Stars in Their Eyes at Center

The prime social activities of seeing and being seen rarely have taken on such significance as at Saturday’s gala opening of the newest facility in the UC San Diego health-sciences complex.

The eyes had had it by the end of Shiley Eye Center Opening Gala, a party that both invited 349 guests to drink in the sight of Hollywood luminaries Richard Dreyfuss and Amy Irving, and focused on the trompe l’oeil hocus-pocus of gyrating lasers and other fancy visual effects.

Hailed as visionaries for their foresight in donating the $1-million leadership gift that founded the $8-million center, local philanthropists Donald and Darlene Shiley were wreathed in smiles as they welcomed guests to the cocktail reception given in the building’s ground floor galleria.

Surrounded by buffets at which blue corn beignets sizzled in hot fat and catering chefs built elaborate constructions of smoked trout and caviar on miniature blini, Darlene Shiley avowed that all she and her husband, a well-known inventor and engineer, had done was to “jump-start the eye center.” But later, she amused the crowd by publicly thanking her husband for “working so hard to make the money I’m giving away.”

Another guest with thanks on his lips through the evening was Dr. Stuart Brown, chairman of the USCD Medical School Eye Department and chief of the Shiley Eye Center.

“This center is truly the greatest gift I’ve ever had,” he said. “Not a penny came from UCSD or the state--the building is a gift from the city, and I’m grateful and hope we’ll give a gift back. No other major city had been without an eye center, and now we will be allowed to achieve our mission and our greatest potential. We’ve developed much of the technology here ourselves, and the building truly is equipped beyond the state of the art.”

Brown also credited “dear Jeramie and Richard Dreyfuss” for starting the campaign, which the actor and his wife did several years ago by hosting a fund-raiser at their Beverly Hills home, attended by a coterie of stars that included Barbra Streisand, in gratitude for the work Brown did to save the eyesight of their son, Benjamin.

The Dreyfusses have attended several local events for the center, and this time brought along actress Amy Irving, whose son, Gabriel, was to undergo a minor eye procedure at the Shiley Center on Monday.

As is true of most Hollywood types who attend San Diego galas, the trio arrived late, spent the obligatory time with the television camera crews, otherwise maintained a very low profile and left early. A number of other actors and entertainers, including Susan Sarandon, John Lithgow, John Ritter and Doc Severinsen, had signed on for honorary committee duty and had been scheduled to attend, but, as again is true of most Hollywood folk who promise to show at local galas, did not.

The center, built on a barren expanse of ground across Interstate 5 from the main USCD campus (the neighboring Perlman Ambulatory Care Center and Thornton Hospital are expected to open in 1993), now enjoys the luxury of open space.

Event chair Dixie Unruh, a one-time Brown patient credited with bringing the Shileys and Brown together, took advantage of the situation by erecting an immense, translucent tent opposite the center for dinner and dancing. Through the cocktail hour, guests watching from the building noted the strange points of blue and green light that began to glow through the clear walls of the tent.

They had to wait for the mystery to be revealed until the Shileys and the stars led a formal “grand procession” of guests snaking up the walk to the tent, fronted by a foyer fogged with machine-made mist.

The interior was, quite literally, an eye-opener, a wonderfully crazy scene in which a laser that had been coaxed to shoot a flat, spreading beam created a glowing green roof just above the heads of the guests. Tables, dressed in black to emphasize the brilliant neon colors, were edged in iridescent blue tubing (these handy “glow sticks,” originally invented to mark the locations of nets for night fishermen, have been a boon to party planners), and sprays of the tubes shot upwards from the high Lucite stands at the center of each table. For whimsy and fun, additional tubes were worked into eyeglass frames to be worn by the guests, and servers were outfitted in glowing pink bow ties.

“The mood in the tent is like being inside a cornea undergoing high-tech laser surgery, which I’ve had,” said Unruh, adding coyly, “After all, the eye center is on the cutting edge. The fog in the entry was meant to be eerie and to create a world-beyond feeling to honor Richard Dreyfuss for his role in ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’ ” Unruh also said that the event would earn about $70,000.

The audience had one close encounter with Dreyfuss, when Brown called him to the podium to accept official thanks for his role in the development of the center--a role that he himself minimized.

“The Shiley Eye Center has relatively little to do with myself, everything to do with Stuart Brown and the local community,” said the white-goateed actor. “But I hope that whenever I come down, I can get my parking validated.” Brown assured Dreyfuss that the parking validation stamp always would be inked.

Even the lasers shifted to a party mood when the Bill Green Orchestra ascended the stage. The lasers began dancing in computer-driven patterns on the ceiling while guests gyrated no less willfully on the checkerboard floor. Occasional breaks were taken for the various courses, catered by Tony Kopas, that opened with smoked wild duck salad, continued with salmon in orange sauce and finished with fruit arranged in chocolate sarcophaguses.

The guest list included other beneficiaries of Shiley philanthropies, including Jack O’Brien of the Old Globe Theatre, which now is fronted by the Shiley Terraces I and II; Paul and Judy Steen of KPBS, and Sue and Dr. Charles Edwards of Scripps Clinic, which includes the Shiley Sports Medicine Center.

Among others attending were developer Ernest Hahn and his wife, Jean, long-time supporters of Brown and his new center; UCSD Medical School dean Dr. Gerard Burrow and his wife, Ann; Marge and University of San Diego President Author Hughes; Dallas and Mary Clark; Isabel Brown; insurance magnate James Kemper and his wife, Joan; Richard and Harriet Levi; Elena and former CBS News President Sig Mickelson; Ewa and Larry Robinson; Audrey Geisel; Betty and Alex deBakcsy; Linda and Frank Alessio; Mary and James Berglund; Evelyn Truitt; Lee and Larry Cox; Ruth Banning; Sheri and Ben Kelts; Suzanne Moore; Kenneth Unruh; Ann and Charlie Jones; Ruth and Victor Schulman; Dorothea and David Garfield; Peggy and Peter Preuss, and Jeanette and William Burnett.