Sinatra, Iglesias Captivate Audience at Benefit

Julio Iglesias was clasping the mike to his heart: “My legs are struggling, and my heart is pumping. I think he is one of the greatest men I’ve ever met in my life.”

Who’s that? Frank Sinatra.

The audience at Marriott’s Desert Springs Resort and Spa gala Saturday night in Palm Desert thought so too. When Sinatra sang “Mack the Knife,” some were all but standing on the tables.

Iglesias was in fine fettle too. He charged up his audience before he sang “Brazil” with ear-nibbling chat that created giggles: “You get pregnant with this song--even if you use the pill.”

He warbled away. Women swayed. And the men loved it. Many had played two days in the fourth annual Frank Sinatra Celebrity Invitational Golf Tournament benefiting Desert Hospital and the Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center at Eisenhower Medical Center.

It wasn’t the last party of the night. Said Barbara Sinatra, “We’ll have 100 for the post-party (at the Sinatra compound on the 17th hole of Tamarisk Country Club in Rancho Mirage). We’ve brought Celestino’s chef from Toronto. We have entertainment. I expect it to go until 5 a.m.”

Gala chair Helene Galen, her husband, Louis, and Platinum Circle donors ($10,000) like Bill Cydney Osterman were invited.

At dinner, Barbara (who had starred earlier in the day at the Saks luncheon featuring Louis Feraud fashions planned by Nelda Linsk) was on the left of Frank. Dina Merrill, in a short-short dress, was on his right.

It was a night of “just folks” celebrities--former astronaut Alan Shepard and wife Louise, Tom Dreesen, Steve Beuerlein, Victor Mature, Monty Hall, Arte Johnson, Trini Lopez, Willie Mays, Buddy Rogers, David Wolper, Rosemarie and Robert Stack and Andy Williams (who had played golf with “Tom, Franz and Dick”) and wife Deborah.

The crowd had paid to see Sinatra and Iglesias with Dean Martin, who reportedly had a sore throat. Said Sinatra, “May you all live to be 400 years old, and the last voice you hear is mine!”

BIG HORN: Meanwhile, at the upscale Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage, nearly 200 gathered to raise $200,000 for the Bighorn Institute, which is dedicated to halting the declining numbers of threatened bighorn sheep in the Santa Rosa Mountains.

Western glitz marked festive cocktails around a buckboard wagon with campfire, dancers and “saloon girls.” Inside, party-goers bid for Joe Beeler paintings and Western sculpture before dinner against a backdrop of Western storefronts. Cindy Austin created the concepts, including the idea of gold Western hats for all guests. They were tied around the white slipcovered chairs.

In the crowd: Rose and Bill Narva (she heads the Autry resort in Palm Springs), Bob Howard, Janet Edmonds, Jon and Ann Earhart and Jim DeForge, the institute’s executive director.

PAST PERFECT: The conga line into the party tent for Harvard-Westlake’s benefit was outrageous, we hear. And the tent, says parent Timi Freshman, was flown in from Texas, because it was cheaper than renting it here. . . .

Mayfield Senior School parents in Pasadena dusted off letterman sweaters and poodle skirts for “The Hop” with lots of “Blue Moon.”

“LOVE IT”: Said Betty Mabee, “There’s no way to call up the warehouse and say, ‘Bring me a good horse.’ ” But when you have 550 horses in your stable, the odds are better.

At the California-Bred Champions Awards dinner at the Ritz-Carlton, Huntington, Mabee said she “loved it” after she and husband, John, received the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Breeder of America for 1991 in Las Vegas.

Later, after the dinner in Pasadena, she accepted the Horse of the Year Award for the Mabees’ Best Pal from John C. Harris, president of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Assn.

“It’s been a wonderful year,” said Betty. “John and I have been at this 35 years, we’ve been married 50 years and we were both 70 last year.”

PRETTY SEASON: The latest invitations are smashing. A sepia wash on parchment of Diego Rivera’s “Baile en Tehuantepec” is the cover of a multihued invite designed by Melanie Paykos for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s Baile de Colores. The evening, planned by Toni Luskin and Jennifer Diener, will be March 24 at the Regent Beverly Wilshire. . . .

The invitation cover for the Hermes Year of the Sea luncheon Saturday at the former Marion Davies Estate in Santa Monica is inspired by a tropical panorama, as seen through a glass-bottom boat. Chrys Fisher, president of Hermes of Paris, Charles Vinick of the Cousteau Society and Rodolphe Streichenberger, founder of the Marine Forests Society, will host the fund-raiser, says Hermes Beverly Hills managing director Francine Bardo. Invitations come with a parchment copy of a Hermes scarf.

CREATIVE: No one in town is more clever than the Diadames ladies (headed by Coco Viault) when it comes to their annual “Creative Ideas” luncheon. A selected few designed unique tables at the Beverly Wilshire.

Inspired by their Arctic odyssey, Joni and Clark Smith donned parkas and transformed their table into an igloo.

For her table with a Scottish theme, Ann Johnson hired a bagpiper. Robin Parsky and Dona Kendall, interviewed by Art Linkletter about their table, shared the antics of fox hunting with their hunt breakfast theme.

Diane Anderson, Mildred O’Green and Mary Davis were sporting in antique golfing togs. Kent Kresa, whose wife, Joyce, was chairman, arranged “The Phony Gourmet” table (revealing hamburgers when he untied the silver roast cover). Loading heirlooms on other tables were Lucy Zahran Bonorris, Florence and Marion Malouf, Margaret Spillane, Barbara Knight, Diane Skouras and Nancy Petersen.

FOR THE RECORD: Jan Curran will be named “Woman of Valor” Friday at the Marriott’s Desert Springs Resort in Palm Desert at an evening event to benefit the fight against lupus.