Dalai Lama Gets a Call in Newport

Elaine Heinz knew who would be on the line when her telephone rang at 3 a.m. Thursday.

“I’d had a feeling,” said Heinz, who lives with her husband, ketchup scion Clifford Heinz, on an emerald green fairway at Big Canyon in Newport Beach. “I’d had a strange feeling he would win. I knew it would be Oslo calling.”

Officials of the Nobel Prize committee wanted speak to her distinguished houseguest, the Dalai Lama, to inform him he had won the peace prize. The Dalai Lama has been staying at the Heinzes all week to participate in Harmonia Mundi, a spiritual conference staged in Irvine and Newport Beach.

A sleepy Heinz knew protocol dictated it would be improper for her to awaken the Dalai Lama. So she went to her kitchen, where she knew his cook would be preparing the milk and Darjeeling tea and oatmeal-with-honey breakfast His Holiness had enjoyed at 4:30 every morning. She told the cook, who informed the Dalai Lama’s top aide, who summoned the spiritual leader to the phone.

After hearing the news, the Dalai Lama joined his assembled entourage.

“It was so touching,” said Heinz. “There was a lot of going back and forth, with them hugging and holding their hands together in a greeting gesture. They are such radiant people.”

Last Sunday, the Heinzes honored the Dalai Lama with a dinner party for industry leaders that included Robert Adams, president of Xerox Technology Ventures, and Benjamin Mancini, president of Beverly Hills Bank. The question most often posed to His Holiness, who sat cross-legged on the sofa, was: How can we introduce more ethics and spirituality into business, into everyday life?

His answer: by working within the context of one’s own culture. In other words, donning saffron robes and shaving your head is not the answer to achieving spirituality in Newport Beach. Spirituality comes from within, from the heart, the Dalai Lama said. It is always kindness and compassion that leads to human solutions.

The Heinzes’ Mediterreanean-on-the-outside, Art-Deco-on-the-inside home was chosen for the Dalai Lama’s visit by Ronald Jue, a friend of the Heinzes who is president of the East-West Foundation. The Orange County-based foundation is the sponsor of Harmonia Mundi.

“Ron felt a hotel would be too open, not private or guarded enough for the Dalai Lama,” said Heinz, who noted that her home has been guarded inside and out, day and night, during the special visit.

Heinz’s study was the room chosen as a study for His Holiness when his advance team deemed it the spot “with the best vibrations,” she said. “That was the nicest thing I’ve heard in a long time!”

The Heinzes, married two years ago in an ancient Scottish castle, are no strangers to high-level entertaining. He is the grandson of H.J. Heinz. She is a member of the Angels of the Arts, an exclusive, for-women-only fund-raising arm of the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Both are active in the Newport Harbor and Laguna art museums.

Psssst! None other than mall mogul Henry Segerstrom, co-managing partner of C.J. Segerstrom & Sons (owners of South Coast Plaza), will stride the ramp for charity when he models at “European Elegance,” the two-phase fund-raiser to be sponsored by the Guilds of the Orange County Performing Arts Center Oct. 27 at Le Meridien hotel in Newport Beach. Joining Segerstrom for the finale of a fashion show presented by Saks Fifth Avenue will be Center President Thomas Kendrick, Western Digital CEO Roger Johnson, attorney Timothy Strader and developers Al Baldwin, Gus Owen and George Argyros. The fund-raiser is actually an event in two parts. A luncheon and fashion show by Saks, sans the male heavy hitters, will be presented first, with the dinner and fashion show beginning at 6:30 p.m. This is a hot-ticket event, with 14 patron tables at $1,250 already snatched up (Al’s wife, Deeann, has purchased tables for both events). Tickets are $45 each for the luncheon, $85 for dinner. The guilds raise $500,000 annually to help provide the Center with quality programming. Dee Trujillo is chairwoman. . . .

Forty of restaurateur Hans Prager’s favorite female business cronies attended a surprise 60th birthday bash for him on Tuesday in his ultra-snazzy Ritz bistro in Newport Beach. The hush-hush event, held in the cushy Vintage Room, was staged by Prager’s wife, Charlene, behind closed doors, with Dover sole on the menu for the women and a “roast” served up to Prager. The women were invited to wear black only to the affair, which featured an open bar, flowing Chardonnay, berries over ice cream for dessert and a table decorated with balloons and kiddie party hats. . . .

The Center for the Study of Decorative Arts in San Juan Capistrano will be the beneficiary of a party staged at Tiffany & Co. on Nov. 5 that launches an exhibit of Andy Warhol drawings. The holiday-themed drawings, on display at the study center through Jan. 1, were featured on Tiffany & Co. Christmas cards during the early ‘60s. (Tiffany plans to reissue the cards, two at a time.) Tiffany & Co. Vice President John Loring of New York, author of the new book “Tiffany Parties” (lest you forget, Jackie O. is his editor), will be on hand to autograph copies. . . .

Michael Chang, owner/chef of the trendy Five Feet Too restaurant in Newport Beach (the scene of a recent visit by Vice President Dan Quayle), has agreed to cook up a storm on Nov. 13 for the underwriters of the Hoag 552 Club’s Christmas Carol Ball. So far, $60,000 has been raised by underwriting chairman Dr. John Applegate, also known these days as “Dr. Hit” (as in “he hit ‘em up for underwriting bucks”) by the Hoag Hospital staff. . . .