Bank Gets Coltish With Arabians

--Bankers in Texas don’t horse around with puny deposit incentives. First City Bank of Houston is offering a free Arabian colt with every $100,000 certificate of deposit. In the last week, potential depositors have called from as far away as Connecticut, New York, Florida and Virginia. “I never in my wildest imagination dreamed it would generate this kind of interest,” said Don Ruggiero, marketing vice president. “Our original reaction was that we didn’t think it would work. We’re stodgy old bankers. . . . But the more we thought about it, the more we liked it. It adds a little pizazz to the program.” Two investors are in the process of making hay with the deal. For the deposit, which pays 11% simple interest and must be left with the bank for five years, investors get a purebred Arabian colt worth $6,000 to $10,000. “We will assure they are all of championship caliber,” Ruggiero said.

--Just before his autobiography was published last year, Chrysler Chairman Lee A. Iacocca told the head of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston that the book might “sell a bit” and that net royalties would go to the clinic. “Terrific,” Dr. Robert Bradley remembers saying. Since then, “Iacocca” has risen to the top of the best-seller lists, and the 2-millionth copy has rolled off the press. Bradley told the Boston Globe that the royalties probably “will reach well into seven figures.” The clinic cared for Iacocca’s wife, Mary, before she died from diabetes complications in 1983. Iacocca donated $360,000 to the center earlier.

--Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali rejected rumors that members of his entourage hold him captive by not letting people visit him at his Port-Lligat home. “Nobody is holding me captive,” Dali, 81, told the Catalonian Radio Network. “I do whatever I want and whatever I feel like doing. I desire to be respected.” Since he suffered serious burns in a fire last year, Dali has lived in virtual seclusion.

--Artificial heart recipient William J. Schroeder went out to the ballgame Friday night to see the Louisville (Ky.) Redbirds play the Oklahoma City 89ers. Donna Hazle, spokeswoman for Humana Hospital Audubon, said Schroeder and his four sons watched the minor league game while Schroeder’s wife, Margaret, celebrated her birthday with her two daughters. Schroeder, 53, of Jasper, Ind., is recovering from a second stroke suffered May 6. He received his artificial heart last November. The game “was a really good evening for him,” Hazle said. It was a good evening for the Redbirds too. They won, 3-2, breaking an eight-game losing streak.