Oscar-winning actor Nicholas Cage has breached the Orange Curtain, paying $25 million for an oceanfront mansion next to the former John Wayne property in Bayshore, the Insider hears; the seller is Golden State Foods founder James Williams. Current Hollywood stars remain rare in OC, but Cage wanted to be close to his 122-foot yacht and couldn’t find a big enough slip in L.A., the Insider is told. The actor is busy,”Lord of War” is being released next month and three other films are due out this year and next …
Also on the Newport shore, Irvine Company owner Donald Bren has moved into his new Harbor Island mansion. Bren bought the vacant double lot from Jim Peters and Gary Hamilton for $9 million in 1990,bad timing then as the OC real estate market tanked, but all’s well now: An informed estimate puts the current value, with about 10,000 square feet of additions, at $25 million. Bren is flanked by neighbors Chet Needelman and Philip and Mary Lyons; George and Julia Argyros are three doors down. Bren quietly sold his previous 6,800-square-foot residence on nearby Linda Isle …
The friendly rivalry between public television stations KCET (Los Angeles) and KOCE (Orange County) is heating up. KCET has hired Roger Cooper, formerly with the defunct Orange County NewsChannel, as OC correspondent for “Life & Times,” which airs weeknights opposite KOCE’s “Real Orange.” “Perhaps the reason KCET is paying attention to OC is because KOCE’s audience has grown. I suspect Orange County can thank KOCE for the current infatuation from KCET,” says KOCE Prez Mel Rogers, who has an announcement of his own: KOCE has acquired a satellite truck and will begin live broadcasts in about a month. (Disclosure: EE RR hosts and produces “Inside OC” on KOCE and goes up against Jim Lehrer) …
Tim Hoiles has won again, this time against San Francisco antitrust lawyer Joseph M. Alioto in a dispute over legal fees. Alioto wanted $21.3 million for helping Hoiles unload his stock in Freedom Communications, the Irvine holding company of the Orange County Register. Instead, a federal jury in Denver (near Hoiles’ Colorado Springs home) awarded Alioto a mere $1.15 million, a fraction of what Hoiles was said to have offered earlier. The judge ruled Alioto’s contingency deal violated Colorado law; jurors then calculated the value of his legal work at about $1,000 per hour. Alioto, contending the contract is valid in California, said he’ll appeal. In late 2003 Freedom’s directors ended years of familial acrimony by approving a recapitalization that enabled Hoiles, his ex-wife and two daughters to cash out for $142 million …
First John McCain, now former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman has endorsed Marilyn Brewer for Chris Cox’s congressional seat. It’s one moderate GOP woman backing another, but what makes it a bit more interesting is that Whitman’s daughter, Kate, used to be Cox’s D.C. press aide.
