C.Z. Guest Will Sow Garden Tips at Party
Katrina Cord expects nearly 400 for the Crittenton Garden Party on April 9 in David Murdock’s gardens. The spring posies will be in bloom, the hedges will be manicured and Crittenton Center is delighted it has the mansion (the former Hilton Estate) to spotlight C. Z. (Mrs. Winston) Guest. The New Yorker is a prolific garden book writer, with columns in several publications. She’ll speak on how you can have your own perfect garden. Katrina (Mrs. Christopher) Cord, who is secretary of the board for Crittenton (the home that aids girls with problems of pregnancy and motherhood), has set tickets at $125.
BALALAIKAS: Strolling costumed Russian singers and balalaika players seemed the perfect touch to chairman Jan Brockway for the Associates of the House Ear Institute festivities Tuesday evening. That’s because the evening will honor heavy institute donors Dr. Armand and Frances Hammer with the Humanitarian Award. When Dr. Howard House had a heart attack while touring the Soviet Union, Dr. Hammer sent in a plane to bring him home.
Teledyne president Dr. George A. Roberts is co-chairman for the event. The African Children’s Choir directed by Richard Kaufman will perform.
IN RESIDENCE: Artist David Hockney has been given the 1988 Cotsen Artist Fellowship, a memorial to JoAnne Stolaroff Cotsen. He’ll be in residence at the Junior Arts Center on March 25, leading 50 children through a hands-on workshop.
That evening, among those hosting a reception for Hockney in the gallery will be Cotsen Memorial Committee members Lloyd Cotsen, president of Neutrogena Corp.; Corinna Cotsen, the daughter of the late Mrs. Cotsen; former Friends of the Junior Arts Center president Louise Brinsley, arts patron Harriet Gold, supporters Helen Bing, Stephen J. Cannell and Joe Coulombe and center director Harriet Miller.
GREAT PARTIES: The Diadames luncheon at the Beverly Hills Hotel had Giney Milner recalling great parties of Los Angeles--the Halloween party Dickie Doheny Washington gave with real tombstones for decorations; the time at Romanoff’s when all the guests came dressed as animals, including the late Kay Gable as a leopard.
Diadames got super-plaudits the other noon too for its creative tables annual luncheon chaired by Coco Viault. Explained president Lois Linkletter: “This is the only party Diadames holds each year, except for parties in homes. We don’t have benefits.” But Diadames are known as super-hostesses, so they invited friends for a little table upstaging.
This one was staged around a holiday theme. Coco Viault used green lettuce-leaf-shaped china plates with masses of tulips, iris and daffodils and rabbits galore in pink grass for Easter. Marion Malouf chose a Thanksgiving theme, massing orchids from her garden around her Sheffield candelabra and Gloria Holden’s exquisite china. Cranes held the orchids, Chinese figurines the chopsticks for Doris Mendenhall’s and Lee Witte’s New Year’s concoction.
Barbro Taper placed snuffboxes and gloves she received when she was a girl on her Swedish Christmas table. Marilyn McDaniel, Diadames founder and past president, borrowed the place cards used for her daughter’s (Laurie McDaniel Norwood) wedding reception at Los Angeles Country Club for “June Wedding.” Andree Kersten and Elise Pasette used Venetian crystal artifacts. Husbands Grover Asmus, Robert J. Clark and John Good did a July Fourth picnic complete with plastic ants. Joni Smith (wearing white city shorts) and Patsy Moller laced 700 rosebuds in a Valentine heart; Frances Hommes went Irish. Lucy Zahran used Baccarat crystal anchors on napkins. Halla Linker, Frank Viault, Dona Kendall, Patti Skouras, Loriene and Cliff King (on their Halloween table were place cards for Lady MacBeth, Dr. Jekyll, Lucrezia Borgia and Jimmy Swaggart) and Margaret Pereira got in on the fun.
Mr. Houseparty, Art Linkletter, mentioned that the crowd had forgotten one holiday--”The Day that the Children Left Home.” Suffice it to say, the luncheon was incredible and a good time was had by all, including Margie Peterson, Lee Minnelli, Robin Parsky, Kathleen McCarthy, Dody Booth, Ann Johnson, Joan Hotchkis, Mary Jones, Rita Barrett, Jean Smith and Diane Anderson.
FACE LIFT: The social world could collapse without the Conrad International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton. It’s been a mainstay since 1955. Now Merv Griffin is renovating the landmark, working on plans with Waldo Fernandez, who remodeled Griffin’s home. Reconstruction is to last 17 weeks. They’re supposedly doing wondrous things with acoustics.
KUDOS: Suzanne Marx, chairman of the Princeton Parents Assn., and Princeton University trustees Gerald Parsky, Lloyd Cotsen and Ned Nalle expect 350 for a reception today at the Regency Club to honor newly inaugurated Princeton president Harold T. Shapiro. . . .
Carole Little receives the Designer of the Year award from the State of California April 10 at the Fashion Industries Guild of Cedars-Sinai black-tie gala. . . .
The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Hermes stage a reception Sunday at Hermes on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills to meet Iona Brown, the orchestra’s new music director. And, March 27, the orchestra performs Mozart at the home of Gladys Jones in San Marino at a benefit dessert.
TRAVELING: Friends of Banning Park including Nancy Call, Biddy Liebig, Betty Field, Martha Crockwell, Donna Gibbs and Beth Rogers were in New York to attend flower shows, prepping for their Floriade II in 1989. . . .
In New York too, for “Phantom of the Opera” and some American Council for the Arts meetings, were Tim and Terry Childs, Reese and Mary Milner, Debbie and Tom Tellefsen, Jim and Doreen McElvany and Katherine Belton.
LANDMARK RIDE: Peter and Pam Mullin squeezed in fun with friends and business chums to open their Engine Company No. 28, the historic landmark at 644 S. Figueroa, which is the headquarters for their Management Compensation Group.
Later this year a new restaurant will open on the site. Restoration architect Jim Porter and interior designer Carol Dudman were getting lots of tributes. The highlight, after tours and Chinese, Mexican and Irish dining, came when Jim Hull revved up the American La France 1912 fire engine he and the Mullins have purchased. With Hull at the wheel, yours truly next to the driver, Peter Mullin, David and Ginger Ludwick and Faith Porter clinging on, the old fire engine gleefully chortled down Wilshire and around the block.
AND . . . : We should have told you, the “Palm Trees, Moonlight and Mel Torme” evening March 25 at the Music Center has a wonderful sponsor: the American Diabetes Assn., California Affiliate Los Angeles Chapter.
ESCALATION: The discovery of California by Sir Francis Drake and the sinking of the Spanish Armada had the attention of the Pasadena Navy League when British Adm. Sir Simon Cassels spoke to a crowd including Charles and Betty Gates, James and Linda Dickason, John Watkins, Bill Ridgway, the Count and Countess James Ridgway de Szigethy, English Speaking Union director Trudy Dunne and USC provost Dr. Sol Golomb and his wife, Bo. . . .
Designer/developer Stephen Ball has invited a crowd Friday to see the 9,000-square-foot Beverly Hills contemporary home he has completed on Summit Drive. . . .
The Performing Tree will feature a Dom Deluise talk, “How High Can You Fly?” at its community luncheon Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times Harry Chandler Auditorium. . . .
Desert Symphony Guild and the Society of Singers benefited from the Henry Mancini and orchestra concert starring Vic Damone, Helen Forrest and Mary Martin at the Hyatt Grand Champion Resort’s new tennis stadium in Indian Wells. . . .
Sue Young (Mrs. Charles) spoke on “The Smiles and Tribulations of a Chancellor’s Wife” this week at the UCLA Faculty Women’s Club’s 70th-anniversary gathering. . . .
Arlene Ainbinder chaired the “Carnaval Caribbean” for the Merchants Club of the City of Hope at the Beverly Hilton.
