Here’s to Noel Coward: Center Theatre Group and Pals Join in Toast

“I went to a marvelous party. I must say the fun was intense. We all had to do what the people we knew would be doing a hundred years hence. . . .”

--Noel Coward

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Wouldn’t Noel Coward have loved what people are doing--celebrating the centennial of his birth?

The renowned playwright-composer-lyricist-actor-novelist, who often called himself “that rather splendid old Chinese character actress,” died in 1973. He would be 100 years old Thursday.

Center Theatre Group joined the yearlong international celebration of Coward’s career with a paean to his words and music Dec. 6 at the Mark Taper Forum. The eighth annual Salon (which provides tickets to those who cannot afford them) at the Taper, “A Marvellous Party,” was produced by Susan Clines, directed by Gordon Hunt and hosted by Michael Feinstein. Several stars who knew Coward performed, including singer Marilynn Lovell and her husband, Peter Matz, pianist and conductor for Coward’s legendary Las Vegas appearance in 1955.

The cast was impressive: Tammy Grimes, who won a Tony for “Private Lives,” Coward’s friend and biographer, Sheridan Morley, Ian Abercrombie and Kirk Douglas, who charmed with a reading of Coward’s poem “The Boy Actor.” Also on stage: Nikki Crawford, Nancy Dussault, Lauren Libaw, Vickilyn Reynolds, Douglas Sills, Anna Gunn, Alistair Duncan, Center Theatre Group’s artistic director, Gordon Davidson (who delivered Coward’s hilarious plea “Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs. Worthington”).

So who stole the show?

Coward, of course, in vintage film clips singing his old warhorses “Nina (from Argentina)” and “Mad Dogs and Englishmen.”

After final curtain call, Salon co-chairs Maria Hummer and Bob Tuttle led guests to a party with the cast at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion’s Impresario Room.

Spotted in the crowd were Center Theatre Group stalwarts Audrey and Charles Kenis, Betsy and Harold Applebaum, Felisa Vanoff, Julie Haggerty, Richard Kagan, Pat and Walter Mirisch, Lee and Larry Ramer, Diane and Leon Morton, Patty and Rick Wilson, Phyllis and Michael Hennigan, Lillian and Jon Lovelace, Louise and Barry Taper, Fred Ulrich, Martin Massman, Ann and Steve Hinchliffe, Doris Roberts, Frances Brody and Martin Manulis. Morley made the rounds trading Coward anecdotes: “Noel has no ‘place’ in the history of the British theater,” he said, “because he is British theater.”

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What do a kid from Bombay, a girl singer from South Los Angeles and an Irish kid from Alhambra have in common?

Los Angeles.

Zubin Mehta, Ginny Mancini and Peter Mullin all “made it” here. Their names have become synonymous with support of L.A.’s performing arts. That’s why the Heritage of the Performing Arts Center of L.A. County honored them at its third annual Heritage Salutes Dinner last week at the California Club.

Long-planned by Heritage chairwoman Alyce de Roulet Williamson with honorary Heritage co-chairs Caroline Ahmanson, Hannah Carter, Diane Disney Miller and Barry Taper, the date coincided with the second “groundbreaking” for the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Michael York emceed the evening, which featured vocalist Monica Mancini, daughter of the honoree and the late composer Henry. “I know that when my family walks up the Mancini Pageant Staircase on the opening night of Disney Hall,” said Ginny Mancini, “Henry will be right there with us every step of the way.”

“What’s a guy like me doing here?” asked Mullin. Easy: Under his leadership, the Music Center Foundation has raised more than $38 million in three years. “I like to think I’m here on behalf of the hundreds of men and women who contribute the talent of volunteering,” Mullin said. “I accept this award on behalf of their spirit. We make a living by what we earn, but we make a life by what we give.”

Mehta, who conducted the first performance of the L.A. Philharmonic in the newly opened Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Dec. 6, 1964, fondly recalled the late Dorothy “Buff” Chandler, whose dogged determination made the Music Center a reality.

Many of the 250 who attended the event were volunteers who toted Buff Chandler’s famous “buck bags” nearly four decades ago. They raised more than $1 million, a buck at a time, to build the Center.

Patt Diroll’s column is published Tuesdays. She can be reached at pattdiroll@earthlink.net.