On Track at Santa Anita Luncheon
After tracking reindeer during December, the social crowd zoomed to Santa Anita the day after Christmas to track the ponies.
Fog may have obscured the tops of the San Gabriel Mountains, but it didn’t dampen enthusiasm in the Directors’ Room, where Santa Anita CEO Robert P. Strub of San Marino and his wife, Betty, hosted their annual opening-day luncheon.
Attending for the first time as president and CEO of the Santa Anita Operating Co. was Stephen Keller of Hancock Park, with his wife, Sally. Marion Jorgensen, looking fit after surgery, was accompanied by her husband, Earle.
(The next night, the Jorgensens were at the Bel-Air Bay Club in pouring rain, attending the wedding reception for 500 guests of Carol Facey and Stephen Watkins. Stephen’s uncle, U.S. Secretary of Energy James Watkins, was a special guest at the wedding, too, and Earle Jorgensen was reminded that he had nominated Watkins for the Naval Academy through a then-Democrat, Ronald Reagan.)
At Santa Anita, the fashion to wear was wool houndstooth. Bob Strub, Steve Keller and Marion Jorgensen all did. Hannah Carter was super-svelte in a blue Adolfo plaid fringed suit, eating desserts with Andrea Van de Kamp, also in a pretty plaid.
Charles and Pat Bakaly and Peter and Pam Mullin seemed to be doing very well on their bets, looking closely at Irish horses. The crowd came from everywhere: Lotsie and Fielder Webster from Palm Beach, Fla.; Clement and Lynn Hirsch and Jan and William Baker from Newport Beach; Sheila and Walter Hoffman from Ventura.
More in the crowd: Mary and Arthur Crowe, Jackie and Peter Dailey, Barbara and Felix McGinnis, Mary and Phil Hawley, Alyce and Warren Williamson, Karl Sammuelian, Jean Smith of San Marino and actor Eddie Albert, John Strub, Grace and Fred Ryan, Clifford and Karen Goodrich, Robert Flannes and Margarita and Frank Kanne.
HOST OF YEAR: Henry T. Segerstrom, Orange County entrepreneur and philanthropist, has been named Host of the Year by Les Dames de Champagne, International Hostesses. He’ll be crowned at the 28th Bal Masque Twelfth Night party Monday in Le Grand Trianon at the Regent Beverly Wilshire. It’s a “masque and black-tie” soiree.
DEBUTANTE TEA: First the young women stood with their nosegays in the long line to be introduced to all guests. Then they mingled around the tea table at Ernestine Avery’s home in Pasadena for the cucumber sandwiches and lemon bars.
It’s a ritual--the Christmas tea honoring the June debutantes of the Pasadena Guild of Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles. Of the 19 debutantes, five have grandmothers who are guild members--Sarah Jordan (her grandmother is Ruth Davis), Jennifer Braun (Ginie Braun), Angela Newell (Mary Newell), Cameron Dillavou (Polly McCaslin) and Leith Connell (Fran Hazeltine). The ball and presentation will be June 20 at the Ritz-Carlton, Huntington Hotel. Other debutantes will be Sarah Pillsbury, Leigh McCarthy, Pamela Livingstone, Jennifer Zapanta, Marcy Shugert, Hilari Andrews, Carolyn Barrett, Emily Duker, Megan Larson, April Danz, Eileen Conn, Amy Condon, Jane Belmont and Jennifer Brian.
Doris Ann Williams planned the tea. Pouring were guild past presidents, including Isabel Arnett, Kelsey Hall, Nancy Payne and Helen Whitehead.
SALUTE TO BOB: Jackie and Gene Autry and Beverly and Buddy Rogers have been on the phones as honorary chairs for the “Salute to Bob Hope and the Golden Days of Comedy” Saturday at the Marriott Hotel Grand Ballroom in Palm Springs.
The Palm Springs Desert Tent 66 of Variety Children’s Charities is staging the affair. Former Ambassador to Great Britain Walter Annenberg and U.S. Secretary of Energy James Watkins are expected to attend.
ENGAGED: Pretty Nancy Davis is wearing an oval diamond, and she and Ronald Arnault, Arco executive vice president and the chairman of the board of governors of the Music Center, are planning a wedding Feb. 1 in San Marino Community Presbyterian Church.
KICKOFFS: Linda Lore, president and CEO of Giorgio Beverly Hills, hosted a private cocktail reception on Rodeo Drive honoring the 1992 co-chairs for the YWCA of Los Angeles President’s Circle. They’re Lois Linkletter and Keith Kieschnick. . . .
Marjorie Lord Volk, chairman of the 1991 Scripter Award Selection Committee for the Friends of the USC Libraries, hosts a tea Saturday to announce winners to be recognized Feb. 1 at the black-tie gala in the Doheny Memorial Library on campus.
OFFICIAL: Before they left for Aspen and the snow, Pam and Peter Mullin revealed that the blankets donated by friends at their Christmas party reached a total of 650. They’ve gone to Covenant House and Catholic Adoptive Families.
PAST PERFECT: Lee Minnelli’s Christmas luncheon at the Bistro Garden.
PAST IMPERFECT: When Nancy McCullough agreed to co-host a Christmas tea with Carlotta Keely and her daughter, Ann, little did she know that all three of the McCullough youngsters--Joe, Tom and Alice--would end up with sneezes and coughs and miss the three-generation fun.
