A Homecoming for Junior League
It’s finally settled. The Junior League of Pasadena has been chosen to stage the first gala at the new Ritz-Carlton, Huntington Hotel in Pasadena. It will deliver a double whammy on March 9: “Center Stage,” a fashion luncheon for 1,000, and a black-tie fashion gala the same evening for 800, both in the elegant ballroom.
“We’re coming home,” said league spokeswoman Joan Cathcart. She notes that the jazzy benefit has been staged the last several years at the Westin Bonaventure. Lynn McCarthy is general chairman, appointed by president Joan Fauvre. Last year’s benefit raised $130,000. “We’re looking for $167,000 this year,” Cathcart said.
The hotel management had hoped to open Jan. 15, though the promised delivery date was always March 1, hotel spokesman Maria Ramsey says. A fancy ribbon-cutting will mark the official opening.
For some groups, the hotel completion date will come too late. The Huntington Medical Research Institutes originally sent out “Save the Date” cards for their “Heartstrings” dinner-dance Feb. 16, announcing it would be in the Ritz’s Viennese Room, which will seat about 350. Now the party, honoring “Dr. Richard J. Bing--His Medicine and His Music,” will be at the Valley Hunt Club in Pasadena.
AWARE: From the beginning four years ago, the hope was to create a greater awareness and sensitivity to the needs of Asian-American actors. And that is why Asian Pacific American Friends of Center Theatre Group was so pleased to be celebrating at the gala performance of “The Wash” by Philip Kan Gotanda last week at the Mark Taper Forum. Many of the group’s 300 members were at the theater and later viewed city lights at the Gold Circle Patrons and Gala Sponsors champagne reception honoring Gotanda at the City Club on Bunker Hill.
Noting the camaraderie that has accompanied the founding, City News Service Executive Vice President Yet Lock, said, “Yes, it has been fun.” He is Chinese American and has headed the Friends’ executive committee two years. City Councilman Michael Woo is honorary chairman.
Because of city demographics, the idea for the group was broached by banker Henry Hwang. His son is playwright David Henry Hwang, author of the Tony Award-winning “M. Butterfly.”
Lock noted the first benefit was to raise funds for the production of “Sansei” at the Mark Taper Forum. Friends also have sponsored readings, presented playwrights Hwang as a speaker and Gotanda in dialogue, held a round-table discussion with “Miss Saigon” artistic, literary and casting officials as a consequence of the controversy over underemployment of Asian actors, and hosted sessions on equality and stereotyping. By summer, Friends hope to be involved in a showcase of Asian classics that will feature works never performed in this country.
AIDS GALA: Around Valentine’s Day, fashion legend Bob Mackie will launch his perfume, “Mackie” (a quarter-ounce will sell for $80) on the market.
But first, on Jan. 29, not in Paris, not in New York, but in Hollywood, there will be a private party at the Arena Night Club on Santa Monica Boulevard. Mackie and Riviera Concepts of America Inc. join Interview Magazine to host the benefit for Childrens AIDS Center at Childrens Hospital.
The fragrance is supposed to be “woody and floral,” presented in multifaceted crystalline bottles, reflecting Mackie’s love of crystal, topped off in Steinway black and simulated ivory to salute the piano.
HOLLYWOOD: More than $380,000 was raised, and Hollywood’s biggest turned out to support Shaare Zedek Hospital of Jerusalem’s “Jerusalem Award” dinner to endow pediatric neurological services at the medical center. Sidney Sheinberg, Lew Wasserman, Jon Slan and Frank Mancuso were all there for Kay Koplovitz, guest of honor and president and CEO of USA Network. Sheinberg and Mancuso were dinner co-chairmen.
SKI-DOWN: Due to Ewing Seligman’s ski accident, resulting in a full arm cast, Chef Dominique Chavanon at Bernard Jacoupy’s Lunaria Restaurant will receive only an extra 19 1/2 pairs of hands (instead of the full 20) at the Planned Parenthood Los Angeles Guild’s 12th annual Men’s Dinner fund-raiser next Sunday. Male friends of the guild assist happily on the event, and the husbands of guild co-chairwomen Lynne Alschuler and Lenny Kelton--Don Alschuler and David Kelton--head the team.
1492-1992: Robert and Beverly Cohen, chairmen of the Sephardic Hebrew Academy’s inaugural banquet Jan. 31 at the Beverly Hilton, are calling the affair “Project Rediscovery: 1492-1992--a Quincentennial Commemoration of the Sephardic Experience.”
To raise scholarships for the academy, they’ll bestow Mauricio Hatchwell Toledano of Madrid, president of the International Jewish Committee-Sephard ‘92, with the Yehuda Halevi Award. Lee Collins, commissioner of the U.S. Presidential Quincentenary Commission, is tribute chairman.
