A Monday on Brighton Beach With the CTG

“Roz. Roz, of course,” said Shelly Balloon, noshing on a knish. “Roz, of course, has lived in one district all her life. And it ain’t Brooklyn.”

Nonetheless, Roz Wyman had duplicated, replicated and re-created if not 1937 Brooklyn, then at least the tastes, smells and glorious food of that place. And, when the crowd at the Center Theatre Group premiere of Neil Simon’s film, “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” rushed from the Plitt Theater across the street to the Century Plaza on Monday night, what greeted them was a strip from that place’s boardwalk.

Guests lined up to have Polaroids of their heads on top of comic bathing-suit cutouts. “Jane Fonda did it,” Shirlee Fonda proclaimed to Craig Johnson, waving the photo showing her head perched above a quite plump bathing beauty body.

Some partygoers sought other attractions. Premiere co-chair Judith Beckmen lined up with Mark Taper Forum Artistic Director Gordon Davidson for a few games of chance. And the food--which actually came from a Century Plaza catering department more used to veal and cornish game hens--kept people moving back and forth between the buffets and the tables. Wyman was prolific in her praise and thanks to MCA chairman Lew Wasserman: “Because of the generosity of Universal, with two premieres this year, CTG will realize over $300,000. We are really grateful to them.”

Grateful also were peripatetic partygoers who got a real chance to play--like CTG activist Doug Cramer there with Ames Cushing, and CTG board member Harry Chandler and wife, Denise (she was sampling the cheesecake and sundaes with buddies Jamie and Carolyn Bennett). Charlton Heston and Roz and Henry Rogers wandered by, Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows were busy picking up toys for the Salvation Army drive, and Music Center regulars like Nancy and Alan Livingston, Beth Pressman and Marilyn Hudson just couldn’t get enough carny.

NO THANK YOU--Scratch those still-strong rumors that the GOP decided against holding its ’88 convention here because the politicians want a send-off for the next contender, not just a memorial to the Reagans. Insiders say that the local politicos wanted to ride to the convention bid on their Olympic record and just didn’t do the right kind of courting or arrangements.