Mystery Cruise and Rainbows Benefit Charities

Who dunked Honey Drew?

That was the sticky question put before the Friends of KOCE during their annual Mystery Cruise last Thursday night.

The missing “starlet” was supposed to have attended a “press conference” aboard a Pacific Hornblower yacht as it plowed the murky waters of Newport Bay.

But Honey’s waterlogged wig showed up instead (in the hands of her hunky “chauffeur,” natch).

So, whodunit?

Was it the dashing, devil-may-care movie producer, ostensibly on board to announce the female star of his next film? Or was it the madcap society scribe for the National Intruder? The other aspiring starlet? The chauffeur?

Party chairwoman Joyce Jacalone had tucked a cool C-note in her purse to find out. Co-chairwoman Ramona Trees, who confessed “Murder She Wrote” is her favorite TV show, had stashed 40 bucks.

Here’s the way it worked: After the 125 amateur gumshoes, many in costume, dived into a dessert buffet containing such goodies as banana rum cake, they mingled among the in-the-know suspects (thespians from STOP-GAP, a nonprofit, psychodrama troupe) and bribed them for clues with cash earmarked for KOCE.

Then, at the end of a solid hour of sleuthing, guests dropped their votes into bags carried by the actor they thought was guilty. The murderer (who turned out to be the other starlet, Corbett Barklie) was finally announced and ballots were plucked from her bag for raffle prizes.

“I love this event,” said Jo Caines, community relations director for KOCE-TV, Channel 50. “It’s intriguing! It’s fun! And it’s confining; you feel like family.”

The event marked the second consecutive year that the 3-year-old group has staged the cruise, which raised about $10,000. “And KOCE needs the money,” said Lee Podolak, president of Friends, KOCE’s sole volunteer group. “I’ve always been involved with KOCE because I think Orange County needs public television, needs its own station. So many people get their news from the tube and Orange County gets so little coverage out of the network stations.”

Podolak’s personal dream for benefit funds, she said, was to use them to reinstate the program “Newscheck” on KOCE. “We have no local news program. That wonderful show gave Orange County a sense of community.”

Also among those on board: Jewel Plummer Cobb, president of Cal State Fullerton, and Don Laffoon and Victoria Bryan, founders of STOP-GAP.

What’s in a benefit name? Everything for the Women’s Committees of the Orange County Philharmonic Society when, along with Saks Fifth Avenue, they staged “Rainbows and Rhythms,” a luncheon-cum-fashion show at the Irvine Marriott on Friday. An arch of rainbow-colored balloons framed the dais at one end of the room. A ramp festooned with metallic decorations framed the other. And a sea of rainbow-dotted programs sat at each place setting.

“We decided on rainbows and rhythms because children come in different colors and so do rhythms,” chairwoman Marcia Coy said. “And we want to be sure we present rhythms to all of the children in Orange County.”

Festivities began pre-noon when a crush of 800 women hobnobbed in the hotel foyer and compared ladies-who-lunch wear before they trotted into the ballroom to dine on cucumber soup, breast of chicken and white forest cake.

Before the show--which featured a rainbow of gowns (“More color than anybody has seen on an Orange County ramp in months,” said Billur Wallerich, Saks’ fashion director)--the women were treated to a performance by violinist William Hsich, a Philharmonic Society Musical Encounters performer.

Proceeds of $45,000 will be used by the Philharmonic Society to fund music education outreach programs for children in grades two through 12.

Also on the committee: Joyce Reaume; Wanda Cobb; Pat Perkins, and Sara Mullarkey, Women’s Committees chairwoman.

Faces in the crowd: Erich Vollmer, executive director of the Orange County Philharmonic Society; Jack Caldwell, Philharmonic board chairman; Barbara Karl, chic in black Chanel; Judie Argyros, wearing a sulfur yellow coat with matching beret; Martha Greene, in a symphony of deep purple; Georgia Spooner; Dottie Stillwell, and Jean Tandowsky.