Everything’s Rosy for Trojan Loyalists

It’s a bed of roses again for USC. With every eye on the Rose Bowl competition with Michigan on Jan. 2, USC is celebrating 100 years of university athletics and 26 Rose Bowl appearances by USC football teams.

Ergo, loyal Trojans are cutting short ski trips and cruises for the round of celebrations beginning Wednesday with a party for 500 at Town and Gown. USC President James and Marilyn Zumberge will join coach Larry and Cheryl Smith for the turnout.

Everything’s roses, of course, with Crossley’s Flowers doing the decor, and Ron Rubin playing for dancing.

The celebration continues Jan. 2 with the president’s pregame luncheon in a tented area on the Rose Bowl hospitality concourse. Some 300 guests are expected to cheer on the Trojans and then reconvene for after-game conviviality. The USC Associates will also be gathering post-game.

WATCH FOR IT: The Music Center celebrates its 25th anniversary year with its first float in the Rose Parade on Jan. 2. First Interstate Bank is the sponsor. The float will feature 40 members of the Philharmonic and 20 Master Chorale singers performing “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under the baton of David Alan Miller, assistant orchestra conductor. Raul Rodriguez is the float designer.

AT THE JONATHAN: Luncheons don’t usually last so long, but Marcia Hayden had a congenial group of Pasadena friends at the Jonathan Club. When they sat down to black bean soup, salmon and champagne at a long, long table, the crowd included Pat Peutet, Julie Pizzinat (in a fabulous Michael Katz quilted bolero and skirt and a Kelly green full-sleeved satin blouse), Dee Maechling, Loretta Smith, Joan Thompson, Sally Conn, Melinda Winston, Eileen Zimmerman and quite a few more.

JOLLY SEASON: The Christmas parties have been bountiful. Charles and Harriet Luckman smothered the menu in whipped cream and powdered sugar at their cocktail dessert party atop their penthouse in Beverly Hills. . . .

Nancy and Bill Burrows’ guests, young and old, lifted the rafters for pre-Christmas festivities, welcoming college friends of their sons, Bill and Bobby. Nancy Jo Lindus, in town from Washington, was being hailed. More in the crowd were Scott Lindus, Peg Stewart, John (home from Duke University) and Susan and Ann Babcock, the entire Peter and Susan Boyle family, Jay Niblo (Bobbie was home with a cold), Warren Techentin, Amanda McIntyre (her husband, Jim, had a commitment, so she houseguested overnight to escape a rainy drive home with the Burrowses), Laura Galbraith and Linda Talbot. . . .

The umbrellas were in full force the night of Nelson and Mimi Jones’ open house. Among those cozying around the dining room table were Sheryl Griffith, Ann and Bob Matthiesen, Henry and Joan O’Melveny, Stuart and Molly O’Melveny, Bill and Jane Taverner, Tad and Cece Williamson, and Sallie and Harry Colmery.

THE CIRCUIT: All on the same day, Joann McGarty, Don and Jane Quinn, Henry and Nancy De Nero, and Craig and Liz Black gave holiday open houses.

Joann McGarty clustered friends around her pretty tree for roast beef (with the hottest horseradish), Swedish meatballs and the trimmings. Among friends: Maggie Edwards, Laurie LaShelle, Ed and Martha Schnieders, Sharon Black, James and Cluny Holt, and Katherine Armistead.

The bells were jingling at the cheery De Nero party with daughter Karen and son John at the front door. In the crowd with their husbands were lots of Nancy De Nero’s former Marlborough classmates--Susan and Norman Barker, Kathy and Walt Rose, and Monica and Henry Mindlin. New neighbor-to-be Jennifer Murphy was there.

Craig and Liz Black (he’s the head of the Museum of Natural History) entertained 200 at their Hancock Park home. Now they have their sights on the upcoming museum trip to Antarctica.

Wine and song by the fireplace topped off Don and Jane Quinn’s open house in San Marino. Early birds included Boyd and Jean Higgins, Erick and Dagmar Mack, Pat and Dick Diroll, but some of those lingering longer were Linda and Doug Brengal, Stan and JoAnn Taylor, Marjorie and Fred Lyte, Louise Eldred, Joyce and Bill Burnett, and the Quinns’ son, John.

FESTIVITIES: Susy and Michael Niven invited friends for cocktails. . . . Lee Minnelli lit her Christmas party with candlelight and firelight. . . . Nancy, Natalie and Elise Kerckhoff hosted their annual Christmas coffee this week for the Pasadena Alumnae of Kappa Kappa Gamma. . . . Alice Coulombe said there was music to feed the soul at the Metropolitan Associates’ Holiday Musicale and potluck dessert at the home of Rosemarie and Dietrich Reisch.

HOLY DAY: Today, Father Maurice Chase is expecting to bring Holy Communion to Irene Dunne, confined to her Holmby Hills home. After the noon dinner, he’ll spend Christmas afternoon ministering on Skid Row.

GOODWILL: UCLA student Ashley Bren, daughter of Donald Bren and granddaughter of Marion Jorgensen, gave a dinner at Sostanza for 69 patients at the Veterans Administration Hospital.

HOLIDAY TEA: It’s become a tradition--the tea Carol Hambleton and her daughter, Katherine, and Carlotta Keely and her daughter, Ann, host at the Valley Hunt Club to benefit Childrens’ Chain of Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles. The Citrus College Choir, directed by Ben Bollinger, mesmerized young and old alike.

The mother-daughter combinations were abundant: Elayne and Kristin Techentin, Rosemary and Carey Mitchell, Ann and Carrie Matthiessen. But, husbands and sons were permitted too, and to make it official both Richard Steadman Hambleton Jr. and Russell Davis Keely joined their wives in the reception. Kathy Rose brought her son, Pete, 8, and Hilary Clark was escorting handsome sons, proving males like teas--if the ambiance is right. And it was.

PLAUDITS: To the four Southern Californians receiving the Swedish Royal Order of the Polar Star on behalf of King Carl Gustaf XVI of Sweden--Ann-Margret Smith, James P. Miscoll, Henry T. Segerstrom and Roy A. Anderson. The orders were presented in ceremonies at the residence of the consul general of Sweden, Margareta Hegardt, in Beverly Hills.

KUDOS: To Arnold and Mabel Beckman, whose foundation gave $6 million for a business school headquarters on the Pepperdine University Malibu campus. . . . To orchestra leader Joe and Josie Moshay, celebrating their 55th wedding anniversary this month and observing Joe’s 80th birthday two days earlier. . . .

To Herbert M. Gelfand, general chair of the 1989 United Jewish Fund Campaign. . . . To Michael J. Fox, 1989 honorary campaign chairman of the Permanent Charities Committee of the Entertainment Industries. . . . To George L. Hecker, recipient of the Life Achievement Award from the University of Judaism. . . .

To Gertrude Kujula, president of Finlandia National Foundation, named Scandinavian of the Year at the American Scandinavian Foundation’s ball this month at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Sweden’s Consul General Emeritus Walter G. Danielson is the previous recipient.

THE DINNERS: They start and end early on weeknights, but they’re the intimate affairs that allow for in-depth conversation and camaraderie. At the California Club the other evening, Kingston and Veva McKee invited just a few, among them Alyce and Spud Williamson, Henry and Ginie Braun (he organized a spirited songful toast--”We Wish You a Merry Christmas”--in the hallows of the club), and Harry and Judith McLaughlin.

Close by, Norman and David McIntyre were entertaining a coterie including Dorothy and John Shea and Bill and Penne Durst.