Singer Takes Audience ‘Backstage’

She could have dished the dirt. But she didn’t.

Instead of trumpeting the ugly details of the rocky marriage she shared with Robert Goulet, singer-actress Carol Lawrence gave her audience one from the heart last week at a monthly meeting of Round Table West at the Balboa Bay Club.

“My father was an abused child, incapable of saying ‘I love you,’ ” said Lawrence, author of the new book, “Carol Lawrence: The Backstage Story.” “I kept searching for someone like my dad. The wrong man. Bobby (Goulet) was vulnerable, an unloved child who emulated his idol Richard Burton, who suffered from alcoholism.”

The couple lived a goldfish existence, Lawrence said. Entourages surrounded them. The press painted them in words that made the world think they would always be the bride and groom atop the wedding cake. “But I kept falling into the frosting,” Lawrence said, her huge brown eyes clouding. “I didn’t know how to handle someone addicted. They are addicted to a substance. And people like me are addicted to loving them into wellness.”

But the only person you can heal is yourself, Lawrence learned. And writing her new book is the final step in Lawrence’s campaign to heal herself. “I started going to Al Anon meetings and found out about its 12-step program. The final step is to reach out and help others. So here I am. We all need to let down the facade. We’re so afraid to let people see us.”

During the luncheon, which also featured Roddy McDowall talking about his new book, “Double Exposure, Take Two,” and cartoonist Chuck Jones, author of “Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist,” Lawrence whispered that she had “gone it alone” after her split with Goulet. “I was isolated while trying to cope. You didn’t have anybody’s permission to be anything less than perfect in those days. There were no books on co-dependency to learn from. We’re not meant to go through such things alone.”

Lawrence’s dream is to use proceeds from her autobiography to create a “women’s center where we can come together to empower and encourage each other to discover and become all we are capable of,” she says in her book. “To learn to meet our needs--mental, spiritual and physical and to share our problems, joys and solutions.”

Lawrence said she had heard about Goulet’s Feb. 20 appearance on “Entertainment Tonight” where he had discussed her book, saying it contained inaccuracies. (And where, according to a press release provided by the television show, Goulet said: “Supposedly I had a drinking problem at that time. I was never falling down drunk, but I drank too much. You wonder, what caused the drinking? Was it because of my unhappiness? Or were we unhappy because of the drinking? But within a year after I left Carol, I stopped drinking completely.”)

“I don’t think he could have read the book and said that,” Lawrence said. “If he would read it, he would know it was written in love.”

Happy Campers: “Private Party.” That was the sign that warned hotel guests to stay away from the reception preceding the Junior Wheelchair Sports Camp benefit at the Ritz-Carlton hotel last week. Luncheons don’t get any classier than the one staged by Neiman Marcus and Chariot Champions, the fund-raising support group for the camp held each spring at Saddleback College. After chatting on a tile patio trimmed with a rainbow of primroses, guests gathered in the ballroom to enjoy hearts of bibb lettuce with papaya and grapefruit, broiled orange roughy and chocolate torte. The tab? “Fifty dollars per person,” said event chairwoman Betty Belden Palmer. “It costs a little more at the Ritz, but it’s worth it. Everything is perfect!”

During the festivities, Chariot Champions president Barbara De Mott welcomed guests and introduced Marion Knott Montapert, honorary chairwoman (Montapert bought two tables at $1,250 each.) Montapert announced the 1989 “Campers of the Year,” Tony Lara and Rene Erickson, and then Neiman Marcus wowed the crowd with a fashion show.

Proceeds of about $30,000 will go toward support of the camp, a two-day fest for children ages 6 to 18 who must use wheelchairs to participate in sports. The camp is the brainchild of Brad Parks of San Clemente, president/founder of the National Foundation of Wheelchair Tennis. Parks, a paraplegic, injured his back in a skiing accident during the ‘70s. Just two weeks ago, Parks and his wife, Wendy, became the proud parents of twin girls. “Sarah and Maiah,” cooed their grandmum, Larrie Parks. “We’re thrilled.”

Luncheon committee members included Carol Blanchard, Nora Jorgensen, Suzanne Newby, Patricia Yoder, Sally Welsh, Patricia Houston, Rita Gunkel and Hope Von Herzen.

Cypress College Dinner: They saluted the executive vice president of Disneyland but there was nothing Mickey Mouse about the 1990 Americana Awards Dinner on Saturday night. The nod to Ron Dominguez at the Disneyland Hotel attracted $20,000 in cash donations and 700 guests who paid $125 each. Proceeds will go toward college scholarships and tutorial services. Don Karcher was chairman.