A Simon & Fryer Show Gets Another Ovation at Benefit

Bobby Fryer got stage fright and Neil Simon did the unthinkable in the theater--he threw away Neil Simon lines.

The benefit for the Ahmanson Theatre and the Music Center Unified Fund on Friday night was a wonderful treat for the crowd that braved the Century Plaza parking--now worse than the downtown four-level at rush hour.

Sid Caesar stole the show, but Danny “Neil Simon’s brother” Simon ran a close second in a night that included appearances by Gwen Verdon, Lucille Ball and the fabulous Lucie Arnaz and Laurence Luckinbill doing “They’re Playing Our Song.” There were Debbie Allen, Peter Falk and Simon’s former wife and constant star, Marsha Mason, who implored him “please to keep writing those wonderful plays. It’s the best prescription I know to cure the blues.”

The evening was a tribute to Simon and honored Fryer, artistic director at the Ahmanson, on the theater’s 20th anniversary. Indeed, who deserves recognition more than the prolific Simon and the producing Fryer, whose productions over the years have picked up 37 Tonys? Five of Simon’s blockbusters have premiered at the Ahmanson, just one of the ways the playwright has contributed generously to the Music Center over the years.

Pluses abounded at the dinner chaired by Anne Johnson--like her having Flower Fantasy do away with the Century Plaza’s ghoulish candelabra and set up truly pretty centerpieces with supper club-style lamps. And the food--the food was terrific by jumbo-dinner standards as testified to by the bare bones from the veal chop entree and by the unique fruit-filled pineapples with sherbet. Johnson and her key co-chairs Shelby Conti, Peggy Parker and Joy Fein netted what Johnson said would probably be more than $200,000. They held costs down by working with stars who were already nearby.

But dozens of the stars, studio VIPs and social types who lent their names to the evening or had their studios buy a table didn’t show up. And a bunch of those studio heads were in town--several of them at a political reception set in Bel-Air and ending by 7 p.m., plenty of time to make the benefit less than two miles away.

Also missing were some of the brand names who have longtime involvements with Simon. ABC’s Gary Pudney produced a wonderful show, but he was forced into a tragicomic theme--groups of people who didn’t do Neil Simon shows reading telegrams from people who did.

Roddy McDowall read a letter from the missing Matthew Broderick (featured in Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and “Biloxi Blues” and listed on the program as a participant). Kirk Douglas read a telegram from Ray Stark, who is on location with Shirley MacLaine, Dolly Parton and Daryl Hannah in Louisiana--”It’s a job. Somebody’s got to do it.” Walter Matthau read a telegram from his “Odd Couple” co-star Jack Lemmon, who is on safari with his wife, Felicia. Matthau then read the telegram he would have sent if he hadn’t come himself, thanking Simon for saving him from a life of squalor and giving him the “opportunity to pursue the American dream . . . if only, sir, you were running for president.”

Simon himself, saying he was “unfocused” because of his play in rehearsal in San Diego, put away his prepared remarks with the statement, “I think it would be better if I could read this--or if I wrote it.” A transplanted New Yorker, he said that he made all his films at Paramount because he knew how to drive there. Putting a new play on in San Diego was different, he explained, because it was “neat and clean.” He came back to his room and found “the crumpled pages I wrinkled in the typewriter pressed and hung up in the closet.”

Despite the no-shows from the committee, the audience included a goodly sprinkling of brand names and class acts. Honorary chairman Lew and Edie Wasserman hosted Jack Valenti, Nancy and Alan Livingston, Suzanne Pleshette and Tommy Gallagher, and David and Dee May. Nick and Felisa Vanoff hosted former Sen. John and Kathinka Tunney, Dwight and Kit Hemion and newlyweds Saul and Karen Pick. Marvin and Barbara Davis hosted Matthau and his wife, Carol, and Sherry Lansing.

Around the room--Lee Rich, Cristina Ferrare and Tony Thomopoulos, Barbara and Garry Marshall, Lynne Wasserman, MCA’s Herb and Carrie Steinberg, Lynne Wasserman, Joanne and Roger Kozberg, Carl and a thin-again Debbie Rheuban (after their fifth child) and Corrina and Freddie Fields. Mary and Brad Jones sat with Virginia and Gerald Oppenheimer, Doris Fields Heller, Jacques Camus and Dorothy McGuire. Anne Douglas sat beside her author, Kirk, proudly announcing that his “Ragman’s Son” would be No. 2 on the New York Times best-seller list next Sunday.

WEDDING BELLS--Friends say Lee Radziwill and producer Herb Ross will tie the knot before the end of the month.