High-Voltage Women in a Huddle

“This is the best part of the whole weekend,” Carrie Rozelle insisted, “when you end up with all your girlfriends and you don’t have to be on .

“This week is tough,” the wife of NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle said. “You have to be nice to everybody and people are calling asking for tickets. ‘I need 12 tickets, I need 14 tickets.’ And I just don’t have them.”

But the only ticket to this special luncheon for a couple dozen of the pretty brunet’s closest friends was simply that they be a friend. So it was a laid-back afternoon for a lot of high-powered women Friday at the Le Bel Age Hotel.

Given by longtime buddy Lynne Hiller, the party brought together folks like Sally Jankowski (wife of Gene, the president of CBS), Jane Meyers (whose husband, John, heads Time magazine), Nicki Harris (whose husband, Ira, heads Salomon Brothers in Chicago), and Joan Tisch (whose husband Robert, was named postmaster general last summer). These out-of-towners chatted it up with locals like Edie Wasserman, Juli Hutner, Polly Bergen and Patsy Tisch, the daughter-in-law of Joan and Bob Tisch.

Little talk of football though--but lots of relief that the East Coast people had made it in despite the heavy snows.

Edie and Lew Wasserman on Thursday night had hosted several dozen of the Rozelles’ close friends at a dinner at their home--”which ended about midnight, which for the New Yorkers was 3 a.m.,” the dinner party hostess said. Chasen’s did the food and the non-sports glamour was provided by guests Johnny Carson with fiancee Alex Maas, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme and Suzanne Pleshette with husband Tommy Gallagher.

Greeting old friends at the Friday luncheon was Carrie Rozelle’s former mother-in-law, Jean Berwald (the former wife of Jack Kent Cooke) and, the luncheon honoree’s daughter, Jeannie Kent Cooke (“like the Redskins,” Jeannie Kent Cooke said).

What to do between rounds of parties? Shop was the consensus. According to one woman, “It was like locusts hitting Rodeo Drive this morning.”

So not all the tough scrimmaging will take place on the Rose Bowl field Sunday.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS--Here’s an event that has everything for everybody--and by gosh, it seems like everybody important is involved. Starting May 1, an extraordinary bi-coastal event begins, benefiting both American and French AIDS research efforts. The parties will also provide a grant to the Friends of French Art for restoring the San Francisco Legion of Honor Theater. That sounds complicated--but try to follow along. The people associated with the event--a three-day benefit weekend at La Costa resort in Carlsbad and then a white-tie gala in New York City--are more than brand-name.

First Lady Nancy Reagan and Danielle Mitterrand have lent their names, and the honorary co-chairs are C. Z. Guest and Vicomtesse Jacqueline de Ribes. National chairmen are the Hon. Clare Booth Luce, Robin (as in Angier Biddle) Duke and our very own Elin Vanderlip. The ball at the Plaza will be chaired by Patricia Kruge, Carroll Petrie and Geraldine Stutz. The bashes are being coordinated by Earl Blackwell and party-presenter Clive David.