Hugs and an Award for Humanitarian

As he fended off kisses and bearhugs, it was clear that CBS/Broadcasting Group president Howard Stringer was a jubilant man--and not just for the obvious reason.

His network is already ranked first in the ratings, then last week, with the airing of the seven-game World Series, CBS had its best ratings score since 1984, Stringer said.

“I would say the mood is buoyant bordering on euphoric,” crowed the network executive.

That wasn’t the obvious reason at the Century Plaza Monday night.

There, Stringer was singled out for his humanitarian side by the Southern California Region Entertainment Industries division of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

The annual award dinner raises funds in the mid-six figures for the human relations organization and never fails to draw Hollywood’s biggest guns.

This year, not only was CBS out in force, buying 18 tables of 10 at $4,000 apiece, but rival networks NBC and ABC also secured tables, as did MGM/UA Television, Paramount, Warner Bros., Columbia, MCA-Universal, 20th Century Fox, Disney, Amblin Entertainment, Castle Rock and other Hollywood entities, including MGM Grand Air.

“I spent most of my life behind the camera, so I imagine they’ll toss away the film,” said the self-effacing Stringer, as photographers crowded around him. He started as a producer in the network’s news division.

Today Stringer towers figuratively and literally in a room crowded with stars, colleagues and competitors, including Angela Lansbury, Burt Reynolds, Brandon Tartikoff, Warren Littlefield, Jeff Sagansky, Diane English and Joel Shukovsky, Norman Lear, Sharon Gless and Barney Rosenzweig, Connie Sellecca, Michelle Lee and Fred Silverman.

“He’s warm, affable and loaded with talent,” said “60 Minutes” producer Don Hewitt, who flew from New York for the event with correspondents Mike Wallace and Ed Bradley, the latter wearing a single pearl in one ear. “We all took the day off,” added Hewitt. “Now they’ve got to work twice as hard when they get back.”

The East Coast contingent also included Stringer’s Long Island neighbors, retired Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and his wife, Sally Quinn, and writers Nora Ephron and her husband, Nick Pileggi.

As a sign of the times, the usual round of industry Christian-Jewish jokes had been supplanted by Japanese ones. Columbia Television chairman Gary Lieberthal, who co-chaired the event with Grant Tinker, president of GTG Entertainment, introduced Sidney Sheinberg, president of MCA Inc., by calling him “Sheinberg san. “

For much of the evening, Stringer watched as an all-star team of news anchors and interviewers--including Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, David Frost and Connie Chung, not to mention the entire “Murphy Brown” news team--roasted him Friars Club-style via video.

Why did Stringer get the award?

“He never distinguishes between race, creed, religion; he sees potential Nielsen viewers everywhere,” cracked Burt Reynolds.

“My theory,” offered Candice Bergen as Murphy Brown, “Macaulay Culkin’s busy.”

Stringer has been involved with such organizations as United Cerebral Palsy, the American Women in Radio and Television Foundation, People for the American Way, the Gateway America Committee and the Media Partnership for a Drug Free America.

Still, he allowed, it was his wife, Dr. Jennifer Patterson, a dermatologist who has worked with AIDS patients, “who is actually the only, the true, humanitarian with a capital H.”