Since opening in 1912, the Beverly Hills Hotel has remained the crown jewel of glamour and class among the city’s hospitality establishments. After all, notable guests have included everyone from Howard Hughes, Rudolph Valentino, Greta Garbo and Mary Pickford, to John and Jacqueline Kennedy, The Beatles and Brad and Angelina Jolie Pitt. Add another power couple to the list: David and Elyse Walker. Pacific Palisades-based clothing retailer Elyse Walker, with her eponymous flagship store on Antioch, and her 2008 sequel, the adjoining Elyse Walker Men, has all but put the Palisades on the fashion world map. Last Thursday, she and her husband, David, a real estate investor, were honored at the Beverly Hills Hotel by The Wellness Community’West Los Angeles (TWC-WLA), an organization dedicated to providing support, education and hope to people affected by cancer. The tribute took place at the nonprofit’s 11th Annual Tribute to the Human Spirit Awards gala. Elyse and David were honored for their continued support and fundraising for research, treatment and cures for breast cancer, and they follow a distinguished roster of honorees: ‘Spider-Man’ movie producer Laura Ziskin, actors Alec Baldwin (’30 Rock’) and Eric McCormack (‘Will & Grace’), actress Katherine Heigl (‘Grey’s Anatomy’), and former Palisades honorary mayor Steve Guttenberg (‘Cocoon’). Elyse Walker’s Pink Parties have, in four years, raised $3.7 million toward breast-cancer research at Cedars-Sinai Women’s Cancer Research Institute, where David Walker serves on the board of governors. Saluted at the affair, alongside the Walkers: long-time TWC-WLA supporters Hella and Chuck Hershson; and Nigel Lythgoe, co-creator and executive producer of ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ and executive producer of seven seasons of ‘American Idol,’ as well as the award-winning charity-fest television special ‘Idol Gives Back.’ ‘Each of our honorees are extraordinary role models and dedicated supporters,’ said Ellen Silver, executive director of TWC-WLA. ‘The impact of their contributions is immeasurable.’ Actress Marilu Henner emceed the gala. ‘What I love about the Wellness Community,’ the ‘Taxi’ actress told the Palisadian-Post, ‘is that they don’t just focus on a cure, but on the total picture.’ Elyse Walker began throwing her annual Pink Party, a high-profile mix of celebrity and fashion, in memory of her mother, Barbara Yvonne Feder, who lost her struggle with ovarian cancer in 1989 at the tender age of 42. Prior to the banquet, Elyse explained to the Post how she was moved to organize her event after hearing a talk by Maria Shriver. ‘It was the most beautiful, most motivating speech I ever heard,’ she said. Last year, actress Jennifer Garner, currently starring in the romantic comedy ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past’ (and, as of mere weeks, a Pacific Palisades resident) top-lined the Pink Party. This year’s fundraiser is scheduled for September 12. David Walker, president and co-founder of the JRK Birchmont Investment Fund, told the Post that he felt ‘honored to be a part of this event and all of the goodness that the Wellness Community does.’ Originally from Queens, New York, the Tulane University graduate moved to Los Angeles in 1996. He and Elyse, who met at a New York bar, love living in Pacific Palisades, where they reside with sons Ryan, 17, and Kevin, 15. ‘It’s the best place on Earth,’ David said. Ryan Walker, who DJs at Bergamot Station and other Westside locations as one half of Tree Frog, with his buddy Scott Cohen, said that his parents’ honor was ‘very cool,’ and that his mother ‘knows how to balance things.’ From the dais, Henner, an author of eight books about life and fitness, proved a game and enthusiastic hostess. She also noted that after two failed marriages, she had wed Michael Brown, ‘my college roommate’s boyfriend.’ He’s a two-time cancer survivor (bladder and lung), and a keeper, she said, observing that ‘Marriage is like cooking waffles. You throw the first ones out!’ Onstage, David Walker paid tribute to his wife who was standing next to him. ‘I do not have to look very far for my inspiration,’ David said, as he gazed into his wife’s eyes, ‘for all I have to do is look at Elyse.’ Joking that he was merely Elyse’s ‘trophy husband,’ David praised his wife as ‘a fundraising juggernaut,’ the way she masterminds her Pink Party events. ‘There is no more deserving person than my wife.’ Elyse, in an emotional speech, paid loving tribute to her mother and added how appropriate it was that this event fell on the week of Mother’s Day, as ‘The Pink Party is me honoring my mother.’ Elyse was about to leave the podium when a thought crossed her mind. She pivoted back, grabbed the microphone, and, directing her comment at the emcee, she quipped, ‘Marilu, I’m going to keep my first round of waffles!’ For information on the Wellness Community, visit www.twc-wla.org.
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