Visions of Lecture Lucre

By Amy Wilentz

EX-CIA Director William Colby took the podium to defend the need for covert actions. Joan Mondale, wife of the former Vice President, made the case for government funding for art. Former Representative Shirley Chisholm attacked Reagan Administration cutbacks in social programs.

The 154th annual convention of the International Platform Association, established by Statesman-Orator Daniel Webster to disseminate culture to outlying states and distract them from rebellion, was off and droning. Last week nearly 800 speakers, would-be speakers, booking agents, college program directors and even a few plain old listeners assembled for the I.P.A. gathering at Washington's plush Mayflower Hotel. The 40 or so established rhetoricians spoke mainly for the fun of it, and perhaps to pick up an extra engagement or two. But the stakes were higher for the competing amateurs, who were hoping to break into the $2 billion-a-year lecture circuit. "This is the marketplace of the profession," explains I.P.A. Director General Dan Tyler Moore. "It has two effects on the speaker: if he's good, he gets bookings, and if he's bad, he is ruined."

The fees paid to big names are a powerful inspiration. Bob Hope commands the highest price: $40,000 a speech. Radio Personality Paul Harvey pulls down $25,000. Jeane Kirkpatrick doubled her fee to $20,000 after she became a Republican. Seer Jeane Dixon can conjure up $7,000 but donates all fees to charity. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger goes for $18,000; his former boss, Richard Nixon, could command $25,000 but speaks for free. "The fees," says Speaker Agent Carleton Sedgeley, "simply follow the laws of supply and demand."

The carnival-like atmosphere of Webster's 19th century lecture tours is recaptured during the five-day convention, where the audience chooses a winner from among both the celebrity and the amateur speakers. At one of the numerous parties, Cleo Dawson, who will not give her age but is recognized as the eldest I.P.A. member, sat beneath a flower-bedecked hat and shouted encouragement to various contestants. "Hello, honey," she yelled, "you were wonderful last night." Turning back to her table, Dawson got serious. "There are no second-raters, not here. They're all artists." Her favorite lecturer? Says Dawson: "Myself."

On Thursday night, the audience chose a celebrity victor, Magician Harry Blackstone, who beat out the bigger names like Dick Cavett, Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole and Actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr. "I hate magicians," noted Sherrill Luke, a judge from Los Angeles, "but this man was very amusing." Forty-three hopefuls entered the amateur contest, fondly known as the Hal Holbrook Speaking Ladder because the actor who makes $20,000 each time he impersonates Mark Twain was discovered there. Nine contestants made it to the finals, where Edythe Bregnard, 63, the "Pixie Poet" of Sun City, Ariz., gave the winning speech, a whimsical look at aging, delivered partly in light verse. Given little chance to win, Bregnard outdid the likes of Erik Burro, a New Jersey video producer who impersonates a bewigged William Penn.

Speaking careers can be catapulted into orbit at the I.P.A. convention. Last year's amateur winner, Joe Schwartz, 74, of North Hollywood, Calif., now lectures for $1,000 a shot. on how to beat retirement. The exiled monarch of Tunisia, King Rechad al-Mahdi, 38, was virtually unknown when he spoke soporifically about the need for a constitutional monarchy two years ago. But an enterprising agent now gets him $2,500 for a lecture called "A Royal Saga." --By Amy Wilentz. Reported by Alessandra Stanley/Washington

With reporting by Reported by Alessandra Stanley/Washington