Cancer Work Benefits From Southern Exposure

Rhett Butlers in every shape and size and Scarlett O’Haras in full-skirted evening gowns flush with petticoats turned out for the “Gone With the Wind” gala staged Saturday by the Huntington Harbour Cancer League.

The ballroom of the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim served as Tara for the league’s Southern-style Debut XVI fashion show and dinner, a benefit for the American Cancer Society, Orange County Region. With more than 400 guests paying $125 each to attend and with proceeds from a live and silent auction, the benefit was expected to net about $150,000 for the society’s early detection programs, patient services and research.

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Southern Charmers

With so many Scarlett look-alikes fluttering about in curls and flouncy, full-skirted gowns, it was impossible to pick just one belle of the ball.

Debut chairwoman Susan Tomasello made for a fiery red-haired Scarlett complete with an authentic Southern accent.

“I’m from Georgia. When I accepted [the chairmanship], I began thinking of a Southern theme. Then some friends of mine suggested ‘Gone With the Wind,’ and I figured with the Olympics in Atlanta this year, it would be perfect,” said Tomasello, who wore a deep purple antebellum gown trimmed with white magnolias.

Mike Novak, chairman of the program books, dressed as Rhett in ascot and gray pin-striped suit.

“What does Clark Gable have that I don’t have?” he joked, comparing himself to a cardboard cut-out of Rhett and Scarlett that stood at the ballroom entrance.

Al and Gloria Billings of Rolling Hills were among the well-dressed couples: he as a Union soldier and she in lavender gown with a feathered picture hat.

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Salute to the South

After the reception, guests adjourned to the ballroom for a fashion show produced by Carlton Burnett that featured a musical salute to the South, with dancing showgirls and a showboat. The audience hooted and clapped as league members or their relatives sashayed down the runway modeling clothes from South Coast Plaza.

After the show, party-goers dined at tables decorated with purple cloths and tall silver candelabra adorned with fruit and flowers.

To study up on the South, committee members visited the Road to Tara Museum in Atlanta and toured 14 antebellum homes in Mississippi.

“In each of the homes, there were ladies dressed in costume,” Tomasello said. “We were refreshed by their charming Southern manners.”

Guests dined on Southern fare, including crab cakes, roasted pepper bisque with scallops, petite filet of beef and sea bass with lobster sauce, and for dessert a pecan tart with bourbon coulis. Then Rhetts grabbed their Scarletts and danced the night away to music by the J. Sterling Orchestra.

The league has about 100 members, all of them from Huntington Harbour.

“We have no outside members, so it’s a very tightknit group,” said Fae Rosen, past gala chairwoman.

Many members have had friends and family stricken with cancer.

“I lost my father to lung cancer, and my mother died of breast cancer,” Tomasello said.

Since 1980, the league has raised about $2.4 million for the American Cancer Society.

“It’s a worthwhile cause,” said Merrill Walstad, league president, accompanied by his wife, Karon. “We all want to whip cancer.”

Others attending were Joyce Weiss, fashion coordinator; Bill Wood; Pat Miller Carr; William and Churee Kakimoto; Bob and Teresa Nichols; Art and Carol Hood; Robert and Mary Maniaci; Phil and Jill Lupton; Don and Ellen Goodwin; Morrie and Karyn Stone; Don and Jeanie Barnett; Frank and Jeannie Gibson; Sheldon and Shell Grossman; Bill and Lorraine McCune; John Bernatz; and Cor and Lauren Claus.