Daily News from New York, New York • 107

3 By KATHY LARKIN mm lege of Music in London and the Actors Fund of America both celebrating their 100th year of exist ence. The evening, underwritten by Piper Sonoma and Harry Winston, began with a cocktail buffet at Luchow's on Broadway hosted by Mary Lee (Mrs. Douglas) Fairbanks the Countess of Airlie, Nedda (Mrs. Joshua) Logan and Mrs. John Barrie Ryan and honoring Princess Michael of Kent Before the evening ended, Joshua Logan, Sharman Douglas and Glynis Johns celebrated joint birthdays with a huge white iced cake, and newlyweds Anne and Chuck Scarborough made their first big party since the wedding.

Other faces: Helen Hayes, Lillian Gish, Bill Paley, Mollie Parnis, Marion Javits, Carol and Milton Petrie, Phyllis and Robert Wagner, Mrs. Vincent Astor, Dina Merrill and Cliff Robertson, Alexis Smith. Mary Lee Fairbanks, looking around her, said simply: "To put an evening like this together takes all of your body and soul. It is a compliment to both benefits that we have people like this tonight" Helen Hayes liked sharing an evening between the Actors Fund "my very favorite, thing" and the Royal College of Music." Would she like a freer exchange of theater artists and plays between the two countries? Said Hayes: Would I ever! All of us would like to see that" And Gary Pudney, ABC vice president, said: "We sponsored 'Amadeus' and 'Dreamgirls' and now we're a third investors in So far, I hope, three hits and no misses. Last night after all the hype and hoopla Cats finally opened to a gala group including Mary Tyler' Moore, Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Paul Newman end Joanne Woodward and some anxious investors. Okay, Critics: the envelope, please. ATS CRAWLING, sprawling. hissing, leaping actors in body stockings invaded the audience and leapt across the triple-tiered balcony last night as Trevor Nunn's much-ballyhooed British import based on T.S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" made it to Broadway.

How well "Cats" traveled is being chronicled by the critics this morning. But whatever the verdict, this extravagant $4.5 million production backed by the Shuberts, Cameron Mackintosh, David Geff en, ABC, and more, was months in the planning, two weeks in lucrative previews (with 11 major benefits from Sept 24 to Oct. 5, and last night already had a $6 million advance, the largest in the history of Broadway. Harvey Sabinson, head of the League of New York Theaters and Producers, says the huge advance hoopla is matched by other shows, for example "Coco" and "42nd Street" But the advance sale is extraordinary. Sabinson says: "No matter what the reviews are and remember this show already has a track record from London "Cats" will have a long, long life, probably nine of them." Bernard Jacobs of the Shubert Organization agrees.

"In terms of dollars, nothing has come close to it Also interesting in terms of seats. We sell 550,000 seat3 in the Winter Garden a year. We've already sold well over 220,000 so you can figure we're already booking into May and June." (Typical: Tuesday night's $2S0-a-pair benefit for the nonprofit Poets and Writers organization, followed by a supper party at the Algonquin.) The Shubert investment includes revamping the Winter Garden. Jacobs spent $20,000 creating a scale model of the theater to send to By MARTIN KING TINY ISLAND in the East River across from the United Nations was formal ly renamed yesterday after Thant, the late UN secretary general. Under a special arrangement with New York State, Belmont Island is now Thant Island and supports a new memorial arch symbolizing world peace.

The arch is visible from the East River Drive. It was formally dedicated yesterday in ceremonies in the UN's Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium. Thant, a quiet Burmese schoolteacher and diplomat, became became secretary general in 1961 and held the difficult post through one crisis after another until his retirement in 1971. He died in 1974 at 65 after a three-year battle with cancer. Helen Hayes RICHARD CORKERY DAILY NEWS Saccarti recreated it, working from mid-June to early September on a $2.5 million restructuring that involved ripping out seats, creating an onstage hiding place for a "tire" that turns into a soaring hydraulic lift and even building a house atop the Winter Garden.

The most glittering preview was the gala $250-tkket preview Tuesday night, benefiting the Royal Col sjGa OsOgiciigD .5 4- V' tr i Molly Parnis 5-t Harrigan Logan and father, Josh London to John Napier the man responsible for the "junkyard" set with its giant dashing trash (huge one-dimensional boxes, hubcaps and cans plastered to the theater sides beneath a webbing of lights twinkling on and off like cats' eyes. Napier designed his stage set in England, based on the model, and sent it back to New York where stagehands Peter Feller and Arthur ifc7GV His term at the UN covered the Cuban missile crisis, the war in Vietnam, the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, and the continuing cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The ceremonies yesterday were under the auspices of Sri Chinmoy Meditation at the United Nations, ari association of UN staff members and diplomats who seek to empha-' size the spiritual dimension of the quest for world peace. The 12-year-old meditation group sponsors twice-weekly meditation sessions for peace and various conferences and symposiums at the UN. At yesterday's" program, the group presented its first annual Thant Award to Ambassador Zenon Rossides of Cyprus for his contributions to disarmament and national security issues.

jjrssft I-- in Thant in his days at the UN.