Celebrating the ‘Best-Kept Secret’ in L.A.

Forty years--and 40 names to light up the anniversary celebration. That’s Cal State L.A.’s 40th anniversary--with a party honoring 40 friends and alums--and a little chance for a spotlight on a rapidly changing campus.

Among the 40 honorees are Anna Bing Arnold, Supervisor Mike Antonovich, the Fifth Dimension’s Florence LaRue, entrepreneur Lily Lee, executive Jack Attwood, contractor David Strauss and David and Susan Wilstein. Putting together the March 12 event at the Beverly Wilshire is a committee chaired by Marilyn Hudson and including co-chair Sophie Chao Wong and the ticket-selling champ of all time, Margaret Martin Brock.

“Cal State is the best-kept secret in L.A.,” Marilyn Hudson explained. Funds from the dinner will go to support the Entering Freshman Honors Program--as the school continues its move to provide a full four-year college experience, and not just finish up the work begun by the community colleges. Cal State L.A. is certainly the most ethnically diverse campus in California--and probably in America, according to Ruth Goldway, who last summer took over as public affairs director at the college. Also being supported by the event is the campus Arts Complex--which will provide an on-campus showcase for professional artistic performances and fine-arts exhibits. It’ll be another focal point for the not-so-secret Cal State experience.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY--Saturday night should be very special and very old L.A. That’s the 35th anniversary party for the St. Vincent Medical Center Auxiliary. When the auxiliary was set up, Countess Estelle Doheny was its honorary president and Countess Bernardine Donohue was its honorary v.p. (Those are papal titles--rare then, and rarer now--and the names of two of L.A.’s founding gentry.) When the crowd gathers in the Biltmore Hotel, Steve Allen will be doing the honors and Les Brown and his Band of Renown will provide the music. It should be a special night, for sure.

PRETTY PRINCETONIAN--Here’s news that all America is waiting for--Brooke Shields is working on her senior thesis at Princeton. Her topic--”French Films and ‘Pretty Baby’,” according to onlookers at the premiere last week of “The Inquiry” in New York. The Italian film had a one-night stand at the Plaza’s Cinema Three, where Shields cornered her “Pretty Baby” co-star David Carradine and asked if he would participate in her academic project . . . Getting a private screening of “The Inquiry” in Rome was Pope John Paul II, according to a spokesman for the film, which deals with an inquiry two years later into the the death of Christ.

PASSING THROUGH--Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., the Connecticut Republican, will be the guest of honor at a $500-a-person lunch at the Regency Club Monday by a group which looks more than mildly Democratic. Among the committee members--Jerry Weintraub, Norman Lear, Jack Valenti and Ted Field . . . Sybil Brand Tuesday receives the County Bar’s Distinguished Service Award--the first time the honor will be bestowed. The luncheon is at the Biltmore Hotel . . . Just what L.A. needed--the Board of Governors of the Beverly Hills Country Club hosts its Grand Opening Party Thursday, at the club, on Motor Avenue . . . CARE will honor USA for Africa’s Ken Kragen and the late singer-activist Harry Chapin at the the organization’s first Humanitarian Awards dinner next Wednesday at the Regency Club. Caroline Ahmanson is chairing the dinner. Kragen and USA for Africa are being honored “for their role in saving millions of Africans’ lives and promoting future development through CARE and other international aid organizations.”