Lisa Ramelow has always admired the style of the 1940s. And the 51-year-old restaurateur has long loved kitschy calendars.
So she put them both together in the La Strada Pin-Up Girls 2010 Calendar, set to debut in early September.
“The main idea was to have fun,” Ramelow said of the project, which features 12 of her restaurant’s current and former waitresses wearing vintage costumes, hairstyles and makeup.
During a four-day photo shoot, the women were captured doing such things as stomping grapes into wine, riding a Vespa scooter while applying lipstick, saluting in a sailor suit and posing in a giant wineglass.
“The girl in the wineglass looks just like Betty Page,” Ramelow averred.
Ramelow, who owns La Strada, an Italian restaurant in Long Beach’s Belmont Shore, said the calendar was a response to the death of Richard Hollingsworth, one of the restaurant’s regulars, who suffered from pancreatic cancer. His daughter, Aoife, has been a server for years.
The calendars will be sold for $18 to $20 each at the restaurant and various public events, with the proceeds going to a national foundation to fight pancreatic cancer.
“The girls are ecstatic,” Ramelow said. “They are really special girls.”
Party Hearty
Charles Scola believes partying is the key to a healthy lifestyle.
Known as “Party Charlie” in Hollywood, the 50-year-old professional event planner has produced thousands of weddings, movie premieres and corporate events, including the grand opening of CityWalk at Universal Studios and a holiday bash for Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion.
“I could never retire because I’m in a business that constantly gives me praises,” he said. “That boosts my immune system so I’m never sick.”
Scola said studies show that social people are healthier than recluses. But he notes that when he talks about partying, “it’s the social interaction definition, not the college boy’s definition.”
He believes that when people eat at parties, socializing consumes calories and they tend not to gain weight. If they ate the same food at home, they would sit in front of the TV and it would turn to fat.
The formula certainly seems to work for the trim and energetic Scola.
“When I’m planning an event, nothing makes me nervous it gives me a boost of energy,” he said. “I find it exciting to feed thousands of people and do it well.”
Staff reporters David Haldane and Joel Russell contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].
