Tips From a Matchmaker

Matchmaker Dianne Bennett is running late, held up by her clients--two soul-mate seekers reluctant to be left alone on their blind date at Arnie Morton’s of Chicago. It’s Monday night, just three days shy of the lonely heart’s longest day. She calms, reassures and gets going. For Bennett, it’s business as usual.

This love doctor is more Mae West than blushing cherub. When she enters a room, her white-blond mane, throaty laugh and forceful personality get attention. “It’s called being an opener,” she said. “I’m here! And life is fabulous!”

Bennett is the owner of Dianne Bennett Matchmaker, Beautiful Women/Successful Men, a service she founded in 1990. For a retainer fee in “the thousands,” Bennett will introduce men to the women they choose from Bennett’s photographs of eligible models, actresses and heiresses. She won’t name names, but boasts a client list of several “movie stars,” a brain surgeon, two college presidents, a lottery winner and an Asian head of state. (“Do you know how many unhappy billionaires there are?” she asks.)

This night appears to be short on billionaires and heiresses. But Bennett dutifully treks from the date in West Hollywood to a Sherman Oaks party, where a modest crowd of young, mostly single professionals are doing their best to mingle over paper plates full of homemade pasta. Bennett is there to size them up. “Somebody is going to be a client,” she says confidently.

She’s greeted with hugs and kisses and immediately is introduced to an eligible young plastic surgeon. She coos when she hears his profession, but doesn’t linger.

Bennett herself has had a number of professions: Beverly Hills meter maid, assistant to TV gossip reporter Rona Barrett, caustic music-industry gossip columnist for the Hollywood Reporter.

Now Bennett works the city’s constant parade of movie premieres, celebrity charity balls and nightclub openings with a different mission, but a well-practiced technique that might well serve as advice to others looking to make a match. “You stand by the bar and you smile until you think your teeth are going to drop out of your mouth,” she says. “You will meet people!”

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The Many Ways

to Warm a Heart

What do women want? According to a poll by Sherman Oaks shopping mall Fashion Square, mere chocolate won’t do. Baubles, clothes and lingerie top the Valentine’s wish list, the purveyor of baubles, clothes and lingerie found.

Nellie Seddigh, director of Tiffany on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, is not surprised.

“We’re very, very busy around Valentine’s Day,” she said. “I’m not saying it because I’m with the company,” she added, hesitating, “but that little blue box does make hearts beat faster.” Looking for furious palpitations? Last week, a customer bought a $270,000 emerald necklace, Seddigh said. “The message is unique.”

* Heidi’s Off the List

Worried Catholics can rest assured that dinner with Heidi Fleiss will not be on the list of auction items at a Los Angeles area Catholic high school fund-raiser, as had previously been planned. The principal of that private school (the name of which must remain anonymous to protect the innocent) nixed the idea this week after it raised concerns among parents as well as officials at the Los Angeles Archdiocese.

As we reported Friday, the highest bidder at a high school auction was to win dinner for 10 at Halie in Pasadena with Fleiss and boyfriend Tom Sizemore, along with a gift basket that included Fleiss’ signature underwear and a copy of her new book.

Archdiocese officials were so concerned about the auction that they polled officials at their 57 secondary schools to make sure the former Hollywood madam was not a scheduled dinner guest there, a spokesman said. (She wasn’t.)

Fleiss, who was released from federal prison in 1999 after serving 21 months for money laundering and tax evasion, was disappointed to learn she had been dropped as an auction prize. “I wasn’t trying to put myself out there to offend anyone,” she said. “I was just trying to raise money for school ... [but] some people will always view me as the antichrist.”

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Less Than a Ghost

of a Chance

You’re more likely to see a female ghost or angel on prime-time TV than a Hispanic or Native American woman, says a study being circulated by the National Organization for Women.

The 2001 study, by Martha Lauzen of San Diego State University, found that otherworldly characters such as ghosts and angels constituted 3% of the female characters shown during prime-time, while Hispanics constituted only 2% and Native Americans 0.2%.

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City of Angles runs Tuesday through Friday. E-mail: angles @latimes.com.