OK, WHAT DO CELEBS REALLY DO with their time off? Now if can be told: On a sunny Sunday afternoon, deep in a Los Angeles canyon, Dustin Hoffman encouraged strangers to throw stuffed frogs into baskets. Billy Crystal held court at the basketball shoot-out. Sally Field was in charge of the penny-pitching booth. Meryl Streep hung out at the fish pond. Although such activities don't necessarily require an explanation, there was one available: More than 1,200 celebs and paying guests had gathered at the former Robert Taylor estate for the third annual Pediatric AIDS Foundation carnival, one of Hollywood's most popular and successful fund-raisers. Orchestrated by AIDS activist Elizabeth Glaser, wife of actor and director Paul Michael Glaser, this year's party raised $1.5 million in donations. Elizabeth, who is HIV positive, acquired the virus from a contaminated blood transfusion in 1981; her daughter, Ariel, died from AIDS at age 7 four years ago.
Said Candice Bergen (who created a painting that alluded to Dan Quayle's celebrated malapropism "What a terrible thing to lose your mind..."): "Murphy Brown is a hero to a lot of people—with one or two exceptions. But Elizabeth is my hero."
