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Wednesday, July 16, 1997
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Designer killed in front of his home
Suspect already listed as one of FBI's most wanted
The Associated Press
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Gianni Versace, who dressed celebrities the world over in his glamorous, sexy designs, was killed outside his ocean-front home yesterday by a man who shot him twice in the back of the head at point-blank range.
The FBI was looking into the possibility that suspected killer Andrew Cunanan, one of the FBI's 10 most-wanted fugitives, had struck again. The 27-year-old Cunanan was known to move in gay circles. Versace was gay.
Versace, 50, was returning home from the News Cafe on South Beach's Ocean Drive
after buying an Italian newspaper when he was gunned down outside the gates of his Mediterranean-style mansion.
"I do know it is not a random act of violence," Police Chief Richard Barreto said. "I believe that he was targeted."
Police said the fashion designer was shot by
white man in his mid-20s, dressed in a white or gray shirt and dark shorts and carrying a backpack.
Glanni Versace
Officers later cordoned off a five-story municipal parking garage near the shooting scene after a witness saw a man fitting the description of the suspect. WTVJ-TV in Miami reported police found clothing under a red pickup truck in the parking garage and believed the clothes belonged to the suspect.
Police said Cunanan stole a red pickup truck after his last known slaying, that of a
cemetry caretaker in New Jersey. Cunanan also also charged in the May slaying of a Minneapolis architect, and is the prime suspect in the killings of a former boyfriend from Minneapolis and a Chicago businessman.
Along with Giorgio Armani, Versace was considered Italy's leading ready-to-wear designer and a symbol of Italian fashion.
"Glanni Versace together with a handful of names symbolizes the success of Italian fashion all over the world," Armani said. "My reaction is one of revolt against such an unnatural and violent death and one of profound grief."
Hours after the slaying, a puddle of blood remained on the steps of Versace's threestory home. The estate, created from two aging Art Deco hotels, faces the Atlantic Ocean. It is surrounded by a high wall, and his Renaissance-style crest adorns the ornate entrances to the estate.
Versace entertained stars such as Madonna and Robert DeNiro and liked to take leisurely walks along South Beach, often
A native of Reggio Calabria in southern Italy, Versace began designing ready-to-wear for other firms in 1972 in Milan. He launched the Gianni Versace label in 1978.
alone.
Versace gained fame in the 1980s, staging his fashion shows with blaring rock music, glaring floodlights and large screens showing what was going on on the runway.
His first big hit was the use of clingy, chainmail material. He was largely responsible for the rebirth in Italy of the miniskirt. Versace was a major force in creating the black-leather look and the glittery sequined jackets so loved by pop singers.
Celebrities who have worn Versace designs include Courtney Love, Elton John, Demi Moore, Rod Stewart, Jane Fonda, Prince, Julie Andrews, Kim Basinger, Jane Seymour, Oksana Baiul and Princess Diana, according to his company.
Besides women's and men's wear, his lines now include children's clothing, lingerie, beachwear, accessories and perfume.
Cosby aids girl admits to affair
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Bill Cosby, America's most beloved TV dad, testified yesterday that he had paid Autumn Jackson's mother $100,000 during 20 years because she had implied that she would go public with their brief affair.
Cosby said he had paid for Jackson's schooling and had given her a car.
"I will be for you a father figure, but I am not your father," Cobb recalled telling Jackson, 22, who claims to be his out-of-wedlock daughter.
Jackson is on trial for allegedly trying to extort $40 million from the entertainer by threatening to tell her story to the tabloids.
Cosby has said he did not believe he was Jackson's father, but he concedes that he had an affair with her mother, Shawn Upshaw. He has declined to take a blood test to determine paternity, and the judge has ruled that the paternity issue is irrelevant.
Prosecutors said there was not evidence to believe Cosby was Jackson's father. Jackson's birth certificate names a Los Angeles truck driver as her father.
Jackson's lawyer, Robert Baum, had said his client was raised to believe Cosby was her father. He denied she committed extortion and said she was engaged in a lawful negotiation.
Cosby testified that when Jackson had entered college, he had begun
speaking to her frequently. He put her picture on "The Cosby Show" set after she gave it to him the one time they met, in the early 1990s.
Bill Cosby
"This is to inspire you to go out and become something." Cosby recalled saying, glaring at Jackson across the courtroom.
Cosby described his tryst with Upshaw in the mid-1970s. He met her in a Los Angeles hotel and asked her to dance, later inviting her to meet him in Nevada.
"I called her, and she came to Las Vegas, and we spent time. We had sex," Cosby testified.
Upshaw and Cosby met again, and she showed him a picture of a child. "She said this is your daughter, Autumn," Cosby testified. "I said, 'That's not my daughter,' and that was it."
He said he had told his wife, Camille, about the affair 17 years ago but had worried about publicity because he had been building a career emphasizing family values. Cosby was popular as the father of a prosperous family in the top-rated TV show of the 1980s and had written the best-selling book, "Fatherhood."
Robinson coins lead to fray
Money raised from coins to benefit Botanical Gardens
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — In a ceremony on the Treasury steps, officials trumpeted commemorative coins honoring Jackie Robinson, with proceeds going to scholarships for poor inner-city kids.
What wasn't mentioned — and what none of the U.S. Mint's gloss brochures say — is that $1 million, nearly 20 percent of the expected proceeds, will instead help expand the U.S. Botanic Garden at the foot of Capitol Hill.
Former Sen. Bennett Johnston, a Louisiana Democrat whose wife, Mary, is a vice chairwoman of The National Fund for the U.S. Botanic Garden, got the money diverted last session.
Nine months afterward, bitterness lingers.
"We felt the overwhelmingly greater priority was educating young men and women who might not otherwise have the opportunity to attend college," said Leonard Coleman, baseball's National League president and Jackie Robinson Foundation chairman.
The developments illustrate the fierce politics surrounding the selection of subjects for the nation's commemorative coins, pitting worthy cause against worthy cause.
On a recent summer morning, the scene at the Botanic Garden's glass-walled conservatory is as foreign as can be from the rollick-
"We felt the overwhelmingly greater priority was educating young men and women who might not otherwise have the opportunity to attend college."
Leonard Coleman National League president, Jackie Robinson Foundation chairman
ing bleachers of Brooklyn's Ebbets Field, where Jackie Robinson ran, batted and caught his way into history, breaking baseball's color barrier a half-century ago.
Classical music tinkles softly. Strolling tourists breathe flower-scented air. Art students strive to capture the play of light on leaf.
The two worlds intersected last October when Congress authorized a $5-gold piece and a silver dollar, both honoring Robinson. Eager to fly home to campaign for re-election, lawmakers approved the bill with little
debate.
No one mentioned that the Botanic Garden would share proceeds with a nonprofit educational foundation established by the ballplayer's widow.
The law provided for 100,000 gold pieces, with a $35 surcharge on each. If they sell out as expected, that would raise $3.5 million for the Robinson foundation, which supported 142 students at 62 schools during the past year.
The law also authorized 200,000 silver dollars, with a $10 surcharge, which would raise $2 million.
Johnston at first sought to block the Robinson coin.
He was worried the Robinson dollar would hurt sales of a separate, already authorized silver dollar commemorating the establishment of the garden in 1820.
"There are only so many coins in a certain year they can sell," he said.
Earlier, Botanic Garden supporters had been forced to defer to Olympic coins, missing the garden's 175th anniversary by two years.
This time Johnston offered a compromise: split the proceeds of the Robinson silver dollar. So, the first $1 million — enough for 50 four-year scholarships — will go to the garden.
To Johnston, the arrangement is more than fair. His wife had spent years working to raise money for the garden with B.A. Bentsen, wife of Lloyd Bentsen, the former senator and Treasury secretary, and Teresa Heinz, of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
The Robinson foundation proposed its coin at the 11th hour, he said.
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