Hooked on Anti-Drug Fund-Raiser

Bruce Meyer remembers well the day, several months ago, when he met with Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Glenn Levant to talk about the first-ever fund-raiser for DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education).

Meyer was hooked. He’s thought of little else since.

Now he’s thinking about selling the last tables for the Beverly Hilton’s ballroom for Oct. 24. That’s the night Meyer thinks he might bid on the four first-class Pam Am tickets to anywhere or perhaps the quartet of VIP tickets to the Indianapolis 500, enjoy dinner and then a show with Jay Leno (“an absolutely great guy who is doing it for free”), move around the room, thanking Helene and Tom Spiegel, whose Columbia Savings and Loan Charitable Foundation helped totally underwrite the event--or Lowell and Sandra Milken, since Drexel Burnham Lambert was the other underwriter.

It’s been support like that, Meyer said, that means that every cent of the hoped for $500,000 raised will be going directly to DARE. And, among other top-notch supporters, Meyer said, were City National Bank’s Bram Goldsmith, Peter Mullin (president of Management Compensation Group), downtown movers and shakers Nathan Shapell and Dick Riordan and long-time DARE supporter Lynne Wasserman.

The evening, Meyer said, would also be the chance to preview the new Paramount-produced film about DARE, with the guidance of Paramount Motion Picture Group President Ned Tanen and Frank Mancuso Jr. That will follow an opening act, Meyer said, involving some 100 elementary school kids who are all “graduates” of the DARE program.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY--Even in a parking lot, Jayne and Henry Berger get the best table. That was certainly true Sunday, as Kurt and Christopher Niklas celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Bistro. The Bergers sat chatting with producer Cubby and Dana Broccoli and Virginia and Gerald Oppenheimer, watching the crowd go by Sunday afternoon.

Taking over the giant parking lot in back of their Bistro Garden, the Niklas father and son hosted their regulars (well over 1,400) who frequent both of the Canon Drive landmarks. The theme was Oktoberfest, and munching on sausages were faithful habitues like Marion and Earle Jorgensen (he had played an hour and a half of singles that morning), Erlenne and Norman Sprague, Armand and Harriet Deutsch, Kim and Lisa Bloomingdale Bell, Fashion West editor Barbara Foley, Patrick Terrail of the soon-to-reemerge Ma Maison, Terry and Dennis Stanfill, Tim and Anita Doheny, Carol and Walter Matthau and former White House staffer Peter and Casey McCoy. Now, if the Niklases would just open that parking lot as a regular attraction. . . .

ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH--Nor is one former wife. So producer David Wolper premiered “Imagine,” his John Lennon documentary, Monday night with both Cynthia Lennon and Yoko Ono as guests. In the crowded lobby of the Westwood National Theater, Wolper said that the 200-plus hours of video and film from which the film was produced was more footage “than of any other celebrity.”

Wolper, with his statuesque wife, Gloria, at his side, happily pointed out that in the crowd were Olympic gold-medal winners Greg Louganis and Janet Evans, along with Warner Bros. general counsel John and Toni Shulman, exec Rob and Sandy Freedman, Michael J. Fox, former CBS exec George Berntsen, and, even though Warner Bros. chairman Bob Daly was out of town, Nancy Daly, along with their son, Brian, and his date Meredith Davidow.