For Hammer, a Cancan and Do Birthday

It’s been a pretty good year, as far as Dr. Armand Hammer is concerned. The Berlin Wall crumbled, and he’s looking forward to the upcoming summit between President Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that he feels is going to signal “the beginning of getting rid of nuclear weapons,” as well as bringing the two countries together. “We’ll have capitalism and socialism working together. Now,” he added, “all I’ve got to do is get rid of cancer.” He will, naturally, be in Washington for the summit on May 30.

Well, the man’s only 92.

Some 200 friends of the physician/art collector/diplomat/Occidental Petroleum chairman gathered Monday night to put another candle on his multitiered birthday cake. The annual ritual, which combined old-friend camaraderie, some Borscht-Belt shtick from emcee Danny Thomas, Jane Morgan Weintraub sweetly singing “Happy Birthday to You” and themed entertainment, took place at a black-tie dinner at the Beverly Hills hotel.

The theme was the Gay Nineties. Birthday 92 was carried out with cancan girls, feathered fans for the women and corncob pipes and hats for the men, a barbershop quartet and tables decorated with Victorian lamp centerpieces.

Guests filtered in to a cocktail reception and had their pictures taken in a Victorian setting with red velvet banquettes, red and gold tasseled curtains, feathered boas, fans, hats and the cancan girls as accessories if desired.

Well-wishers included Barbara and Marvin Davis, Merv Adelson, Sherry Lansing and David Niven Jr., Archbishop Roger Mahony, Danny and Rose Marie Thomas, Jerry and Jane Weintraub, Sybil Brand and Cesar Romero, Millicent and Robert Wise, Marcia Weisman, George and Betty Longstreet, Stephen Garrett and daughter Georgia, and Dr. Robert Schuller and wife Arvella.