Bachelors to Dress to Suit the Fanciful

Now that invitations are being received for the 81st Anniversary Bachelors Ball, guests by the hundreds are contriving as to what they’ll wear for the “fancy dress” (costume) gala Feb. 21 at the Beverly Hilton.

“Fanciful, inventive, elegant, imaginative, colorful costumes are the order of the evening,” the invitations say. “The following are not appropriate costumes: T-shirts, blue jeans and comparable attire. Similarly, neither evening dress (white tie and tails) nor dinner dress (black tie) is appropriate.”

It all needs to stick together because, as always, there will be dancing until 4 a.m. Although chairman John Howard Welborne won’t divulge the ball theme, he can’t keep a secret that Michael Carney’s Orchestra will fly in from New York for the occasion.

Charles Rodney Wilger (of Westwood’s Wilger Co.), The Bachelors president, is a cohort in plotting the anticipated surprises.

Engraved bids announce this year’s patronesses: Mmes. Freeman Rogers Brant, George Crossman Brock, George Velore Caldwell, Henry Owen Eversole Jr., Stephen Everett Griffith, Anthony Eshman Liebig and William French Smith. They’ll all help the bachelor group receive guests, a tradition that derives from the first ball in 1906, when a group of young men decided to collaborate to reciprocate for friends’ hospitality extended throughout the year.

Attending the ball as the newest members will be Joseph Daniel Bergin, John Matthew Eichler, Benjamin Durward Howes IV, Henry Van Dyke Johns III, Albert Carl Rasmussen III, Bart Hofert Scott and James Donald Stuart Jr.

Katherine Gabel becomes the sixth president of Pacific Oaks College today at the Neighborhood Church in Pasadena, and many presidents of other Southland colleges will attend. Jill Ker Conway, past president of Smith College, will speak on behalf of the academic community.

After the inaugural, the new president will be greeted at the nearby college campus, and later in the evening Hannah and Russel Kully and the trustees of Pacific Oaks will honor her at a dinner at the Kullys.

Among those attending will be trustee chairman Eaton W. Ballard, and trustees Olin Barrett, Jean Fleming, Jane Treister, Georgie Van de Kamp, Joseph Wyatt, Asenath Young, Docia Zavitkovsky, Dorothy Martin, Lisa Clement and Everett B. Clary.

Gabel is the former dean of Smith College School for Social Work. The college, which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, is noted for its degree courses in human development and its pioneering work in the education of young children.

The Joffrey Dinners last year--dozens of them on the same evening--were a raging success. Now, a high tea at the Regency Club in Westwood on Friday announces “The Joffrey Dinners . . . Act II.” Mrs. Dimitri T. Skouras, chairman, hosts the tea. Special guests will be Gerald Arpino, associate director; Dr. Robert R. Hesse, executive director, and directors of the Foundation for the Joffrey Ballet Inc.

The preview of the Bill Blass spring collection today at I. Magnin’s Los Angeles benefits the American Heart Assn. Tickets are but $25 for cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, the show and a chance on the Blass-designed Lincoln Mark VII LCS to be given away at the ninth annual Heart Ball on Friday evening. Reservations: (213) 385-4231.

It didn’t take the selection committee long to name Paige Rense recipient of the Muses Woman of the Year. She’s the editor of Architectural Digest and Bon Appetit and will be honored Wednesday when Muses and guests lunch at the Space Museum.

Mrs. Robert A. Chumbook headed the selection committee, assisted by Mmes. J. Howard Edgerton, John M. Heidt, William N. Klove, Charles Mair, Vera O’Larry, Alfred H. Roebuck and Rodney F. Williams, as well as Muses’ chairman, Mrs. John Marten.

Mrs. Robert G. Holmes is luncheon chairman.

La Toques’ grand chef and proprietor Ken Frank steps out Monday evening, taking his choicest recipes to the historic Pompeian Room of Doheny Mansion of Chester Place.

There, on a room-length mirror-top table reflecting the Tiffany glass dome of the mansion, now the downtown campus of Mount St. Mary’s, he’ll discuss cuisine and produce a four-course contemporary French dinner--smoked duck breast, Dover sole filled with salmon mousse and lobster, roasted beef tenderloin with crepes, passion fruit souffle--for an elite 40, some of the New Mount Associates, whose annual membership is a minimum $1,000.

Frank is obliging at the request of David McIntyre. John Sullivan of Korn-Ferry International is chairman of the Associates. Sister Magdalen Coughlin, college president, will be there, too.

Hearts and flowers are burgeoning: Valentine season.

Carol and Warner Henry open their home Feb. 15 for the “My Heart Belongs to Club 100” cocktail buffet for the Music Center support group . . .

El Centro Human Services Corporation will benefit from the black-tie second Gala Valentine’s Ball Feb. 14 at the Sheraton Grande. Dinner chairman Fernando Valenzuela, Dodgers pitcher, will introduce Maria Elena Salinas, Channel 34 anchorwoman, as mistress of ceremonies. Ray Camancho and his Orchestra will play. El Centro is one of the largest private nonprofit mental health centers in California. It serves a predominantly Latino population with child care, senior citizen housing and humanitarian programs . . .

The Auxiliary of the Hospital of the Good Samaritan headed by Mrs. Jack L. Blumenthal is engaged in a “Be Our Valentine” fund drive with Mmes. Harry M. Sargent, George B. Stoneman, Christian J. Posner, Mark E. Stern, Dan Chandler Jr., Vincent A. O’Donnell, John H. Payne Jr. and John Brinsley among those involved . . .

The Bel-Air Country Club is the setting Feb. 14 for the Valentine’s Day ball planned by Friends of Reconstructive Surgery Research. Nanci and Jimmy Witzer are co-chairmen. They are arranging “top secret and simply mah-ve-lous” entertainment. Bernice and Philip Gershon founded Friends in 1983 to benefit surgical research at Stanford University Medical Center . . .

Friends of the Santa Monica Chamber Orchestra celebrate a fifth birthday Sunday afternoon at the Brentwood home of Elizabeth and Alan Mandell. They’ll hear the orchestra play 18th-Century music on period instruments, conducted by David Avshalomov, listen to guest harpsichordist Bess Karp, enjoy wine and a buffet. Admission is $20 per person via (213) 392-2641 for reservations.

The first gathering of the Sunday Nite Supper Series in Le Grand Trianon of the Beverly Wilshire drew a happy group for beef Wellington, dancing to Ray Moshay and friendship.

Mrs. Robert Burns Coleman Jr., chairman, and Mmes. Chandler Harris and Alex R. Jack, co-chairmen, joined Mrs. Homer Toberman, coordinator, in greeting the crowd including Mmes. Will Ward, Walt Disney, Willard Brown, Dwight Whiting and Messrs. Michael Travis, Jerry Dale, Hubert O’Brian and Richard Patton.

More were Dr. Clifford Cherry (chairman of the men’s floor committee) and a committee including Mmes. Robert C. Anstead, Donald M. Becker, C. Quinn Brady, John Cummings, Fred Gee, John Hancock, Harold Helm, Wesley A. Idol, Max Kolliner, Mason Letteau, Harold McAlister, John Q. McClure, Albert B. McKee Jr., Fred Nason, Milton Nation, Ronald Roeschlaub, Ralph D. Sweeney, William Vincent, Ann Walker and Charles B. Witt Jr.

Dorothy Kirsten French was in Washington to address the Senate Wives at the request of Mrs. Pete Wilson and Mrs. George Bush.

She’s chairman of the John Douglas French Foundation for Alzheimer’s Disease, which is looking toward its March 16 gala at the Century Plaza.

Harald Serafin will fly in from Vienna to sing for the Viennese Culture Club’s Grand Viennese Opera Ball Saturday at the Beverly Wilshire.

Leslie Wiesner and Laurence Blake, the Beverly Hills Cotillion Dancers and Murray Korda and his Monseigneur Strings will perform for 700 guests, according to club president Robert Propst and Edeltraud Winik, vice president.

Carl Princi is master of ceremonies.

Beginning at midnight, Shony Braun entertains for the Apres Ball. Funds are intended for aspiring young opera singers.

Neil Sedaka peforms for the Sephardic Hebrew Academy’s “Celebration of the Arts” on Wednesday at the Beverly Hilton. Sedaka also will receive the Sephardic Achievement Award and artist Guillaume A. Azoulay will be presented the academy’s Sephardic Cultural Award.

Beverly Collins is chairman of the event. Georges Marciano has been named honorary chairman.

Past Perfect: “The Year of the Tiger” and all things Chinese gave the Social Service Auxiliary good reason to have fun at the Bel-Air Country Club. Mmes. Paul Conn and Daniel R. Burschinger brought in Stanley Kirsten to create the stunning reds and golds, including a snorting dragon suspended on bamboo poles over the bandstand. Mmes. John Shea, Roger Sullivan and John Porteous also were in on the fund raising for the Sisters of Social Service . . .

Bob Hope honored longtime friend Robert Dockson, chairman of the board of Calfed, Inc., as the featured speaker at the testimonial dinner at the Century Plaza. J. Robert Fluor II, vice president of Fluor Corp., and Leonard Weil, president of Mitsui Manufactures Bank, co-chaired the evening. Benefitting was the American Lung Assn. Dockson is a longtime supporter. Hope was a friend of the late Robert Fluor, who died after a long battle with lung cancer. The Fluor family was presented a memorial plaque . . .

Members of the Los Angeles Guild of San Diego Opera Assn. journeyed to San Diego by chartered bus to hear Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” presented by the opera. Joan Tyrrell and Beth Willard arranged for the reception later at the home of Anne and Michael Ibs Gonzalez of Mission Hills. In the crowd: Beverly and Sid Adair, Mary Jones-Gaston, Linda and Alvin Robinson, Lorrie Northey, Anne and David Covel . . .

Pepperdine University Associates including Mrs. Del Webb, John Raitt, Maurice Stans, George C. Page, Walter Karabian, Fred Hartley, Ed Gaylord, Jerry Buss and Dr. David Davenport, Pepperdine president, attended a reception at Palm Springs Desert Museum, viewing the Armand Hammer art exhibition . . .