LIFE ON THE CIRCUIT : Overflow High Priority Crowd Listens to Author Lee Ezell

Lunching

One hundred and fifty women attended a luncheon lecture at the Center Club presented by the Orange County chapter of High Priority, a research and information network dedicated to the prevention and early detection of breast cancer. Tuesday’s turnout more than doubled attendance for past membership meetings. Due to last-minute reservations, several tables were set up on the patio adjoining the packed dining room, and several dozen women had to sit or stand at the perimeter of the room during the lecture. Not to worry. “This is the kind of problem we want to have,” said chapter president Carol Wilken.

Laugh Medicine

After a light lunch of grilled chicken, vegetables, fruit and muffins, author Lee Ezell gave an energetic talk that was one part pathos, two parts comedy and wholly entertaining. Ezell, who lives in Newport Beach, is the author of two books, “The Cinderella Syndrome,” a guide through the wilderness of failed relationships, and “The Missing Piece,” about her reunion with the daughter she put up for adoption at birth. The story of that reunion--and the tragic events that led to it--was the focus of the talk, but Ezell wisely warmed up for the heavy stuff with some well-grooved jokes.

She began her late-blooming careers as a writer and public speaker because she deemed herself--stuck in a newly emptied nest--”too young for Social Security, too old for a paper route, too tired to have an affair.”

Of her husband--former Immigration and Naturalization Service western commissioner Harold Ezell--she said: “He’s still the boss around the house. . . . Of course, he works for 12 hours (a day) and sleeps for eight, so I let him be boss for four hours every day.” As part of a two-career couple, “Harold had to have a very delicate operation: the ‘macho-ectomy.’ It was a successful operation. I assisted.”

At 45, Ezell put herself “somewhere between estrogen and death, somewhere between the ‘Blue Lagoon’ and ‘Golden Pond.’ ” And she quoted singer Sophie Tucker: “Until a girl is 18, she needs good parents. Between 18 and 35, she needs good looks. Between 35 and 55, she needs a good personality. From 55 on, she needs cash. “

From there Ezell took the group on a grim journey: her childhood in a Philadelphia slum, the “unwanted” daughter of two alcoholics; her flight to San Francisco at age 17, and her rape, one year later, which resulted in pregnancy. The story--which she has told on “Donahue” and “Geraldo” and in weekly speaking engagements that have taken her as far afield as New Zealand--has a happy ending: The daughter who was taken from Ezell as she lay unconscious in a hospital delivery room found her way back 20 years later, with Ezell’s two grandchildren in tow.

At the Podium

Before Ezell spoke, guests were greeted and entreated by a small cast of High Priority officers, including national program director Bette Iacino, chapter president Wilken, Betty Belden Palmer, Cathy Lowden, Connie Murphy and Darrellyn Melilli. In an especially moving speech, founding president Wanda Cobb told the group of “High Priority sisters” how she is doing since her cancer recurred.

“Cancer is always scary and I’m going through it for the second time. . . . I didn’t know if any of you had heard from anyone (going through) chemotherapy,” Cobb said, and she wanted to “share how she was thinking and feeling” as she prepared to travel to Houston for experimental treatment. Throughout a brief talk that had most members of her audience reaching for tissues, Cobb was upbeat--even joking that since she bought wigs to disguise her hair loss, she has discovered that “men really like redheads.”