Crowd of Fans Whoops It Up for Whoopi at Gala

The Kingston Hotel set out buffets laden with cheeses, fruits and all sorts of chocolate for a late-night reception Saturday, but most of 250 supporters of the San Diego Repertory Theatre who jammed the top-floor ballroom seemed intent on devouring Whoopi Goldberg.

The newly minted Academy Award winner along with fellow Oscar-owner Ben Kingsley and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” star Patrick Stewart appeared together on-stage at the Lyceum Theatre in a program of song, verse and prose titled “So Many People Have Heads.”

The benefit inaugurated phase two of the Rep’s “Keep the Lights On” campaign, and according to a theater spokesman contributed more than $50,000 to the half-million dollars the Rep hopes to raise by September. Patrons in the upper-price categories attended the second of two performances before traipsing to the Kingston to schmooze with the actors and dance to Split Decisions.

In an effort to avoid the crush by the elevator, theater staffers arranged for the actors and their by no means small entourage to sneak into the ballroom via a hidden staircase that opens directly onto the dance floor. The ploy worked for perhaps 30 seconds, or just long enough for the group that included several beefy bodyguards and Rep artistic and producing directors Douglas Ja cobs and Sam Woodhouse to snatch a few quick lungs full of air before the crowd discovered the stars and piled into the tiny corner of the room.

Kingsley (perhaps best known for his title performance in the film “Gandhi”) and Stewart were not without their partisans in the throng, but the evening unquestionably belonged to Goldberg. She was swamped, lionized and nearly overwhelmed by a group intent upon making her popularity clear to her, just in case she was unaware of it.

However, at the very moment that the Goldbergian dreadlocks seemed ready to wilt in the breathless atmosphere, an unseen finger pressed a button that rolled back the retractable roof. This both admitted blasts of fresh air and released the moody jazz played by Split Decisions to curl smoke-like toward the orange-white clouds overhead.

The actors submitted to a few of the usual banal formalities, including presentations of proclamations issued by the City Council and county supervisors that declared March 30 to be “Whoopi Day,” before mingling with the crowd. In brief remarks, Goldberg, who in the early 1970s appeared in Rep productions as Caryn Johnson, explained why she had come. Her tone was moderate and sincere; there is little whoopee when Whoopi chooses to be serious.

“We hope that you’ll continue to keep the Rep afloat so that we can continue to have a place to come to when we come to San Diego,” she said to an audience grown suddenly still. “Your contributions will help a lot of actors to survive.” Goldberg paused for a moment, then added, “It’s nice to be home for a while.”

Principals in the throng agreed that it was nice to have her here, and Kingsley and Stewart, too.

Theater board President Jeff Shohet said, “I can’t imagine the next time that talent like this will be together on a San Diego stage. The show helped us tremendously, not just financially but in fostering awareness of the Rep. We couldn’t have done anything better for the theater.”

“It’s nice to have San Diego’s own come back,” said Rep managing director Adrian Stewart. “It was wonderful when Whoopi said ‘This is my theater’ on-stage. What is most important is that this is the begining of phase two of our campaign, which once and for all will put the theater on a stable footing.”

The attendance included County Supervisor Leon Williams, Darla Cash with Doug Jacobs, Lisa Butterbrot with Bill Waite, Carol and Sol Maksik, Dottie and Hal Georgens, Jennifer Mitchell, Dona and Giles Bateman, Jacqueline and Allan Blank and Diane and Fritz Stocker.

LA JOLLA--The look of the crowd in the ballroom foyer at the Sheraton Grande Torrey Pines was scholarly, thanks to the armloads of books that most of them carried.

The looks on the faces of the three authors present were pleased, again thanks to the armloads of books that weighed down most guests.

The San Diego Bar Auxiliary staged its seventh annual authors luncheon March 27 and attracted about 300 guests by offering a program that included entertainer Steve Allen, First Ladies expert Carl Sferrazza Anthony and former Manhattan Assistant Dist. Atty. David Heilbroner. Each of the authors arrived equipped with a sufficient supply of pens and quips to get through a day of autographs and lectures.

The event was expected to raise about $10,000 for the beneficiary, the Casa de Amparo crisis center for abused children in the historic San Luis Rey mission near Oceanside.

The auxiliary hosted the luncheon in a ballroom filled with white roses, and tested the mettle of the authors with a typical hotel chicken lunch. Allen, a composer as well as the author of 34 books, went to the piano during the salad course and performed a number of upbeat, cafe society-style pieces. Later, he discussed his newest book, “Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion and Morality.”

The favorite of the crowd may have been Anthony, who characterized the subjects of his “First Ladies, The Saga of the Presidents’ Wives and Their Power 1789-1961” as “pretty rough characters.”

“I feel like I’ve gotten to know all the First Ladies pretty well, and I wouldn’t want to spend a weekend alone with any of them,” said the young author to a chorus of laughter. “The First Lady is the one person can exercise great power and not be impeached. It was this unchecked power that led me to write the first volume.”

Volume two, which deals with Presidents’ wives from Jacqueline Kennedy to Barbara Bush, was recently released.

Heilbroner, author of “Rough Justice, Days and Nights of a Young D.A.,” said that he may become a familiar figure around town because he will spend the summer locally covering the potentially sensational murder trial of Virginia McGinnis, accused of pushing Deana Hubbard Wild to her death from a Big Sur cliff in 1987. The case will be the subject of his next book.

Co-chairs Tauna Corrales and Karon Edleson headed a committee that included Julie Maiorani, Pam Sullivan, Jan Kincannon, Mary Cordaro, Irene Butterfield, Kay Byrne, Kathy Rains, Robin Smelko, Judy Enright and Charlotte Harris.

Carl Sferrazza Anthony made a double-header of his local visit by speaking the next day at a luncheon at La Jolla Country Club given by Dorene Whitney, the La Jolla socialite in charge of funding the First Ladies Exhibition scheduled to open in 1992 at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington.

The guest list of 50, which included several local members of Whitney’s nationwide Friends of First Ladies support group as well as several descendants of First Ladies, lunched well on shrimp and curried chicken salads while Anthony again discussed the virtues and failings of various Presidential mates. Whitney said that the author is a consultant to her exhibition, which she characterized as “an encapsulation of the history of women’s involvement in American politics since the founding of the country.”

The guest list included Nellie Rothwell, great-granddaughter of President Ulysses S. Grant; Tommi Adelizzi, descendant of stand-in First Lady Harriet Lane; Sandra Pay; Carol Alessio; Sook Bower; Sandra Schafer; B.J. Williams; Reba Brophy; Anne Gonzalez; Kay Martin; Betty Bass, Betty Zable and Peggy Siegener.