Star-Studded Show’s Promoter Has Record of Bogus Schemes : Entertainment: Kevin Von Feldt says he has signed commitments and ‘Christmas Carol’ will open Nov. 15 as advertised. But key contract is lacking, and Actors’ Equity officials are skeptical.

A man convicted of promoting a bogus theatrical production in the San Fernando Valley and bilking ticket buyers is again advertising an elaborate show, “A Christmas Carol,” featuring such stage giants as Sir John Gielgud and Shirley Jones.

But producer Kevin Von Feldt has yet to secure a crucial contract with the Actors’ Equity Assn., the union that controls members’ work in live productions, and Equity officials said this week they were extremely skeptical that the Nov. 15-20 show at Pasadena’s Raymond Theater will materialize.

“I really don’t expect it to ever happen,” said George Ives, Equity’s executive director, citing Von Feldt’s record of aborted efforts and misdemeanor convictions for consumer fraud.

A defiant Von Feldt, once termed “a career con artist” by Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn, maintained that the show will go on--that he has signed contracts with all five stars, completed sets and costumes, and has backers who can post the necessary bond with Actors’ Equity to ensure that the cast will be paid.

Rehearsals for the eight-city tour, to be launched at the rarely used, 1,980-seat Raymond, are set to begin Oct. 24, Von Feldt said.

“The past is past,” he said. “This is this year and I’ve spent eight months working on this show.”

The 44-year-old Von Feldt, who said he lives in Pasadena and Wisconsin, recently completed a three-year probation for a 1991 conviction for “untrue and misleading advertising.” He was also fined $1,762.50 in that case and ordered to pay restitution to ticket buyers who responded to his promotion of four Broadway classics--”The Music Man,” “Born Yesterday,” “My Fair Lady” and “Death of a Salesman.”

The hit shows were purportedly being staged at North Hollywood’s dilapidated El Portal Theatre and featured such big-draw actors as Noel Harrison, John Davidson, Gary Sandy, Claude Akins and comedian Don Rickles--curiously cast in the somber “Death of a Salesman.”

Season tickets for the renamed Renaissance Theatre series were advertised at $78 and $85.

But Los Angeles police detectives found that Von Feldt had begun promoting the 1991 event before he had signed agreements with Actors’ Equity or all of his stars, some of whom complained about the use of their names.

In an interview this week at the Raymond--where he showed off backdrops, props and what seemed to be a new set of contracts--Von Feldt blamed the 1991 affair on a sublease agreement with the old theater’s tenants, saying they did not tell him about the amount of cleaning the fading theater needed and how much back rent was owed to the landlord.

He said he simply ran out of money before he could get the shows on stage.

He similarly blamed a failed 1992 production of “A Christmas Carol” on the owners of the planned venue, the Scottish Rite Temple in West Los Angeles, saying the fraternal order never told him the building lacked a permit for use as a commercial theater.

A Scottish Rite member who used to manage its temple and auditorium, Gaylord Roten, said Thursday that Von Feldt was repeatedly told of the zoning problem but “he just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Von Feldt also began building sets, printing tickets and promoting the event before securing a written rental agreement for the auditorium, said Roten and lodge secretary Ralph Dunn.

But Roten also said he had been impressed by what he saw of Von Feldt’s work and enthusiasm, and believed that his efforts suffered because of the stigma of his 1991 conviction.

“I feel sorry for Kevin,” Roten said. “He’s really got a great play. He just needs to get it on stage once and it will be off and running.”

Von Feldt has filed a lawsuit against the fraternal order over the zoning dispute.

In both failed productions, Von Feldt insisted, he repaid ticket buyers. “I have never allowed a situation where I can’t afford to offer refunds,” he said.

Another “Christmas Carol” production, at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in 1989, was canceled after actor George C. Scott, who was cast as Scrooge, quit a few weeks before opening night, saying “payment had not been made in a timely fashion.”

Von Feldt’s history of run-ins with Los Angeles authorities also includes convictions for operating what they called a phony airline and a bogus movie promotion in the mid-1980s. After pleading no contest to a total of 10 counts of untrue and misleading advertising in a case prosecuted by the city attorney’s office, he was sentenced to a year in the jail, ordered to perform 200 hours of community service and placed on three years probation.

In the Hawaiian Pacific Airlines case, Von Feldt was accused of charging aspiring pilots, stewards and other personnel for training so they could work for a nonexistent fleet of planes.

In the movie promotion case, he was charged with advertising books of tickets to 52 movie classics without having rights to use the films or the theaters where he said he would show them.

This week, Von Feldt said he has learned his lesson and pledged that the curtain will finally rise on his adaptation of “A Christmas Carol,” part of which he wrote while serving his jail sentence. A former movie projectionist, he said he has always dreamed of a career as a stage impresario.

He showed signed agreements with stars Brian Keith, Louis Anderson, Patrick McGoohan, Michael Tucker and Jones, and said they and the rest of his 40-member cast will tour Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Detroit, Cincinnati, Baltimore and Kansas City.

Agents for each of the stars, or their representatives, would not comment in detail. Each said they had spoken to Von Feldt, but declined to elaborate.

In the case of Gielgud, Von Feldt said he has a “taped narration” of the play recorded in 1992, which he said he has permission to use.

In Pasadena, the musty but still stately Raymond just needs new carpeting and a good cleaning “to get rid of the pigeon smell,” Von Feldt said.

The theater’s owner, Marc Perkins, said Von Feldt only has a one-month lease for its use, which runs out Oct. 31--two weeks before opening night. “He needs to come up with more money,” Perkins said, noting that newspaper ads for the play appeared before the agreement was signed. “If not, the play won’t happen.”

Perkins said that he regretted accepting a deposit from Von Feldt without checking into his background. “It disturbs me that I haven’t done my homework as I usually do,” he said. Ives of Actors’ Equity said that because the agreements proferred by Von Feldt lacked Actors’ Equity letterheads, they could only be preliminary agreements and not valid contracts.

“We’ve been going through this for several years now,” Ives said. “I can only say that in the past, all of this has never resulted in his being able to do what he is talking about.”