It Was a Birthday Bash as Energetic as He

John Hotchkis goes through life at a breakneck pace. He’s Mr. Energy--car racing, skiing, riding, traveling nonstop. His contemporaries look on in awe and envy. And his 65th birthday was surely the birthday of the year (the decade?), moving every sedentary type off his duff.

Ladies were poetically advised to wear pastel or white. Black ties were excluded. Instead: blue blazers and white suits for men. Nearly 400 arrived for a summer’s eve at Rancho Los Alamitos in Long Beach, originally a Spanish land grant. Hotchkis’ ancestors bought it to graze sheep, then, lo, oil.

The property is now deeded to the City of Long Beach and is popular on tours. Hotchkis booked the ranch, where his great-grandparents and grandparents lived, for his birthday site. He also booked the Kingston Trio for entertainment and asked Wolfgang Puck to cook up a storm.

His wife Joan did the rest, like the video showing John in the Cresta Run, on skis, surfing, shooting, racing his Porsche, napping. Napping? A cake designed by Rosebud with six pairs of John’s Bennis & Edwards life-size moccasins and the banner, “No one can fill your shoes.” Cocktails on the green among the farm animals with a stilt walker. Vaqueros with banners to guide guests down the drive past hundreds of Japanese white lanterns to the seated dinner under the gigantic twin fig trees John’s grandmother had planted. The horizon of nine statuesque date palms was spectacular with pink lights. After dinner, fireworks spark, with what else? An image of John in a cowboy hat.

Joan Hotchkis also planned the skit. She and John’s sister Joan Hotchkis, the actress, deadpanned in twin red chiffon gowns:

Sister: “Well, I’ve known John since he was a baby.”

Wife: “Well, he’s my baby now!” (Earlier, wife Joan had greeted guests in a stunning Valentino blue organza tiered skirt and Jean-Louis Scherrer white organdy top.)

Friends from the past gathered from afar--Joan Candy from Sun Valley; David Shields from New York (who got John to do the Cresta Run in St. Moritz); oldest friends Walt Candy of Hagerman, Idaho; Hillary Thamer, and Bill Wigmore; Pasadenans Stu and Mollie O’Melveny; and Pat and Missy O’Melveny of San Francisco.

More in the crowd: Gov. Pete and Gayle Wilson; Don and Ann Petroni; Courtney and Sam Halle; Peter and Annette O’Malley; Terry and Debby Lanni; brother Pres Hotchkis and his wife, Maurine; Wallis Annenberg with Jay Tunney; Mary Hayley with Selim Zilkha; Sheldon and Christy Gordon; Dona and Dwight Kendall. Bohemian Grove pals included Ed Majors, George Weigers, Stockton Rush and Tom Rowan. Among the San Francisco contingent were Charlie and Lucinda Crocker; Clark and Merriwether McGettigan; and Dick and Connie Goodyear. Jane Gosden came from Greenwich, Conn.; Jerry and Robin Parsky from Rancho Santa Fe; Arthur and Linda Seeligson from Texas; Leo and Grega Daly from Washington; and John’s daughter, Carey Hotchkis from New York.

More attending: daughter Sarah Ketterer with her husband, Robert; son John and Courtney Hotchkis (youngest son Mark was car racing); sister Kathy and her husband Doug Johnson of Tiberon; UC Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien; Norm and Susie Barker; Bob and Maria Tuttle; Cheryll and Bud Wegge; Bob and Janice Carpenter; Cheryl and Bob Baker.

The honoree reminded his guests that he was older than TV, polio shots, contact lenses, Frisbees, split atoms, ballpoint pens, electric blankets, drip dry, yogurt and “young men who wear earrings.”

With West Coast Music blasting, guest Brad Freeman took the stage for a riotous rendition of “Johnny B. Goode,” with the appropriate chorus of “Go, Johnny, go.”

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Changing Guard: The annual changing of the guard is taking place in Southland organizations, all of them revving up for a busy fall season. Children’s Bureau of Southern California held its joint board of directors and trustees meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel, electing radio personality Roger J. Barkley as president of the board . . . Jan Corey will head the Los Angeles Philharmonic Affiliates as chairman after a celebration at Descanso Gardens headed by Barbara Giampaolo and Rosemary Choate . . . Janet Walther takes over leadership of the National Charity League, Los Angeles Founder chapter, accepting the gavel from Barbara Fountain . . . Ruth Weil assumed the two-year presidency of the John Wayne Cancer Institute Auxiliary at a luncheon at the Regency Club . . . Carol Timiraos has been named president of the San Marino Area Auxiliary for Five Acres, the 108-year-old children’s services agency . . . Virginia M. Wilson will head the 72-year-old Los Angeles Child Guidance Clinic, a South- Central nonprofit outpatient mental health agency serving abused and neglected children.

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Big Spray: Giorgio Boutique on Rodeo Drive and its President Linda LoRe and actor/activist Ted Danson, launched Giorgio’s newest fragrance, Ocean Dream, with a party to support American Oceans Campaign, founded by Danson and dedicated to preserving and protecting the marine environment.

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Kudos: To Steve Tisch and Jamie Alexander, who hosted “A Day for Kids” (hiking, planting trees) for the HELP Group last week at TreePeople in Beverly Hills . . . To Southern California Edison and its chairman John F. Bryson, honored for a $250,000 contribution to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund’s capital campaign goal of $8.5 million to refurbish the landmark Banks Huntley Building purchased for headquarters in 1991.

Elsewhere on the Social Circuit

Plaudits to the Mountains Conservancy Foundation, which has established a new board of trustees and a major fund-raising campaign called “Backbone Trail Completion Campaign.” Gregory Peck will be spokesman for the private campaign to purchase land for parks, trails and open space in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

* Mary Lou Loper’s column is published Sundays.