High life
Below the belt
Taki
INew York t is billed as the battle of the bil- lionaires, and for once the pre-fight bally- hoo doesn't do it justice. In one corner stands Donald Trump, real-estate titan and megadeveloper; in the other Leonard Stern, head of a multi-billion dollar pet- food empire and more real-estate holdings than the combined areat of Greece, Cyp- rus, Malta, Jordan and Israel before it began expanding.
The battle erupted last week when the Donald, as Trump is referred to by his wife, suggested that Stern's better half had been ringing him up and asking him out on a date. Trump, in fact, did more than suggest. He went on record during a lengthy press conference as saying that Allison Stern had repeatedly called him seeking his body. Stern's lawyer, the man who got me off a nuisance suit of 15 million greenbacks a couple of years ago, is threatening to sue Trump, and put out the following statement: 'The allegation is ludicrous. It's the product of an adoles- cent, vindictive mind.' He also demanded a retraction, one which I'm afraid he ain't about to get.
Now I can think of nothing less gallant than what the Donald suggested, especially if it is true. Yet if anyone deserves a low blow it is the disgusting husband of Alli- son, a man who has been accused of unfair business practices and of threatening wit- nesses in a manner that made the Mafia quite envious.
Leonard Stern made his billions by selling pet food and blowing the competi- tion out of the water in a manner that has brought him before the law. He neverthe- less prevailed and is now, at 50 years of age, considered a respectable member of the community (some community, say I).
Five years ago he bought a weekly news- paper I was working for, only to shut it down for reasons unknown. They later became known when he bought the Village Voice from Rupert Murdoch for 60 million big ones. Stern obviously does not believe in competition, and had made sure in advance that he wouldn't have any by buying and closing down the paper that fed Taki's children. As everyone who has ever heard of Marx knows, the Village Voice is a radical organ dedicated to the overthrow of capitalism, unfortunately the only system that allows people like Stern to make it. Stern's organ has been firing low blows at Trump from the start, so much so in fact that even Trump-bashers like myself are now taking the Donald's side for the sake of fair play.
Stern is a man more obsessed by Trump than Captain Ahab was with that whale. He has financed books and newspaper articles and is at present sponsoring a documentary against him, all for reasons unknown. (Well, not so unknown. Stern wants to take over the real-estate turf.) So one-sided are these publications against the Donald that the projected narrator of the documentary, the actor Christopher (Superman) Reeve, has just dropped out, refusing to become involved in the battle.
Trump, who owns casinos, an airline, large blocks of prime real estate and probably the greatest house in the whole United States, might not have the best manners in the world, but he is no patsy either. He has been known to have a roving eye, and a lot of glamour girls like Catherine Oxenberg and other Hollywood babes have gone after him. Allison Stern Is a pretty ex-model, and much younger than the revolting Leonard Stern. She may have rung the Donald in order to find out the price of a room at the Plaza, but when one is married to a man as ugly as Leonard Stern one should ring only Catholic char- ities run by nuns over 70 years of age. Round one to Trump.
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