Sedaka is still Mr. Song

Neil Sedaka’s still got it going on. Yes, that’s right; Neil Sedaka can still hold an audience. American Idol’s less than stellar finale had most wishing our aging pop superstar population remained healthy, vital and mercifully off stage, but Sedaka’s set at Thursday night’s Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation gala proved some oldies remain goodies. Sedaka closed the foundations evening at the Beverly Hilton quipping, “Songs of the ‘50s and ‘60s may be a little naive but you can understand all the lyrics” and asking the audience to let him know if they remembered any of his songs. They did and JDRF supporters including Sidney and Joanna Poitier, Jacqueline Bisset, Kirk Douglas, Dominck Dunne and designer Taryn Rose joined in clapping and singing along to “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” and “Calendar Girl.” It was a cheerful easy going ending to a night where Larry and Shawn King had feted Annette Bening and Warren Beatty with the org’s Stem Cell Champions nod and touted the political barriers stem cell research was breaching. Polio surviving producer George Schlatter received the Angel Award and compared the possibilities stem cell research offered to the invention of the polio vaccine. Kinko’s founder Paul Orfalea and his wife, Natalie, were honored with the Caregiver nod. (L. Repstad)