Stars Raise Money, Hopes at AIDS Benefit

It wasn’t the mega-benefit of last year, but this year’s AIDS Project Los Angeles Commitment to Life still managed to attract stars, command media attention and, most of all, raise money.

The frenzied pace of last year’s party had mellowed when 2,300 people crammed into the Wiltern Theatre Saturday night for a 2 1/2-hour show that featured performers Linda Ronstadt, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, opera singer Julia Migenes-Johnson, the USC Marching Band, comedians Bobcat Goldthwait and Billy Crystal, Carole Bayer Sager and Burt Bacharach, and this year’s recipient of the Commitment to Life award, Elizabeth Taylor. Celebrity presenters included Chevy Chase, Dudley Moore, Bruce Willis, Richard Chamberlain, Diahann Carroll, John Forsythe and Madonna.

Taylor, an outspoken crusader for AIDS research, received the award (last year’s honoree was former First Lady Betty Ford) and a lengthy standing ovation when she strode on stage in a white sequined gown, her black-and-silver hair coiffed in that familiar bubble.

“What we all have to do,” she said, “is go out and grab our friends, grab them by the throat if we have to, and make them understand. . . . There is hope, people do care, there will be a cure, we will find one--we have to. With God’s help we will. I promise you I have committed . . . for the rest of my life until a cure is found.”

Taylor’s sentiments were echoed throughout the evening, with stars voicing their support for AIDS Project Los Angeles or APLA, as it is known. Richard Gere, one of the celebrity presenters, urged a no vote on Proposition 64, the LaRouche initiative, which proposes that AIDS be redefined as an infectious disease, giving health officials authority to curb the spread of the disease, including the use of quarantines. (Several members of the audience sported “Vote No on 64” buttons.)

Shmoozing With the Guests

There were celebrity ushers, too, stationed at doors leading into the theater. Carrie Fisher, Teri Garr, Eileen Brennan, John Lithgow, Ted Danson, JoBeth Williams, Joan Van Ark and others were loaded down with programs as big as phone books, handing them out and schmoozing at the same time (they didn’t have to find people’s seats; that task was left to the real ushers).

The program started with the USC Marching Band blasting “Hooray for Hollywood” in the aisles while slides of classic movies were flashed on a screen. The few technical glitches in the show didn’t undermine the entertainment, highlighted by headliner Ronstadt’s set of ‘40s classics, backed by an orchestra conducted by Peter Matz.

Madonna introduced Joe Namath, who read a statement from Jerry Smith, the former Washington Redskins football player, who is the first known professional athlete to admit to having acquired immune deficiency syndrome. “AIDS is a lonely, mean, horrible disease,” Smith wrote. “I never thought it could happen to me, but it did. . . . I’m angry for myself and I am angry because I don’t want anybody else to have to go through this hideous experience. Maybe if those of us unfortunate enough to have contracted AIDS show a willingness to talk about it, it will help with research and understanding. The really important thing is that something positive comes out of all this. . . . I am trying hard to fight AIDS the best way I know how, by letting people know how terrible it is.”

Hollywood Honored

Paula Van Ness, director of APLA, presented the volunteer service award to Ken Hollywood, who has been with the group since its beginning and who started its Necessities of Life program, which provides food and other needed items to AIDS patients. (The volunteer award is named for Leonard Peterson, another APLA volunteer and benefactor who chairs two APLA committees.) Hollywood suffers from AIDS and attended the benefit in a wheelchair.

APLA, a 4-year-old nonprofit public-health organization, provides a number of services to AIDS patients, their friends and families. Among the services the project offers are legal, financial and psychological counseling, several education programs, a dental clinic and an emergency food bank. APLA relies heavily on volunteers, but its budget has soared in the past three years, from $750,000 in 1984 to $2 million last year and $7 million this year.

Very rough figures available that night showed that this year’s benefit will gross $970,000 from ticket sales and contributions; $750,000 will go to APLA and the remainder will pay for the production and party.

Last year’s benefit also grossed just under $1 million, but last year’s party was also sold out before invitations were in the mail. Interest was fueled by the disclosure that actor Rock Hudson was suffering from the disease, and by the fact it was the city’s first major AIDS benefit.

APLA staff members are realizing that they face competition from other charities, including other AIDS fund-raising organizations such as the American Foundation for AIDS Research, for which Taylor serves as national chairman. Said Van Ness: “There are so many good causes--the LaRouche initiative (opposition) is tapping so very deeply. The people who were with us from the beginning have given as much as they can to fight that. Financially, people have to make more decisions.”

‘A Positive Note’

She added that the recent announcement of breakthroughs with the experimental AIDS drug azidothymidine, or AZT, which has been shown to prolong the lives of AIDS patients, “is merely a hopeful sign; it’s not a cure. But it’s nice to have a positive note.”

Line of Limos

A party that followed the performance drew benefactors who had paid $1,000 a ticket for both events. Limos crawled up to the George C. Page Museum where klieg lights and an extensive buffet awaited guests such as Hugh Hefner and Carrie Leigh, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Robert Wagner, Robert Foxworth, Elizabeth Montgomery, Chevy Chase, Peter Scott (former chairman of APLA), Moon and Dweezil Zappa, and Jack Haley Jr. (the show’s producer). Madonna, Ronstadt and Taylor were no-shows; according to a Taylor aide-de-camp she was due for oral surgery Sunday. Several tables were left untouched, and some guests roamed through the museum and sat in on dinosaur documentaries that the museum was showing.

Barry Krost, the show’s executive producer and chairman of the event, was still on an adrenaline high at midnight. No wonder--he was toting around $30,000 worth of checks for APLA in his pocket that he picked up at the party after muscling a few wealthy friends.