Globe-Trotting for London’s Globe Centre

With the announcement of $1.2 million already raised in the Western United States, Los Angeles this week launched the American celebration and leadership gift appeal for the International Shakespeare Globe Centre in London. The campaign is to rebuild the Globe Theatre on its original site in London. And the Globe’s royal patron, His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was in Our Town and attended a private reception in his honor on Wednesday at the JW Marriott in Century City.

It was a stellar crowd: Malcolm Kingston, chairman, Western Region Board for the center; Jean Smith, wife of the former U.S. Atty. Gen. William French Smith (she represented the Southern California Committee), and the foundation’s founder and executive vice chairman, Sam Wanamaker, who flew in Monday a bit tired after participating in an all-night vigil to preserve the London site of the foundations of the Elizabethen Rose Theater, which is near the Globe site.

Dr. Armand Hammer and Elizabeth Taylor are honorary American co-chairs. Gordon P. Getty is chairman of the International Council.

Friday evening, furthering the cause, the spirit of Shakespeare echoes in an intimate black-tie evening for 70 in the elegant gardens of the Hotel Bel-Air. The affair begins the Globe Centre’s American Celebration Weekend. Honored guests will be British Ambassador to the United States Sir Antony Acland and Lady Acland.

The evening goes like this: cocktails and the performance beside the hotel’s swan lake, dinner and diversions on the terrace, dessert and finale on the lawn. Then the Aclands and Wanamaker troop to the Chicago’s Ritz Carlton on Saturday and then the New York’s Plaza Hotel on Sunday where Donald and Ivana Trump will be honorary co-chairs at a gala honoring Prince Philip. They’ll be joined by Jose Ferrer, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Edward Asner, Beatrice Straight and Christopher Reeve.

Of course, this all has to do with money. The big leadership donors will be invited to a week of private events in London and the royal opening of the Globe on April 23, 1992.

KUDOS TO THACHER: Horses teach responsibility. Mountains teach self reliance. Each student of The Thacher School is required to have the complete care of his or her own horse for at least the first year of school. Legendary alumni such as Thornton Wilder and Howard Hughes adhered. So have heaps of alumni with familiar Western surnames--Livermore, Mudd, Chandler, Bechtel, Hastings, Williamson and Boswell.

Indeed, what has not changed about the school in the Ojai Valley is the combination of academic excellence with wilderness camping and the gymkhana competition. It’s been a successful formula for 100 years. As Headmaster Bill Wyman has advocated: “Education with a difference--education with reliance on Western values.”

To prove Thacher graduates adore their alma mater, some 1,100 students and their families will be on campus for the Thacher Centennial this weekend. They’ll see a school that’s changed from one room nestled at the foot of the mountains encircling the lovely Ojai Valley to a sprawling co-educational complex of unpretentious beauty. Today Thacher has 227 students from all over the world (and 150 horses) . Twenty percent are scholarship students, 10% minorities, and the school has a commitment to a program to increase those percentages in 1990. Director of Public Information Carla Bard brags a little: “Year after year, the tough academic program taught by the 45 outstanding Thacher faculty gets these boys and girls into Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and Berkeley.”

So, who’s partying this weekend? Lots of Williamsons--Tad, Fred, Chandler. Trustee Betty Helms Adams, the first woman trustee, will be there. Robert Hastings is going up. George Black Thacher, born 1903, will be welcomed as the earliest alumnus. He is the eldest son of the revered founder of the school, Sherman Day Thacher. Nostalgia, seminars, pride, merriment, banquets, parades, softball, horseshoes, a gymkhana and tall tales.

HOME FIRES: For foreign visitors, invitations to private homes are usually prized ones. For the Japan American Conference of Mayors and Presidents of Chambers of Commerce 20th Biennial Conference in Los Angeles Tuesday night, the candles were flickering at small dinner parties all over the city.

Mayor Tom and Ethel Bradley entertained at their Getty House residence for 12--Gov. Shunichi and Atsuko Suzuki of Tokyo (he’s chairman of the Japanese delegation); Mayor Toru and Kaoru Ishii of Sendai City, host of the 1991 conference; Kotaro Takeda of Nagoya, Los Angeles Sister City; Ray Remy, president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and his wife Sandra; and Los Angeles Harbor Commissioner Jun Mori and his wife May. Among other hosts, John and Liz Argue entertained in La Canada, Bill and Margaret Clossey in Los Angeles, Jonel and Lois Hill in Pasadena.