When All Is Screamed, Done, Bachelor Bidding Tops $100,000

“I need 23! Twenty-three! Twenty-three! Twenty-three! Do I hear 23? Yes, 23! I need 24! Twenty-four! Girls, don’t lose him. What’s another $200 when you’ve already bid $2,200?”

The indefatigable auctioneer implored, admonished, cajoled, demanded. The bidders squealed, applauded, whistled. The “merchandise” hammed, encouraged, strutted.

And when all was said--that is, screamed--and done, the whole rambunctious affair had raised more than $100,000 for the Orange County Chapter of the March of Dimes.

Wednesday night’s third annual “Bid for Bachelors,” held at Le Meridien hotel in Newport Beach, stirred up a national record total for such March of Dimes events (they are held across the country). The affair attracted a standing-room-only crowd of 750 dressed-to-kill women, 32 of whom paid from $600 to $6,000 for a dream date.

Half an hour before show time, the tuxedo-clad debutantes nervously mingled in a back room, jostling one another like a clan of college fraternity boys. “I’m trying not to think about walking out there on stage,” said Newport Beach resident Oscar Santoyo, 24, whose date package included a weekend in Puerto Vallarta. “I’ll just have a good time. Besides, I haven’t had a vacation in four years.”

“Peter here hasn’t had a date in four years,” volunteered James McCormick, in playful reference to fellow bachelor Peter Leider--both of Corona del Mar.

John Clement fretted about his placement in the lineup (first). After all, auctions require a little time for the momentum to gather. “Oh, well, at least I’ll get it over with,” rationalized the 30-year-old Newport Beach real estate developer.

“Then you can relax and get drunk,” cracked wise-guy McCormick, 40, also a real estate developer.

Meanwhile, the women who would soon be bidding clamored about in the hotel’s reception hall, sipping cocktails and viewing videos of their options.

“I’m thinking about bidding on Michael (Liako, of Newport Beach),” said Diane Thayer, a bookkeeper in San Juan Capistrano, pointing at his photograph in her program. “Isn’t he darling? And he’s my age (36).”

“Who cares about age?” asked Thayer’s buddy, 40-year-old Cece Vasquez of San Juan Capistrano. “I like them young.”

Mrs. Annie Morgan had come with a group of single friends to “observe;” however, “if inspired,” she reserved the right to bid. “I told my husband that I’m out doing charity work,” joked the 32-year-old Newport Beach resident.

At least one woman was there to spy on a man she dates--Tom Selleck look-alike Charles Welton. “Yeah, I’m a little jealous,” admitted Susi Scholl, 24, a real estate agent in Newport Beach. Might she bid on him? “No, I can go out with him for free.”

Luckily, unlucky No. 1 had not needed to sweat his position. Clement and his trip to San Francisco brought in a respectable $1,300.

For a long moment, it seemed as if J-Armand Litten’s price tag would plateau at $900, then suddenly shot up to $2,400 in a matter of seconds. “There was a tremendous burst of energy--it was just fantastic,” said the obviously elated Litten, 48. “Boy, I could feel my heart palpitating.” The Huntington Beach businessman offered a jaunt to Denver for the Rams-Broncos game.

Leider, 39, a real estate developer, accumulated $1,200 for his relatively simple date package: dinner and a helicopter tour of Los Angeles.

“I don’t know why I picked you,” Lezlie Miller, 38, a publicist in Irvine, later teased Leider. “It must be your bow tie. It couldn’t be because of your great looks, now could it?”

A bit dazed after his appearance on stage, Rams football player Tim Tyrell said, “I’ve never experienced anything like that before. I mean, I’m used to cheering crowds because of my job--but never all women.” The 27-year-old Irvine resident earned the March of Dimes $1,150, for a dinner cruise.

Not too surprisingly, the most elaborate trips won the most generous bids of the evening. As members of the audience prodded one another to bid, Kevin Summerell’s Australian excursion took in $5,800. “I had no idea it would go so high,” said the Newport Beach businessman, 40. “I was expecting about $4,000.”

Army Lt. Col. Gary Hesselgesser raked up the largest sum with his trip to Washington, D.C., for the presidential inauguration, to be followed by a Caribbean cruise.

High bidder Linda Leigh Long, 26, an insurance broker in Pasadena, claimed that she came to the event with no intentions of spending $6,000. “I wanted to go to the inauguration--and besides, Gary’s cute,” she said. “I’m going to have to call my father for money.”

The last of the 32 bachelors to grace the stage was “Frank N. Stein,” who roamed about in monstrous costume until taking his turn.

Who was that masked man? Rick Bartlett, 34, a paramedic in Orange. “For me, the most stressful thing about going out on stage will be taking off my mask,” Bartlett said, beforehand. “What if they yell, ‘Put it back on’?”

Not to worry. Bartlett’s real, and handsome, face garnered $2,500.

One member of the audience, 5-year-old Erin--her legs in braces--was who the evening was all about. The March of Dimes Poster Child for Orange County sat shyly between her parents, Diana and Dave Havlena of Dana Point, watching the commotion.

Her mother explained that Erin was born with spina bifida, an imperfect closure of the spinal column. “The March of Dimes has given our family so much wonderful support,” Diana Havlena said.

“When you have a child with a birth defect, at first you ask, ‘Why me?’ But as time goes on, you realize there’s a reason for this child to be here,” she said. “It sounds corny, but you become more sensitive to life. Our whole family unit has become much stronger because of Erin.”