‘Dignity and Respect’ Don’t Come Cheap

She was 26 when they started dating, he was 74. The marriage lasted 28 days, and now the ex-wife says $50,000 a month in child support isn’t cutting it. She needs $320,000 to properly care for their 3-year-old daughter.

Never before have the side effects of Viagra been more frightfully clear.

If you saw my colleague Ann W. O’Neill’s delicious dish on Monday, you know I’m talking about the king of the Las Vegas Strip--MGM Mirage mogul Kirk Kerkorian--and his messy row with ex-wife Lisa Bonder Kerkorian. Lisa, an ex-tennis pro who is now 36, is executing an overhead smash on Kerkorian in an L.A. court.

Let me clarify that I don’t personally know that Viagra was a factor here. I just know that after reading Lisa Kerkorian’s child support petition, I’m never popping one of those pills. I can’t afford to.

Kerkorian was a randy 48 years older than Lisa--old enough to be her grandfather--and yet she claims he was running around town like he was a one-man Rat Pack.

“I confronted him about a rumor I had heard that he had been seeing other women,” Lisa says in her court declaration. And then, she claims, “I ran into Kirk, who was on a date with another woman, at a restaurant he and I frequented.”

In his defense, Kerkorian warned her that marriage wasn’t for a young buck like him. But as Lisa admits, she begged and pleaded after little Kira was born in 1998.

“It was very important to me that Kirk and I marry, so as to legitimize Kira, and provide some dignity and respect to our relationship,” Lisa says.

Here’s where the old man, who might not be the sharpest billionaire around, came up with a plan. He agreed to marry her if she promised to file for divorce after just one month.

I don’t know if the bride wore white, but I think it’s fair to say dignity and respect mean different things to different people.

Anyhow, this brings us to the tragic crisis at hand. Kerkorian, who put Lisa up in a $10-million Beverly Hills mansion--with three nannies hovering about in the event little Kira might need her nose wiped--agreed to pay $50,000 a month in support.

But it wasn’t enough.

So he began paying $75,000 a month.

But it wasn’t enough.

Now destitute despite her “several million dollars in assets,” lovely Lisa finds herself “house rich and cash poor” while Kirk does the town with “between $5,000 and $10,000 in his pocket at any given moment.”

Lisa says he told her cash was the way to do business, because “it didn’t leave a paper trail.” I can think of several government agencies that might find these words to be of interest.

In Lisa’s claim for a bigger chunk of gold, she says Kerkorian’s income is a cool $25 million a month. Kerkorian’s attorney, Dennis Wasser, told me Lisa’s claims “are largely inaccurate,” and he’ll answer them in court.

“I should not have to be a slave to Kirk’s personal manipulation, abusive personality, economic coercion and financial control in order to provide Kira with that to which she is entitled,” Lisa says in her petition.

She certainly has a point, even if she is the first slave I know of with millions in assets and a monthly payout of $75,000 from her ex.

If I were the 84-year-old Kerkorian, whose wealth Lisa puts at $6.4 billion, I’d give $1 billion to the ex and set up a $1-billion trust fund for the little girl, just to be done with it. He’d still have $4.4 billion lying around, which should keep a girl on his arm until every tooth falls out of his head.

Lisa says she’d be happy with $320,000 a month, but she’s not going to be a shrew about it. She’d settle for a mere $220,000 if Kirk makes “his private jet or a comparable private jet available for Kira’s travel for up to five round trips per year.”

I’m not sure where this kid plans to go at the tender age of 3. But I guess if your first birthday party is held at the Hotel Bel-Air and costs $70,000, as Kira’s did, you’re sure as heck not going to settle for vacations at Danish Days in Solvang, no matter how good Andersen’s pea soup is.

You know, I was going to say the only sympathetic character in this story is poor little Kira. But then I took a look at how much cabbage she’s burning, and I’m not so sure.

Her pets alone are going through $436 a month, and according to Lisa, Kira’s quite the good-times girl, running up a $14,000-a-month tab for parties and play dates. Provided, of course, that you can believe any of these numbers.

She’s also got a healthy appetite for such a young tyke, with a monthly food tab of $4,300 for eating in and another $5,900 eating out. Something tells me Kira won’t be celebrating her fourth birthday at Los Tacos.

Then there’s the monthly travel tab of $144,000.

Look, I’ve raised a couple of kids. If one of the three nannies can’t make a trip to Paris or Rome, I’d juggle a few things to fill in.

In fact, if Lisa gets the $320,000 a month, I’d happily escort her and Kira around town. That way, instead of looking like a single parent, Lisa could have some dignity and respect, not to mention the help of an experienced parent.

I can tell you it only gets harder from here on out, Lisa. By 10, this kid’s going to have her own attorney. Can you imagine the allowance she’ll go after?

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Steve Lopez writes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at steve.lopez@latimes.com