In Hard Times, Some Risks Are Worth It

In past years, corporations gave to nonprofit museums and charities without expecting much in return. With downsizing rampant, corporations find themselves squeezed on gifts. Charities find themselves talking with corporate “marketing departments.” And, that, said I. Michael Heyman, secretary, Smithsonian Institution, can present a problem in ethics and morality.

But, he also noted in his address at the Associates of Caltech annual dinner, “I consider it a breakthrough to benefit from these monies. . . . There are many risks worth taking as we recast ourselves for another century.” And, he said, “We must protect the content of exhibitions. . . . No manner of money should be able to shape the course of an exhibition.”

Heyman said the Smithsonian has a $460-million budget. It will open its 150th-anniversary tour next year in Los Angeles with 300 treasures, including the Wright Brothers’ plane.

Associates President Warren Schlinger and his wife, Katie, and Caltech President Tom Everhart and his wife, Doris, greeted guests. Preeminent in the gathering was Edward Lewis, the Caltech professor who receives the Nobel Prize in biology Dec. 10 in Stockholm.

Others at the sit-down dinner at the Caltech Athenaeum were Joe and Alice Coulombe; Ed Stone; Caltech physics professor and director of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with his wife, Alice, Ron and Jane Olson (he was home from shooting pheasant in Iowa), Maarten and Corrie Schmidt, Howard and Ilene Marshall, Bob and Sandy O’Rourke, Inez and Bill Pickering and Mary and Art Crowe.

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It’s Family: What counts is family. That was the message at the Scout Family Awards Dinner in the Crystal Ballroom of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Event chairman Richard T. Schlosberg III, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, and dinner co-chairmen Ray Martin and Keith W. Renken, all dedicated to the Scouting movement, chose to salute three families with values Scouts cherish. Honored were Carlton J. Jenkins, Franklin E. Ulf and Daniel D. Villanueva and their families, who received Waterford crystal pieces.

The night’s format was unique. Laraine Day and Mario Machado read interviews with the families that had been conducted earlier. John T. Cardis planned the presentation. A nice $150,000 net is predicted.

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Amazing Autry: You should have seen Gene Autry at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage the other night--greeting the whole Texas King family (the evening’s honorees), thanking gala chair Mike Bowlin, thanking the crowd for bidding nearly $80,000 in the live auction.

“We’re all family,” said the museum’s executive director Joanne Hale. It was a big family--500 guests raising nearly $500,000.

Spotted: Jackie Autry, Gene and Joanne Falk, Sheldon and Brigitte Stanfill, Robin and Bob Paulson, Sam and Mary Helen Bell, Ila Clement (fourth generation King Rancher), actress Christina Paine, Fred and Kathleen Allen, June and Paul Ebensteiner, Doreen and Jim McElvany and actor Richard Farnsworth.

The auctioned Colt revolver went for $15,000 before the New Chordettes sang. The Western Heritage Awards were presented to the King Ranch family and the Los Angeles Times.

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Memorable: Guests raved about Mark Daukas’ life-sized ice sculpture depicting Lalique crystal at the sit-down dinner honoring Madame Marie-Claude Lalique of Paris at the new Lalique Beverly Hills boutique. The Fashion Circle of Los Angeles County Museum of Art hosted the affair. While meeting Gerard Tavenas, president director general of Lalique, and Yves Coleon, president, Lalique, U.S., Fashion Circle members Eva Elkins, Barbara Namerow and Nancy Weakley also viewed and purchased Lalique crystal jewelry, never before sold in Beverly Hills.

The Talk: Everyone’s chatting about the fabulous show of California impressionist Guy Rose at the Irvine Museum in Irvine. A must-see.

Elsewhere on the Social Circuit

* When you consider all the good work community leaders do in fund-raising, it’s pretty amazing: Shel Ausman, Music Center Unified Fund Campaign chairman, recently announced $10,020,000 raised . . . Factt ’95 (Freeman Aces Cancer Tennis Tournament), with grand support from the Larry Freeman family and Freeman Cosmetics, produced nearly $330,000 for the USC / Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center . . . Las Floristas presented $317,000 from its Floral Headdress Ball to its disabled children’s clinics at Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center (with Marlene Chumo, Carolyn Stockwell and Julie Muelder presenting the check) . . . The Fashion Industries Guild of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center honored clothing manufacturers Karen and Lonnie Kane at a dinner gala. Guild president Kenneth Weinbaum presented the night’s proceeds, $500,000, to Cedars.

* The Arcadia Methodist Hospital’s Patient Tower Campaign has more than $6 million toward its $8-million goal. The “Crystal Ball” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion honored Roger and Lilah Stangeland . . . Mayfield Junior School Board of trustees is moving ahead on a $1.5-million capital campaign for a facility to be built for the 1997-’98 academic year . . . UCLA received $110.1 million in private gifts and grants during its recent fiscal year.

* Plaudits: To Dr. Beth Karlan, named recipient of Cedars-Sinai’s first research chair for gynecological oncology and feted by Bulgari Beverly Hills at the Peninsula Hotel (Marion Laurie, Sandra Krause and Renette Ezralow were event chairwomen) . . . To Tony Bennett, by the National Italian American Foundation . . . Sherwood Schwartz by the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild . . . Paul Reiser by Friends of Julia Ann Singer Center . . . Lynn Redgrave by Parkinson’s Disease Foundation . . . Daniel P. Garcia by Project Restore.