Stamp Sale for the Fight Against AIDS

Taking a cue from the long-established practice of selling Christmas and Easter seals to raise money, Broadway producer John Glines has come up with a new seal, STAMP OUT AIDS, to benefit AIDS organizations across the country. A set of six stamps sells for $1.

“I wanted to create an affordable way for everyone to contribute,” said Glines, producer of the Tony Award-winning “Torch Song Trilogy.” “This way, for just a dollar, everyone can help. Not only will the stamps raise money, but also will show we care.”

Glines hopes to raise $1 million with the first issue of the stamp, with monies being distributed to AIDS service organizations through the National AIDS Network headquartered in Washington, D.C. So far, the campaign has raised about $50,000 back East, but it is just getting off the ground in California, according to STAMP OUT AIDS project administrator Dallas Thompson.

Stamps may be purchased by sending $1 for each set, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope to STAMP OUT AIDS, 240 West 44th St., New York, N.Y., 10036. Checks should be made payable to National AIDS Network/STAMP OUT AIDS. The stamp sets also will be available in retail outlets nationwide. Organizations wishing to sell the stamps should contact Glines or Thompson at STAMP OUT AIDS, (212) 354-8899.

To spread the word about the new stamp, Glines has enlisted the help of actress Estelle Getty, who received the 1986 Golden Globe award for best actress in a comedy for her role in the TV series, “The Golden Girls.” Getty made her Broadway debut in Glines’ “Torch Song Trilogy.”

Mural Project

AIDS Project Los Angeles is starting a unique local campaign on Wednesday to raise funds for its service programs, research and public education about acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

APLA has enlisted the volunteer services of Russell Carlton, a 24-year-old Los Angeles artist, to paint a mural on the northbound Hollywood Freeway underpass at Odin Street, across from the Hollywood Bowl, and plans to sell square inches of the mural for $1 apiece. Since the full, three-panel mural is 180 feet long and 30 feet high, AIDS Project’s Andy Weisser calculates that will raise $633,469 for APLA.

A celebration marking the beginning of work on the mural is scheduled at 11 a.m. Wednesday in the Hollywood Bowl parking lot on Highland Avenue and Odin Street. Corporate sponsors and persons who purchase large blocks of the mural will be named “honorary muralists.”

Artist Carlton said that his mural, entitled “Blue Moon Trilogy,” is “a metaphysical vision, a contemporary version of an ancient art form” in four colors. He and his volunteer staff will paint every weekday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and expect to finish the work in early January.

A Tax Benefit

Worried about how to do your taxes now that the Tax Reform Act has passed?

Well, accountant Marvin Freedman has thought up a plan that can help you with your taxes and also raise money for children with cancer.

To explain the new federal tax plan, Freedman, a partner in the accounting firm of Hollander, Freedman, Harrison & Fine, is offering videotaped presentations of the firm’s recent KISS Seminar--that stands for Keep It Simple Seminar.

The $25 fee per seminar benefits the Amie Karen Cancer Fund for Children, a 15-year-old, nonprofit organization that supports special programs and runs a summer camp for children with cancer who are patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

The videos will be shown at the firm’s offices, 8383 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 610, Beverly Hills, on Wednesdayand Nov. 19 at 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 13 and Nov. 20 at 4 p.m.; Nov. 15 and Nov. 22 at 10 a.m. To register, call Louise Pinsky at (213) 655-4190.

Representatives from the firm will be on hand at each presentation to answer questions from the audience, said Freedman, treasurer of the Amie Karen Cancer Fund for Children.

Selling ‘Bottom Line’

British ex-multimillionaire Trevor Pepperell, 58, is making his first trip to California this weekend--not to vacation, but to promote his “autobiography in finance.” It’s not a book but a board game called “The Bottom Line,” one that he invented in jail.

In 1979, Pepperell was a successful financier in London, with companies worth about $100 million, chateaux in France and yachts parked at docks on the Riviera. He had begun building his empire with a $20,000 loan in 1959 and by the late ‘70s had turned it into millions.

Pepperell went to jail for bank fraud in 1980, and served two years and four months in British prison. He was convicted of stealing 15 million pounds (about $21 million) but still maintains his innocence. As he puts it, “I not only lost my liberty, but my wife, my money, everything.”

By the time he was released from prison in 1983, Pepperell had developed a series of nine high-finance board games. “Other people write books, I decided to do games,” he said in a telephone interview from New York. “The games actually are my autobiography of a career that took me from a minus sum of money to multimillions. They lead you through what happened in my life.”

When he got out of jail, Pepperell said he had 20 pounds, or about $30, and his set of games. His son, Oliver, and several friends decided to back Pepperell’s board game business, giving him the start-up money.

“The Bottom Line” came out in London almost a year ago and makes its Southern California debut today at Bullock’s in Westwood, where Pepperell will be telling people about it. Saturday, he’s at Bullock’s in Sherman Oaks; Sunday at the South Coast Plaza store.

The object of “The Bottom Line,” a Monopoly-style game that costs $30, is to buy the bank, Pepperell said. Players start out with $1 million in cash, but $2 million in debt. Three to six people can play and each game lasts about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

All nine games, said Pepperell, “never play the same way twice. I teach you nothing in these games, but what the other players do to you in them, you’ll never forget.”

Each game was tested and retested by inmates in the two prisons where Pepperell served his time. “When I went to jail, I saw that I was getting another chance,” he explained. “Here were 500 men doing nothing. So, they served as my research department. I know my games are tested by the finest criminal minds in England.”