The Big Splits: High Stakes of Settling Up

Fourteen million dollars.

That’s the number the Donald laid on the divorce settlement table--and the number the tumultuous Trumps finally settled on Friday after much bickering.

Observers had thought that, given Trump’s financial woes--and the possibility that his creditors would swallow his assets if he has to declare bankruptcy, Ivana would take the money and run. And although Donald Trump’s net worth was estimated to be as much as $1.7 billion in his younger mogul days, his riches have taken a notorious beating. Many mere mortals have had a hard time understanding how Ivana--who has been wavering over the settlement--could just say no to that kind of dough.

But try to see things from Ivana’s rarefied perspective. Because up there in the faraway land of Olympian divorce settlements, $14 million can still seem like, well, carfare.

After all, Ivana travels in the same circles as socialite Pat Kluge, who has made divorce history of sorts. Her friendly breakup with media magnate John Kluge last summer netted her a reported $1.6 million a week --the interest on a cool billion. (Her ex’s assets are estimated at $5.2 billion.) She also got a 45-room manse near Charlottesville, Va., and a Scottish shooting lodge valued at $20 million.

That astonishing settlement may make Pat Kluge the world’s richest divorcee. She’s certainly among the most talked about. That’s partly because of her friendship with Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder, who miffed Virginians when he used a government helicopter to visit her.

Uncouplings can be civilized even if breaking up is hard to do.

Steven Spielberg and Amy Irving, who were introduced by director Brian DePalma at a dinner party in 1976, were the model for Hollywood folk going their separate ways. They bopped publicly around town within days of their divorce announcement in 1989.

Their settlement was among the town’s biggest--a reported $100 million, doing even a sheik’s earlier split one better. (Mohammed al Fassi, who used to live in Beverly Hills, was ordered to ante up $81 million to his ex, Dena, in 1983.)

Irving and Spielberg share custody of 5-year-old Max--and last year each produced siblings with new significant others. Spielberg and his “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” star Kate Capshaw are the parents of a daughter, Sasha. Irving gave birth to Gabriel, her son with Brazilian director Bruno Barreto.

If practice makes perfect, Johnny Carson may be among the more accomplished divorces. He has plowed through three divorces, for better or worse.

As recently as two months ago, wife No. 1, Joan Carson Buckley, lost a New York State Supreme Court battle to get the talk-show maven to up her yearly payment from $13,500. Their 32-year-old agreement also gave Buckley custody of the kids and the ’57 Plymouth. She snagged $360,000 more when it was amended in 1970.

Wife No. 2, Joanne, did better when the ex-couple settled in 1972. She received $200,000 in cash, $200,000 in art, $100,000 a year in alimony and custody of their Yorkshire terrier.

It was wife No. 3, Joanna, who secured the kind of settlement that dreams are made of. When that vitriolic divorce was granted in 1985 and documented in 80 pages, she was awarded $35,000 a month for 64 months, a Bel-Air house, two New York apartments, 75 gold krugerrands and their Rolls-Royce, Mercedes-Benz and an economy car. They also split stocks, bank accounts and proceeds from selling their Bel-Air Country Club membership.

The grand divorce settlement prize, of course, goes to Frances Lear, who turned her reported $112 million from producer Norman Lear into a publishing coup with her 3-year-old eponymous magazine dedicated to women over 40.

Not all breakups have such happy endings. Robin Givens’ 1989 split from Mike Tyson was a publicity nightmare. Despite Tyson’s erratic behavior--he once trashed his own New Jersey mansion, smashing windows and plates and hurling around an andiron--the actress was the one who got the black eye in the media.

Tyson accused Givens of tricking him into marrying her by faking a pregnancy, a charge Givens denied. Still, Barbara Walters, who interviewed Givens for “20/20,” tarred her one of the “most disliked women in America” at the time.

Givens’ tarnished image probably cost her when it came to divvying up the assets from their 16-month marriage. Although her take was estimated at around a couple of million, Tyson’s own lawyer, Howard Weitzman, once said she probably could have gotten four times that if she hadn’t been knocked out in the public relations arena.

Still, with so much at stake in these big-ticket splits, some people go to great pains to establish the bonds of marriage--after they break up.

That was the highly publicized mission of former New York City Ballet dancer Sandra Jennings, who lived with William Hurt from 1981 to 1984 and bore him a son, Alexander Devon Hurt. Although the couple never made the trip down the aisle, Jennings tried to have their union declared a common-law marriage so she could sue for half Hurt’s estimated $10 million in assets.

But Jennings lost in New York’s highest court last month. The state’s Court of Appeals upheld two lower court decisions that refused to hear her appeal. Jennings didn’t come away from her liaison empty-handed, though. Hurt was paying her $64,000 a year and putting her up in a Manhattan apartment he owned, according to trial testimony.

Even at rock-bottom, Ivana did much better than that. Trump’s lawyers announced that the couple signed a pact that essentially sticks to their 1987 prenuptial agreement. Trump immediately handed over a cool $10-million check to Ivana. She also gets $350,000 a year, a $4-million housing allowance, their 45-room Connecticut mansion, a Trump Plaza apartment in New York, use of the 118-room Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida for one month a year and $100,000 a year for each of the couple’s three children.

Ivana’s lawyer, Michael Kennedy, was out of town Monday, and his office said no statement had been issued since Kennedy’s terse remark late last week. Kennedy said no settlement would be reached until the Donald met his family obligations.

The agreement caps their 13-year union and brings to a close one of the most trumpeted splits in recent memory.