ABT Gala to Inaugurate Ballet Season

The American Ballet Theatre is coming to town with all bugles blasting. The Los Angeles American Ballet Theatre Gala on March 4 (at the Beverly Wilshire) will kick off the 1985 Los Angeles season (opening March 5 at the Shrine) with a flourish. How could it not when First Lady Nancy Reagan is the gala’s honorary chairman and Mikhail Baryshnikov, ABT’s artistic director, will probably be the gala’s shy and highly pursued main attraction. The party will have some exciting entertainment, but at this stage the details are still a bit hazy.

Co-chairing the kickoff gala are Mrs. Larry Yust and Mrs. Michael Dart on behalf of the Music Center Dance Presentations. The co-chairmen are Count and Countess Frederic Chandon de Briailles (the count’s Moet & Chandon is underwriting the gala) and Richard Cohen.

This town, it seems, is packed with balletomanes. And enough of them raised their hands and volunteered to serve on the gala committee to make it a pretty impressive package. In their ranks are, among others, Mr. and Mrs. Norman Lear, Nora Kaye and Herb Ross, Mrs. Walter Annenberg, Mr. and Mrs. Dimitri Skouras, the Stanley Sheinbaums, Wendy and Leonard Goldberg, San Francisco publisher Charles Thieriot, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Moses, Lynda Palevsky, Douglas S. Cramer, Felisa and Nick Vanoff, the Peter Kellers, Lloyd Rigler, Mr. and Mrs. William A. Migst, the Charles Schneiders, and Mr. and Mrs. Guy Claire.

The entertainment is going to be multifaceted at the California Institute for Cancer’s Epicurean Ball 1985, which takes place at the Century Plaza’s Los Angeles Ballroom on Feb. 9. All proceeds will go to the Jonson Comprehensive Cancer Clinic at UCLA.

Now pay attention to the lineup. The dinner show will feature singer Vic Damone as well as ventriloquist Willie Tyler and his partner, Lester. Howard Keel, the evening’s master of ceremonies, will make sure that all works out. The before-dinner entertainment will be of a different nature. But, then, maybe you’ve already guessed.

In 16 festively decorated mini-kitchens some professional cooks and some people you never knew could cook will be demonstrating their culinary skills. Showing off is what it’s going to be. As for the lineup, it will include Steve and Jayne Meadows Allen working together to prepare meatball soup; Olympic champs Mitch Gaylord, John Naber and Cathy Rigby preparing garlic cheese rounds, five-ring chicken and lemon bread. Consumer advocate David Horowitz will “fight back” with shrimp a la David. Better like it. Marion Cunningham, author of the “Fanny Farmer Cookbook,” will put together a lemon angel food custard cake; Madame Sylvia Wu, owner of Wu’s Garden, will toss her famous Chinese chicken salad; French chef Jacques Pepin will flame crepes suzettes, and Connie Stevens is still trying to decide what she wants to excel in. But Roy Yamaguchi, head chef at 385 North, has decided on appetizers al fresco, and actor Cornel Wilde will dip strawberries into chocolate. More wanting to get into the act are Henri Temianka, director-founder of the Los Angeles Chamber Music Society, who is preparing Wiener schnitzel; Italian chef Giuliano Bugialli, who will prepare pasta with Italian parsley, and--wouldn’t you know--Morey Amsterdam, who will fling together crazy eggs and Chinese enchiladas. The Century Plaza’s executive chef, Raimund Hofmeister, is another who hasn’t settled on a recipe. But we do know restaurant owner Victoria Bolker’s choice is shaggy carrot cookies, and that actors Doug Barr and Clare Kirkconnell will collaborate on goat cheese-stuffed chicken breasts.

Pulling this lively do together are event chairman Edward White plus Joseph Baird, Jean Hale Coleman, Ralph Harris, Arlene Gayler, Connie Keiter, Mark Hancock, coordinator Lisa Jacks Lazar, Allan Jonas, George Nicholaw and ever so many more. The generous folk who are acting as kitchen sponsors and benefactors include Joseph Alibrandi of the Whittaker Corp., Robert O. Anderson of Atlantic Richfield, Dr. Armand Hammer of Occidental Petroleum, Henry Salvatori, Holmes Tuttle, Gen. Laurence Oppenheimer, Henry Mudd, Cyril Nigg. And also the Commercial Aluminum Cookware Co. and Hughes Aircraft Co.

The Social Scramble: Huddling over breakfast at Washington’s Embassy Row, First Son Michael Reagan, the Rev. Donn D. Moomaw and the Rev. Billy Graham. We’d give a lot to find out what they were discussing.

Patricia (Tish) Nettleship relaxes from her job (she runs a major engineering firm) by skiing (her next foray is to Switzerland) or by giving small dinner parties at the Spanish Colonial dream of a house she bought from Mary Anita Loos, the author. (Mexican singer Jose Mejia lived there long ago before Mary Anita’s father, the founder of Ross-Loos, bought it.) The last time around, Tish’s guests included producer Sherry Lansing; Tony and Beegle Duquette, who drove in from Palm Springs; Tish’s mother-in-law Irma Nettleship, the dean of book publicists, Jay Allen, and Mary Anita Loos, who brought her hostess a copy of her aunt Anita Loos’ last book (published posthumously), “Fate Keeps On Happening: Adventures of Lorelei Lee and Other Writings.” After dinner everybody played Trivial Pursuit.

If you hadn’t known better you might have thought the crowd (about 2,000) serpentining down the block and around the corner was waiting to get into a movie. Wrong. It was a preview party for Helmut Newton’s “Private Property” (a portfolio collection of 45 original photographs) hosted by the G. Ray Hawkins Gallery and Gisela Gutman at the gallery.