Schuller Is a Big Hit at Hammer’s Birthday Bash

Comedian Danny Thomas may have been the emcee for Dr. Armand Hammer’s fancy 91st birthday bash Sunday, but it was the Rev. Robert H. Schuller who got the biggest laugh.

“Oh Lord,” the pastor of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove prayed during his invocation at the Beverly Hilton, “please help our dear friend Armand Hammer live to be 100. We just have to keep on meeting like this!”

It wasn’t the first time Schuller has delivered an invocation for Hammer, the billionaire philanthropist who is the head of Occidental Petroleum Corp. Last year, Schuller gave the invocation at Hammer’s very fancy Big Nine-O splash at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, having arrived there with the likes of Abigail Phillips (Dear Abby), Jane and Jerry Weintraub and Rhonda Fleming on Hammer’s private 737 jet.

Schuller has been hot on the celebrity inspiration circuit for years. He consoled John Wayne as the Duke was waging his war on cancer. He comforted Hammer when the industrialist lost his only brother. Last year, he was invited by Vice President George Bush to inspire the masses before Bush gave his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. And recently, good friend Lucie Arnaz, daughter of Lucille Ball, invited him to give the sermon at her mother’s funeral.

But although he is often surrounded by worldly glitter and face after adoring face--no less than Helen Hayes and Jimmy Stewart were beaming back at him on Sunday--Schuller’s head doesn’t seem to be turned.

“I’m not so great,” he said, taking a break from a lively chat with Danny Thomas and Art Linkletter. “It’s just that I’m living longer (than they are) and meeting more people.”

And they adore him.

What’s his secret? He moves them, seems to wrap their own thoughts in upbeat words and does it without trying to bring them to tears. On Sunday, for example, Schuller beseeched “God to bless Dr. Armand Hammer, the world’s first global entrepreneur . . . the man who knocked the word impossible out of his dictionary!”

And, at Miss Ball’s funeral in Saint Monica’s Catholic Church in Santa Monica, he told the small gathering: “She was God’s gift to the whole world, because she was a gift of humor. And humor is a gift of healing. And a gift of healing is a gift of hope. When you laugh, you are being set up for having hope.”

Celebrating an Annenberg: The numbers were staggering at the tribute to Wallis Annenberg staged at the Beverly Hilton on Wednesday night: 984 guests paying $500-per-couple and $650,000 in proceeds. So were the names: Annenberg herself (daughter of Walter Annenberg), Jimmy Stewart, Ali McGraw, Steve Allen, Joan Rivers . . .

But big benefit numbers have always been the bottom line for Bob and Beverly Cohen of Newport Beach, co-chairmen for the past 5 years of the benefit for the Sephardic Hebrew Academy in Los Angeles. “Money is the only bottom line,” said Beverly, glowing in diamonds and a gown paved with black bugle beads. “And we give our guests a fabulous party, so we have quite a following.”

The dynamic Cohens are newish residents of Newport, having purchased John Wayne’s old bay-front digs in January for $6.5 million.

And since their move here, the question that weighed heavily on the minds of local movers and shakers: When do they plan to bring their fund-raising moxie to Orange County?

“We’re not sure yet,” said Bob, a developer who has half-interest in the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. “I think Beverly could use a rest for a year or two.”

“But here’s what works,” Beverly said. “A tribute that is served up before the main course, so the honoree can sit back and enjoy dinner.”

Here’s what else worked: the black-tie optional event was a kosher affair, with stuffed cabbage rolls, potato knishes and smoked salmon proffered on silver trays during the short-but-sweet cocktail hour. The main course: perfectly cooked prime rib delivered, steaming hot, on silver trays; and French apple cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for dessert.

The only hitch: seconds before the brocade curtains parted to allow guests to stream into the International Ballroom for dinner, Beverly was informed that the horseradish had been deemed not kosher by a rabbi in attendance. “Whaaaaaat?” Beverly asked the food service director who delivered the bad news. “Ask another rabbi,” she said. So the director asked another rabbi. He said horseradish was kosher. But the other rabbi would not hear of it. “Well,” Beverly said with a tiny sigh. “We just won’t have any then. But, can you imagine not having horseradish with prime rib?” Of course not. But with the dazzling Cohens oozing their bubbly charm throughout the meal, nobody noticed the difference.