RSVP : In Love With Lerner at Taper Salon

As screenwriter Larry Gelbart put it, “It’s time for a love song, a celebration of the songs of Alan Jay Lerner.”

Gelbart’s wife of 38 years, Pat Marshall, sang “My Love Is a Married Man” from the 1945 Lerner and Loewe show “The Day Before Spring,” in which she had starred. She was one among a stellar cast Monday night--Michael Feinstein, who hosted the show; Lindsay Ridgeway, a veteran performer at 8, and Harold Nichols, still dancing like a youth in his 70s. After the show, guests gathered for supper at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Restaurant

The tribute to the life and work of the legendary lyricist was the third annual Salon at the Mark Taper Forum, a sold-out, $200-per-person benefit to support the creative work of the Center Theatre group and to underwrite its ticket discount programs--Public Rush, Pay What You Can, Operation Discovery and special considerations for senior citizens, students and hearing impaired audiences.

The Salon at the Taper series is dedicated to the memory of the late producer Nick Vanoff, a longtime CTG board member.

“Nick Vanoff used to say to me ‘I don’t want to see any empty seats in this theater. We’ve got to find a way to make it possible to fill these seats,’ ” said Gordon Davidson, CTG producing director.

That’s how the discount programs came to be called “Nick’s Ticket,” Davidson said. Vanoff’s wife, Felisa, and son, Nicholas, with Lew Wasserman, are honorary founding co-chairs of the Salons.

The evening’s performance was also dedicated to the late Frank Wells, whose wife, Luanne, came with family and friends. It was recalled that Wells’ contagious enthusiasm for the Salons led him to sing along with the performers.

“I didn’t actually sing, but I was certainly humming,” Betty White said.

Michael Eisner did have to singfor his supper when Joanna Gleason picked him out of the audience to portray one of the knights in the “Camelot” song, “When You May Take Me to the Fair.”

Gleason, pointing out that she was Guinevere, “the queen of England,” asked his name.

“Michael” he replied.

“Michael who?”

“Michael Eisner.”

“Oh, your magic kingdom is bigger than my magic kingdom,” ad-libbed Gleason, who apparently hadn’t recognized the Disney chief.

Nancy Olson Livingston, who was the third of Lerner’s eight wives and mother of his daughters, Jenny and Lisa, reminisced for the audience.

Also present were Lerner’s fourth wife, Michelene, and her son, Michael, and Lerner’s grandchildren, Susannah and Jennifer Olch.

Other guests included Harriett and Armand Deutsch, Mayor Richard Riordan with Nancy Daly, Bud and Cynthia Yorkin, Dina Merrill and Ted Hartley, Lew and Edie Wasserman, and co-chairs Joan Burns and Phyllis Hennigan.