High life
Stock watch
Taki
LRougemont et me tell you a little story about Time Warner, the company that has just been bought by AOL for a piddling $147 billion big ones. It was 1965, I had just married my first wife, and was dining with Gianni Agnelli a deux in New York City's 21 Club.
We were comparing stalkers.' 'Isn't it time you stopped all this tennis foolishness and did some work?' asked the CEO of Fiat and by far the most charismat- ic man I've ever met. 'If I had something to impress my father with so I wouldn't need to go on a tanker for the next three years, it would help,' countered yours truly, always looking for the easy way out. 'Kinney might be a good way to start,' said Gianni, and then went on to far more interesting sub- jects like art, sailing boats and women.
However enigmatic the `avvocato's' advice, I soon figured it out. Kinney was a company quoted on the stock exchange, and just about that time some friends who worked at Lehman Brothers had tried to recruit me because of my contacts. I had politely refused — I wanted to have fun with friends like Niarchos and Agnelli, not sell them stocks — but the word was out that I might sell my soul to the stockmar- ket. Ergo, Gianni's advice.
Well, I went to see my father, discussed my future ('Unless you start at the bottom you will never amount to anything' turned out to be half right) and, having refused his kind offer to go to sea, threw him a bone about Kinney. Father did not believe in stock tips. But I insisted. He called his peo- ple and soon was on the telephone to me. 'You are much stupider than I thought, and in retrospect you better stick to sport and nightclubs, I will finance you . . . it will come che,aper than having you meddle with stocks. Kinney, for God's sake, is a small time outfit that runs funeral parlours.'
That was back in 1965. Steve Ross took over Kinney just about then — he was mar- ried to the daughter of the head funeral parlour honcho — and eventually renamed it Warner's. As everyone knows, he then merged it with Time, making poor old Henry Luce scream foul from his grave. No sooner had Ross reached the promised land, prostate cancer did him in. I cannot think of a crueller fate. Ross, obviously not his original surname, was a nice guy. He started with nothing and had reached what he thought were olympian heights. He got rid of the first dumpy highschool sweet- heart wife, and married Babe Paley's patri- cian daughter, Amanda Mortimer. To a poor Jewish boy like Steve, being the son- in-law of Bill Paley was like a smiling wal- let-lifter such as Jack Straw being admitted to White's. After Amanda walked out on him, he married a blonde from Texas by the name of Courtney. She inherited most of his moolah, but never learned the tricks of old money. (She once remonstrated with the captain of her chartered boat for speaking to her directly; she ordered him to go though her secretary, and in writing. I guessed she must have seen this in some lousy movie and thought that was the way old money behaved.) Gerald Levin, who replaced Ross, also came up the hard way, and now has sold the original Kinney company that owned a few hearses for $147 billion. Oh yes, I almost forgot. I once asked Gianni Agnelli if he ever bought Kinney. He had no idea what I was talking about, but didn't think so. Just before my father died in 1989, I reminded him of my original tip. He was very impressed. 'I always knew that you were by far the smartest member of my family ' or something to that effect. I guess this time he meant what he said because his will confirmed it.
All I know is that ever since 1965 I have kept a close watch on the stock, have never bought it, but have always rooted for it. Had I invested a few thousand dollars in Kinney back then I would now be worth many millions on AOL-Time Warner stock alone. Ironically, it has never bothered me. I liked Steve Ross, loved Amanda Mor- timer, and hear that Levin and Steve Case, head of AOL, are all right. This is what capitalism is all about. So if any of you out there have a small hearse business, do not despair. And if Gianni Agnelli ever throws you a bone, take it. And, incidentally, if your father ever tells you to start at the bottom, refuse. An accident of birth is the fairest way I know of making it.
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