People and Events

It was the first thrill in many years for 102-year-old Edwina Barry, said by Actors Fund officials to be the oldest living ex-vaudevillian--with George Burns second at 92.

Carroll O’Connor, Ed Asner, Donald O’Connor and other performers were set to honor the long-forgotten Barry at a retirement home east of downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday. But the gathering never took place because Barry fell in the bathroom Monday night, cracking her skull.

“She was suddenly getting attention and she was very excited,” said Dale Olson of the fund, which has been caring for her.

Olson said it appeared, however, that the show business headliner of the early 1900s was expected to recover from the accident and will be out of the hospital as early as today.

Beverly Hills realtor Elaine Young is not one to simply hang an American flag in front of her Coldwater Canyon home and consider it done. Young, who rarely lets a holiday go by without some sort of front yard display, has improved on her usual Independence Day presentation.

With the help of artist Marlynn Northcutt, she has set up a neon-lighted Statue of Liberty against a flag background. “Happy 4th America,” it proclaims to motorists whizzing past.

It was Young who marked Valentine’s Day with a large Cupid-bedecked sign reading “Elaine Loves Bill.” That was for husband William A. Levey, whom she hadn’t seen for three months because he was in Africa directing a movie.

The neighbors apparently do not object to her displays. Young says she got a letter from one of them, actor Ernest Borgnine, who thanked her for taking the time “to make life a little brighter for all of us.”

“I don’t do it for the notoriety,” she says. “I do it because the kids go crazy.”

If a registered nurse-turned-designer’s notions catch on, you will no longer have to clutch the backside of your hospital gown together as you shuffle down the hall. Cheryle Van Scoy-Mosher has whipped up some patient gowns “with access from the sides.”

These were among the items available Wednesday as Memorial Medical Center of Long Beach opened its own hospital-wear boutique with a ribbon cutting and fashion show. Mostly, the new shop is for nurses, who can brouse for “designer health care apparel” in such colors as raspberry, grape, jade green, putty and navy blue. There are three-way collars, stylishly large pockets and other jazzy touches.

Christine A. Pappas, vice president of nursing at the hospital, said nurses may continue to wear those old white outfits if they wish.

The hospital shop, claims a spokeswoman, is the first of its kind in the country.

The ribbon was cut by Miss America of 1988, Kaye Lani Rae Rafko, an oncology nurse from Michigan.

It’s been more than 30 years since Buster Keaton appeared on television’s “This Is Your Life” and was promised by emcee Ralph Edwards that a bronze plaque would be embedded at Lillian Way and Eleanor Avenue in Hollywood to mark the site of the old Keaton Studio.

On Wednesday, Edwards got the job done.

Keaton wasn’t there. He died in 1966. His widow, Eleanor, showed up. So did Donald O’Connor, who portrayed the longtime film comic in a movie.

Edwards, said spokeswoman Eddie Jo Bernal, “was under the impression that it had been done.” It may have been, she said, but the building burned down and the property was bought by a film titles-and-art studio that turned the site into a parking lot. If there was a plaque there, it was probably torn up.

But Edwards, she said, wanted to keep his promise and has spent three years getting the way cleared to mark the spot where the deadpan comedian turned out silent films from 1920 to 1928.

In other Hollywood doings, a young man and young woman who strip at office parties, anniversaries and birthday gatherings began what a publicist called “the world’s first record striptease” in the window of a sportswear shop.

Newcomb Munt, 28, and Delane Balliot, 23, were planning to take it off, put it back on and take it off again day and night until Saturday, according to Chris Harris. He said the event in the 7600 block of Melrose Avenue was drawing a crowd, but police said they knew of no real problems.

Harris said both strippers seemed “in very good spirits.”