Julio’s Love Serenade Wows and Woos ‘Em

Never mind all the girls he’d loved before.

The girls he’d only just met had it pretty good when pop star Julio Iglesias mingled with them following his first appearance at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

He mussed their hair, bussed their cheeks, embraced them, cradled their faces in his hands and gave them high-fives during a recent benefit reception at the Center Club in Costa Mesa.

“Powerful,” said a blushing Renee Segerstrom of the smooches the international crooner planted on her cheeks.

The $200-per-person black-tie supper, underwritten by pearl manufacturer Mikimoto, marked the first time the center has invited a star to be featured at a fund-raising event after a performance.

“It was a natural to have this party,” center President Jerry Mandel said. “Julio is so popular. People wanted to meet him.”

Fresh from five sold-out concerts at New York’s Radio City Music Hall--and on his way to an engagement in Las Vegas--the Spanish-born singer thrilled fans with his lush renditions of Latin ballads and American pop hits such as “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”

But not before a display of temper. During his first set, he stopped the show when he sidled up to a musician on keyboard and exhorted him to “play for them!”

The musician played louder. And louder. Pleased, Iglesias told the crowd: “Thank you for taking my bad temper. I feel better.”

The incident was “my problem,” Iglesias, 54, said during the reception. “I wanted more. I’m an artist--have sung for 30 years from here to China. I have to feel music. If not, I die. I don’t need anything else.”

Except for maybe a hug or two. During his 95-minute performance--which included tango exhibitions by Roberto and Guillermena Qioja of Argentina--Iglesias encouraged his audience to be affectionate: “Go straight home,” he said, flashing his famous smile. “I insist you make love tonight!”

At the reception, chaired by Margo Chamberlin of Newport Beach, Iglesias seemed glad that about 150 fans had chosen instead to go straight to the Center Club.

Guests sipped champagne, sampled paella and tasted desserts that included pears poached in port and Chambord. Tables were decked with crushed gold cloths and arrangements of scarlet roses.

“This is a wonderful place,” Iglesias said as flashbulbs exploded around him. “And the theater was also wonderful. I love its acoustics and unique attitude--with four special areas for the audience to sit.”

Among reception guests was former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, with his wife, Lois. “We’ve known Julio for years,” Buzz Aldrin said. “We’ve met him at events around the world.”

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Meeting Debbie Reynolds: Film actress and cabaret performer Debbie Reynolds will meet with fans for a Center Club reception following her performance with the Pacific Symphony at Segerstrom Hall on Nov. 21.

“I always meet with fans when I’m requested,” says Reynolds, 65, star of more than 30 films including “Singin’ in the Rain,” and “How the West Was Won.” “I sign autographs after every one of my Las Vegas shows--at least 600 a day.”

Reynolds’ engagement will mark the first time she has sung with a symphony. Her repertoire will include medleys from movies and Broadway musicals in which she has starred and a tribute to Judy Garland.

“I was a very good friend of Judy’s, and I always wanted to do a little tribute to her,” she says.

Among the numbers: “The Man That Got Away” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

Performing the Garland classic from “The Wizard of Oz” doesn’t intimidate Reynolds, she says: “It’s a tribute. It’s not as if you’re trying to sing like her, because, there isn’t anyone like her.”

Sharing a stage with a symphony orchestra doesn’t worry Reynolds either.

“I played the French horn in the Burbank Symphony for a couple of years, so I have a classical background,” Reynolds says. “I’ve studied music my whole life.”

When she isn’t singing, she’s starring in movies. Recent maternal roles in “Mother” with Albert Brooks and “In & Out” with Kevin Kline have received critical acclaim.

“I enjoy it--love the parts,” says Reynolds who, in the ‘50s and ‘60s played the ingenue in films such as “The Tender Trap” and “The Pleasure of His Company.”

“I’ve been very blessed, lucky,” she says. And she has no plans to stop. “In six years, I haven’t taken any time off.”