‘Beach’ Party Bash Planned as ‘Memoir’-able Premiere Event

Roz Wyman can make a good time anywhere. She is, after all, the woman who tried to convince America that the 1984 Democratic Convention was a festive occasion. So, let her loose with a movie premiere and watch out. . . .

The date is Dec. 15 when Wyman and her friends from the Center Theatre Group premiere Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs” at the Plitt Theater in Century City, followed by a real New York beach party in the Century Plaza Hotel. For those partygoers bored by black-tie veal, Wyman, Roberta Haft and Judy Beckmen have put together a menu direct from New York. (Thank goodness for deli.)

Also created was a special honorary premiere committee made up of expatriate New Yorkers, including the Dodgers’ Peter O’Malley, author Arthur Miller, Mel Brooks, Joan Rivers, former baseball great Roy Campanella and actor Eli Wallach.

Neil Simon is the Center Theatre Group’s greatest booster--giving a piece of all his premiering works to CTG, in amounts now exceeding $1 million.

BACK ON THE CIRCUIT--Mayor Tom Bradley, according to knowledgeable insiders, has $2 million in campaign loans to pay back and will begin doing so immediately. That’s compared with the acknowledged $225,000 the Duke has left over in his campaign chest, according to what his close associates are saying. Boy, some of those losing Republicans would have loved to have some of that financial assistance.

GOOD EATS--The regular habitues of the Downtown Women’s Center’s dining room are there every day for breakfast and lunch. But Monday night, invited guests get to dine right there on Los Angeles Street, in the heart of Skid Row, in a reprise of what has become a happy and successful annual event. Joan Weiss is chairing, and the guest chefs this year--cooking Italian for sure--are attorney Marco Weiss, Music Center Master of Properties Carmine Marinelli, the Seventh St. Bistro’s Laurent Quinoux and florist David Jones (who is also doing the flowers).

OH MY GOSH--All those little states in the East, the ones that can be driven through on the way to somewhere else, look the same from L.A. That’s why we mistakenly identified Sen. Joseph Biden as coming from Maryland and not from Delaware.

HONORED--The most recently named Distinguished Patrons of the Arts will be honored next Friday at the Music Center. Getting their due will be Stanton and Ernestine Avery (representing Avery International), Philip and Mary Hawley, Hannah and Edward Carter (representing Carter Hawley Hale), Mrs. Walt Disney, Tara and Richard Colburn (CBS), Ford Motor Co.’s Robert Harnar and Robert Garber, Hughes Aircraft’s Donald White, Mrs. Alan Hay Means, Thomas and Esther Wachtell and Toyota’s Yale Gieszel. Together, the Distinguished Patrons have contributed over $2.5 million to the Music Center’s Unified Fund.

A LITTLE CHRISTMAS--HaRry the furniture designer who has “done things” for clients like Madonna and Cyndi Lauper, now wants to “do” Christmas. Or at least get his avant-garde artist friends to do it. At HaRry’s starting Dec. 5, will be their visions of Christmas trees done by Pamela Goldblum, Sheila Klein, Andre Miripolsky, Jim Reva, Harry Segil, Lisa Weigart and songwriter Allee Willis.

OUT IN THE DRAFT--Dozens of musicians are set to show up Tuesday night for a benefit to support the drafting of Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry as the Democratic Presidential nominee. That news was brought to us by Joe Shea, who is organizing the effort at the Coconut Teaszer in Hollywood.