Auctions

A Lake Tahoe casino once owned by Frank Sinatra is to be offered in a foreclosure sale April 8. Because the Cal Neva Resort, Spa and Casino straddles the California-Nevada border, separate, interrelated auctions will be held that day in Roseville, Calif., and Reno. The resort's current owner, Namcal, defaulted on a $26.8-million debt to Delaware-based Canpartners in December. The casino was owned by Sinatra from 1960 to 1963.

The Malibu Performing Arts Center -- a performance venue and recording studio used by A-listers such as Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand and, recently, Sting -- will be auctioned to the highest bidder June 19 as part of the bankruptcy proceedings of its owner, the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Malibu. So far, the only bid that has been made public is a $15-million offer from the city of Malibu. If it prevails in the bidding for the facility, which includes a 520-seat theater and 35,000 square feet of rentable space, it plans to use the building as its new City Hall.

Sotheby's is auctioning a self-portrait by Andy Warhol that was recently found after being forgotten in a closet in New York City for more than 40 years. The painting belongs to Cathy Naso. She was 17 when she got a part-time job as a receptionist at Warhol's Factory. Two years later, in 1967, Warhol gave her a self-portrait inscribed to her. The Brooklyn resident displayed the painting briefly and then stored it in a closet. It remained there until this year. The auction house estimates it will sell for $1 million or more in a Nov. 11 sale.

About 60 works by Impressionist and Modern artists sold for more than $111 million at a Sotheby's auction in London, with Amedeo Modigliani's 1918 work, "Boy With Blue Waistcoat," drawing the highest amount: $11.2 million. Vincent van Gogh's "Two Crabs" earned the second-highest amount, $9.4 million. Egon Schiele's 1913 work, "Liebespaar," was bought for $3.5 million, a record for a work on paper by the artist. The Monday transactions were the largest sale of masterpieces in Britain in a decade.

Marilyn Nichols Kane watched as crowds of strangers picked through her former husband's lavish belongings, put up for sale to pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars he owes her for child support. Described as America's worst deadbeat dad, her former husband, precious metals consultant Jeffrey Nichols, is in jail in New York City. He owes an estimated $640,000 in back child support and pleaded guilty last month to a federal charge of leaving a state to avoid the obligation.

With an air of almost impossible casualness, Juan Pablo Molyneux surveyed his New York studio. The sterling silver tape measure from Tiffany & Co. once owned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis "is around here somewhere," the architect / designer said. "I think it's in a drawer, or wait, maybe it's over there on one of my drafting tables." Acting on behalf of a nameless, inordinately rich client from San Francisco, Molyneux paid $48,875 for the 29-foot tape measure, monogrammed "J.B.K."

The last word on the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis auction probably should have been spoken after the tents came down on York Avenue and the media circus fled Sotheby's for the next big story. But curiosity remained in the art world and beyond: What was that all about? The frenzy, the mobs, the seemingly sane people paying hundreds of times real-world value for things like a scuffed-up stool, a 45-rpm record or a copy of a Dr.

'Total Recall' Rights Draw Heated Bids: Worldwide rights to produce a television series or movie based on the hit 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger film were sold for $1.2 million to DSL Entertainment in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court auction, after bidding started at only $310,000. The sale of a potential TV project based on the film was conducted as part of the bankruptcy case involving former high-flying film producer Carolco Inc.

It's all in the expression, teddy bear aficionados will tell you. And because every expression is slightly different, collectors think nothing of having hundreds of the dolls. Oops! "Let's not get confused between a doll and a teddy bear," says teddy bear artist Mac Pohlen of Brea. "I'll put up with a lot, but not that!" And let's also not confuse these bears with children's toys. These ones are prized by adults--and to the tune of $86,000.