La Jolla Museum’s Monte Carlo Ball Was Party Fit for a Maharajah

Emmy Cote, also known as Mrs. Bud Cote, stole the scene as chairman of Saturday’s Monte Carlo Ball, and Oh! Calcutta, what a dandy party she threw.

This was the 10th edition of the annual escapade given to benefit the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, and by custom it took place in situ at the seaside palace of the arts. Largely attended by the Brahmins of San Diego County society (who consider this bash one of the sacred cows of the summer calendar), this year’s party was subtitled “Visions of India” and given a theme that paid homage to the land watered by the Indus and the Brahmaputra.

This motif indienne allowed a wide range of interpretation, an opportunity of which both committee and guests took full advantage. Ignoring the days of the British Raj, the decor instead went straight to the heart of the ancient subcontinent, that land of mystery where skinny chaps in loincloths sleep on beds of nails, and the scents of rose water and frying spices make the air seem heavy and palpable.

Thus guests entered the museum’s courtyard through a gate of the Taj Mahal to find themselves in the garden of Shalimar, a sensuous spot in which servers bore trays of champagne and ice sculptures supported kilo-weight tins of Beluga caviar. None entered without first receiving adornments suitable to their status--forehead tika dots for the women and pale rose boutonnieres for the men. Fanciful elephants guarded the entrance to the museum, which had been stripped of its artworks so that its galleries could be painted with the scenes and symbols of India. In the entry, a mural entitled “Reflections of the Ganges” depicted the sacred river as it flows through the holy city of Benares; elsewhere, caravans and turbaned Sikhs brightened the walls, as did snatches of wisdom borrowed from Sanskrit literature (one ponderable thought writ large upon the wall: “It is not the road you walk, it is the walking.”).

No matter which road one walked, though, it led to a casino packed with gaming tables. These have always been the heart and soul of the Monte Carlo party, and although a new city ordinance severely restricted the amount of prizes that could be awarded to those upon whom fortune smiled, the blackjack tables and roulette wheels never went begging for customers. As an innovation that kept touch with the theme, special rooms were added, including a bazaar that offered the foods, clothes and crafts of India, and a mood room to which guests could retreat to admire the sitar music played by a pair of Indian musicians.

But it is the guests, not the theme, that make the Monte Carlo parties the paragons of entertainment that they are, and this splashy crowd demands nothing less than glamour in heaping portions. To dress less than stunningly for Monte Carlo is to be virtually invisible, a fate that no one desires, and the women burst out in equal parts Paris couture and Bombay saris. Gold, purple and crimson, the trumpeting tones of the Orient, predominated in this garden of vivid humanity, and even some of the men entered into the fantasy; Aage Frederiksen wrapped his brow in a turban of gold and black brocade, and jeweler Patrick Abarta fastened his simple white turban with a maharajah-class emerald that weighed in at a hefty 66 carats.

To best display all this finery, the dance floor was set up under a translucent canopy at the center of the open-air dining room. Party co-chairman Liz Yamada dubbed this area “Shangri-La,” an apt description that nicely took in the “Lost Horizons” decor of sky-high floral centerpieces draped with strings of pearls and eerie, leafless trees sprayed silver in a convincing imitation of moonlight.

India gave the ball its flavor, and gambling and dancing its excitement; the party’s savor arose from a menu, neatly designed by Harriett Levi, that included peppery duck salad stuffed in artichokes, a beef filet entree, and a dessert buffet extravaganza that numbered at least half the pastries and sweets known to French cookery. This bounty made the guests happy that Monte Carlo’s many diversions and destinations required a fair amount of walking to reach.

Actress Joan Van Ark, with her husband, Los Angeles television newsman John Marshall, attended as a guest of Linda and Neal Hooberman. Van Ark dazzled the crowd in a gold lame gown woven to resemble 24-karat snakeskin, and she complemented this costume with a gem-encrusted serpent that wound sinuously around her neck.

Others included Martha Longenecker, whose Mingei Museum loaned the magnificent Indian terra cottas scattered about the galleries; La Jolla museum director Hugh Davies with wife Sally Yard; Marne and Jim DeSilva; the Irby Cobbs; gallery owner Jose Tasende with wife Helen; artist Barbara Weldon with art dealer Thomas Babeor; the Joseph Hibbens; the Christopher Caulkins; the George Gaffords; the Chris McCullahs; the Jack Mondays; the Charles Edwardses; the Haley Rogerses; the Mark Yorstons; Jeanne Jones with San Francisco philanthropist Clarence Woodard; Indru Watumull of Bombay and Honolulu, who attended as the guest of Luba Johnston; the Edgar Marstons; the Donald Ballmans; the Rea Axlines; the David Garfields; the Paul Mershons; the Paul Palmers; the Abe Ratners; the Herb Solomons; the John Thorntons, and the Forrest Shumways.

SAN DIEGO--Last week’s social calendar was, shall we say, crowded, but apparently not too crowded for the associated guilds of the San Diego Opera, which chose Aug. 5 as the day to mount their wildly well-attended, first-ever fashion luncheon.

The selection of designer Mary McFadden and her “Collection Elizabethan” autumn couture line (presented under the auspices of Saks Fifth Avenue) as the day’s featured entertainment certainly had much to do with the draw, but even so, the event’s chairmen confessed themselves amazed by the turnout of 750.

“If we had just one more guest, we’d have to move the ballroom walls,” exclaimed a delighted Ann Plachta, who added that prospective guests were still calling that morning in the hopes--vain and dashed, unfortunately--of locating a seat or two in the Hotel Inter-Continental Grand Ballroom. Or, as an understandably anonymous guest put it rather less diplomatically: “I’ve never seen so many damn women in my life.”

Indeed, the scene was a sea of womanhood, stretching out in a seemingly endless panoply of primped femininity. Many bore hats of such girth that they seemed to require less slender necks and shoulders to support them, and their costumes collided in a riot of hot August shades. (Actually, the guests’ outfits appeared to awaken somewhat more interest than those featured in the show, which caused many of the guests to sit on their hands at a time when the designer presumably would have enjoyed applause.)

The meal was pleasant and pretty, an opening course of chilled cucumber soup followed by Chinese chicken salad and a dessert of cheesecake topped with blueberry sauce. (Because the day benefited the opera, the committee made as much reference to the cultural institution as possible, including the witty gesture of playing Wagner’s portentous “The Valkyrie” during the soup course.)

Luncheon co-chairman Janie Pendleton assisted opera director Ian Campbell in the post-show drawing for raffle prizes, which saw extravagant gifts awarded to delighted patrons. The door prize, a Mary McFadden gown, was won by Traudl Stangl, whose husband, Sandor, manages the Inter-Continental; the pair are noted supporters of both the opera and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra Assn.

Quite a number of guests booked front-row patrons’ tables, including Colleen Kerr, Audrey Geisel, Alice Cramer, Ingrid Hibben and Dorene Whitney (Whitney is chairman of the Oct. 11 gala that will open the opera’s 1986-87 season and will replace the annual “Fanfare” ball). Among benefactors were Lollie Nelson, whose husband, Bill, is president of the opera; Karen Sickels; Marge Toillion; Betty Zable; Martha Gafford, and Vincent Ciruzzi. Among committee members and advisers were Pat Scantlen, Eleanor Mikkelsen, JoAnn Knutson, Alice Dutton, Marcella Shea, Margaret Hilbish, Barbara Radcliffe, Lilo Miller, Janet Wingfield, Sally Fuller and Mary Jean Ford.