High Profiles, High Dollars : Who Got What in Several Prominent Divorces
AFTER 15 MONTHS of messy haggling, Holm, the 40-year-old former Swedish rock singer, got to keep his $40,000 custom Spartan automobile and pocket $180,000 cash, including $98,000 in “management fees” and an $82,000 “property settlement,” from actress Collins, 54. Collins kept their $400,000 French chateau, and Holm will return some $100,000 worth of furniture he removed from her Beverly Hills house.
A prenuptial agreement kept Holm’s claim to no more than 20% of Collins’ earnings during their 13-month marriage. Among the many things he didn’t get was $80,000 a month in temporary support.
Mohammed al Fassi/Dena al Fassi
The couple had been married in 1975 in Los Angeles, where they were best known for painting the pubic hair on the statues of their Beverly Hills mansion. Under California community-property law, she had hoped for half of the sheik’s reported $6-billion fortune after seven years of marriage--but settled for $77 million.
John DeLorean/Cristina Ferrare
Local talk-show hostess Ferrare’s lawyers claimed she had been brow-beaten into signing a prenuptial agreement preventing any claim to her automobile-manufacturer husband’s $20-million fortune. Despite her bruised brow, he still got to keep the New Jersey estate and $5-million Fifth Avenue apartment. Ferrare, who soon after the settlement wed television executive Anthony Thomopoulos, was said to be most concerned with the custody of the couple’s two children, which she was granted. They were married for 11 years.
Jerry Buss/Veronica Buss
When she sued for divorce in 1983, Veronica claimed her husband had been a bigamist, not completely divorced from his previous wife due to faulty Mexican documents. She hadn’t any complaints about the Mexican wedding that had bound them legally 10 years before and sought half of his $250-million fortune, which included the Lakers, the Kings and the Forum sports complex.
They settled quietly, for an undisclosed sum.
Johnny Carson/Joanna Carson
After several years of bitter negotiation, the former model and the talk-show host agreed in 1985 on an 80-page divorce settlement ending their 10-year marriage. She got the Picasso painting, he the Lipschitz sculptures. She got the Bel-Air house and three New York City apartments; he the Malibu house, the Trump Tower condo in New York and eight properties in Las Vegas, Arizona and California. She got the Rolls, one Mercedes and the economy car; he the 1939 Chrysler, two Mercedeses and the station wagon. She got 75 gold krugerrands, he 25. They split stocks, bank accounts and proceeds from the sale of the Bel-Air Country Club membership. He kept the Beverly Hills Tennis Club membership.
Eyebrows were raised the highest, however, when Joanna asked for $220,000-a-month alimony, the amount necessary, she claimed, to maintain the life style she’d enjoyed while married. She ended up with $35,000 a month for six years.
Keith B. Stewart/Connie L. Stewart
The 1983 divorce settlement of this Huntington Beach couple was dissolved three years later when a judge found that Keith had fraudulently convinced Connie that the $70-million family firm, Gradco Systems Inc., wasn’t worth much more than a little hill of beans. Believing that, she’d been satisfied with about $750,000 worth of property, including a home in Huntington Harbour, property in Coto de Caza, a car and $6,000-a-month support for her and the two kids. He got 2.1 million shares of the company stock, which he offered publicly, shortly after the settlement, at $16 to $18 a share.
The judge felt that Connie had been “misled” by Keith and was prepared to grant punitive damages for fraud, but the couple subsequently settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
