For Quick-Stepping Millie O’Green, a Night at Circus

On the dance floor at benefits, Fred and Millie O’Green usually capture the limelight, gliding and smiling through their fox-trots and sambas. While he was chairman and CEO for eight years of Litton Industries, they cut a sassy swath on the social circuit, hosting corporate tables at myriad affairs; it hasn’t stopped with his retirement a year ago.

Saturday, Millie O’Green and Lois Linkletter (Art’s wife), will be at the forefront of The League for Children (TLC) with a lot of tender loving care for the charity the ladies founded four years ago to aid abused and homeless children.

Specifically, they’ll honor Gunther Gebel-Williams in his farewell performance at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus TLC benefit in the Sports Arena. Sharon Black chairs the pre-dinner in The Clipper Club, and is hoping to net at least $100,000 by keeping costs to a slim 17%. Making it a family affair, Art Linkletter, as he has twice in the past, will be master of ceremonies.

From Iowa to D.C.

For Millie O’Green, her charity work has been a way of life since she was 22. She and Fred were high school sweethearts in Mason City, Iowa. Two days after he graduated from Iowa State University at Ames, they were married and immediately moved to Washington for his new job as electronics engineer with the U.S. Naval Ordnance Laboratory.

As for Millie, “I went to work decoding secret messages for the British Air Commission, but I joined the Chevy Chase Women’s Club because I wanted to get acquainted.” Bucking the trend of her contemporaries, she worked most of the 13 years they lived in Washington, while still having two children. “Basically I like business, and I like working.”

But the volunteer bug bit. When the O’Greens moved to Los Altos and later to Northridge 34 years ago, she switched to full-time volunteering, beginning with the Valley Presbyterian Hospital, spreading to the Assistance League and ARCS (Achievement Rewards for College Scientists). Subsequently, she has put her touch on fund-raisers for Diadames, the California Museum of Science Muses, the National Art Assn., Le Dames de Champagne, the Music Center Blue Ribbon, Childhelp USA and the House Ear Institute’s Sonance group.

Her home is another love. It’s an English manor house, with leaded windows, huge beams, towering eucalyptus.

Tending the Garden

“I garden five or six hours a week,” she says. She holds up her nails, unenameled, to reveal a tad of unscrubbed garden dirt, then points out Fred’s home-grown tomatoes.

The piano bench in the living room, where Fred practices his clarinet (he played in bands and orchestras in school), is covered with her needlepoint. Her paintings hang throughout their home. And her collection of Persian rugs, purchased on their many travels to Middle Eastern countries, grace the hallways.

“But, I hate the kitchen,” she grimaces. And at 111 pounds, svelte in pink silk pants, the blue-eyed blond proves food is not a passion. Instead, she and Fred play golf most weekends (she has a 29 handicap) at Los Angeles Country Club and alternately at Morningside at Rancho Mirage where they have a house.

They’re currently doing what lots of retired couples do: traveling, sizing up real estate, visiting chums with new beach houses. They plan a trip to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria, and along the way will houseguest with Angelenos Dona and Dwight Kendall at Chantilly in France. Later they’ll see the South Pole with USC trustees (Fred is on the board).