Heady Selection of Spring Activities

Breathe deeply, because spring has popped--with flowers and with a breezy social scene that demands vigor.

Last Friday, the International Committee of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn. tango-ed up a storm at the Regent Beverly Wilshire to honor Argentine Consul General Juan Sola and his wife, Maria.

The night after, it was pick and choose or try to make several parties: At the Museum of Natural History, the city’s social elite gathered at the traditional fund-raising Dinosaur Ball. At the Beverly Hilton, six of the seven offspring of the legendary John Wayne received the coveted Duke Award at the Odyssey Ball of the John Wayne Cancer Institute Auxiliary (Ethan Wayne was on location in Brazil). The affair netted $350,000. And at the Caltech Athenaeum, 250 friends honored Laney and Tom Techentin at a black-tie 25th wedding anniversary dinner.

Earlier in the week, it seemed every coterie in town was initiating command performances. At Bob and Donna Tuttle’s Bel-Air home last Thursday, Marilyn Quayle and her sister, Nancy T. Northcott, acted just like two folksy sisters as they autographed their new book, “Embrace the Serpent.” Then Donna Tuttle whisked them off for an intimate dinner for 12 at the Regency Club.

The night before, Nancy Call invited Banning Residence Museum patrons--the big-money givers--to Tony and Beagle Duquette’s mountaintop home in Bel-Air. The rain was gentle, so guests simply pretended they were in a mild jungle storm and traipsed down steps and over stones in the canyon patios to see Tony’s pagodas, palms and stupendous night-lighted pine trees.

There was a reason: Call wanted to say that the 100-year-old wisteria at Banning, in Wilmington, is in bloom. So is the rose garden. It’s time for the museum to celebrate nature and California history with the biennial three-day floral festival--Floriade III--showcasing floral, landscape and interior designers May 1-3. The Floriade III gala will be April 30. Floriade posters--pretty prints of Banning Residence--which arrived recently in tubes, have sent everyone to the framers.

ELITE HONOREES: Last week, too, if you weren’t honored, you might have acquired an inferiority complex.

At the Museum of Contemporary Art, director Richard Koshalek hosted an intimate luncheon to honor kinetic sculptor George Rickey on his 85th birthday. Marlene and Sandy Louchheim followed Saturday, feting Rickey and his wife, Barbara, at a cocktail reception for 175 at their home in Beverly Hills . . . .

At the Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles Times Syndicate columnist Liz Smith put on a big smile to receive “The Silver Screen Award” for excellence in entertainment journalism from Tichi Wilkerson Kassel and Howard W. Koch. (The luncheon benefited Wilkerson Foundation and Motion Picture Television Fund) . . . .

At a black-tie dinner at the Plaza in New York, Liza Minnelli was asked to announce the National Italian American Foundation scholarship award named for her late father, Academy Award-winning director Vincente Minnelli. His wife, Lee Minnelli of Beverly Hills, attended . . . .

And, at the Regent Beverly Wilshire, at a “Magical Mardi Gras,” a trio--Dr. Howard P. House, Rafer L. Johnson and Judge Joseph A. Wapner--were saluted by Senior Health and Peer Counseling of Santa Monica for giving “selflessly to the community.”

IN TUNE: Also last week, Gov. Pete Wilson stood before 700 at the USC School of Public Administration Ides of March dinner at the Regent Beverly Wilshire to receive the Julius Award for 25 years of outstanding public service. Dinner chair Malcolm R. Currie, Hughes Aircraft’s chairman and CEO, presented the award. Jane Pisano, the school’s dean, announced she was departing from tradition and dispensing with the Ides “roast.”

“We decided that the last thing Pete Wilson needed was to be roasted,” she said. She also announced the planned Center for California, a new USC state policy think tank to be located at the school’s 20-year-old Sacramento Center. Wilson challenged the center to “study ways of making our state--this new Ellis Island--a great human success story.”

BLUE RIBBON: Lightning struck, torrents fell. However, inside the Ahmanson, the Center Theatre Group’s artistic director, Gordon Davidson, extracted insights from Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn at the Music Center Blue Ribbon’s continuing series, “The Other Side of the Curtain.”

Said Tandy, when asked about the couple’s lifetime of acting together: “It’s always been a pleasure in between the times when it is absolute hell.” Later, Ann Johnson concocted a brilliant tea with an English-garden motif for about 200 Ribbon members, including Sandra Ausman and Lili Zanuck, co-producer of “Driving Miss Daisy,” which starred Tandy. The tea was so successful that the cucumber sandwiches were depleted mid-meal.

BRAND NEW: Adrienne and Maurice Hall hosted cocktails in Beverly Hills to honor the National Health Foundation’s new support group, the Fellows. Members plan to promote effective health care delivery and preventive care . . . . 435 North Restaurant/Bar in Beverly Hills staged a private gala opening . . . .

The JSEI Affiliates recently formed as a volunteer support group for the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA.

In recognition of her breakthrough work leading to discovery of the gene responsible for retinitis pigmentosa, Debora Farber, an institute resident scientist, received the first achievement award at the group’s first membership luncheon at the Westwood Marquis.

Gerald Oppenheimer, son of the late Doris Stein (wife of Jules), amused the audience with recollections of his mother’s friendly hat competition with the late movie columnist Hedda Hopper.