Art of the GushNew York developer Donald...

Art of the Gush

New York developer Donald J. Trump has been making the case lately that he’s back from the debt (although don’t bet on a revival of his hyperbolic 1990 plan to build the nation’s tallest building on Wilshire Boulevard.)

Now there are subtle signs that Trump-bashing is slowly giving way again to Trump-gushing. Los Angeles real estate investor Stephen Murphy, in a book he’s just put out called “One Up on Trump,” calls the developer “my mentor” and spares no words of praise.

“Donald J. Trump has no peer,” Murphy says in his foreword. “His degree of excellence embodies one who has gone above and beyond the call of duty to a higher plane, surpassing all others in the process in levels of achievement. He typifies one that commands our respect and admiration.”

Room for More Tales

The two-year-long closing of the Beverly Hills Hotel for renovations has been getting a lot of attention, not only because it upsets the balance of power breakfasts in town but also because it revives a host of Hollywood memories.

This is a hotel, after all, where such notables as Charlie Chaplin, Howard Hughes and John F. Kennedy regularly stayed.

The business world has a few stories of its own from the hotel, albeit not as famous as some of the celebrity ones. Among them:

- Convicted stock trader and hotel owner Ivan Boesky, wearing a microphone underneath his shirt, secretly taped a meeting with former junk bond financier Michael Milken while cooperating with federal authorities.

- The late Time Warner Chairman Steven J. Ross, according to a story told at a recent memorial for him, once tipped a hotel worker $5 after the worker rushed to retrieve a quarter Ross had dropped.

- CBS boss Laurence A. Tisch is said to have scolded former record division chief Walter Yetnikoff for wanting to order a bagel at the hotel. The billionaire Tisch complained that the bagel cost too much.

No Contest

It’s not as prestigious as an Oscar nomination, but Pasadena psychic “Sophie” is advertising herself as having been “voted 1 Psychic in the Pasadena area.”

Actually, she explains, the vote came from a single customer impressed with the accuracy of her readings.

Still, we’re intrigued by the possibilities of a psychics’ awards show. For one thing, Price Waterhouse would not be required to keep the results secret because contenders presumably could predict in advance whether they would win.

Briefly. .

“Dedicated merger hotline” is the name Bank of America has given to a toll-free number for customers whose Security Pacific accounts are being changed over to B of A accounts. . . . Court records list an operation called “Planetary Oneness” in Granada Hills as having filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case. . . . A Dallas company is selling “Magic Bullet Earrings” for $19.95 a pair, made of bullets identical to the ones Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired at President Kennedy.