On a Carousel of Hope : Glittery Gala Studded With Celebrities Raises Millions to Fight Diabetes
“This is wonderful. I feel like I’m getting married!” said Barbara Davis as she surveyed the glittery scene before her.
“Oh, come on, Barbara,” said her husband, Marvin. “Our wedding wasn’t this great.”
Welcome to the Carousel of Hope Ball, a blow-out gala held Friday night, chaired by the Davises and attended by major celebrities, industry execs, business leaders, socialites and two former Presidents--more than 1,000 people in all.
It was the kind of party where the jewels equaled the national debt, the hostess’ dress matched the theme color, the favor bags were so heavy some guests couldn’t lift them, the ballroom was decorated like one huge pink carousel and famous people stood and gawked at all the other famous people.
Asked if Los Angeles knows how to throw a party, Ivana Trump said, “Oh yes. When I was driving up and I saw all the lights, I said to myself, ‘This must be Hollywood.’ ”
“If Flo Ziegfeld were alive today, he’d shoot himself,” said Henry Berger. “He could never compete with this.”
The Davises surely didn’t disappoint those familiar with the couple’s Carousel Balls in their former hometown, Denver--weekend-long spates of events culminating in huge galas.
They moved the ball this year to the Beverly Hilton because “we live here now,” explained Barbara Davis, wearing a shell-pink satin Scaasi gown and pounds of diamonds around her neck.
The reason for the ball remains the same: to raise money for the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes in Denver, as well as The L. A. chapter of the American Diabetes Assn. and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. This year’s benefit raised close to $5 million, almost $3 million from the ball itself (all underwritten) and another $2 million chipped in by the Davises.
“What I’d like people to get out of this event,” said Barbara Davis, is that “diabetes is the third largest killer in the United States, that it is a disease that is not curable, that people are dependent on insulin from day to day. I’ve got to fight this disease and I know everybody is fighting with us.”
Businessman and philanthropist Marvin Davis recalled how they learned their youngest daughter Dana, now 22, had diabetes.
“Barbara called me and said, ‘Our baby has diabetes,’ ” he recalled. “I said, ‘So, get it fixed.’ ”
Once he learned that diabetes can’t be “fixed,” and that other families could not afford the kind of care needed for their children, the couple established the Denver center in 1977.
The evening at the Beverly Hilton began with a two-hour silent auction of items, including a 1991 Lincoln Continental, a dance lesson with Paula Abdul, a pair of George Michael’s ripped jeans and a trip to Paris to have lunch in Coco Chanel’s “carefully preserved” apartment.
But the guests seemed more interested in chatting up each other--after two hours there were few names on the auction sheets.
In the two rooms allotted for cocktails outside the ballroom, guests seemed to divide--local social lights in one room, industry powers in the other. The rooms became more and more crowded with guests such as Elizabeth Taylor and Larry Fortensky, Bette Midler, Betty and Gerald Ford, Nancy and Ronald Reagan, Orel Hershiser, Chevy Chase, Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Patty Hearst Shaw, Claudia Cohen and Ronald Perelman, Lilly and Brandon Tartikoff, Judy and Michael Ovitz, Jane and Michael Eisner, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Marcus Allen, Jill St. John and Robert Wagner, Dinah Shore, Faye Dunaway, Robert and Blaine Trump.
Others in the crowd were Betsy Bloomingdale, Jackie Collins and Oscar Lerman, Tony Curtis, Clint Eastwood, Walter Matthau, Louis Jourdan, Gregory Peck, Suzanne de Passe and Paul Le Mat, Lili and Richard Zanuck, Joel Silver, Stacey and Henry Winkler, Sherry Lansing, Jane and Jerry Weintraub, Gary Pudney, Ivan Reitman, Susie and Ted Field, Suzanne Pleshette, Mary Hart and Burt Sugarman and the Davis children and grandchildren.
The show, produced by George Schlatter and emceed by Merv Griffin, featured Debbie Gibson, Burt Bacharach, Kenny Rogers, Lionel Richie, Quincy Jones, Dionne Warwick, Neil Diamond, Roger Moore, Michael Caine, Dudley Moore, Harry Belafonte, Gary Shandling and Whitney Houston, who also presented this year’s Brass Ring Award to Stevie Wonder.
Even Paul McCartney dropped in to bestow his congratulations on Wonder, his former duet partner.
There were a few glitches during the evening (Ronald Reagan in his speech kept referring to Marvin Davis as “Merv”).
The night ended in a sweet duet with Whitney Houston and Stevie Wonder. Said Wonder to the crowd, “I was thinking, what can really cure this disease forever? . . . . I believe the real cure, truly is love.”
