‘Ace’ Is Wild on Palisades Home
JIM CARREY, the rubber-faced comic who became a superstar earlier this year with “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” and “The Mask,” has purchased a Pacific Palisades home for $4 million, including furnishings, sources say.
Carrey, who was an ensemble member of Fox TV’s sketch comedy show “In Living Color” when he signed to star in the two movies at less than $500,000 each, is now known in Hollywood as “the $7-million man” because that is what he is getting for his next film, “Dumb and Dumber,” a buddy comedy due out in December.
Scheduled to start shooting a sequel to “Ace Ventura” in January, Carrey is now filming “Batman Forever,” in which he plays the Riddler, a villain played mainly by Frank Gorshin but also by John Astin in the 1960s TV series. Val Kilmer plays Batman in the movie, which is being shot in New York and Los Angeles.
Born in Canada, Carrey, 32, has been a stand-up comedian since he was 15 and performed at a comedy club in Toronto to help his family make ends meet. When he was 19, he moved to Los Angeles. Before buying his Pacific Palisades home, Carrey, who is going through divorce and has a daughter from that marriage, was living in Westwood.
His new home has two master suites, chauffeur’s quarters, a tennis court, pool, two spas, a lagoon, wading pool, waterfall and pool house with a big-screen TV and sauna. The house is on an acre, behind gates with canyon views.
The house, which has seven bedrooms in 11,000 square feet, was built in the 1950s but was gutted and rehabbed about five years ago. The home had been on the market for a few years, at first in the $6-million range, sources say. The last asking price was just under $4.4 million.
RALPH MACCHIO, who starred in “The Karate Kid” films (1984-1989) and played Bill Gambini in “My Cousin Vinny” (1992), has leased a Studio City home at $5,000 a month, sources say.
Macchio, who lives in New York with his wife, Phyllis, and their daughter, is in town working on the NBC sitcom “The Ties That Bind,” due to air in January. In the series, Macchio, 31, co-stars with Anita Barone as young newlyweds dealing with their mostly single friends and intrusive in-laws.
Macchio also appeared in the movie “Naked in New York,” released earlier this year, and starred in the 1993 TV movie “The Last P.O.W.? The Bobby Garwood Story.”
The leased house has four bedrooms in 3,500 square feet. It was built in the 1940s but was recently renovated.
Macchio was represented in the short-term lease by Rosanna Locke of Fred Sands’ Brentwood office, and the lessors were represented by Judy Lyon of Fred Sands’ Studio City office.
The Holmby Hills home of Academy Award-winning composer HENRY MANCINI, who died in June at the age of 70, and his wife, GINNY, has been put on the market at $5.5 million.
A Golden Globe Award and Lifetime Grammy Achievement Award winner, Henry Mancini won four Oscars, for the songs “Moon River” and “Days of Wine and Roses” and the scores of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “Victor/Victoria.”
He completed 25 new songs last spring for the musical version of “Victor/Victoria,” which is expected to open on Broadway in March. The musical adaptation of Blake Edwards’ 1982 movie will be directed by Edwards, and it will star Julie Andrews, who also starred in the film.
The Mancinis’ home was built for them in 1980 and is about 10,000 square feet in size with a tennis court, all behind gates. June Scott of June Scott Estates, a Jon Douglas Co., has the listing.
Philanthropist and nightclub owner ALBERT GERSTEN has listed his Malibu home for sale at $2.95 million.
He was going to build a house for himself and his fiance, Camilla Bennett, in South Beach, Fla., where he owned some land, but he decided, instead, to build on a site he owns in Malibu and to sell his existing home in Malibu, sources say.
Gersten is co-owner of the Gate, a nearly 2-year-old, English manor-style club on La Cienega in Los Angeles, where La Cage aux Folles, and its female impersonators, operated for many years. He also helped finance construction of Gersten Pavilion, the Loyola Marymount University gym where basketball star Hank Gathers collapsed two hours before dying in 1990.
Gersten bought his Malibu home a year ago for nearly $2.7 million, then put $600,000 into it, adding a sculpted rock spa and other features, sources say.
The three-story, Cape Cod-style house, which is on a promontory overlooking Escondido Beach, has three bedrooms and a maid’s quarters in 3,500 square feet. It is listed with Paul Czako of Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills.
Actor CHRISTOPHER MURRAY, son of actor Don Murray and actress Hope Lange, has purchased a 4,500-square-foot getaway home on 2.5 acres in Sonoma for just under $500,000, sources say.
The younger Murray, in his late 30s, lives in a 2,500-square-foot, Malibu home, which he built himself in 1988. He recently completed work on “Just Cause,” in which he appears with Sean Connery, Laurence Fishburne and Kate Capshaw. He was also in “The Pelican Brief” (1993).
