Group Gets Ready for ‘April in Paris’

The good news is that the tables are all but sold out for the Golden Key Foundation “April in Paris Ball” on Friday at the Beverly Wilshire. Betty Deutsch, past president; Robert Wagner and Eva Gabor, honorary co-chairmen; and Stella Stambler and Insook Bretzfield, dinner dance co-chairmen, are delighted because it means a good profit for emotionally troubled children. Eddie Albert and his son, Edward, are set for entertainment. Rudy Varon will play for dancing, according to Golden Key Foundation president Carole Kaye.

It’s a sort of trio con brio-- the Progressive Art Dinner on Saturday to support the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Park. Friends of the Muni, the auxiliary support group of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery Associates, will host the cocktail segment while viewing Security Pacific Bank’s private art collection. Then they’ll go by double-decker London bus to Cirrus Gallery for a California cuisine dinner (pizzas and chicken in peanut sauce). The third, and final, phase will be dessert at the studio of artist Jim de France. It’s the group’s membership event, and new friends Marcia Weisman, Joan Palevsky, Hedva and Dudly Danoff, and Albert and Marilyn Gersten will join Marvin and Sandy Smalley, Allan and Kelli Questrom, Elisabeth Pollon and president Deborah Leeb. Proceeds will go to Para los Ninos for Skid Row children.

The inaugural celebration banquet Saturday at the Sheraton Premiere for the newly established Olive View Medical Center Foundation will honor the late Nelle Reagan, President Reagan’s mother, a frequent and devoted volunteer at Olive View in the 1920s. We hear the Reagan family has been cooperating with the foundation in an effort to locate photographs and records of Mrs. Reagan. Many of her personal effects and photo albums were lost in the Bel-Air fire when another son’s (Neil) home burned. Jan Murray will perform with the Horace Heidt Jr. Orchestra. Dr. Irwin Ziment heads the foundation. Other board members include Maureen Williams, Richard Cordova, Sam Cordova, Paul Nickel, Richard Fleck, Robert Rasmussen, Richard Schwartz and Ken E. Woodgrift. Monies raised will help establish a community health education facility.

Rightfully, there’s a lot of well-deserved pride at the McCarthy household. Kathleen McCarthy (Mrs. J. Thomas) has been elected to the USC board of trustees. Wallis Annenberg, Virginia Ramo and Jane Popovich are current members. Phyllis Cooper and Lorna Reed have completed terms and are now associate trustees. Anna Bing Arnold and Mrs. Frank Seaver are life trustees. Kathleen McCarthy will join community and national leaders such as John F. King and Peter Ueberroth.

Leadership is nothing new to the new appointee. A graduate of the USC School of Education with a BA in English, she was 1954 Homecoming Queen, serves as a trustee for both Marlborough School and Loyola Marymount University, and is past president of Las Madrinas (the support group for Childrens Hospital) and the Social Service Auxiliary.

Past Tense:

Mrs. Donley Brady, who worked so tirelessly on the white-tie Presentation Ball Easter on Monday with Mrs. Michael Wayne, ball chairman, says benefactor gifts were up this year, and, thus, the ball has netted more than $100,000 for Stella Maris House and Camp Maria Stella. Knight of Malta J. Thomas McCarthy introduced the 25 young women presented to Bishop John J. Ward, Vicar-General of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, at the Beverly Hilton. Stanley Kersten’s white and violet lilacs, lilies and orchids created the sophisticated atmosphere. . . .

The officers and directors of Sotheby’s honored new associate Eleanore Phillips Colt as well as Christine Eisenberg and Dodie Rosekrans at their reception and private viewing on Rodeo Drive of the April sale “Magnificent Jewelry” to be auctioned in New York on April 15-16. In the crowd were Armand and Harriet Deutsch, Martha Kilroe, Virginia Milner, Martha Chandler, Mrs. James E. Bentley and Mrs. Roland Vance Lee, Gerald and Virginia Oppenheimer, Kitty Bartholomew, Alyce Williamson, Steven Brezzo, Doug Cramer, Joan Hotchkis, Bea Gersh, Gail Feingarten, Lisa Hubbard, Barbara Pallenberg (vice president Sotheby’s Beverly Hills), Bill Stahl, Lenore Greenberg, Merry Norris, Helen Neufeld, David and Sue Parry, Flora Thornton, Jacqueline Sesnon, Jeffie Pike Durham, and Vivian and Bob Rowan. . . .

Huntington Memorial Hospital’s board and medical staff entertained at a reception to show off the new Pediatric Center. . . .

The Millie and Mike Hersch Family Surgical Center at the City of Hope (he’s four-time City of Hope president) was dedicated with lots of Hersches on hand. . . .

Governors and trustees of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County hosted the reception for the exhibition “Expressions of Cameroon Art: The Franklin Collection” and the opening of the Seventh Triennial Symposium on Traditional African Art sponsored by the Arts Council of the African Studies Assn. . . .

Jan Wetzel, Diana Jonsson and Tamra Dickerson were among the numerous Performing Tree supporters lunching and hearing Robert Root-Bernstein talk on creativity. . . .

Cynthia and Hal Gershman reveled at Jimmy’s with guests Rose Marie and Danny Thomas, Beverly and Buddy Rogers, Marilyn and Harry Lewis, and Zsa Zsa Gabor. . . .

Faith and James Porter (she’s the sculptor and he’s the architect) discussed their “marriage of art and architecture” for USC Friends of Fine Arts. . . .

Bonnie Lavonie, Shirle Lewis and Kris Klose are calling their Friends of Cedar House Travilla spring fashion luncheon a success. . . .

At Annandale Country Club, St. Anne’s Angel Awards luncheon committee, headed by Evelyn Blasiar, finalized plans for the event April 22 in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton. Ruben Panis will present his collection. . . .

Pacific Asia Museum’s “Festival of India” was launched officially with a coconut-breaking ceremony and the museum courtyard was alive with the sights, smells and tastes of India in a bazaar atmosphere. Previewed were “Indian Miniature Paintings from the Collection of Mrs. Harriette von Breton.”

UCLA’s Las Donas is focusing on its 19th annual “Morning at UCLA” today. Keynoter Paul J. Coleman Jr., professor of geophysics, will discuss “The Future in Space.” DeAnne Hayes and Dottie Juett are co-chairmen of the friend-raising affair.

Baccarat door prizes on Monday will symbolize the crystal anniversary of the Irving Walker Auxiliary when it celebrates its 15th annual benefit bridge luncheon at the Wilshire Country Club.

On behalf of the Travelers Aid Society of Los Angeles, Alfred Sheinwold, non-playing captain of the U.S. team in the 1985 International Bridge Tournament, will discuss fine points of the game, just as he did at the first benefit.

Mrs. Rutledge Holley and her co-chairman, Mrs. Byron H. Mollett, are working with Mmes. Glenn Dumke, Douglas Bothwell, Donald R. Collins, Jean Cosgrove, George V. Genzmer, John G. Grant, Chandler Harris, Alfred H. Roebuck, June Rogers, Romus Soucek and Raymond C. Taylor.

The society, for generations, has aided travelers in distress, and recently has added Teen Canteens to provide havens for runaways particularly endangered by drug traffickers.

Jolie Gabor and her daughters--Magda, Zsa Zsa and Eva--were in the spotlight at the black-tie Americana Ball V in the grand ballroom of the Hilton Riviera Hotel in Palm Springs. The Gabors follow a host of honorees--President Gerald Ford, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Ambassador Walter Annenberg and Barbara Sinatra. Bill and Cindy Austin hosted pre-ball cocktails at their Thunderbird Heights home. The event benefited the Palm Springs Senior Center.

Saturday Scenario:

Sasha Stallone is among the celebrity models participating in the seventh annual “Free to Be Me” fashion show luncheon Saturday at the Sheraton Premiere benefiting the Los Angeles chapter of the National Society for Children and Adults with Autism. The group will honor Dr. and Mrs. Lee Logan of Encino as Couple of the Year. . . .

Robert Berdell, “The Colbys” designer, does the fashion show Saturday for the Psi Delta Sigma Inc. 33rd annual “Kaleidoscope of Fashions” in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton. Funds go to the United Cerebral Palsy/Spastic Children’s Foundation, according to Earlene Piott, chairman. . . .

I. Magnin co-sponsors the University Art Museum, Berkeley, Artists and Models Ball on Saturday evening, highlighting the Irving Penn photography exhibition of photographs, portraiture, fashion, advertising, nude and ethnographic studies on view at the museum through April 13. . . .

To celebrate the opening of the new Nordstrom in Montclair, the Arts Foundation of San Bernardino County has arranged fashions (Valentino, Escada, Anne Klein), dancing to Les Brown, and a caviar bar this evening. Randall Lewis, chairman, and Michele Scott, S. Wayne Lynch and Chelo Eckhardt are hoping to raise $75,000 for the Redlands Symphony Assn., the Performing Arts of Rancho Cucamonga and the Fontana Mummers . . .

About 120 business executives competed in the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation third annual fund-raising Golf Classic on Monday at the Wilshire Country Club. The organization this year marks its 25th anniversary as the Latino community’s premier self-help organization. President and founder Dionicio Morales will direct funds for a spectrum of activities including child care for some 1,500. . . .

Friday evening Madame Sylvia Wu honors the Central Ballet Company of China with a dinner at Madame Wu’s Garden in Santa Monica. The company will perform both Saturday and Sunday evening at Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena.