Oh My Stars ! 2,600 Pack Beach, Half $Mil Raised, at Pines Party
Volume 49, Issue 9
By Mike Lavers

The beachside red carpet was abuzz with everyone’s favorite television stars in the Fire Island Pines on July 30 as 2,600 people packed the beach for the eighth annual Pines Party. Sonny and Cher donned their classic “I Got You Babe” look as they graced the runway alongside the likes of Zorro, the crew of the Love Boat, Larry Hagman and Barbara Eden of “I Dream of Genie,” Batman and his sidekick Robin, the cast of the Mickey Mouse Club and the on-air talent of “Wide World of Sports” led by coach Larry Bullock of the Pavilion.

Even an ultra-glam disco Bam Bam Rubble of The News schmoozed among the A-list set as DJs Julian Marsh and Tracy Young spun a variety of gay diva anthems, classic disco, pop and Euro-inspired club tracks well into the early morning light.

Miss Richfield 1981 was among those spotted at the beachside fête. She came to the Pines from her Provincetown (Mass.) summer stomping grounds at the Crown & Anchor and even after a harrowing trip from Boston on the legendary Fung Wah Bus, she was still able to put her best face forward.

Others, including the crew of the Love Boat, who dubbed themselves the “fraternal order of seamen,” simply took a page out of crooner Ted McGinley’s script as they danced the night away.

“We’re hoping to spread the love… or spread our legs,” Richard Carpenter told The News. “We’ve been spread around the world.”

Cher (a.k.a. Karen Yellen) proved that no Fire Island party is complete without an appearance from the Bob Mackie-dressed diva. She told The News that she was on a desperate quest to find her lesbian progeny Chastity on the beach. But in the end, she simply threw fate to the wind and joined her beloved Sonny on the dance floor.

“We lost Chastity but I think she’s in the closet,” Cher confided. “We came out to have fun [and] we didn’t want to disappoint our fans.”

The cast of “ South Park” also joined Sonny and Cher on the red carpet as Eric T. Cartman’s girlfriend, Mary, was all too eager to garner some of the spotlight a la Cuba Gooding, Jr., in “Jerry McGuire.”

“Mary is doing the casino money wheel,” she said without even flashing her flawlessly applied eyelashes. “You gotta show me the money.”

The party, begun in 1999 after the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) cancelled its long-running Morning Party, featured games of chance spread among more than a dozen privately sponsored tents behind the main stage. And these tents, combined with ticket sales, helped to raise more than $550,000 for the Fire Island Pines Charitable Foundation and the Stonewall Community Foundation (SCF), which offers financial support to GMHC alongside the Ali Forney Center, a New York-based organization that advocates on behalf of homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) youth and a variety of other LGBT activist and support organizations.

SCF Treasurer and Pines Party host Michael Greenberg, outfitted as Stanley Roper from the classically 70s sitcom “Three’s Company,” said that a record number of partygoers took to the sand this year.

“We are excited and glad that we can put on a great party for those who want to have a good time,” he said.