A Gala Party Is Staged Aboard Star

The San Diego Maritime Museum, the only museum in town that candidly admits to being partly filled with bilge, rolled red carpets down its two gangplanks March 24 to welcome about 260 supporters to its second annual, almost-seagoing gala.

Several of the city’s more dedicated salts, including Gordon and Jeanne Frost and Art and Dulcie DeFever, were among the first to board the venerable Star of India for the floating cocktail reception.

The calmer types in the crowd arrived on the Embarcadero in black tie, but quite a few others bowed to the belated “Mardi Gras Magic” theme and turned out in costumes that, in the true New Orleans style, owed their inspirations mostly to nonsense and whimsy. A woman in a comically conical, Guinevere-style headdress, Groucho Marx glasses and a green nose rather exemplified the jovial silliness that was at the core of this event.

Chairman Kay Black, who greeted guests at the head of the gangplank, followed her own sartorial advice and donned, among other things, a metallic fright wig that made some vague reference to Cleopatra and probably would have sent that lady in search of an asp.

“You might think this is ‘Mardi Gras Magic,’ but it’s really ‘Katherine’s Madness,’ ” Black said, referring to herself and giggling as she watched the costumed guests parade around the Star’s main deck. Clowns handed out balloons twisted into silly shapes, and the crowd, inclined to silliness, carried them like trophies.

The scene varied rather notably from the Star’s seafaring days in the 19th Century, when seasick English and Irish immigrants bound for Australia hung over the same high gunwales at which museum guests gathered for wine and witticisms. The central deck also supported an iced buffet of raw oysters and clams that would, ironically, have been an impossibility on a sea voyage. Those who wished to escape the cold winds that scoured the deck could retreat to a similar display in the hold.

The briny blasts that swept the ship encouraged lingerers to scurry over to the main event aboard the ferryboat Berkeley, which designer Dick Ford had hung with towering, umbrella-like cascades of twinkling lights that made the old ferry look like a Mardi Gras float in a New Orleans parade. A second effect was to make the boat, silhouetted against the onyx waters, appear to have been strung around with diamonds.

About 400 strings of lights were draped both outside the boat and in its two decks, and Ford said that hanging required, if not an advanced degree in engineering, at least a degree of ingenuity. “We had to hang all these lights, but we couldn’t blow up the boat,” said Ford, who explained that the Berkeley’s historical designation precludes the use of nails, tape or any sort of fastener. Thus the lights had to be draped over existing supports; one idea that was considered but discarded called for the strategic placement of hula hoops.

The event benefitted the preservation of both ships and lured supporters with such blandishments as a casino deck, pasta and dessert buffets and dancing to the Bill Green Orchestra, which eschewed chanteys in favor of its usual Big Band sound.

Rosemary Pierce co-chaired the gala and assisted in greeting a roster of guests that included Alison and George Gildred, Ruth and Gordon Lacy, Barbara Iredale, Barbara and Bob Sharp, Marilyn and Russ Downer, Jan and Mike Madigan, Virginia and Brick Landon, Laurie and Dick Blackington, Dolly and Jim Poet, Billy and Mac McKnight, Dottie and Hal Georgens, Paul Black, Vi and Dan McKinney, Esther Burnham with Jack Lasher, Ann and Carl Bowman, Linda and Joe Basquez, Patty and Rick Ghio, Martha and Bill Ehringer, Isabelle and John Murphy, and Jane and Norm Neely.

A tradition inaugurated by Mikhail Baryshnikov and continued by Rudolf Nureyev and Japan’s famed Kodo drummers was sustained March 23 by the tap dancing Nicholas Brothers, Fayard and Harold, who attended the “Gotta Sing Gotta Dance” gala that closed the season for the San Diego Foundation for Performing Arts.

The Nicholas Brothers strolled into the U.S. Grant Ballroom to sustained applause well past 11 p.m., following their appearance in the opening night of the “Gotta Sing Gotta Dance” program presented by the foundation at the Civic Theatre. The late hour also was traditional for foundation galas, and guests were just settling down to their clear oxtail broth, many unwilling to break the pastry crust that topped it until the other star of the show, Cab Calloway, had made his appearance. But that was not to be; the 83-year-old entertainer, having expended much energy in telling the Civic Theatre audience the story of Minnie the Moocher, evidently chose to retire to his suite instead.

The crowd of more than 300 was notably shy on low-down hoochie coochers, although it was heavy on dancers, most of whom found the music of Fro Brigham and his Preservation Band sufficiently inspiring. Performing Arts Foundation founder Danah Fayman has always made a point of inviting casts to post-performance suppers and galas, a nicety that adds a certain texture and occasional glamour to these dressy affairs.

Not that the affair was too dressy; the nightclub theme of the performance put guests in a mood for the Cotton Club theme of the gala.

“It’s fun to mix it up and have everybody let their hair down,” said Fayman. “I never knew for sure beforehand if I’d hear all these people sing ‘Hi-De-Ho,’ but I hoped!”

A signpost in the foyer pointed to the corner of 125th Street and Broadway, the heart of Harlem in the 1930s and the neighborhood of the Cotton Club. Gala chairmen Lois Zien and Laura Abrams carried out that theme by dressing the tables with arrangements of blood-red roses, pale feathers and strings of fake pearls; organizing a floor show of sequinned gangsterettes, and serving a researched and avowedly authentic Cotton Club menu that included seafood quenelles in lobster sauce, roasted veal with yams dauphine and swans fashioned from chocolate and rice pudding.

The heavily underwritten gala earned about $75,000 for the foundation; one of the benefactors was the Jewels of Charity group, which with Pacific Bell provided funding for 1,000 county school children to attend the “Gotta Sing Gotta Dance” performances.

The guest list included John and Sally Thornton, Patrick and Rose Patek, the Terry Churchills, Marcella Rabwin, the James Baldwins, the William Herricks, Bill and Elizabeth Zongker, John Barbey, Arthur and Eleanor Herzman, Scott Lynch, the Karl Kreutzers, the Fred Bucks, the Robert McLeods, Walter and Mary Smyk, Sig and Elena Mickelson, Kenneth and Dixie Unruh, Larry and Junko Cushman, Polly Puterbaugh and Rosemary KimBal.