L.A. Festival Supporters Show Their Partying Spirit

Just like the Olympics. No, no games. Just fun, and festive, since supporters of the Los Angeles Festival know how to celebrate the arts, after a summer of Olympian practice.

Celebrations went on all day Thursday marking the opening of the festival--a tented luncheon on the City Hall Spring Street Fore Court was hosted by Dr. Armand Hammer. Called away on business, he had his longtime associate read his speech, in which Hammer pointed to this period in East-West relations as being a “window of opportunity.” Government officials and private culture buffs got to go back to work for the afternoon. Then many returned with other guests for a spiffy reception given by the Times Mirror Co. preceding the first performance of the Le Cirque du Soleil.

‘Special Challenge’

“Thirty years ago, Los Angeles was all viewed as a cultural wasteland,” Mayor Tom Bradley told the lunch crowd, as banners carrying the festival logo danced in the slight breeze. Dancing also was festival director Bob Fitzpatrick, who glided by with a performer. He’s also dancing out of festival sight, since his job running Euro Disney will keep him a continent away. And, downtown attorney Ron Olson said that he was taking over the job of finding a new director, heading up the search committee, directing what he called a “special challenge.”

Olson said Los Angeles was “perhaps the most appropriate city” in the world to host such an annual international festival of the arts--and that a director should be “somebody who understands the cultures of the world and how they are reflected in Los Angeles.”

Thanks were the order of the day, from Mayor Tom Bradley to Times Mirror Chairman of the Board and C.E.O. Robert F. Erburu, there with his wife, Lois, for his corporation’s $500,000 contribution as one of five festival sponsors. (Other sponsor-level contributors were the Amateur Athletic Assn. of Los Angeles, Occidental Petroleum Corp., the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles and Security Pacific Corp.) And from festival chair Maureen Kindel to the Amateur Athletic Foundation--along with a plea that those interested in the festival keep up the contributing.

Bradley asked performance artist Rachel Rosenthal to repeat her chanting benediction that had show-stopped the pre-lunch ceremonies on City Hall’s south side. She kidded that this was “really singing for her supper.”

In the crowd, Steve and Kitty Moses; Merry Norris; Eli Broad; festival board members Rosemary Tomich, AT&T;’s William Clossey and wife, Margaret, and Rev. Thomas Kilgore Jr.; City Council President John Ferraro; anchorman Jess Marlow (very thin and trim, but who nevertheless indulged in Rococo’s chocolate and raspberry dessert); City Atty. James Hahn; and Donald Livingston. Also Marge Fasman talking over the politics of peace with Jane Olson, there with her and Ron’s son, Steve, who’s on his way back to Stanford.

The Attendees

Turning up for a pre-circus buffet was a crowd that included Roz Wyman and her son, Bob (just signed on with New World Films); Deputy Mayor Mike and Lacey Gage; Ernest Fleischmann; Dan and Mia Frost; the ultra-fashionable Joan and Jack Quinn (yes, well-known attorneys can be fashionable), in a very Contemporary dress; MOCA Trustee Lennie and Bernie Greenberg; Hannah and Edward Carter; Michael and Dru Hammer; Robinson’s Bob and Sue Mettler; Caroline Ahmanson; Margaret Pereira; Claremont’s John and Billie Maguire (she’s just signed on to head the West Coast office for the Children’s Defense Fund); and The Broadway’s Michael Hecht with his 11-year-old son, Chris.

The Verdict

Hey, it’s a circus. And, Chris Hecht had been to “maybe six of them. Maybe.” His critical verdict following the performance: “Terrific.”

And isn’t that what culture is supposed to be about?

(Additional Los Angeles Festival coverage in Calendar.)