A line for the Carousel

There was Jay Leno in the Beverly Hilton Hotel lobby, testing his stage material on the arriving crowds. (“From the senior section, ladies and gentleman: Mr. Don Rickles and Mr. Bob Newhart!”) In the dining room, Elton John huddled with fellow Brits Sting and Elizabeth Hurley. Down the hall, Sidney Poitier smiled graciously as a guest told the actor that his role in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” changed his life. Hotel owner and resident Merv Griffin watched the crowd and quipped, “People come to this event from around the world, and I come downstairs.”

The event was the the biennial Carousel of Hope Ball, held Tuesday night. And there, in a cloud of glitter-shot pink chiffon designed by Oscar de la Renta, her neck and ears dripping with “40-year-old” diamonds and rubies, stood the evening’s hostess, Barbara Davis. “I wanted to feel like a fairy princess,” said the 71-year-old wife of Denver oilman Marvin Davis. On this night, Davis was as close to royalty as an American billionaire gets. That is, Hollywood deemed her party the (non-Oscar-related) event of the season and turned up in droves. More than 100 people were on the waiting list, ready to spend $5,000 per ticket.

The gala is considered the world’s premier fundraiser for childhood diabetes. Since its inception in 1978, it has raised more than $60 million for the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes in Denver, which treats 4,000 children each year. Tuesday’s ball, attended by an estimated 1,300 people, raised $4.5 million.

Eventually everyone moved into the palatial ballroom, where the chairs and tables were covered in pink satin. The Davises sat with their favorite A-listers. To their right was Elton John. To their left was Oprah Winfrey, who introduced the hostess. “Barbara, girl, you know how to throw a fancy-shmancy party!” she said from the stage.

Davis took the podium, rattled off several famous names in attendance, sighed dramatically and said, “It’s overwhelming!” She went on to explain her devotion to the cause. “We won’t accept blindness,” she said of the potential ravages of diabetes. “We will not accept the loss of limbs!”

Just then, the notoriously late Elizabeth Taylor, carrying a copy of her new book, “Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair With Jewelry,” made her way through the crowd with her dermatologist, Arnold Klein. While hundreds of guests dined on sirloin, “Dame Liz” picked at a custom-ordered cheeseburger.

Suddenly, midway through B.B. King and Kelsey Grammer’s performance of “Let the Good Times Roll,” Lakers owner Jerry Buss’ head fell to his chest and he turned stark white. Word spread that he’d had a heart attack. “Is there a doctor in the house?” Grammer shouted. Within moments paramedics arrived. (Later, a spokesman for Buss said that he suffered a pinched nerve in his neck when he turned his head too quickly. He was treated and released from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center the same night.)

As Buss was placed on a stretcher and transported to a waiting ambulance, Elton John looked at Taylor and said, “See, Elizabeth, what you still do to men?”