Nickel-less Cage

Apparen’y Nicolas Cage didn’t get the memo that getting rich, being rich, and staying rich are different things. He seems pretty good at the first two — the third? Not so much — allegedly.

Whether the actor proves his former money manager is at fault remains to be seen, but conversations with several sources close to Cage reveal a person whose financial problems stemmed at least in part from his own profligate spending. As they tell it, Cage’s appetite was extreme even for Hollywood, with a decade-plus shopping spree that saw him snapping up houses, motorcycles, a jet, yachts, vintage and new cars, expensive watches, meteorites, dinosaur skulls, an enormous pet collection, massive amounts of jewelry for the women in his life, group vacations for his entire entourage, and on and on and on. “He lived like a sheik,” says one person who’s known him for several years. “Spent money like it was water,” says another.

Reached for comment, Cage’s lawyer Martin Singer said, “Half the stuff you say is false. I’m not going to get into detail.” A publicist for Cage had nothing further to add. “As you’ve already spoken to Marty, I don’t have anything else to contribute.”

Until fairly recently, Cage’s primary residence was the 1940 Bel Air mansion, with eight bedrooms, a theater, wine cellar, and a library. The house’s previous owners included Dean Martin and Tom Jones. “A Gothic mausoleum” is how one sometime guest describes its décor in recent years. When Cage first put it on the market a few years back, the asking price was more than $30 million. He later dropped the price in half, and finally put it up this September in a sealed bid sale, where only offers above $9.95 million were considered. A source close to the sale says it went for less than $15 million. Some argue that the economy may not be the only reason the house went for so much less than Cage had desired. “It was not what I would call good taste,” says the visitor.

National Treasure 3 — is that you I hear calling? A couple more of those and cut out the islands and shrunken heads and he should be all right. Is this rich man’s paycheck to paycheck?

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