthia Albrecht, Penny Cattrell, Nancy Davis, Heidi Frederic, Cheri Fremdling, Liz Gilfillan, Anne Odell, Wendy Siciliano, Mary Pinola, Vickie Stickney, Carey Lewis, Susan Hyde and Lori Payne (she’s coordinating the models).

Like last year, a luncheon benefit (tickets $60 and $40) will precede the evening black-tie dinner ($120 and $80).

Children’s Holiday Festival chairman Mrs. Philip J. Koen (Betty Ann) was all heart the other day at the Music Center. It was the Amazing Blue Ribbon’s luncheon to praise past festival chairmen and announce the wonderful upcoming variations planned for the Music Center’s Holiday Festival XVI, which will draw 25,000 fifth-graders to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center Jan. 28-31.

The festival is the special project of the Blue Ribbon in cooperation with the Music Center Education Division and Los Angeles and surrounding area city, county and parochial schools.

In the spotlight, too, at the luncheon were Mrs. William Kieschnick, executive president of the Blue Ribbon, and Mrs. Sheldon I. Ausman, assistant festival chairman (Sandy is county chief of protocol). Past chairmen, including Chardee Trainer, Suzanne Marx, Joni Smith, Beverly Jobe, Bobbie Galpin, Barbro Taper, were among those at the head table with Allen Colman, president of the Music Center Operating Company.

Currently, woodwind quartets will be visiting schools, preparing students for their day at the Music Center. At the festival, students will hear Rachael Worby, Youth Concerts conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, explain orchestral sounds and lead musicians in Saint-Saens’ “Carnival of the Animals.”

Shadow puppets will depict the animals represented by the music and accompany the presentation. Later youngers will improvise through dance and pantomime on the Music Center Plaza.

Innovations this year also feature a book collection. As Mrs. Brian Billington explains it, children attending the festival have been asked to bring books for the Music Center Book Fair, a special fund-raising event benefiting the Music Center on June 7-8.

Diane Morton and Jan Erickson co-chair the bus committee. Teri Aaron heads the information booth. Eunice Forester is official photographer. Alice Coulombe and Pat Hutter are Pavilion chairmen. Pam Clyne and Lynda Levin share the Plaza responsibilities. Carolbeth Korn and Joyce Penido will be hostesses for the hospitality suite. Suzanne Marx is chairman of gifts. Judy Ruderman was being thanked for arranging the chairmen’s luncheon.

They’ll all work super closely with Joan Boyett and Barbara Haig, Music Center coordinators.

The committee for the biannual Women’s Day at USC met this week to finalize plans for their “Collage of Knowledge” and Barbara Bush’s (wife of the vice president) keynote appearance to talk on “The Eradication of Illiteracy.”

Co-chairmen of the all-day happening are Linda Maudlin and Sharon Merz. They’re working with Carol Porter and Laurie Firestone, USC graduate and secretary to Mrs. Bush.

An impressive panel of USC educators will serve “food for thought” in morning sessions moderated by Trojan alumna and former NBC commentator Susan Hahn. They’re Dr. Warren Bennis, “Motivating Effective Leadership”; Dr. Helena Chui, “Alzheimer’s Disease,” and Arthur Murphy, “Movies Are for the Young and the Young Only.”

Luncheon follows in Town and Gown with Marilyn Zumberge, wife of president James H. Zumberge, at the helm as honorary chairman.

Women’s Day was founded in 1979 by Lucy Hubbard and co-chaired by Bobbie Galpin to showcase expertise at USC.

The bright yellow funny invitations announced “Never Give Up! Martha and Jimmy Kilroe are finally giving a party, and they hope that you can come!”

It was a spirited group that danced the night away, and they all RSVP’d. That’s because Martha told them to--in big red letters on the outside of the invitation envelope. It takes confidence to be so daring.

The popular couple’s friends (he’s director of racing at Santa Anita) were in abundance: Mary Bradley, Mrs. Sammy Colt, the Roger Converses, the J. Albert Currans, the H. W. Doughertys, the Henry Eversoles, the Boyd Higginses, the William Hoveys Jr., the James Harrises, the George Jagels, the James Gambles, the Freeman Gateses, the Fred Giersches, the Cliff Goodriches, the James Fullertons, Col. Robert Fullerton, Robert Hastings, the Warren Williamsons, the Pete Wilkinses, Mrs. Murray Ward, the Robert P. Strubs, William Able-Smith (from Middleburg, Va.), the William Shoemakers, Fran Schleuter, Mrs. Nat Paschall, Dr. and Mrs. Max Pegram, Dwight Newell,

Rufus Rodgers, the Malcolm McDuffies, the John McCarthys, and many more.

Under the white tent, where Ray Moshay’s band played for dancing, nearly every gentleman asked the hostess for a twirl. That meant a lot of cutting in, and cutting up.

Friends of Banning Park chairman Mrs. Richard Call and president Mrs. Joseph Vaccaro extended a warm welcome to Arlene Palm Schwind of Portland, Me., former associate curator in decorative arts at Winterthur Museum in Wilmington, Del.

An expert on glassware in American decorative arts, she was the focus for a crowd at the museum and a catered picnic luncheon in the park’s sunken garden.

Among those in on the fun were Mmes. William Garnett, Edward McLaughlin, Thomas Duddleson, Elliott Field, William Jackson, Charles Ames, Fred Hartley, Henry Singleton and Leslie Greene Bowman, associate curator of the County Museum of Art.

Jane and Norman Neely of San Diego have just endowed a new Cedars-Sinai Medical Center eye research center to the tune of $1,012,500. About 200 gathered at the center, including Rita and Morris Pynoos, Dolly Bright Carter, Paul Silliman, the Barry Tapers, Dorothy and Sidney Factor, the Gene Cormans, Olavee Martin and Nat Dumont, the Paul Selwyns and the Fred Lytes to hear that the endowment will provide for research of keratoconus, the disease of the cornea that leads to progressive vision loss.

The UCLA Film, Television & Radio Archives and Cinema ’89 (Friends of the UCLA Film Archives and La Cinematheque Francaise) host the world premiere of the Cinematheque Francaise restoration of “Casanova” (1927) Thursday at Royce Hall, UCLA. Later in the evening George Delerue will be feted at a gala reception. He’s the Academy Award-winning composer who composed and conducted the original score.

French Consul General Francois Mouton has helped put the evening together. Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck are chairmen of the Cinema ’89 Founders Committee. On the gala committee: Joan Burns, Jocelyne Wazzan, Mmes. Richard Hammerman and Earle Crandall, Patricia H. Ketchum, Dini and Les Ostrov, Jacques Poletti and more.

Burt Lancaster has agreed to be master of ceremonies when the Colombian Medical Assn. of Los Angeles, Nuevos Ideales and AVIANCA raise funds Thursday at the Cocoanut Grove of the Ambassador. Tickets for the benefit are $100 and $1,000. Proceeds will be used to build a home for orphaned children and elderly victims of the recent volcanic disaster in Colombia.

Jennifer Goddard has been reelected president for a second year of the Rainbow Guild, the support group of the Amie Karen Cancer Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She’ll be installed at a luncheon Thursday in the Bistro Gardens.

Also to be installed are Janice Wallace, Jan Block, Karen Todman, Sherry Nussbaum, Nancy Hildebrand and Erica Lowy.

Their upcoming big task is to produce the annual children’s fashion show luncheon, “Rainbow Children Helping Children,” and the theater presentation. That’s March 9 in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton.

Julie and Art Pizzinat gathered friends at their home in San Marino this week to acquaint them with Hospice of Pasadena. Because of her illness as a child, that’s Julie’s pet interest.

A flock of friends, including Suzy Crowell, Connie Van Vorst, Harriet Fullerton and Charlie Shryock, were there to hear Candace Ipswitch, president, and David Felton, Carol Brainerd and Pamela MacMillan discuss the need for funds ($182,000 last year) and volunteers for psychological services for the dying and their families. Since 1978, the hospice has aided 1,200 families.

Mrs. Stanton Avery hosts a luncheon Tuesday at her home in Pasadena when Mrs. Samuel Beattie, past president of the Garden Clubs of America, speaks to Pasadena Garden Club members headed by Mrs. William Goodan.

Members of the Los Angeles chapter of Hadassah will celebrate at their Youth Aliyah Luncheon Monday in the International Ballroom at the Beverly Hilton, according to Rhoda Breverman, chairman. More than 18,000 children currently are in the programs.

St. Mary’s Hospital Guild in Long Beach has named Mrs. Joseph G. Lozano president. Other top officers are Mmes. Donald Tinsley, Robert Stickney, Virginia Sayles, Weston Rodkey and Glenwood Hines.