Ex-Prostitute Set Table for Mudd’s Girls : Palimony: The multimillionaire’s girl Friday testifies she kept the mistresses’ gifts in a room called ‘Fort Knox.’

A former prostitute turned born-again Christian testified Friday in Superior Court that she helped the late multimillionaire Henry T. Mudd prepare for dates with each of his seven mistresses by setting out the expected woman’s own set of china and brand of perfume.

Betty Sue Olend--who became Mudd’s girl Friday after she found religion and would no longer have sex with him--said she also was in charge of purchasing gifts for the women.

“We had a room we called Fort Knox,” Olend said. “Each girl usually had a section where the gifts were kept.”

Olend testified at the trial of a $5-million palimony suit against Mudd’s estate brought by one of the former mistresses, Eleanor (Lorraine) Oliver. Oliver wants, among other things, to retain control of a $600,000 house in Studio City she said Mudd promised she could live in rent-free until she died.

Oliver’s lawsuit and the ensuing testimony have shed light on a singular sorority in which Mudd’s multiple mistresses took turns sleeping with him on vacation, bumped into each other at his house and even attended his wedding.

Meanwhile, Mudd lavished the women with luxuries, setting up trust funds for many of them to provide income after his death and to allow them to live rent-free in houses he bought.

Oliver claims that she had an oral contract with Mudd whereby she provided him companionship in a marriage-like relationship. In return, he set up trusts providing her with lifetime support and allowing her to live rent-free in the Studio City house.

She says Mudd reneged on the contract after he married in 1990, ended their relationship and revoked the trusts. After Mudd died several months later at age 77, executors of his estate claimed Oliver owed back rent and successfully evicted her from the house.

The executors--Mudd’s widow Vanessa, his accountant Seymour Bond, and First Interstate Bank--deny there ever was a contract.

Furthermore, they contend that Mudd and Oliver’s relationship was based primarily on paying for sex and point out that Oliver was married to another man for nine of the 13 years she was Mudd’s mistress.

They also contend that Oliver gave up any inheritance rights when she ended the relationship by filing the palimony suit against Mudd. Mudd’s death made the estate the defendant.

On Friday, Vanessa Mudd attended the trial, sitting in the courtroom next to Betty Olend’s husband. On the other side of the room, Oliver took copious notes of the proceedings on a legal pad, retaining composure even when her ex-husband was called to the stand by the executors’ attorneys.

The executors’ attorneys began their case with testimony from a past president of Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, which Henry Mudd co-founded in his father’s name in 1955. They followed up his stories of Mudd’s accomplishments and philanthropies with testimony from Oliver’s ex-husband and two women who also say they were Mudd’s mistresses.

Olend said she met Mudd in 1971 while she worked as a prostitute and a stripper. “I was a hooker and he was a trick,” said Olend, dressed in a blue polka-dot dress with a white sailor collar.

She said she was Mudd’s mistress for the next 11 years, during which time he gave her financial support, bought her a house in West Los Angeles and took her on trips to England, France and South America.

Olend said she then became a born-again Christian and ended their sexual relationship, switching to a new role as Mudd’s housekeeper and girl Friday.

When the sex ended, Olend said, her support from Mudd dropped from $4,500 a month to $2,600. She is now receiving $6,000 a month from a trust, she said.

As his assistant from 1982 until he died in 1990, Olend said, she reminded Mudd of birthdays and anniversaries of first dates that he celebrated with his seven mistresses.

Olend said she sometimes purchased presents for those occasions and other holidays in stores. Other gifts were ordered from catalogues, in which the women initialed items that they wanted.

When the assorted silver, china, linens, handbags and trinkets arrived, they were stored in the “Fort Knox” room to be given to the women on the appropriate occasion.

Olend said Mudd also kept her apprised of what woman would be coming to his house “so I could make whatever arrangements needed to be made for each one,” she said.

Those arrangements included setting out the visiting woman’s perfume and setting the breakfast table with that woman’s china. Each mistress except Oliver, she said, had her own pattern of china at his house.

Olend testified that she introduced Mudd to her friend, Oliver. She said Oliver later told her that Oliver began a sexual relationship with Mudd in 1977 to work off a $10,000 loan from Mudd that Oliver could not repay. Oliver has denied that allegation in her testimony.

Olend said that Mudd never discussed breaking up with Oliver until he received a letter in April, 1990, from Marvin M. Mitchelson, the attorney Oliver had hired, notifying him of legal action. Afterward, Olend said, she called Oliver to ask her why she was suing Mudd.

“She said she felt her life was out of control and that this would be one way she felt she could get control back,” Olend said.

Another mistress, Paula Palmer, testified that Mudd cried after learning Oliver was suing him, asking: “How could she do this to me? What happened? Didn’t she know I loved her?”

Palmer said that she met Mudd in 1968 and their relationship soon became sexual. She too was showered with furs, jewels and cars--”all the nice things a lady would want,” Palmer said. She said she now receives $7,100 a month from the trust Mudd set up for her.

The estate’s attorneys also called Oliver’s ex-husband Vincent, whom she married in 1975. They divorced after a year of separation in 1986. He said he approved of Lorraine Oliver’s intimacy with Mudd.

“We had what’s called an open relationship,” he said. “Within certain parameters, we would see other persons of the opposite sex.”