Benefits Garner Recession-Proof Funds

Recession or not, the benefit funds rolled in. In one night last weekend under stars at the Los Angeles Zoo, the Beastly Ball for the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn. grossed $515,394, a gazelle’s jump over last year’s $452,065.

Two nights later on Monday the Los Angeles Police Department’s DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) opening night benefit concert by Chicago at Universal Amphitheatre took in more than $800,000, besting the previous record of $670,000.

This is the sort of thing that makes dedicated chairmen like Helen Maher for the zoo and Bruce Meyer for DARE ecstatic.

It isn’t done alone. In the case of the zoo, William and Sue Keck bid to “adopt” four animals, giving $11,000 for the zoo’s two guard dogs, $11,500 for a baby penguin and $14,000 for a chimpanzee. In the case of DARE, the Columbia Charitable Foundation gave $150,000 to underwrite the benefit.

At the zoo, bidders table-hopped, creating consortia over feathered and scaled creatures: The long-beaked black raven became irresistible to GLAZA chairman Tom and Debbie Tellefsen, Gerry and Robin Parsky, John and Joan Hotchkis, Doreen and Jim McElvany and Bill and Teran Davis--they pooled $4,250 in its behalf. Camron Cooper’s table selected a Goffin’s cockatoo, a small-scaled tree pangolin and a northern pine snake for donations.

Also bidding were Jackie Autry, Peter Keller, Ernest Ellison, Priscilla and Curt Tamkin, Nadine Watt, Rob and Susie Maguire, Leonard and Dorothy Straus.

Guests were happily stuffed on a Rococo-catered feast, treated to rides on camels and elephants, jazzed by vocalist Colleen Casey’s tunes and prodded by auctioneer Peter McCoy and ad-libber Betty White.

For DARE, the police officers who go to fifth-grade classes to teach drug resistence volunteered to pump up all the black, red and white helium balloons for the party. After the tented dinner, 700 went to the concert. On stage, Meyer introduced L.A. Police Chief Daryl F. Gates as the “Father of DARE.” Gates got laughs with the comment, “We could start the night off with a big bang if all the casual drug users would just rise,” referring to his recent, much-publicized comment that casual drug users should be shot.

But there wasn’t a dry eye when students from 93rd Street, Lockwood and Gardner schools marched on stage and the audience heard the words, “I promise never to use drugs,” as a child related how he’d “never forget the night the police came and took my father away” as the result of selling and using drugs.

Though not a few in the crowd were seen with hands over their ears as Chicago blasted, others were in rock heaven, shaking and swaying. Bruce and Raylene Meyer had their three children with them--Eric (a freshman at Berkeley), Evan and Emily. Also there were Joyce and Fred Hameetman, Cindy and Jon Hall, Roberta and Carl Deutsch, Chris and John Westwater, Richard Riordan and daughter Tricia, DARE officer Tom Stapleton, Nathan Shapell, Mike Schwab, Harvard School headmaster Tom Hudnut and wife Ann, Jack and Susan Blumenthal, Pam and Courtney Mullin, Jay Thomas, Reva Tooley and Minnesota’s Lt. Gov. Herbert Humphrey III.

REVELATION: Georgette Mosbacher, CEO of La Prairie and wife of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Robert Mosbacher, was captivating at the luncheon Joni Smith hosted at I. Magnin. Here to introduce her new color cosmetics line, Mosbacher announced over chicken stuffed with spinach and rice and artichoke salad that she never carries a purse, but puts “a few dollars in my shoe.” Rose Marie Bravo, I. Magnin CEO, flew down from San Francisco. Bravo, Marian Anderson, Pat Moller, Kathleen McCarty, Margaret Spillane, Dody Booth, Lynn Evans and Nanci Denney were among the chic in attendance.

WITH FAMILY: Richard K. Eamer not only wanted those supporting the League for Children fund-raiser at Universal Studios to bring children, but he also gave 50% discounts on the tickets to all his employees at National Medical Enterprises. VIP families were in bunches: Richard and Eileen Eamer, Art and Lois Linkletter, Sharon and Gordon Melcher, Fred and Mildred O’Green, John and Pat Hamilton, Don and Arletta Tronstein, Roland and Agnes Peterson.

KICKOFFS: Three Music Center groups kick off events, signaling the end of summer: Club 100 hosts a new members luncheon Sept. 26. On Sept. 27 the Blue Ribbon hosts a tea at the home of Carmen Warschaw, and the Fraternity of Friends has a cocktail reception at the home of Ann and Bruce Ramer.

TO NEWLYWEDS: Patsy and John Austin and Jackie and Jay McMahan hosted dinner and dancing to celebrate the marriage of Bonnie (the McMahans’ daughter) and Stuart Austin (the Austins’ son) . . . .

Hutton and Ruth Wilkinson filled their terrace with gold-painted Balinese parasols and wooden banana trees made in the Orient for the dinner-dance feting Mary and Boyd Marshall . . . .

Coastal Commissioner Mark Nathanson and Baronnessa Shan d’Ecclesia Farace honeymooned in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and will celebrate their recent marriage at a reception in November at the Bistro Gardens.

ESCALATION: American Film magazine and the American Film Institute host the celebrity polo match Saturday to benefit the AFI film preservation program. Sadly, says publisher Hershel D. Sinay, of the 21,000 films made in America before 1951, only half survive . . . .

An evening with Norman Cousins kicked off L’Ermitage Foundation’s season of salon events at L’Ermitage Hotel.