New York Diary

Big Nix-on Henry's party; Stephanopoulos gaga for Gumball; Kathie Lee's Bella casa

So many former presidents, so few R.S.V.P.'s. All four Republican ex-presidents were invited to Henry Kissinger's 70th-birthday party at the Colony Club, but only Gerald Ford showed up. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush all sent regrets, claiming prior engagements. Pat Buckley, Brooke Astor, Jim Robinson, and Anne Eisenhower Flottl were at Kissinger's table; Henry Kravis and Carolyne Roehm arrived together, but were seated separately. Another telling detail was the order of the limousines during the all-important arrivals. Press lord Conrad Black (owner of London's Daily Telegraph) and his wife, conservative columnist Barbara Amiel, alighted just ahead of press lord Rupert Murdoch and his wife, Anna. Who tumbled out of the next limo? None other than presslord-in-the-making Mort Zuckerman (the Daily News), who didn't bring a date.

CLOSING THE BOOK ON CAP'N BOB

The final chapter on former Daily News owner Robert Maxwell is being written at last. A Mind of My Own, by Maxwell's wife, Elisabeth, has just been sold to HarperCollins—ironic, since the publishing house is owned by Maxwell's lifelong rival, Rupert Murdoch. Elisabeth Maxwell's agent, Owen Laster, spent months quietly shopping her autobiography around, forcing editors to read the 23-page proposal in the confines of his William Morris office. It seems unlikely that the widow will be making any excuses for her late husband's dubious business practices. "His ascendancy in the 80s also marked the beginning of real and irreparable tension between us," she writes. "I lived at our home in Oxford and he in his lavish apartment in London. " Ultimately, the couple communicated almost solely by mail. "Even then I knew that he sometimes chose to ignore my letters. On the rare occasions that I visited his apartment, I would find them in his bedroom, unopened, unread, cast aside."

THE STEPH THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF

Bill Clinton isn't the only one in the White House whose brother lives for rock 'n' roll. George Stephanopoulos's younger brother, Andrew, manages a band called Gumball.

Andrew, the owner of Megalopoulos Management, is willing to wait awhile for his spin in the limelight. "George is the star this year," he explains. "One Stephanopoulos a year is more than enough." George has heard Gumball's CD SuperTasty. "I like them because he works for them," he says. Which is more than he'll say about his own activities these days. After the press conference announcing that David Gergen was succeeding him at the White House, Stephanopoulos flew to Los Angeles, where he spent the weekend at producer Sandy Gallin's house, along with Jennifer Grey. Andrew loyally maintains that his big brother got "an incredible promotion."

ROSS'S WILL: EVEN STEVEN

The Chinese wall of secrecy guarding the wealth of the late Steve Ross may well survive New York's court system intact. Ross's simple, three-and-a-half-page will left his immense fortune to a family trust and a family partnership. This maneuver not only confers tax advantages but also ensures privacy. The court appointed attorney Richard H. Kuh to review the estate on behalf of Ross's 10-year-old daughter, Nicole. Kuh, the former prosecutor first hired by Sunny von Billow's children to investigate her mysterious coma, has taken a less adversarial posture in his report on the Ross fortune. Kuh writes, "In light of the understandable concern of decedent's widow ... I see no reason here to disclose or summarize the content of each of these unfiled documents." Some details do sneak out of his report, though. Ross's final will was signed on October 21, 1992, just two months before his death; his previous will had been written in 1986, with a codicil added at the time of the Time Warner merger and Ross's huge and controversial employment contracts. Ross was dying of cancer while his last will was drafted, and his Paul, Weiss, Rifkind attorneys wrote the document with Oded Aboodi, Ross's longtime business adviser. Everything stays in the family. His widow, Courtney Sale Ross, gets the major share, followed by the two grown children from his first marriage. Nicole receives nothing immediately; her smaller share of the family fortune should be offset by her eventual inheritance from her mother.

AND...

. . .President Clintondoes have time for dinner parties. He invited the press corps to a barbecue on June 13, the third private meal between the First Couple and the press in recent weeks. Perhaps a beleaguered staffer took the time to curl up with Sally Quinn's novel Happy Endings, in which presidential widow Sadie Grey gives her successor some advice on wooing the press: Host a series of small dinner parties in the White House. "It would give people a chance to get to know you on a more personal level. . . . Cozy up to the press a little, meet and greet," Sadie says.

. . . Real estate makes the strangest bedfellows: Bella Abzug and her daughters just bought Kathie Lee Gifford's home in the Hamptons. Did Kathie Lee's Laura Ashley taste appeal to the Abzug feminists? Bella laughed and said the threebedroom house is "set up in a way that's right for us."

... Six months before Henry Kravis's separation from Carolyne Roehm was announced, sharp-eyed Hamptons realtors knew something was up: Kravis had quietly plunked down $5 million for three and a half acres on the ocean in Southampton, right across the street from the $1.5 million house he bought in 1988.

DEBORAH MITCHELL