Used as Lure for Art Sales : Ties to Rudy Vallee Knot All That Was Expected

It’s the latest version of Exodus.

Rudy Vallee’s ties are leaving Hollywood.

More than 600 ties that belonged to the late crooner-actor are headed for the board rooms and parlors of America, for the White House and for the office of the prime minister of Japan.

It’s a new Hollywood promotion, the brainchild of a lawyer named John Schalter, 36, who said he plans to send out the motley collection of neckwear to promote an art competition that he calls the International Art Challenge.

“We’re trying to create interest in our competition . . . by giving gifts to people of some prominence,” Schalter explained during an art auction held Sunday to sell the creations of about 100 artists competing in the First International Art Challenge.

One tie is already on its way to Japan to Prime Minister Yashiro Nakasone, he said. “I’m told they’re big into Hollywood memorabilia,” Schalter said, adding that he plans to solicit corporate sponsorships from Japanese companies.

Gift to President

Schalter plans to send one tie, framed, to President Reagan as a Christmas gift along with memorabilia from a movie called the “Santa Fe Trail.” Reagan appeared in the movie and Vallee helped promote it. The tie that Reagan will receive features a three-inch-wide hand-painted spur that Vallee wore on the promotional tour.

Vallee used to do ads for ties (Roos Bros.). Reagan used to do ads for shirts (Van Heusen).

“Rudy loved ties,” said Joanna Sturdza, an artist and friend of Vallee’s who was at the event Sunday. “He’d wear maybe 50 ties in a film and then put them away, and then he’d wear new ones in the next film and put them away. He used to say each tie reminded him of a moment in his life.”

The 600 are part of a “limited edition” that came from a collection of 5,000 found inside a locked attic of Vallee’s palatial pink Hollywood home shortly after he died in 1986.

“What Imelda Marcos was to shoes, Rudy Vallee was to ties,” Chris Harris, Vallee’s publicist, said a friend remarked when the stash was found. He said the ties were contained in two large locked trunks.

The entire collection was sold by Vallee’s wife of 35 years, Eleanor, to Schalter for about $4,500 in May, Harris said. The remaining ties will not be distributed as part of the sales agreement, Harris said.

About 100 of the “limited edition” were given out as remembrances Sunday to aspiring amateur artists who had paid their way to Los Angeles to participate in Schalter’s first annual weeklong International Art Challenge.

Auction Fizzles

They had hoped to go away with money from the sale of their works. But the auction, held at the Airport Hilton Hotel, attracted so few buyers that it was closed after fewer than a dozen of the 300 works on display were sold.

Instead, they went away with ties, some complete with Rudy Vallee gravy stains. On the whole, they looked like anybody else’s collection of old ties.

“I had hoped to sell four paintings to pay my expenses (of $2,000) here,” said Ruth Cruse, 62, of Hodgenville, Ky. She didn’t sell any of her homespun primitives. But she walked away with a burlapy tie with brown and orange and green and yellow in it. But she wasn’t complaining.

“I paint yesterday,” she said. “I remember yesterday. Rudy Vallee was yesterday.”

“I’m going to frame mine,” said Denise Russell of Niles, Mich.

Joan South of Bakersfield eyed the black, red and gold-checked tie she got and admitted she wasn’t much of a Vallee fan. “Maybe I’ll do a pastel of him and frame it with the tie,” she said.

The International Art Challenge, of which Schalter is chairman, is in turn part of the Hollywood American Dream Festival of promoter George Houraney, who sponsors other competitions including aerobics, calendar girls and show cars, Schalter said.

About 30 items of Vallee memorabilia were on display as part of Sunday’s auction. Among the items were four Vallee derbies, which sold for $800, an original cartoon with Vallee in it for $1,000 and several items of clothing he had worn in his movies, Harris said.