Monte Carlo Party Night Sizzzzzzzles

Perhaps the only way the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art could have been cooled down Saturday would have been to slide it into the nearby Pacific.

That might have worked, but the question remains whether the 620 guests at “Monte Carlo Goes Red Hot,” the 13th annual A Night in Monte Carlo ball, would have noticed any change in temperature. The party was supposed to sizzle, but it achieved fission by 8 p.m. and teetered on the brink of meltdown through the balance of the night.

The gala amounted to nothing less than a smashing, virtually unsurpassable success for chairwoman Mary Stiles, a Texas transplant who evidently knows “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by heart. She handed her committee paintbrushes and said, “Go get ‘em,” which they most certainly did. By the time the ball opened Saturday night, vast expanses of the museum’s galleries and exterior walls had been coated with piquant pink and ribald red.

The impression given was that the committee would have painted the whole town red with a bit more time.

Like a Lump of Clay

Stiles and decor chiefs Pam Allison, Heather Metcalf and Barbara ZoBell grabbed the museum as if it were a lump of clay and punched it into a fire-red sculpture that flamed on the edge of the sunset and then flared up as night took hold. Museum director Hugh Davies called the result “the largest site-specific installation of art we’ve ever had”--an appraisal that, because the entire building was involved, seemed fair enough.

Israeli artist Doron Gazit contributed much of the visual punch by weaving his crayon-colored “air tube” sculptures through the building’s portico and the spaces of the tented outdoor ballroom. Gazit brightened the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games with his fat, balloon-like sculptures and those he designed for “Red Hot” made the party look as if some monstrous tropical vine had snaked a gross of tendrils through the setting.

“Instead of drawing on paper, my drawing is in the environment,” Gazit said.

The party was cheeky, campy and coy in the way La Jolla parties can be. Although there was no lack of working photographers inside the museum, a gaggle of theatrically energetic paparazzi, led by architect Tom Grondona, rushed the arriving guests at curbside and left a few wondering if they might turn up on the cover of a supermarket tabloid.

Monica Virissimo, the official “Miss Red Hot,” directed guests past the steam-belching chimneys that guarded the entrance and into the crimson tunnel that led to the museum’s front court. Costumed in carmine sequins and feathers, Virissimo touched a fingertip to her hip and exclaimed, “I’m sizzling! Ssss!”

Positioned on the Roof

Chairwoman Stiles waited in the courtyard beneath a waving stand of air tubes and the Peter Sprague Samba ensemble, which was positioned on the roof and put a tap in every toe. “This is high energy, the energy of red,” she said. “The theme is contemporary, which is in keeping with the mission of this museum. I think it’s hot !”

“This party is not only combustible, it’s throbbing,” said co-chair Mac Canty, who pointed out that more than nine out of 10 guests had swathed themselves in flaming pink, orange or red. The scene certainly would have gladdened a dye manufacturer’s heart. Even the men got into the act; Dick Duffy, who escorted Jeanne Jones, equipped himself with a Mephistophelean red cape and a set of cloth horns--which he shed midway through the cocktail reception.

“I called and told him to wear a red bow tie,” Jones said. “He said he had a little more than that in mind.”

Dr. Robert Singer delegated the duty of donning flamingo tones to his escort, Judith Harris, but he did note the effect the color theme had on the guests.

“I think ‘Red Hot’ started before anyone got here,” he said. “People are smiling when they walk in. This party doesn’t need to warm up; it was hot before it started.”

Red-Lacquered Mannequins

“Red Hot’s” multiple diversions ran nonstop until 2 a.m. Inside the museum, guests could watch others at play on video screens stacked between a dozen red-lacquered “butler” mannequins sent down from Los Angeles by the manufacturer of “Red” perfume. Farther on were the gaming tables that traditionally give A Night in Monte Carlo its racy casino edge, and there was also the “Hot Spot Cabaret,” a nightclub in which the Bob Long Band pounded Jerry Lee Lewis tunes out of the piano in a way that might have made Lewis envious.

Most guests headed first for the dance floor in the tented ballroom, however, where another Los Angeles import, a hot new orchestra called Rhapsody, ruled from a 48-foot-long stage. When the 21 musicians and singers cooked, the scores of dancers jumped like so many droplets of water scattered on the surface of a red-hot skillet.

Monte Carlo regulars tend to keep score, and many of those who straggled, perspiring, off the floor took time, before sinking into their chairs, to assure one another that Rhapsody was the best orchestra the party had ever booked.

Somerset Caterers served tortilla soup, mushroom-stuffed chicken breasts and a galaxy of desserts, but few guests spent much time at table.

“There’s too much to do to stay in one place for more than a few minutes,” said Jacque Powell. “This is the party a lot of people wait for all year long. Monte Carlo is the fun party.”

“Monte Carlo is always fun,” said past chairwoman Nancy Hester. “There’s an energy here that you rarely see. That energy is here tonight, and this ball is red hot.”

The party ended in the casino halls, where guests who beat the odds traded chips for tickets on a variety of raffle items. The last to leave wandered back to the real world by way of the crimson tunnel, whose chimneys still puffed steam into the lowering skies. One late-departing guest pointed to the splotches of red and orange light that flickered on the museum’s walls.

“Those are like the embers of ‘Red Hot,’ ” he said. “Maybe they’ll keep them warm until next year’s Monte Carlo.”

The committee included Ed and Jill Sondker, Mag White, Roy Porello, Steve Stiles, Virginia Chasey, Joan Arias, Susan McKnight, Carol Baumer, Ellie Winans, Hank Corwin, Suzanne Collins, Melanie Cohrs, Linda Hooberman, Carolyn Farris, Jerry Conte, Liz McCullah and Molly Loomis.

Among the guests were Alice and Richard Cramer, Patsy and Forrest Shumway, Joan Gregg Palmer, Carol and Mark Yorston, Jeanne and Bill Larson, Gloria Penner and Bill Snyder, Jeanne Lawrence with David Hill, Leslie Simon and Michael Krichman, Anne and Sam Armstrong, Suzanne and John Koch, Patti and Ron Mix, Linda and Chuck Owen, Carol and Mike Alessio, Colette and Ivor Royston, Francoise Gilot and Jonas Salk, Midge and Ord Preston, Janet Gallison with Patrick Abarta, Fran and Ed Marston, Sheri and Ben Kelts, Lela Axline, Sue and Charles Edwards, Pauline and Stanley Foster, Liz and Mason Phelps, Patsy and Render Crayton, Walter Fitch, Martha and George Gafford, Audrey Geisel, Victoria Hamilton with Paul Hobson, Valerie Preiss with Harry Cooper, and Diane and Jim Bashor.