The couple were married at the turret-
ed Odescalchi Castle, outside Rome. “A
Fairytale Wedding Fit for a Formula One
Princess,” Hello magazine proclaimed.
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra per-
formed, as did Eric Clapton, Andrea
Bocelli, the Black Eyed Peas, and Alicia
Keys. Slavica reportedly kept the arrange-
ments hidden from Bernie until it was
time for him to pay the bill: $ 19 million.
For their honeymoon, the newlyweds
boarded a private jet and ew to their
new home in Los Angeles: Candyland,
built by television mogul Aaron Spelling
and his wife, Candy. At 56 , 500 square
feet, with 14 bedrooms and 27 baths,
it was the largest house in L.A. Petra
bought it for $ 85 million in cash, sight
unseen—at the time, the highest price
ever paid for a house in Los Ange-
les. James renamed it Stunt Manor. It
boasted a screening room, bowling
alley, beauty salon, billiards room, and
gift wrapping room, plus a wine cellar
where Stunt, who doesn’t drink, stored
the world’s largest collection of Petrus. It
was so big, so grandiose, that tour buses
passed by twice a day. One day, as a goof,
Stunt boarded one of the buses, only
to step o when it arrived at the man-
sion—his mansion. “This is my house,”
he told the startled sightseers. Then he
“brought them all in and took them on
a tour, so they could see it.”
The house was the couple’s call-
ing card. TMZ trailed them. Charities
sought their largesse. Movie stars and
oil moguls befriended them. Backed in
part by a 10 - million-pound revolving
credit line guaranteed by his father-in-
law, Stunt ran a London-based bullion
company. “He owns gold mines,” Petra
proudly told a reporter.
Stunt also dived even deeper into
the art world, loaning masterworks to
hallowed institutions like the Palace of
Westminster. At some point, as he looked
for sleeper paintings he could snap up at
bargain prices, he had an idea: Why not
commission his own works, modeled on
the paintings of famous artists? He doesn’t
deny ordering up fake art. He says he did it
for fun, for laughs. His choice of a forger,
however, would prove to be trouble.They met through a rare Ferrari. Stunt
coveted the car, only to be told by the
dealer that it had already been sold—to
an American artist named Tony Tetro.
A former altar boy who lost his job sell-
ing furniture, Tetro switched to forgery
after reading a book called Fake! It was
based on the life of Elmyr de Hory, an art
forger who fooled galleries and collectors
worldwide and was featured on the cover
of Time as “Con Man of the Year.”
I could do this, Tetro remembers think-
ing as he read the book. “And I did.”
Tetro’s astounding skill at forgery
enabled him to buy so many Ferraris and
Rolls-Royces that his neighbors suspect-
ed him of being a drug dealer. But it soon
landed him in jail. In 1989 , a Los Angeles
gallery owner was busted for selling Tony
Tetro fakes as real. Seeking a plea deal,
he visited Tetro’s studio wearing a wire.
When Tetro admitted to having faked a
Chagall, more than two dozen o¡cers,
some in bulletproof vests, burst into his
home studio. Tetro was charged with
67 felony counts of forgery. “They ripped
my house apart,” he recalls. He servedPABLO PICASSO
The original is called On the Beach.
The imitation was given a more explicit
title: Liberated Bathers.CLAUDE MONET
The title of the forgery—Lily Pads 1882—
was a bit of a giveaway:
Monet had no lily garden then.74 VANITY FAIR
COUR
TESY^ OF^ T
ONY^ TETRO;
PHOT
OGRA
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