People and Events

Hell hath no fury, as they say.

The Lawndale Chamber of Commerce, angry because that city’s council refused to renew a subsidy for 70% of the chamber’s annual budget, has changed the name of the Miss Lawndale contest to the Miss Centinela Valley Pageant.

The chamber had planned to put into the event $14,000 of the $70,000 it had anticipated from the city. But recently the council voted 3 to 2 (with Mayor Sarann Kruse and Councilwoman Carol Newman dissenting) to withhold the entire amount.

Councilman Larry Rudolph said he thought the city could put on a beauty pageant just as well as the chamber. The event drew criticism last year, being tagged by one resident as a “Rent-a-Queen” contest after Miss Lawndale, Valencia Bilyeu, 24, turned out to be a resident of Irvine.

The council has not yet decided whether to put on its own show, but the chamber said it will pick Miss Centinela Valley on Nov. 19, the original contest date.

The winner will be eligible for the Miss California competition and, with a win there, for the Miss America contest.

There she is, Miss Centinela Valley . . . .

Beverly Hills finally dropped the shoe, filing suit to bar David Spellerberg from parking his Rolls-Royce ad infinitum in front of his Rodeo Drive art gallery. The Los Angeles Superior Court action called the car a “public nuisance.”

It cut no ice with the city that Spellerberg has a uniformed chauffeur feeding the one-hour zone parking meter and that he willingly pays the tickets. Beverly Hills, which complained that the fancy vehicle “permanently deprives other citizens and adjacent businesses of the use of a parking space on Rodeo Drive where convenient on-street parking is scarce.”

Where does he think he is, Webster Groves, Mo.?

The suit even referred to the chauffeur as “a uniformed flunky” who not only puts quarters in the meter but stands around “signing autographs, posing for pictures, collecting parking citations issued by the police and otherwise creating a spectacle on the public sidewalk.”

Spellerberg said he will go to jail before he moves that car.

“I would like to know,” he declared, “how a $200,000 Rolls-Royce with a chauffeur in attendance parking in front of my place of business can be a public nuisance.”

He was “shocked” that the case was suddenly upgraded from a simple parking matter and contended that the city of Beverly Hills “is being run like a police state.”

As for the origins of the car, at least one sharp-eyed reader pounced on Spellerberg’s claim--previously reported here--that it was built for the king and queen of Spain in 1954. Francisco Franco was running the place then, noted Thomas Safran with some accuracy.

Spellerberg says the car was built for Juan Carlos and Sofia, all right. They did not, however, become king and queen until 1975, after Franco’s death.

Actor Billy Barty showed up at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College with a contribution to help other little people get trained for jobs. There isn’t that much movie work for diminutive folks--or tall ones, for that matter--so Barty thought it might be a good idea to give the money to Trade Tech rather than, say, Actors Studio.

The 3-foot, 9-inch-tall Barty, 62, formed the Billy Barty Foundation more than 10 years ago to help little people live more independent, productive lives. The $3,000 check he gave to Trade Tech President Thomas L. Stevens will help students pay for tools and other supplies needed in various vocational courses.

Barty, incidentally, once told an interviewer that he wanted to be an athlete and that he played semi-pro baseball, batting .500. “I went 1 for 2 and walked 43 times,” he said.

You could look it up.

The average price of an existing home in Los Angeles County in the year 2000 will be $476,794, the UCLA Business Forecasting Project says--up nearly 148% from this year’s expected average price.