Ex-Tenant Is No ‘Angel,’ According to Landlord

Actor David Boreanaz is not an angel, but he plays a guy named Angel on TV. The character on WB’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is Buffy’s boyfriend, who is not exactly housebroken. His former landlord says that the same is true of the actor.

Landlord Roger Hostin of Boston is suing Boreanaz in Los Angeles Superior Court, charging that Boreanaz and a roommate, Patrick Bradley, trashed his vintage Los Feliz house during their four-year tenancy, causing at least $100,000 in damage.

The 3,500-square-foot house, built in the 1920s, once belonged to silent film star Charlotte Du Puis and was loaded with antiques and other valuable furnishings, the lawsuit states. It charges that “mattresses, antique records, an antique phone, a lamp, two night stands, a light area rug, light fixtures and several drapery accessories” are among the missing.

“Angel” and friend were evicted after the neighbors complained about “raucous, lewd, disruptive and sometimes violent parties,” the suit said. Afterward, Hostin said he discovered that the house had been “physically ravaged.” The electrical system was destroyed and the house allegedly has been marred by “massive stains, scratches and water damage.”

The suit, filed by Pasadena attorney Jayne T. Kaplan, alleges breach of contract, waste and infliction of emotional distress. Hostin could not be reached for comment.

*

FREAK SHOW?: A Nevada woman is suing talk show host Leeza Gibbons and Paramount Pictures for fraud, charging that she was tricked into appearing on a “Leeza” segment about mother-daughter eating disorders that turned her into “a freak show.”

Wanda Reed says she became so upset during the Aug. 20, 1997, taping that she threatened suicide. Even though Gibbons and the crew knew about the threat, they continued taping anyway, the suit charges. The show’s producers agreed to temporarily shelve the segment, but later aired it against the wishes of Reed and her family.

According to court papers, Reed suffered from anorexia and bulimia during the mid-1980s, but overcame them. Later, her adult daughter, Tammy, also suffered from eating disorders. The suit charges that although Reed and her daughter had been told the show would focus on her recovery, it actually implied that the mother was to blame for her daughter’s problems. The suit charges that the producers had planned to “pit a mother against a daughter for the ‘shock value’ such a spectacle would create.”

As a result, the show made Reed’s “gaping wound worse” and caused a bulimic relapse, according to the suit. A spokeswoman for Paramount said the studio does not comment on pending legal matters.

*

SLASH AND BURN: Saul Hudson, better known as Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, is suing his business managers for allegedly overpaying his former wife under terms of a prenuptial agreement.

Slash is seeking to recover $224,000 that he says his managers cost him by mistakenly doubling his wife’s $5,000 monthly allowance between December 1992 and August 1996. “Plaintiff and his wife divorced, and she has refused to return the overpayments or any portion of them,” the Los Angeles Superior Court suit states.

The lawsuit charges that Michael Oppenheim and the business management firm Gudvi, Chadnick & Oppenheim were negligent and breached their fiduciary duty to Slash.

Neither Oppenheim nor the company had any comment.

*

GUESSING GAMES: Who are these celebrity John and Jane Roes starring in the $56-million defamation suit against plastic surgeon to the stars Steven Hoefflin? We may never know for sure if Hoefflin succeeds in his attempt to dismiss a lawsuit by four former employees.

Meanwhile, we are left to ponder. Who is:

Jane Roe 1, a supermodel with a celebrity boyfriend who asked the surgeon to give her even bigger implants than she had requested?

John Roe 2, a “music celebrity” whose surgery was allegedly faked under a scheme so elaborate, according to the suit, that the celebrity’s watch and the operating room clocks were set ahead?

John Roe 1, an actor who had a face lift, eye job and liposuction on St. Patrick’s Day, 1995?

And, last but not least, Jane Roe 4, an actress who is the owner of a strategically placed tattoo that Hoefflin allegedly “stared at for over a minute”?

*

FATAL ATTRACTION?: Chef Hans Rockenwagner says that his former girlfriend, Cyndy Truhan, stalked and harassed him after he dumped her in November 1995. He says he feared for his life and still has Cyndy flashbacks.

Truhan’s lawyer, Charles Kester, admits that his client, former wife of former Dodger Steve Garvey, “lost her mind” after her breakup with Rockenwagner. Truhan is accused of siccing customs officials on her ex, who forced him to undergo a strip and cavity search when he flew home to Germany for Christmas.

Truhan is sorry for not handling the breakup well and is seeking professional help, her lawyer says, but Rockenwagner is seeking damages for infliction of emotional distress.

*

Times staff writer Eleanor Yang contributed to this story.