City of Angles

Speaking Up for Valenti

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Lively chatter lured guests down the hall, a corridor accented by a Picasso vase, a Lichtenstein and dozens of pre-Columbian artifacts, into a living room crowded with household names. There were fresh white orchids and plump garden roses in crystal vases everywhere. Kirk Douglas greeted newcomers with: “I’m the host, you have to say hello to me!” He opened his arms to everyone who came through. In one corner, Charlton Heston chatted with Lew Wasserman’s widow, Edie Wasserman. Richard Crenna and Barbara Sinatra stood nearby. A moment later, Suzanne Pleshette walked in with a joke. “My husband and I are separated,” she said. “I’m here and he’s still at the door.”

Near the Toulouse-Lautrecs, Maria Shriver chatted up guest of honor Jack Valenti. It was Tuesday night at the Beverly Hills home of Douglas and wife Anne, who held the evening party to celebrate the new and updated paperback edition of Valenti’s 1982 hardcover: “Speak Up With Confidence: How to Prepare, Learn, and Deliver Effective Speeches” (Hyperion). From 1963 to 1966, Valenti was in charge of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s speeches. (He resigned from that post for his current position as president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America.)

One anecdote in the book details a November 1963 incident of stage fright suffered by famous orator John F. Kennedy at a dinner for a longtime congressman.

“When he started speaking, I could not help watching his right hand. It was trembling, rapidly, ceaselessly,” Valenti writes.

In the book’s final chapter, Valenti offers grades for public speaking to 12 American presidents. Franklin D. Roosevelt won the highest mark, an A-plus, and Valenti called him “the greatest of all American presidents.” Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy also made Valenti’s honor roll. Richard Nixon earned the lowest, a D for being the “least believable to the public ... a plastic man.” And George W. Bush got a B-plus--for being “a quick learner.”

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Partying to Save the Children

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In Brentwood, at Arianna Huffington’s, Cheryl Saban was signing copies of her new book, “50 Ways to Save Our Children” (Harper Trophy). On an Empire table nearby, a collection of embossed cards bearing factoids about children living in poverty lay spread out under a couple of wine glasses.

On the lobby staircase, Nation contributor and LA Weekly editor-at-large Marc Cooper whispered into Richard Riordan’s ear, while champagne socialists and billionaires (including Haim Saban) milled around below.

After a brief presentation by Cheryl Saban in the library, a group gathered near the piano decorated with a framed photo of Huffington and Bill Maher. Riordan, a veritable one-man band, hugged, air-kissed and delivered zippy one-liners. He told a very involved joke, with himself as a Job-like character asking for God’s help to understand women. He was still joking when he said that he had hired Cooper for the paper he plans to launch. (Cooper, standing nearby, was eager to point out that it really was a joke.)

Caroline Graham, another Riordan pal, came over for a hug. She asked Riordan about the paper. He was talking to a number of people, including William Dean Singleton (chief executive of MediaNews Group Inc.), he told her.

Graham--whose own involvement with the media includes work for Vanity Fair and the Herald Examiner and a marriage to William Graham, Katharine Graham’s son--traded stories with Riordan.

“You know, he is in such a good shape,” Graham said about Riordan, 72, who still plays basketball and goes on extended annual bicycle tours with such people as Tina Brown and Harold Evans, Barry Diller and Diane Sawyer.

Graham told Riordan that her true love was newspapers. The former mayor shared his thoughts on the business: “I’m going to steal all the sex ads from the LA Weekly,” he said.

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