SHORT TAKES : Irons Sympathetic to Von Bulow

A movie about Claus von Bulow won’t reveal whether the Danish socialite lawyer tried to kill his heiress wife, Sunny, but that hasn’t stopped the actor who played von Bulow from sympathizing with him.

“Acting a part is like a detective story. You’re following clues. I’ve just got this gut feeling about many of the things von Bulow did. Finally you work out a hypothesis and all the clues just drop in. And you think: That’s it,” said actor Jeremy Irons.

The movie, “Reversal of Fortune,” is based on the book by von Bulow’s appeal lawyer, Alan Dershowitz. Von Bulow’s 1982 conviction in Rhode Island on two counts of assault with intent to kill his wife with an injection of insulin was overturned after an appeal and second trial in 1985.

“I think Claus is actually much more a victim of that trial than Sunny,” Irons told Fame magazine in its September issue. “They claim Sunny was the victim and that her life was opened up for public scrutiny. Well, so was Claus von Bulow’s, and he’s alive. Sunny, at least, is in a coma.”

Irons said the film, co-starring Glenn Close, would keep people arguing about von Bulow’s guilt or innocence.