WORLD CUP : A Big Part of the Fun and Games Is Off the Field : The playoffs and championships have set off a round of chichi parties and social events. But will the sport's cachet stick?

WORLD CUP : A Big Part of the Fun and Games Is Off the Field : The playoffs and championships have set off a round of chichi parties and social events. But will the sport’s cachet stick?

By RENEE TAWA

June 16, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

It’s time for the World Cup “Great Gatsby” party with twin white baby-grand pianos at the Ritz-Carlton Huntington; for party planners in Bel-Air to order the post-game salmon en croute ; for classic Ferraris to shimmy down Colorado Boulevard and Rodeo Drive in the name of soccer. And oh, by the way, the games are coming up too.

Suddenly, soccer is high-class, a curiosity-turned-extravaganza in an area where “corner kick” usually refers to the local bar.

The World Cup playoffs and championships--which run from Friday through July 17 in nine U.S. cities, including Pasadena--are spinning off a chichi-event circuit featuring unlikely bedfellows such as hip-hop aerobics teachers, world-class opera tenors and Motown bands.

In the blink of a bad goalkeeper’s eye, the game’s image is changing from brawling, face-painted fans and children’s leagues to bourgeois spectacle. Jay Leno joshes with U.S. soccer player Alexi Lalas on “The Tonight Show,” director Spike Lee throws a fund-raising party for Cameroon’s World Cup team, and Beverly Hills preps for the city’s daily World Cup celebrations.

“You’ll see people who don’t even know about soccer, and they’ll be (around) just to be there,” said soccer fan Giovanni Degidio, owner of Wise Guys restaurant in Old Pasadena. “It’s a happening, know what I mean?”

Pasadena is awash in bright banners for the World Cup, the largest single sporting event in the world. Eight of 52 games, including the championship, will be played at the Rose Bowl; each game is expected to draw more than 100,000 people. The championship game alone is expected to draw 2 billion TV viewers; by contrast, last year’s Super Bowl in Pasadena attracted a TV audience of 750 million.

Private World Cup parties will entertain celebrants at exclusive locales throughout the Los Angeles area, from museums to mansions. EventWorks, a professional Los Angeles-based party planner, is putting on several World Cup parties, including a “Hollywood Hills producer” theme party at a Bel-Air estate.

At the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel, World Cup sponsors will celebrate at a “Great Gatsby” party, and at the Huntington Library, two corporate museum sponsors are throwing private affairs.

Then there’s the “Encore--The Three Tenors” concert on July 16 at Dodger Stadium, featuring Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti, with a top ticket price of $1,000.

The World Cup farewell party is a $1-million Mardi Gras-themed bash on the back lot of Universal Studios. Tickets for the July 17 party are $150.

Soccer fan Mike Tatikian can’t believe how far the game’s standing has come.

“One-million-dollar party?” wondered Tatikian, owner of Pro Soccer Shop in Pasadena and a former professional soccer player in Lebanon. “I said ‘Gosh! Look at that!’ ”

But after World Cup leaves town, some wonder whether the sport’s cachet will fade as suddenly as it came, just another flavor of the month.

“Will it be hip for Jack Nicholson to be at the Coliseum watching some semipro team?” asked South Pasadena resident Jack Donovan, a 15-year coach for the American Youth Soccer Organization. “I think the glamour will take years to come.”