‘The Socialite Who Dumped Me’ : Palimony: Eleanor Oliver hopes to sell the rights to her life story after losing a suit against the Mudd estate.

Barely 24 hours after a Superior Court jury rejected her $5-million palimony suit against the estate of the late multimillionaire Henry T. Mudd, Eleanor (Lorraine) Oliver was hoping Hollywood will provide the cash the jury withheld.

She said she wants to supplement her dwindling savings, which she has lived on since she sued Mudd 2 1/2 years ago, by selling the rights to her life story as one of Mudd’s seven mistresses.

“If the interest is great, we’ll go ahead with that as long as it’s not sleazy,” said Oliver, 41, who had a 13-year affair with Mudd. Oliver traveled to exotic locales with him, lived in a $600,000 Studio City house Mudd bought and received an $8,400-a-month allowance.

Oliver’s attorney, Marvin Mitchelson, said five production companies have called his office to inquire about basing a television movie on the eye-opening story of Mudd’s private life, which has attracted widespread attention from tabloid television shows and international publications. According to the trial testimony, Mudd had as many as seven mistresses simultaneously, and the women knew each other, vacationed with him in groups and coordinated their visits to his home.

Oliver sued Mudd months before his death in 1990 at age 76. She contended he broke a contract whereby she provided him wife-like companionship in return for trusts that would support her for life and guarantee use of a $600,000 house in Studio City. She asked for the house, $4.2 million palimony and an unspecified amount in damages for emotional distress.

The jury listened instead to the executors of Mudd’s estate, who became defendants in the suit after his death. They denied that a contract existed, and said Oliver gave up any inheritance rights by suing Mudd.

The jury’s decision in favor of the executors pleased his widow, Vanessa, also a former mistress who married Mudd less than a year before he died, said Jamie Broder, an attorney for the estate.

“She’s very relieved to have it over,” Broder said. “It was very stressful for everybody.”

Vanessa Mudd was pleased to carry out her husband’s last wishes, Broder said. As he lay dying in a hospital, he worried about Oliver’s lawsuit, Broder said.

“I remember him being very upset right up until the end,” Broder said.

Oliver also was thinking about Mudd on Thursday, recalling the times they shared together as she sat in the Oxnard house she has rented since she was evicted from the Studio City home.

“I’m still trying to sort out my feelings for Henry,” she said, clutching a tear-stained tissue in her left hand, beneath a ring finger graced by a diamond band Mudd gave her. “I did love and care for Henry.”

She reviewed their relationship and analyzed the trial, speaking about different bits of testimony she wished the jurors would have heard or picked up on. She is planning to appeal the decision.

“I would do it not only for myself but for my children because they’re losing out too,” she said of her son and daughter by her ex-husband. “I’d do it for Marvin too.”

Mitchelson, whose hours have far exceeded the retainer she paid him 2 1/2 years ago, was to be paid a percentage of any settlement Oliver received.

In addition to the hope of an appeal, Oliver said she wants to make a movie deal. But the slew of talk shows that have called to book her as a guest will have to wait, she said.

“I can’t afford to go on any talk shows unless I get paid,” she said.

She is writing an autobiography, with help from her friend and roommate, Jessica Graham, a writer. It will paint unflattering portraits of her two husbands, she said, and will discuss her life with “the socialite who dumped me.”

She said she is living off the money that she saved from the allowance Mudd gave her, the sale of a Jaguar that Mudd gave her and a little help from her housemate, Graham, who came into an inheritance.

“We get by,” Oliver said. “It’s not a life of luxury.”

She holds off on going to the movies or out to dinner. And grocery shopping is something of an art form.

“If it’s on sale, and I have a coupon, and they double it, I’ll buy it,” she said. “The 99 store became one of my favorite places to shop.”