MISCELLANY (Continued from page 18)
focusing on weight loss. Oprah’s best friend, CBS This Morning co-anchor Gayle King has also begun posting photos of her success, having lost 14 pounds. Wheel of Four-teen
before returning to a very snowy Manhattan the next day. Sight and Sound Santa Barbara interior designer turned filmmaker Lara Firestone has chosen a fascinating topic for her Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak with Ava Burford and friend Chloe Babcock (photo by Jerrad Burford)
Tracey Jackson, author of “Gratitude and Trust” with her mother, local iconic collector of fashions and penned communicator at the grand opening of her “Stars, Snapshots and Chanel” (photo by Priscilla)
Having watched Santa Barbara High School student sister Grace Burford and her best friend, Kate Mascari, win a nominal $2,000 on the hit TV game show Wheel of Fortune, 14-year-old Ava Burford and pal Chloe Babcock were determined to do better when they appeared on the show 72 hours later. And, boy, did they! The dynamic duo, who have been friends since childhood, walked off the Culver City set at Sony Studios with a whopping $26,756 and a jaunt to the Caribbean island of St Maarten. The tony twosome also made it to the final round, but failed to guess the phrase “Cardboard boxes,” which, as they found out from host Pat Sajak, would have added another $40,000 to their coffers. “But they were really more than happy with the results and the experience,” says their financial executive father, Jerrad Burford. Write Makes Might Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacy Shiff attracted quite the crowd when she was guest of Montecito legal eagles Jule and Betsy Hannaford at a reception for the UCSB Arts & Lectures speaker. The New York-based writer, who later spoke at Campbell Hall, was promoting her latest Little Brown tome, The Witches: Salem 1692, a follow-up to her 2010 biography, Cleopatra: A Life. Stacy, a guest columnist for The New York Times and former senior editor at Simon & Schuster, won the 2000 Pulitzer for her book Vera, a biography of Vera Nabokov, the wife and muse of novelist Vladimir Nabokov. She was also the finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Saint-Exupery: A Biography of Antoine de Saint Exupery, a French writer and pioneering aviator. What’s her next topic? “I have no idea, but if you any ideas I’d welcome them,” Stacy replied
24 MONTECITO JOURNAL
Jeanne Buchanan, SBHM membership director; Evie Sullivan, supporter; Eleanor Van Cott, trustee; Michael Redmond, director of research (photo by Priscilla)
Thrilled with the “Star Snapshots and Chanel” exhibition are Fem Fiedtkou, a radiant Beverley Jackson; Lynn Brittner, SBHM executive director (photo by Priscilla)
Lara Firestone launches first public documentary
28-minute documentary, John, about a blind painter in Denton, Texas, who does portraits by touch and sound. The low-budget project premieres at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on February 10 and 13. “I came across John Bramblitt’s story and I couldn’t believe the art he was producing,” says Lara. “He was very receptive, and we filmed over four days in April last year.” John took up painting after suffering vision loss during a series of seizures in 2001 and takes viewers through the journey he has traveled, one of life’s darkest challenges, transforming the images in his head into masterful works of art that have to be seen to be believed. “He really is an inspiration,” adds Lara. “I have enormous admiration for the way he embraces life, despite the many challenges he has encountered along the way. It goes to show that nothing is impossible. “It is through our creativity that we find ways to connect with each other.” John is flying in to our Eden by the Beach for the screenings. Jackson Action Fashionistas were out in force at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum when society doyenne Beverley
Jackson, former social columnist for the News-Press, was feted with a delightful exhibition that looked back at the 70s and 80s. The bustling opening bash, hosted by guest curator Erin Graffy, dressed in vintage Gucci, and Missy DeYoung, looked like a mini Costume Institute Gala at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, which I attended regularly during the same period as a guest of the two founders, Manhattan great dames Pat Buckley, wife of political pundit Bill Buckley, and the “never too rich, never too thin” Nan Kempner. Beverley, who guided me when I first came to our rarefied enclave in 2007 to write a column for the News-Press from Hancock Park, where I used to reside in Mae West’s old building, The Ravenswood, dubbed her popular column on the city’s mad social whirl, By The Way. The honoree, dressed in a shocking pink confection with a magnificent rock-crystal necklace, made the exhibited outfits by Christian Dior, Yves St. Laurent, Pierre Cardin, Jean Patou, Scaasi – Isaacs spelt backwards – Halston (a rare brown silk chiffon pajama suit lent by former Skrebneski model Annette Caleel), Michael Vollbracht, the late Luis
• The Voice of the Village •
Estevez – who lived in Montecito for many years – as well as dresses from I. Magnin and Bullocks-Wilshire – look quite drab by comparison. Among them were photos of Beverley’s past column subjects, from 1968 to 1992, including Queen Elizabeth, Anne and Kirk Douglas – who lent the tuxedo he wore to the Hollywood premiere of one of his most famous films, Spartacus – Robert and Dorothy Mitchum, Jack Lemmon, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Rudolf Nureyev, Burl Ives, Pearl Chase, Robert Wagner, and Natalie Wood, and Mrs. Oscar Hammerstein, evoking memories of a glamorous past gone by. Other photos were projected on the wall, while video of Beverley recounting her encounters with the rich and famous kept everyone mesmerized, and music from the era blasted over the speakers, including the Studio 54 theme anthem “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor, who I fondly remember appearing with on the TV talk show Geraldo and dancing with her in front of a live studio audience, while she lip-synched away. Among the many “time travelers” at the colorful show, which runs through
MISCELLANY Page 324 4 – 11 February 2016