Shop BOLD!
BEVERLY HILLS NUMBER 31
$145 PER YEAR - $3.00 PER COPY
•
www.bhcourier.com
THIS ISSUE
4
Visitors throng Rodeo Drive as staff sets up the stage. Photo by Victoria Talbot
The Stage Is Set For A BOLD August In Beverly Hills
Greystone announces return of “Classics in the Courtyard.” 5
By Victoria Talbot BOLD is here. The summer festival leaped into life with a breath of music and a splash of paint, welcoming visitors from all over the City and all over the world. August is BOLD in Beverly
Hills, energizing Rodeo Drive with full living color, voce forte, light, sound, art and theater, blending together in a monthlong celebration of all that is edgy and fun. BOLD took off Thursday with an exhilarating unveiling of the (see ‘BOLD’ page 17)
The bravery of Beverly Hills icon Lucille Ball. 13
Anderson Family Foundation donates $50 million to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles 14 •Arts & Entertainment •Birthdays •Public Notices
10 18 20
Oscar-Worthy Is The Talk About Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A TIme... In Hollywood Starring Brad Pitt and Leo DiCaprio. Leo’s Life Is About Buying Houses And Dating Young Beauties While Brad’s Is About His Children, He Has 7.
CLASSIFIEDS
LENDING A HAND—BHPD officers aided in the capture of a suspect in a West Hollywood robbery on Monday Three suspects were apprehended and the area south of Wilshire Boulevard, north from Charleville Boulevard, between Doheny Drive and Palm Drive, was restricted as the investigation continued. See story page 15. Photo by Victoria Talbot
Beverly Hills Dynamo Ruthie Grahm Dies At 95
George Christy, Page 6
• Announcements • Real Estate • Rentals • Sales • and More
August 2, 2019
Judge Denies Chapter 11 Protections for The Mountain
Satine is an 8-month-old, 35-pound German Shepherd mix looking for a good home. 4
New Consul General of Israel feted by JNF. 4
SINCE 1965
21
By John L. Seitz Funeral services are being held at 12:30 p.m. today (Friday, Aug. 2) at Mt. Sinai Memorial in the Hollywood Hills, 5950 Forest Lawn Dr., for popular Beverly Hills songwriter, actress and author Ruthie Herscher Grahm who died Wednesday (July 30) at age 95. Born in Philadelphia on April 4, 1924, she and her family moved to California shortly thereafter where young Ruthie embarked on a movie career, appearing in a number of films including Up In Arms which served as the debut of Beverly Hills’ own Danny Kaye. She attended UCLA and New
York Unive r s i t y. While in Manhattan, she became a secretary for lege n d a r y sports journalist and broadcastRuthie Grahm er Red Barber and then an assistant in the New Ideas Department of CBS. Joining ASCAP in 1952, Ruthie collaborated with her father, Lou Herscher, in compos(see ‘GRAHM’ page 17)
By Victoria Talbot “The Mountain of Beverly Hills,” (previously known as The Vineyard) comprises 157 acres of largely undeveloped land off Benedict Canyon that hovers over Beverly Hills like a sanctuary in the city of Los Angeles, a monument to the mercurial dreams of the wealthy and wellconnected. Now, the property has added another piece to its sad legend. A judge has denied bankruptcy protection for the owner, clearing the way for foreclosure. The problem, according to Ronald Richards, the acclaimed Beverly Hills attorney representing Secured Capital Partners LLC (SCP), is that SCP owes about $200 million, “but it is disputed,” he said. Currently on the market for $650 million (visit www.themountain90210.com), the property has twice been offered up at $1 billion—-first in 2015 and again last summer —just as the luxury real estate market was beginning to turn. As the most expensive property in the world, it has gained notoriety throughout the globe. But notoriety has not translated into success. Experts speculate the property doesn’t pencil out – the cost of first purchasing, then building and then marketing in a softer market – is too risky. The Westside Agency’s Stephen Shapiro, in an interview last month, told the Real Deal that, if the property sold for $200 million, a developer would still have to spend about $40 million per lot on six parcels to develop them. Each parcel would then have to sell for $100 million. Reportedly, many offers some as high as $400 million have been made, by no less than Tom Cruise. They have
Celebrity Photo Agency/Scott Downie
VOLUME: LV
been turned down. Richards believes it will sell for $300-400 million. Besides Richards, other local luminaries have been enmeshed in the property, notably Jeff Hyland of Hilton & Hyland, who represented the property for years. Hyland has declined to comment. And now, Aaron Kirman, president of the International Estates Division of Pacific Union International, the local celebrity realtor who has $3.5 billion in sales and a stint on CNBC’s Secret Lives of the Super Rich is representing the property. Once, the property belonged to Shams Pahlavi, sister of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Allegedly with designs to build a palace to rival her Pearl Palace just outside Tehran, she abandoned the property in 1979. After the Iranian Revolution, protesters drove her to seek a lower profile. Hollywood media mogul Merv Griffin bought the property in 1987 after it had sat fallow for nearly a decade, for $4 million. Allegedly, he too, had plans to build an enormous home, which became mired in regulations. Instead, Griffin invested in the Beverly Hilton Hotel. He sold the property in 1997 for $8.5 million, said to be the highest price ever paid for any California propertyat that time. The buyer was Mark Hughes. Last Thursday, Secured Capital Partners lost their bid for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Secured Capital Partners filed for bankruptcy on May 29, one day before the lender would foreclose on the four liens attached to the property (see ‘MOUNTAIN’ page 8)
THREE SISTERS — Scout Larue Willis, Tallulah Belle Willis, Rumer Willis are the daughters of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, and they glamorized many premieres, as they did for Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood during the Los Angeles Premiere at the TCL Chinese Theater. For more photos, see George Christy’s column on page 6.