Fox Fanfare Nets Profits for NPR

“KCRW is nickel and dime all the way,” said Ruth Hirschman, general manager of the National Public Radio flagship station in the Los Angeles area. “So we invited NPR to come in to L.A. for this kind of fund-raising. We don’t do weddings and bar mitzvahs.”

Maybe the party on the Mulberry Street set at 20th Century Fox wasn’t billed as either of those events. But it was certainly a coming of age of the remarkable fund-raising efforts of the past five years by NPR and a celebration of the extraordinary marriage between NPR and the Santa Monica College-based affiliate. More than $130,000 was netted by the Fanfare at Fox, with a group of party-goers as eclectic as KCRW’s programming.

There were corporate sponsors, like GTE’s Jim and Deanie Parrish; there were entertainment industry activists like Sarah Pillsbury, the producer of “Eight Men Out,” and Democrat activist Donna Boyjarsky with Steven Krantz; and there was a healthy sampling of the kind of major backers public radio now commands, like co-chairs David Handelman (Fox’s senior veep and general counsel), computer exec Peter Norton, La Opinion publisher Ignacio Lozano and film maker-restaurateur Tony Bill.

And it’s that kind of support, according to NPR president Doug Bennet, chatting over his chicken dinner, that has moved NPR out of a $5-million debt into a financial situation where “we used to get 80% of our money from the federal government, now we get zero, except for maybe a special grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.”

Although local charities are frequently skittish about the fund raising of national organizations on their turf, KCRW’s Hirschman was clear: “We are NPR and they are us.” (KCRW in the last year raised more than $1 million, and their recent “summer sign-up” has now cleared more than $280,000.)

Another showing of that partnership between NPR and its local stations was in the appearance of members of L.A. Classic Theater Works--Amy Irving, Judge Reinhold, Marsha Mason, Bonnie Bedelia, Robert Foxworth and Harry Hamlin--in a “news spoof.” That group had their first broadcast outlet on KCRW.

Backstage, Irving and Mason said, the radio provides a chance to play character parts that wouldn’t be appropriate to their looks. And, they pointed out, their “Babbitt” premieres on NPR nationally in October, almost a year after its marathon broadcast on KCRW.

Randy Newman, Yakov Smirnoff and Keith Carradine all were part of the evening’s entertainment. Now, for those who believe there are no dangers in benefit attendance (besides those incurred by valet parking and endless chicken), consider the plight of Marjorie Fasman: One of the acts at the benefit was MUMS, the “Mind Under Matter” jugglers. When the trio, on stilts, threw giant beach balls back and forth over the crowd, she was among the people getting splattered by coffee, etc. A small price to pay for public radio. . . .

Conversation notes: Producer Pillsbury is now commuting between Los Angeles and Vancouver, where “Immediate Family” with Glenn Close is being filmed. And Foxworth is “back from Africa, where I was working for six weeks with Lizzie (Elizabeth Montgomery) on a Hallmark Hall of Fame production for Valentine’s Day.”

MOVING AROUND--We’re sorry to scoop them, but there will be additional announcements in changes of duties and titles on the soft side (Style-wise) at the Herald Examiner. Richard Rouillard has been posted as the new Style editor and leaves the society editorship open (a job that changes frequently enough to win the designation as the Yankees of partydom).

Insiders at the paper say Rouillard is trying to get the open slot filled by his great friend Joan Quinn, once of Interview magazine and always of Zandra Rhodes creations. She’d join the current social hitter, Bill Higgins. We will, as we always have, continue to update you on Quinn’s activities, whether she remains a simple party-goer or moves into the pro ranks.

FROM A FAR-FLUNG PARTY-GOER--Joan Collins is going to work hard to make sure that her $1 million advance on “Prime Time” from Simon & Schuster is not in vain. Starting with a party hosted by Mary and Irving Lazar at Spago Wednesday night, she’s off to a cross-country (big city) tour and then on to a week-plus in Europe.

Turning up fashionably late to Spago (they had been invited by the Lazars to stay for dinner) were Barbara and Marvin Davis, Doug Cramer and Shirlee Fonda, Marguerite Lipman (the London-based great friend of Tennessee Williams), Craig Johnson, and, of course, Joan’s new 20ish boyfriend, a London antiques dealer. (George Hamilton arrived with his former wife, Alana Stewart, but stayed solo for dinner and left with the Collins entourage.)

Earlier at the party were Donna Mills, Ray and Fran Stark, Pamela Mason with her son, Morgan, Freddie and Corinna Fields, and Collins’ sister, author Jackie. Collins, in Europe, will wear nothing but the 30-some outfits designed especially for her by David and Elizabeth Emanuel. And she is, of course, working on her new book.

SIGNING ON--There are only “about six affiliates” from Southern California currently supporting the Office of Film and Television at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. But Diandra Douglas, the wife of producer-actor Michael Douglas and herself a documentary producer, is aiming to change all that.

Wallis Annenberg set the stage for Douglas and for the office’s head, Karl Katz, at a Wednesday night reception at her home. (“Only Wallis would take on Joan Collins, same night, same time, same town--and wind up with this crowd,” one knowledgeable party-goer assayed.)

Turning out were the Marvin Davises (on their way to Spago), along with Doug Cramer, Lucie Arnaz and Laurence Luckinbill, Constance Towers, Mary and Brad Jones and a stop-by by Jenny Jones Rutt, Juli and Herb Hutner (who know about national fund-raising for the arts because of his chairmanship of the President’s Committee at Kennedy Center) along with Tony Thomopoulos and art collectors Bea and Phil Gersh.

Douglas was direct--she was there to make the “pitch.”

In a conversation after the party, she said that any complaints that there were enough local museums and film groups raising money just didn’t take into consideration the special position of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She had told the crowd that an exhibit might take $2 million or $3 million to mount--but that by filming it, for some $300,000, it could become available to people all over the country.

Working with the office for the past three years, producing documentary films, Douglas said she knew too well that money from all over the country was needed to carry on the work.

“It would only be natural to come to the West Coast, the home of film,” she said. “As I stressed at Wallis’ . . . we see ourselves not as a regional institution but as a national resource to this country. We need to rely not only on the support of people who who live in New York City, but also on patrons throughout the Untied States.”

She added that response from the dozens at the Annenberg party was good: “A number of people said they would be signing up as affiliates.” Everyone had been sent home with a copy of one of the documentaries on videotape.