Las Madrinas Debs Show Off Curtsies

At a debutante ball, there are all kinds of curtsies--the deep and the shallow, the elegant and the sporty, the demure and the defiant, the assured and the quivering.

At the Las Madrinas Debutante Ball Saturday in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton, there were all those plus what someone dubbed the “Stanford curtsy.”

And then there was the Melanie Fountain curtsy, which got the biggest applause because Melanie, who has a dislocated knee, did it leaning on her father’s arm.

With nosegays in hand and wearing white laces, taffetas and satins, 33 women--all college freshmen from families from Ventura to Newport--were announced by Stephen Harry Ackerman. The white-tie assemblage of more than 860 friends and relatives applauded.

The event is the oldest and most prestigious debutante ball in the Southland. This one, chaired by Cheryl Baker, is expected to raise more than $550,000 toward the $3-million commitment for the Las Madrinas’ Program of Molecular Pathology at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles.

President CeCe Baise, elegant in a gold-brocade Michael Novarese gown, thanked the audience for its financial gifts providing “Christmas joy.”

Las Madrinas was started in 1933 to support the Childrens Hospital Convalescent Home, which had lost its funding because of the failure of a local bank. The first debutante ball was in 1939.

This year Las Madrinas initiated a pre-ball, under-21 party in the Versailles Room. A band blared, and everyone devoured the smoked sausages in cream. During the earlier long deb photo sessions, Las Madrinas provided diversionary handwriting analysis for the debutantes. “I was told I have a bright future,” Molly Gould said, beaming.

Michael Carney’s Orchestra played as each debutante circled the floor with her father. In keeping with names prominent in history, the first was Shane McCoy, daughter of Peter and Kacey McCoy and granddaughter of Patrick and Patty Doheny, and the last was Jane Belmont, daughter of August and Martyn Belmont.

Leith Connell, whose father, Michael, has headed the Los Angeles Philharmonic and whose late grandfather, John Connell, was president of Childrens Hospital, was among the debs in bustles; others included Jennifer Martin, Christina Overland, Amy Saliba.

At least 10 of the debutantes were daughters of Las Madrinas members, including Carolyn Barrett, Gillian Grant, Marie O’Keefe, Liesel Reinisch and Heather Stoneman. Jane Belmont’s grandmother, Mrs. Gordon Knight Smith, attended; she’s a Las Madrinas founding member. So did Emily Worthington’s grandmother, Emily Lutz Peck, also a member.

Among other debutantes applauded: Sarah Pillsbury, Natalie Conner, Devon Doughty, Kelly Farmer, Brooke Graves, Katherine Hambleton, Sara Hayes, Heather Jones, Ashley Kern, Pamela Livingstone, Caroline Magee, Allison Miller, Sara Moore, Angela Newell, Stefanie Sobelle, Alexis Senter, Amy Schroeder, Caroline Ronus and Rebecca Rogers.

Fashionable and frequently on the dance floor were the hospital’s president, Anne Wilson, Dody and Otis Booth, Frani and Dan Ridder, Richard (chairman of the hospital) and Nancy Call, Susan and Bill Armistead, Nancy and James Birdwell, Chrissy Brant and John Welborne, Dr. Allen and Weta Mathies, Charles and Nancy Munger, Peter and Louise Reich, Bill and Susan Hull, Susan (deb chairman) and Llewellyn Miller and Kevin and Mary O’Connell.