But Will It Rain on Jeff and Fallon?

Los Angeles rained out-of-towners this week, as everyone from Sen. Robert Dole to Hubert Humphrey III to Picasso (on film) made forays futilely timed to coincide with perfect California weather. Of course, the skies just have to clear for next week’s filming of the “Wedding of the Year”--the remarriage of “Dynasty’s” Jeff Colby and Fallon Colby. Chasen’s is doing the catering, society florist David Jones does the flowers and, of course, Nolan Miller has done his usually outstanding bit on the bride’s gown. We can’t wait.

GOP DOINGS--Sen. Robert Dole had good news for the crowd of high-level corporate types at the kickoff luncheon Wednesday for his April 3 gala dinner here. He said that he was working to pass a Senate resolution delaying tax reform--if it passed--until 1987. A big worry in the corporate world has been that any tax reform bill would be retroactive to include this year. Hearing the good news--and committing for the dinner--along with hosts William M. Keck II and Howard Allen, were Unocal’s Claude Brinegar, Margaret Brock, Transamerica-Occidental Life’s David R. Carpenter, attorney Williard Carr, Union Bank’s John Harrigan, Northrop’s Tom Jones, Lockheed’s Larry Kitchen, developer Robert McGuire, Lehman Brothers’ John Maher, former White House staffer Peter McCoy, Whittaker Corp.’s Robert Murray, Arco’s Robert Wycoff and, two major Democrats, Eli Broad and MCA’s Lew Wasserman. Donald G. Livingston got the credit for putting the lunch together, and said it was only pressing business demands that kept the third dinner co-chairman, Philip Hawley, from making lunch. Dole said he’d like to raise $500,000 for his political action committee, Campaign American, at the gala at the Sheraton Grande, which is being coordinated by Joyce Valdez. . . . One item of hot discussion--how much money the big reception and smallish dinner for Vice President George Bush next week will put in the coffers of his PAC, Campaign for America’s Future. Upwards of $500,000 for sure, those in the know say.

AND FROM MINNESOTA--Old friends of his father gathered at a “not-a-fund-raiser” breakfast for Minnesota Atty. Gen. Hubert H. Humphrey III. Two old buddies of his dad’s, Joe and Lee Cerrell, hosted the event. Turning out--almost a quorum of City Council people--were John Ferraro, Joy Picus, Bob Farrell, David Cunningham and Zev Yaroslavsky, along with California Supreme Court Justice Stanley Mosk, his son, attorney Richard Mosk, and City Atty. Jimmy Hahn. Close your eyes and indeed HHH III sounds like his father, who he said “would be happily delirious to see what I am doing,” being attorney general, a job that the late vice president also held. He warned about the economic situation on Midwest farms--like the Depression, “the only thing that is missing is the dust storms. It’s a real disaster.” And both he and Joe Cerrell strongly hinted that “down the line” the attorney general would be looking for another elected office.

MORE RAIN--A downpour Wednesday night didn’t deter an oversold crowd from the benefit screening of the 1955 film “The Mystery of Picasso” at the County Museum of Art. In the audience, Anna Bing Arnold, Max Palevsky with Jodie Evans, a close friend of Arianna Stassinopoulos, who with Picasso’s long-time companion, Francoise Gilot, introduced the film. Produced and directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, the soon-to-be re-released movie allowed the audience to observe the actual creative process--and a chance to see dozens of Picassos that by agreement were destroyed after the film. The crowd finished off the evening in the atrium and, mobbing the tables filled with Rococo’s food . . . . Turning out for a reception at the Beverly Wilshire sponsored by the Rodeo Drive Committee for Kitty D’Alessio, the president of Chanel, were Bev Hills regulars like Don and Arletta Tronstein, the new Beverly Wilshire chief Bob Burns, and Douglas Stitsel. D’Alessio said that following the two major showings of her Chanel fashions earlier in the week, the shop had been filled “by people of all sizes.”

NEW MONEY--Or at least a way to give it. That’ what real estate magnate Alfred Goldman explained during a party in his honor at Ron Rogers and Lisa Specht’s on Tuesday night. Goldman, based in Oklahoma City, decided to eschew the standard benefit route, and instead made a hefty direct contribution to Norman Lear’s People for the American Way. The switch is that for that contribution, Goldman gets to skip the standard black-tie event and instead gets Dudley Moore--another big supporter of PFTAW--to tickle the ivories at an intimate party hosted by Goldman at his Honolulu residence, the former Kaiser estate. Goldman says he plans to make the gift--and the party featuring a top celeb--an annual event. Is this a trend?

HAPPY TIGERS--The year of the Tiger was greeted at the Beverly Hills Mandarin by a crowd of faithful who joined Philip Chiang in celebrating 10 years at the Camden Drive location. But Madame Cecilia Chiang--who in recent years has become the darling of the clique of younger California chefs--couldn’t make it down from S.F. and the other Mandarin, so buddies like Dr. Simon Wile and wife Stewie had to.

NEWS NEWS--Rick Hertzberg, the liberal editor under whom the New Republic got hot, left the weekly in late ’84 over a difference of philosophy with publisher Martin Peretz. Now that the New Republic has assumed a “neo-conservative” bent, there seems to be a market out there for a new liberal mag, or at least that’s what Hertzberg and his backer, Richard Dennis, think. So, with a reported $5 million, they are launching a Washington-based publication to fill the liberal niche TNR is increasingly abandoning.