The Circus Produces for Children

After last year’s successful net of $79,000 on their Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus benefit, the League for Children (the auxiliary for the Children’s Bureau of Los Angeles) has grabbed another chance for circus dollars. Sharon Linkletter Melcher, league president, and her committee are touting Tahar and his deadly alligators as a never-before-seen attraction at the circus’s 118th edition.

And they’re sending animal crackers all over the city to encourage pals to join in their gala dinner by Rococo at the Sports Arena’s Clipper Club before the circus in the arena July 30.

League members and their guests will have reserved ringside seats facing not only the Zulu warriors, Bengal tigers on the whirling wheel of death and the 20th-anniversary Clown College, but honorary master of ceremonies Art Linkletter, Sharon’s father. Her mother is Lois Linkletter, who with Millie O’Green is co-founder of the League for Children, which works tirelessly to raise funds for the Children’s Bureau. The child welfare agency has served troubled children and their families in Los Angeles since 1904.

A raft of do-gooders are involved: Frances Franklin, Donna Booth, Pat Moller, Vera O’Larry, Sharon Black, Gloria Brenneman, Willene Coyle, Joy Fein, Joni Smith, Gretchen Smith, Elise Pasetta, Pat Hamilton, Betty Morgan.

HUGE TREATS: For the third year in a row, Mayor Tom Bradley’s Corporate Challenge for Youth will treat 12,000 disadvantaged youngsters to opening night of the circus July 29. It’s a program to combat gang violence, dropping out of school and drugs. Ira Distenfield is challenge chairman.

COSTA SHOW: It was meant to be a teaser--the luncheon the other day at the Assistance League of Southern California Fountain Court restaurant--and it worked. The fashion appetites for Victor Costa’s designs, in a mini-show staged by Nordstrom, were definitely whetted for the big show set for Aug. 11 in the Crystal Room of the Biltmore.

Nordstrom will completely underwrite the affair, and chairman Jaclyn Hill of Whittier is ecstatic about the response. Victor Costa will attend. Women at the luncheon, were already trying on designs and talking about orders--Beverly Thrall, Sally Hinckley, Claire Baumen, Kathleen Hoppe, Pat Lynds, Barbara Hardesty, Anna Mae Kass, Fritzy Roeder, Susan Scott, Yvonne Cazier.

INTIMATE: The crowd will be ever so exclusive for the Adolfo show Aug. 29 at David Murdoch’s Bellagio House. Sonance volunteer Helene Irvin says Adolfo will preview his fall line the day before he does his show at Saks in Beverly Hills. Saks’ general manager Martin Fischer and fashion coordinator Patty Fox are cooperating for the event for 140 members of Sonance, who strive to increase The Fellowship Committee--individuals who give $5,000 a year for three years or corporations that give $10,000 annually for three years to the House Ear Institute.

Honorary chairmen of the summer affair include Barbara Davis, Chardee Trainer, Betty Wilson, Onnalee Doheny, Gloria Holden, Laura Mako and Virginia Milner. Pat Moller, Teran Davis, Pat House, Penny von Kalinowski, Barbara Miller, Jacquelyn Heebner and Judy Tallarico are involved. Though the affair isn’t really a fund-raiser, Helene Irvin expects a profit.

MODERN MEDICI: After Toshio Nagamura of First California Bank agreed to raise $3 million in Japan for the Japanese Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, he discovered the necessity to raise $4 million. That’s why the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce gave him one of its four Medici Awards the other evening at the alfresco black-tie party hosted in Times Mirror Court at the museum. He accepted in Japanese formal wear with his crest.

Caroline Ahmanson urged some years ago that the chamber recognize arts in Los Angeles; the annual Medici affair has proved popular. Six hundred attended this year’s event.

Also receiving awards were Arthur Andersen & Company, represented by Sheldon Ausman; McDonnell Douglas, represented by David Conlon, and Target Stores, with Arthur Hicks accepting.

William Clossey, AT&T; vice president, public relations, put a gleaming polish on the evening, selecting actress Celeste Holm as the evening’s presenter, planning neon in the flower centerpieces for pizazz (guests walked out with little twists of neon), selecting duck and chicken ravioli for hors d’oeuvres. When everyone sat for dinner, when Daisy Belin shivered from the strong breezes, when even the William Hill Silver Label Chardonnay 1986 and the William Hill Silver Label Cabernet Sauvignon 1985 didn’t warm guests enough, Clossey ordered the electric heaters adjusted.

Charles D. Miller, chamber board chairman, addressed the crowd, saying: “This community cares about the arts.” Chamber president Ray Remy and wife, Sandra, were in agreement, and so were others, including Jo Usher (president of the Los Angeles Children’s Museum), Marilyn and Bill Schulte, Barbara and Bob Buce, Sam and Haruko Seishichi, John and Liz Argue, Tom and Betty Kemp, Henry and Nancy DeNero, Mia and Dan Frost, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich and LACMA benefactor Joe Price.

ABOUT TOWN: “Hold the date” cards are out for Nov. 10 at the Century Plaza when Town Hall honors Dr. Armand Hammer “for his humanity in his first 90 years.”

MOCA RECEPTION: Friends of the late Gladyce Begelman gathered at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Temporary Contemporary facility in Little Tokyo to recognize the gift from the Samuel and May Rudin Foundation in Mrs. Begelman’s memory and to mark the opening of “The Image of Abstraction.”

Among those attending were Gladyce Begelman’s husband, David, and her son Bill Rudin with his wife, Ophelia, and her daughter and son-in-law, Beth DeWoody and artist James DeWoody III. More were Richard and Betty Koshalek, Lennie Greenberg, Suzanne Pleshette and Tommy Gallagher, Joanna Carson, Tina Sinatra, Walter and Carol Matthau, Stanley Donen and Morgan Mason.

A HIT: Walt Disney’s “Bambi,” being re-released around the United States this week, was the hit for the National Kidney Foundation of Southern California celebration in Burbank. Connie Frank and John Golisch, co-chairmen, are elated about the huge increase in the gross--$84,000; $35,000 was raised at last year’s film benefit.