Farrah Delivers at SPIN Benefit

It was their first time out, but supporters of Street People in Need proved that they knew the secret to great party-giving: get guests excited enough to stand. Then deliver .

A horde of party-goers stood tapping their toes in the foyer of Cano’s restaurant in Newport Beach last week waiting for celebrity guest Farrah Fawcett to arrive.

An hour late, Fawcett swept through the door on the arm of her daddy, Jim (hubby Ryan O’Neal was laid up with a bum knee), and dazzled the crowd with her golden-haired looks. In a county where celeb guests are often no-shows, it was nice to see one keep her word.

Fawcett is hot. With the new television series, “Good Sports,” and this month’s Vanity Fair cover under her belt, she’s benefit bait.

“Those teeth!” gushed Donna Bunce, eyeing the actress whose ‘70s bathing suit poster sold 12 million. “Have you ever seen such gorgeous white teeth?”

“Who’s looking at teeth?” piped a male guest. “Can you believe that dress ?”

No, not Fawcett’s dress. She was dressed down, demure in a black suit, ankle-high boots and leggings. He was talking about the dress worn by Shelly Reynolds, fiancee of Michael Elam (the Newport Beach cosmetic surgeon whose license came under fire when the Medical Board of California found he’d botched a “tummy tuck” and given a former Mrs. California a nose job and cheek implants she never wanted). Elam and Reynolds arrived with Farrah and her dad.

Sporting a get-up that was three-quarters negligee and one-quarter little-black-dress, Reynolds almost stole the show. But before guests could say “Cover up!” the foursome was whisked to a private booth for some serious champagne sipping.

Being good sports, guests allowed Fawcett--who’d limoed to the party after filming a TV episode--to rest as they headed for the live auction in the main room. Included in the array of items were faux baubles from Fawcett’s Limited Edition jewelry collection; a gold bow-tie from Mobocco; lunch with Lee A. Iacocca (a near-and-dear of event chairwoman, Mary Sabatasso); guitars donated by Jon Bon Jovi; and a “Pretty Woman” getaway trip to San Francisco aboard Dick Engel’s Lear jet.

Elam, who has sculpted the faces of Mickey Rourke, Phyllis Diller, Jim Nabors, et al, is a bosom buddy of Farrah. No, he has never touched her body with a scalpel, he said. “She is naturally beautiful.”

Elam met Fawcett and O’Neal at the St. James Club in Los Angeles. The couple became interested in selling jewelry after learning that Elam, along with Diller, was enjoying great success touting the youth potion, Creme le Vie, on television.

Now, according to Elam, Fawcett has become the “queen of telemarketing.”

“She does more sales per hour, per minute, than anybody in the history of telemarketing,” he said.

Fawcett’s shtick? She hawks quality imitations of the jewels she owns and the jewels she has sported in films such as “Poor Little Rich Girl.”

In fact, some of her “Rich Girl” pieces were on the auction block at Cano’s. Guests oohed and ahhed over the “diamond” necklaces, earrings, pins--all arrayed on black velvet near a silver-framed photo of a lion-maned Fawcett.

To the delight of guests, the actress took the microphone and helped sell the pieces. Two popular items--a “pink diamond” tennis bracelet with matching ring--were purchased for guest Sue Cannon by her husband, Michael.

Watching from the sidelines was Street People in Need (SPIN) founder, Sam Boyce of Newport Beach. “I’ve read about these benefits in the newspaper and I’ve salivated over them. This is incredible,” he said. “I hope we can do this every year.”

Boyce founded SPIN four years ago after becoming angry over the way the homeless were being treated.

“I decided I wanted to do something for the homeless population, but in a different way,” he said. “Everybody feeds the poor, but they don’t realize they need to eat all year long. Most people serve them in a soup kitchen or in a church hall where they have to come to be fed.

“We decided to take food out into the street, the parks, the alleys where they live. That has helped us examine their other needs.” Last year, volunteers hand-delivered about 40,000 meals and gave away 2,000 blankets.

Since last June, SPIN has gotten 40 homeless into detox centers and then into recovery homes, where the organization pays their expenses while they search for work. “They’ve got to get a job,” Boyce said. “Our job is not to carry them, but to help them reconstruct their lives.”

Around midnight, Fawcett, looking like she had had a delicious break from her filming schedule, decided to go home. Cano’s chefs loaded her limo with tiny pastries and steaming coffee and sent her into the night.

Time to return to Tinseltown.