Orient Express Chugs In as Winner Again

Though not well-known outside its circle of devotees, the annual Orient Express Gala has chiseled what seems a deep and permanent niche for itself on the annual fund-raising calendar.

It has managed this task--by no means an easy one--by repeating itself. The Orient Express has come to seem like a vintage film that rolls around every year on the late show. The format never changes, but, just like an umpteenth viewing of “Grand Hotel,” it always offers a fresh, new angle on high life in a faded yet fabled age.

The San Diego Regional Board of the National Kidney Foundation of Southern California gave the first few Orient Express galas at the Santa Fe Depot to reinforce the fantasy that guests were embarking on a journey aboard the glamorous 1920s “blue train,” which carried the high and mighty in high style between London and Istanbul. Saturday’s installment, the seventh in the series, instead steamed out of the ballroom at the U. S. Grant hotel, and, when the whistle blew, more than 400 cheerfully adventurous souls clambered aboard.

The committee varies the experience by changing the destination, and this time around guests detrained in Venice during Carnival. The choice of destination bowed politely to the Venice-Simplon Orient Express, the modern version of the luxury train, which offers twice-weekly excursions in either direction between London and Venice and always donates memorabilia and a trip for two to the party.

The gala has seemed a little less a party in motion since it left the Santa Fe station, where real trains periodically chugged down the tracks and bewildered travelers, and pigeons wandered among the party-goers. But the trappings of a journey remained at Saturday’s event, at which guests were encouraged to believe they were departing the London station (a Beefeater in the Grant lobby welcomed passengers aboard) and were directed to the bar and dining salons.

Dress Code Added Pizazz

The Jazz Age dress code resulted not only in a flock of flappers, but in a few sheiks and bemedaled rogues; the Orient Express Gala is, in many ways, a cross between a costume party and a genteel magical mystery tour. Chairwoman Jerri Wagner pointed to the crowd’s sartorial niceties as confirmation that the gala has arrived.

“This party is definitely established in San Diego,” she said. Waving at the ballroom, Wagner added: “Look, it’s wonderful. Everyone’s having fun--it’s contagious!”

The Orient Express company donated its own blue and yellow menu covers, which were used as souvenir covers for the evening’s menu. The four-course, Italian-French dinner commenced with multicolored seafood cannelloni and continued with salmon, a melange of greenery and a fruited chocolate terrine; guests noted that the hotel, which recently emerged from bankruptcy, presented the meal with a great care that pointed to an eagerness to get back into the charity banquet business in a major way.

The gala, as always, took advantage of period entertainment and offered exhibition dancing during the dinner. After the meal, the curtain opened on a Venetian canal setting, complete with a gondolier singing of love and fish, two subjects dear to the Venetian heart.

A Fire-Eater, Too

The entertainment continued with a bawdy commedia dell’arte routine, a disco-driven Harlequin floor show (this one had to be a first in San Diego), a fire-eater who was too convincing for some guests’ nerves, and other divertissements, many of them simultaneous. Before it all ended, the Bobby Noval Orchestra struck up and drew some party-goers to the dance floor; others headed to the casino to try their luck at roulette and 21. All in all, there were almost too many choices of amusements, which may be why local Kidney Foundation President Christie Faires described the Orient Express Gala as “a good commercial for the Kidney Foundation because it shows that we’re a first-class organization in everything we do.”

The guest list included “Wheel of Fortune” host Rolf Benirschke, who may have been asked too many times why he hadn’t brought Vanna White; Master of Ceremonies Bill Griffith and his wife, Jenny; Barbara and Neil Kjos; Betty and Cush Dow; Cheryl and Bob Cerasoli; Veryl and Aage Fredricksen; Linda and Mel Katz; Alex and John Armstrong; Pat and Jim Babcock; Janet and Jack McKeown; Keith Rennison; Hilda Sugarman with Harry Evons; Pat and Dan Pegg, and D.Ann and Darryl Fanestil.

A careful examination of the guest list at the San Diego Museum of Art’s latest extravaganza failed to turn up a single Rose, Iris or Daisy.

There wasn’t even a Bud, which seemed unreasonable, since the eighth annual “Art Alive,” which opened with an April 25 gala preview, celebrated flowers in their myriad shapes, forms and personalities.

The preview guests arrived at sunset and took the museum at a run, tossing down canapes and chocolate truffles while inspecting the dozens upon dozens of lavish floral arrangements constructed by amateur and professional designers as interpretations of works in the museum’s permanent collection. A kind of Valhalla for any bee fortunate enough to buzz through, the galleries stretched out in sunbursts of colors using all the old favorites, as well as such novelties as weeds, brilliant parrot tulips and even vain and somewhat self-conscious-looking grasses.

Wheat, Grasses, Herbs

Wheat, for example, was very in this year, which gave no end of pleasure to author Emelie Tolley, who had flown in to speak at an Art Alive luncheon about the decorative possibilities discussed in her “Herbs: Gardens, Decorations and Food.” “There’s enormous interest in grasses and herbs as ornamental plants in gardens,” she said.

House Beautiful magazine gardening editor Ken Druse, who lectured on gardens planted “in harmony with nature,” said events such as Art Alive have themselves become quite in at museums around the country.

“Suddenly, everyone seems to be inspired to make floral arrangements to match the paintings in museums,” he said.

But SDMA has been doing it for years, and the exhibit never fails to draw a strong response. The play between artworks and flowers sometimes was more than immediately met the eye; several guests said the arrangements made them notice details in the paintings for the first time.

One of the more clever stylings was Jacqueline Gainor’s white rose and black net “costume,” which echoed the eerie, masked figures in Giuseppe de Gobbis’ 18th-Century Venetian canvas, “The Convent Parlour.” Other designers also took the point of view that a floral arrangement can be more than a collection of blooms in a vase; Scott Northcote upholstered a chair in moss and made a table of plywood, glass and pressed pansies as a counterpoint to Robert Rauchenberg’s 1980 collage, “Cloister Series--Rush 12.”

Gala co-chairs Beneice Copeland and Alice Cavanaugh summed up the scene in an unusual joint comment.

“Mary isn’t quite contrary, the garden grows well at Art Alive today,” they said. There seemed to be little contrariness in the crowd of 450, which greeted the artworks and one another with equal pleasure.

Unlike many of the women, who turned out in bright floral prints, general chairwoman Carolyn Hooper dressed in simple white silk. “My dress is a statement; I’m letting the flowers speak for themselves,” she said, adding that the museum, in its blooming state, reminded her of her own garden. “This museum filled with flowers creates the same feeling I experience when I close my garden gate at home,” she said. “It’s relaxing and happy, and generates a sense of serenity and pleasure.”

The Art Alive committee included Judith Harris, Carol Baumer, Mac Canty, Katy Dessent, Barbara ZoBell, Harlene Scanlon, Mary Stiles, Dawn Matthiesen, Barbara Malone, Jane Murphy, Connie Foote, Audrey Geisel, Artie Henderson, Suzanne Arth and Valerie Willis.