Debs Spring Eternal at Childrens Hospital Guild Ball

So you think being a deb is just a bouquet of roses. Wrong. Elizabeth Grossman had been in an automobile accident three days before the Pasadena Guild of Childrens Hospital June Ball. She was stiff, bruised and braced. She missed rehearsal. But her curtsy was just as deep as other debutantes in the splendor at the Regent Beverly Wilshire. There were just two concessions: She was presented last, so that she didn’t have to stand while the other 27 debs were honored. And her father, Paul Grossman, held her hand for the tricky balancing.

As for Kathleen Marangi, she beat the chicken pox. Past the infectious stage, she appeared, in her pretty satin woven gown, which she designed and her mother made.

It was a radiant group bowing before ball chairman Jean Higgins and her husband Boyd, ball sponsors Warren and Alyce Williamson and guild president Shirley and William Struble: former Rose Bowl Queen Charmaine Shryock, Heather Braun from Newport Beach (her grandparents Ginie and Henry Braun beamed throughout), Mary Maechling, Kristen Stockwell (whose parents Randoph and Carolyn Stockwell came from Hope Ranch).

Fashion-speaking, it certainly was the most bustled and bowed (Lindsey Moore and Catherine Baker) and poufed (Anna-Marie Wood) group.

All night long Cynthia Coleman shepherded debs. (Her husband, Sam, was on the Men’s Floor Committee which brought escorts and stags in three vans from San Marino and returned them to the site of the new Huntington Carlton Hotel in Pasadena for a post-party hosted by Kristoffer and Jane Popovich and Lary and Debbie Mielke).

More debs were Patricia Popovich, Katrina Mielke, Chantal Berger, Anne Elizabeth Niblo, Corinne Rising, Ellen Mary Shea, Devon Danz, Sara Geiling, Natalie Hopfield, Amy Wier, Ashleigh Robertson, Michelle Mapel, Diane Marsh, Heidi Marsh, Marlo Moore, Mary Louise Nasser, Ashley Owen, Carolee Reiling and Donna Riley.

INTIMATE: Squint your eyes, and the landscape at Chancellor Charles and Sue Young’s home on the UCLA campus did look at sunset like a Monet painting. That’s what UCLA Medal recipient Warren J. Haas observed at the small black-tie dinner the Youngs hosted for the four recipients of the university’s highest kudo.

Also in the spotlight were Soviet space scientist Roald Z. Sagdeev (who attended with his bride Susan Eisenhower, carrying a beaded bag given her by her grandmother Mamie Eisenhower), architect I. M. Pei and astronaut Anna L. Fisher.

A STAR: Everyone wanted to “reach out and touch someone” and that someone was Donna Tuttle, the new chairman and chief executive of Ayer Tuttle, the Pacific division of NW Ayer Inc. (the advertising firm that coined the “reach out” phrase).

Brad Freeman and NW Ayer chairman Jerry Siano hosted the cocktail affair at the Regency Club. Donna Tuttle, former deputy Secretary of Commerce, was the second highest ranking woman in the Reagan administration.

NO KIDDING: New Kidspace Museum president Susan Coogan’s brother raises chocolate-colored labradors in Virginia. She got him to donate a puppy for Kidspace’s “Shining StarsClassic Cars” benefit. Kris and Jane Popovich fell in love with it for a bid of $1,300.

KUDOS: To Roy and Betty Anderson, the Los Angeles Humanitarian Award at the California Medical Center luncheon at the Biltmore . . . To Robert Maguire III, new trustees president of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. . . .

To three women receiving honorary degrees at Claremont McKenna College--Katharine Benson (wife of founding president George C. S. Benson), Arden Flamson (wife of CMC’s trustees chairman Richard J. Flamson III) and Bernice McKenna (wife of Donald McKenna, for whom the college is named) . . . .

To Marcia and Larry Israel, feting Ann Miller to celebrate her book, “Tapping into the Force” . . . To basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, U.S. Congressman Edward R. Roybal and Gen. Louis C. Menetrey, commander-in-chief of United Nations and U.S. forces in Korea, honored at the UCLA Alumni Awards. . . .

To the National Conference of Christians and Jews’ Brotherhood Ball, netting $145,000, some of which will be used to expand camps for senior high students at Camp Pilgrim Pines in the San Bernardino Mountains . . . To Cristina Ferrare, the Angeles Girl Scout Council Grace Award at the Green and White Select Dinner Dance, an affair for 500, netting $150,000. . . .

To the Golden State Minority Foundation, saluting minority education and honoring Dr. James M. Rosser, president Cal State Los Angeles, netting $150,000 . . . To Tichi Wilkerson-Kassel, Citizen of the Year, and John Eikrem, Community Service Award, from the Beverly Hills Family Y.

SOCIAL SCENE: Luncheon on the Green by the barn at Banning Residence Museum brought out garden lovers to hear Shirley Kerins of the American Society of Landscape Architects. In the crowd: Donna Gibbs, Nancy Call, Phoebe Vacarro. . . .

Nina Leif hosted a cocktail/buffet in Beverly Hills to announce that the SPRINT (Special Preventive Research, Intervention and New Technology) floor at the UCLA Children’s Medical Center will be dedicated July 15 . . . .

Dr. Craig and Elizabeth Black of the Natural History Museum hosted cocktails this week at their home in Hancock Park for a delegation from the Nationality Cultural Palace, Beijing, and the Museum of Inner Mongolia.