Mackie’s Magic Dazzles at AIDS Benefit

Mitzi Gaynor’s Mackie was about “an hour and a half old.”

Cheryl Ladd wanted to get another wearing out of hers because “it was out there for a few moments at the presidential inauguration, and I thought it needed another showing.”

Pia Zadora and her daughter, Kady, had on matching mother-daughter Mackies.

“He did the coat and that’s why I can’t take it off, no matter how hot it is,” said a dewy Carol Channing.

Ah, the lengths women will go to pay tribute to their favorite designer.

But this was Bob Mackie, designer, costumer, the boyish bugle beader who has for decades been pouring some very famous curves into slinky, sexy clothes, outfitting the rich and famous for television shows and films.

Mackie was the honoree at “The Magic of Bob Mackie,” a black-tie benefit and fashion show for AIDS Project Los Angeles Friday night at the Century Plaza. It was the California Fashion Industry’s third such event, which drew 1,000-plus guests who paid tribute to St. Bob of the Sequins.

“He did 50 costumes a week--no, in three days,” said Carol Burnett of Mackie’s work on “The Carol Burnett Show.” “Sometimes I had no character until I put his clothes on.”

Guests mingled at the cocktail reception, some putting in bids during the silent auction of clothes by such California designers as Leon Max, Carole Little, Karl Logan, Jeff Hamilton and Patti Cappalli-Rick Beach.

Off to the side, aggressive TV cameras and photographers swarmed around Mackie, posing him with various combinations of celebs. There were Joan and Jackie Collins, Joan Rivers, Diahann Caroll, Linda Gray, Elizabeth Montgomery, Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker, Cyd Charisse and Tony Martin, Joan Van Ark, Herb Ross, Khrystyne Haje, hairdresser Jose Eber, producer Barry Krost, restaurateurs Michael Roberts and Mario Tamayo, event chairman Michael Anketell and APLA board chairman David Wexler.

Zadora’s daughter Kady held up well under the flashbulbs until the photographers wanted “just one more” and she started to cry. Finally her daddy, Meshulam Riklis, rescued her. A few more parties and she’ll be a pro.

Said Mackie of putting together the retrospective fashion show: “It was funny to watch my work progress. Some of the early shows, it was interesting to see the clothes. . . . The ‘60s was a wonderful period, visually. Everyone was so into fashion, it was like a revolution; very much like the ‘20s. I’m trying to think--what were the ‘70s? It wasn’t a great fashion period. Maybe that’s why I did so much with Cher.”

Produced by James Watterson of May Co., the fashion show interspersed TV and film clips with live models showing past and present collections. The 1 1/2-hour-long show was as close to a religious experience one could have watching a runway, with leggy models twirling, dripping sequins and chiffon, balancing outrageous headresses and 4-foot-high plumes as the sound track from “The Mission” boomed from the speakers.

Clips of Mitzi Gaynor (looking like a Lola Heatherton sketch from “SCTV”), Diana Ross, Carol Burnett, Fred Astaire, Cheryl Ladd and Barbra Streisand and Cher recalled Mackie’s most theatrical work.

The dazzling clothes didn’t totally obscure the fact that guests paid $250 to support APLA as well as Bob Mackie. And it was interesting to note that along with the requisite perfume and chocolates party favors, there was also a copy of Niki de Saint Phalle’s book, “AIDS: You Can’t Catch It Holding Hands.”

While David Wexler was pleased at the turnout, he was also thinking of the support that wasn’t there.

“I love to have the involvement of the fashion industry and the entertainment industry,” he said. “But where’s the banking industry? The aerospace industry? . . . Banks can throw a party too. I guess a lot of these people think that it won’t hit them and they’re wrong.”