Plenty of Live Wires Behind LA Alive!

If you haven’t heard, seen, felt or tasted the synergetic verve of LA Alive!, you will. LA Alive! is the exuberant arts festival June 11 and 12 on the Music Center Plaza. The “very best” of Los Angeles’ self-expressive, creative spirit will sing, dance, paint and act in an “arts explosion” free to the public.

But that requires “a framework.” And the ladies and gents making it all possible bustled into the Regency Club for luncheon--all chiefs. There was the indomitable chairman, Nancy Vreeland, a master at pulling together intricacies, and Debbie Tellefsen, her vice chair. Also there were Carol Mancino, lively arts festival chair, Jennifer Diener, environmental and performing arts chair, and David Murdock, who will host the very special patron party for $1,500 donors on April 27 at his Bel-Air home; Esther Wachtell, Music Center dynamo who proclaimed Los Angeles “a world-class city;” and Harlyne Norris, whose Norris Foundation generosity will fund LA Alive!

LA Alive! will be skyrocketed June 10 with a black-tie gala in the Grand Hall of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. For the first time on the West Coast, Peter Duchin and Michael Carney (the East Coast orchestra leaders) will play duo pianos.

Of course, that calls for ambiance. Joan Hotchkis, Robin Parsky and Joni Smith--three of L.A.’s top party-givers--are collaborating on a nightclub setting. And Gerald Parsky, Robin’s husband, is the corporate dinner chairman on the premise that “the corporate world cannot operate in isolation.” Tickets are $300 per couple. Debbie Lanni and Joy Fein, auction co-chairmen, have divertissements, such as an estate in Scotland, up for bids.

There’s more. Knowing $300 is too steep for all but the yuppiest of yuppies, Susie and Rob Maguire III, Mark Foster, Madison Offenhauser and Nancy Weakley will stage a California barbecue and street dance on Hope Street with a live concert on June 1. They’re hoping for 2,000 at about $35 per ticket, appealing to the 25- to 35-year-old crowd. It all goes to support the Music Center’s five resident companies.

Also energizing about it all at the Regency Club the other day were Dori Pinola, Keith Kieschnick, Jean Smith, Kathryn Belton, Harriet Deutsch, Giney Milner, Chardee Trainer, Jenny Rutt, Anne Johnson, Terri Childs, Ann O’Malley and Kathy Offenhauser, Madison’s mother.

CARING: Last year, CARES Auxiliary raised $100,000 on its California National Horse Show. Weta Mathies never settles for less, and she and the CARES Auxiliary at the Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center are polishing brass, primping the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, 480 Riverside Drive, Burbank, for the sixth annual event March 16-20.

More than 700 horses will compete in American Saddlebred three and five gaited, fine harness, jumper and Andalusian classes. Major exhibitors such as M. Yance Hirschi, Phillip Boyce, Susan Eastburn, Mary McLellan Williams and Elizabeth Goth will participate. Patrick Duffy and his wife Carlyn are honorary chairmen. Highlight will be the $25,000 CARES California Grand Prix sponsored by Silver Oaks Ranch. Charges are nominal for the weekend evening performances; daily shows are free.

CARES’ 500 members have contributed more than $2.3 million and 35,000 hours to the medical center, funding two child care centers and operating four shops. Patrons will be in the honor spot March 18 at an Americana cuisine dinner, among them Betty and Donald Petits (she’s founder), Weta and Dr. Allen Mathies Jr., Dr. Louis and Jane Lombardo Jr., Emily Peck and Bobbie and Richard Gavigan.

BLUE AND WHITE: What would you wear to the Blue and White Ball for Marymount High School? Blue and white, of course. Barbara Barnoski, Claire Shea and Kathleen McCarthy did. It was also a good night for sapphires in the Century Plaza Tower Ballroom.

Chairman Barnoski was planning to net $80,000. Cooperating all the way were Anthony Newley, a Marymount parent who donated his talent (Ian Fraser accompanied at the piano), and the crowd. Jan Coppersmith, Charlie Smith, Hannah Brady, Sharon Stephens, Sally and Paul Conn, Rusty and Dan Chandler, Tom and Terri Grojean, Jayne and Roger Sullivan were among those bidding up the items on Joan Ransohoff’s silent auction.

Everyone, especially Marymount principal Sister Colette McManus, was congratulating Alice Avery, Class of ‘34, on her successful patron letter for faculty endowment.

ESCALATION: ARCS (Achievement Rewards for College Scientists) Auxiliary announces “ARCS Goes Hollywood” on May 19 at Filmland in Culver City. Invites from Marlene Hall, benefit chair, and Terri Grojean, president, say “Dress for the Academy Awards”. . . .

Jerry Mook captains the Men for Richstone Crew heading a “Caribbean Cruise Evening” for the sixth annual Richstone Auction and Tasting party Saturday in Redondo Beach. Len Williams is purser, and Michael Franks officer of the deck. . . .

Saturday the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra salutes 50 years of fund-raising with Crescendo (it brought in $180,000 last year). The dinner and auction will be at the Long Beach Ramada Renaissance, says Colleen McBride.

DESERT BRIGHT: The Santa Rosa Mountains adjacent the Coachella Valley once supported the largest desert bighorn population in the state, but the herd has declined due to high lamb mortality.

To the rescue: The Bighorn Institute directors and honorary chairs former President Gerald R. Ford and Ernest Hahn host the Wildlife Gala March 26 for the grand opening celebration of the Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage. What a dedicated committee (founders’ tables for $25,000): Cindy Austin, chairman, and Dorothy Cohn, Mary Cone, Jean Hahn and Patty Moller. . . .

Legendary star Mary Martin performs March 19 at the Wyndham Palm Springs Hotel for the Americana Ball VII for the Palm Springs Senior Center. Anne and Richard Armento are ball chairmen.

KUDOS: To the Century Plaza Tower for wooing King Carl Gustaf XVI and Queen Silvia of Sweden for their “New Sweden ‘88” visit April 21-25. The Royal Couple will be honored at a Royal Banquet in the Century Plaza’s Ballroom April 25, hosted by the city and county. . . .

To actress Gale Storm and Paul C. Masterson, president of the Permanent Charities Committee of the Entertainment Industries, who wed April 23. . . .

To Robert H. Smith, new Los Angeles Arts Council trustee, and Adolfo R. Cruz and Hope Boonshaft-Lewis, new directors. . . .

To Luis Pozzo, Victor and Sandy Pozzo and Emile and Carolyn Pozzo St. Geme on their Jonathan Club party celebrating 90 years for the construction firm, Pozzo Construction, builder of such landmarks as St. John’s Medical Center, Childrens Hospital and St. Basil’s Roman Catholic Church. . . .

To University of Pennsylvania President Sheldon Hackney, welcomed by alums at the home of Gordon and Mickey Bodek. . . . To Edye Rugolo, new general director of the Young Musicians Foundation. . . . To Linda Desiante, new president of Women in Show Business.