Barbara Bush Shares Some of Her Pearls

First Lady Barbara Bush kept about 500 party-goers giggling on Tuesday when she spoke at a 5 p.m. benefit reception for Sen. John Seymour at Fluor Corp. in Irvine.

“People are always asking me questions,” confided Mrs. Bush, who wore a flag-red paisley silk frock, simple black silk pumps and her signature pearls.

“And the first question is always, ‘How’s Millie?’ ”

Millie is doing so well, she said, that the book Mrs. Bush penned about her pooch has been translated into Japanese. “Millie is now part of the solution, not the problem,” the First Lady said, smiling. “She’s exporting !”

Another question the First Lady is frequently asked: What’s the most embarrassing thing that has happened to you in the White House?

She explained: “We had a guest at a reception who sat on a table laden with food and it broke and everything went all over the place,” she said. “I thought that was the most embarrassing thing until we went to Japan .”

Still another question she is often asked: What’s the best part of being the wife of the President of the United States? “George Bush, for starters,” she said proudly. “And, like Ronald Reagan said, ‘Being in the White House is like living above the store.’ ”

But the best part right now, she admitted, was “knowing that this is my last campaign.”

Among guests: Donald Bren; Henry and Renee Segerstrom; Al and Deeann Baldwin; Nancy and Jim Baldwin (who staged a dinner party last weekend in their Sun Valley manse for members of the Angels of the Arts, the exclusive, all-women support group of the Orange County Performing Arts Center); J. Robert Fluor--who introduced Mrs. Bush; Lillian Fluor; Orange County Republican Chairman Thomas Fuentes (publicly chided at the event by Mrs. Bush for not welcoming her at her car. “I always welcome her at her car,” Fuentes said later. “But tonight I just ended up here. When Mrs. Bush kissed me, she whispered “Where were you?”); Joy and attorney Ron Lais (a pilot who flew Seymour to Sacramento and Pebble Beach in a private plane on Saturday), and Fluor chairman Les McCraw.

Sly Stallone in Orange County: After the Bush/Seymour bash, some attendees cruised over to Antonello Ristorante at South Coast Plaza Village in Santa Ana for a helping of pasta and the super-buzz: Sylvester Stallone’s visit to Antonello on Friday to promote the new, $2-million West Coast franchise of Planet Hollywood, the New York restaurant he founded with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis. (One guest at Antonello, Henry Segerstrom, beamed when congratulated on landing Planet Hollywood for the Village. “Thank you,” said the managing partner of C.J. Segerstrom & Sons, owner of South Coast Plaza.)

Seems Stallone and pals have agreed to make regular visits to the club when it opens late summer at the old Reuben’s, which closes today.

“I don’t see how it can miss,” said Antonio Cagnolo, owner of Antonello and an investor in the 10,000-square-foot project.

“It will be the perfect spot for people to enjoy before or after theater or just anytime.”

The new nightclub/restaurant will feature menu items such as burgers and pizza. And, along with movie memorabilia (word’s out that Darth Vader’s get-up from “Star Wars” will be among the first items to be exhibited), it will showcase film clips in a musical environment sweetened with movie themes. (Sorry, no dancing at the club.)

Interestingly, it won’t be the food or the libations that will bring in most of the revenue from the 250-seat venue, Cagnolo said. “It will be the the souvenirs--the T-shirts, the jackets, the caps that say, ‘Planet Hollywood South Coast Plaza.’ ” (Move over, Chanel.)

After Stallone pays his Friday visit to Reuben’s to introduce the new site to the media, he will repair to a private room at Antonello for a buffet with local Planet Hollywood investors.

Stay tuned.

Circle 1000 Brunch: Former Giants pitcher Dave Dravecky was the guest speaker at the Circle 1000 brunch Tuesday at the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach.

In 1991, Dravecky lost an arm to cancer. Standing in a ballroom packed with people who, since Circle 1000 was founded five years ago, have donated more than $1 million to the Hoag Cancer Center in Newport Beach, Dravecky told an emotional tale of hope and faith.

“I have hope, and the only real hope I can give back . . . deals specifically with the eternal. As a Christian, I believe with all my heart that no matter what I experience . . . I will have eternal life with God the Father. Because of that, I can go through this life with cancer and recognize that people can be comforted through my experience.”

Amen.