Loni Anderson was just back from filming...
Loni Anderson was just back from filming the NBC-TV movie “Stranded” in Tahiti, when she found herself--we won’t say stranded--in the San Fernando Valley. Anderson and her daughter Deidra dropped by the Candy House boutique in Sherman Oaks, where they picked up a few summer things. Manager Cathy Weldy tells Listen the actress bought a rose sleeveless cotton dress and some rhinestone jewelry, as well as a denim strapless bustier for Deidra. But Anderson soon will have less time to browse: She begins work on a new fall series, “Easy Street,” for NBC later this month.
It certainly traveled well. That’s Listen’s impression of the wedding gown actress Lois Hamilton wore when she marched down the aisle in Portofino, Italy, earlier this week. With the mayor of the town officiating, Hamilton, who starred with funnyman John Candy in “Summer Rental,” said “I do” to financier Charles Knapp in a gown created by Diana Venegas. The actress specifically asked the Los Angeles designer for “something feminine and a little bit sexy that she might wear later to cocktail parties.” Those on the party circuit should be on the lookout for an ivory, mid-calf-length dress with a see-through lace bodice, decorated with guipure appliques, sequins, pearls and gold filigree beads.
Shirley Jones must have agreed she’s a classic in black sequins, as the full-page ad bearing her picture for September Vogue will contend. After modeling a gown for Jill Richards in the designer’s new “classics” ad campaign, Jones picked up six Richards gowns, according to the designer. “She wants to perform in some of them and party in some of them,” Richards told Listen. In addition to the black sequined gown she received for doing the ad, Jones bought a strapless black velvet gown with flocked peplum jacket and a couple of matte jersey outfits in lavender and black, among other things. The tab was more than $4,000, says Richards, who likes to describe both her clothes and the modeling actresses as “timeless.”
We ran into Julius Bengtsson (hair stylist to Nancy Reagan) and asked the latest news about the First Lady. He tells us he just got back from the Statue of Liberty celebration in New York, where he coifed the First Lady for the festivities. He’s back just in time to prepare for takeoff to London, where he’ll shampoo and set her before the wedding of the year. (Sarah Ferguson marries Prince Andrew July 23.) Julius says he’ll travel first class with the First Lady and stay at the American Ambassador’s residence in London, called Winfield House. But he says he won’t go to the wedding--for the same reason none of us will be going. “I wasn’t invited,” he explains. Julius will, however, see Cyd Charisse, “one of my good friends,” perform in a London musical. He tells us he doesn’t know what Mrs. Reagan will wear to the wedding. But we are quite certain she will wear a hat, as she did for the wedding of Prince Charles to Princess Diana, to which Julius also flew.
At a New York screening of “Vamp,” which stars Grace Jones as a Dracula type, Jones may have been seeing “red” when Brooke Shields made her entrance in the theater. Shields grabbed all the attention with her new red tresses, which she’s sporting while filming “Brenda Starr.” Listen thinks Brooke ought to stick with the Rita Hayworth look for a while. She looks decidedly sexier as a carrot top.
Robb Weller of “Entertainment Tonight” called Listen recently to report he’d been on another tie-shopping spree. The voluble co-host (who takes a new assignment as special projects reporter and weekend co-anchor on “Entertainment This Week” in mid-August, acccording to his publicist Joe Sutton) buys 150 ties a year for broadcast duties. Weller says his tenure of sitting next to the flashy Mary Hart and Leeza Gibbons on TV leaves him feeling a little dull. “Compared to both of them, I pale,” said Weller, who will continue co-hosting with Gibbons on weekends. He said he chose about a dozen ties from Bullock’s and Sy Devore in the Sherman Oaks Fashion Square, concentrating in bright prints by Charles Jourdan, Christian Dior and Perry Ellis. He’s lately been wearing ties with dots, moons and UFOs, he said, “but I haven’t passed the ludicrous barrier into doggies, geese and airplanes.” Stay tuned.
How does an actor like Stephen Moore, who is a member of the “Cats” cast, keep his complexion in purrfect condition? La Prairie would have us believe it’s through the use of its skin-care products. And because seeing is believing, Moore and “Cats” makeup artist Nanci Powell will be the stars of a one-day appearance next month at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. Powell will turn Moore into the show’s Munkustrap character, then remove all the camouflage and demonstrate skin-care techniques for men. Listen is told that Moore was chosen for the day’s performance because he’s “one of the best looking members of the cast.” Of course, being a true California cat, he’s also “very health conscious.”
If you like your jewels to have a pedigree, then consider the designs of Marchesa Luisa di Gresy. The attractive, silver-haired Italian and mother of four (her oldest child is 39) is the wife of the Marchese Sandro di Gresy, whose business, she explained through an interpreter, is “handling five family estates in Italy.” Because of her love of jewelry, she went to work designing her aristocratic collection, which is available for the first time here at Saks in Beverly Hills. It consists of mostly rings, chokers and earrings made of semiprecious stones, such as jade, coral and cut crystal, “because they fit in with fashion today.” Price tags range from $700 to $18,500. Her most exciting customer of late was fellow noble person Princess Michael of Kent, who recently bought a necklace of cabochon aquamarines dangling from four strands of pearls and matching aquamarine earrings. “She fell in love with them and bought them herself,” the marchesa reports.
Favorite T-shirt spotted by Listen this week bears this slogan: “The more people I meet, the more I like my dog.”
