Crash landing

Among the Hollywood elite, TV mogul, multimillionaire and friend of the famous Merv Adelson's financial crash has come as a blow. For the most part he has managed to keep his financial woes out of the Hollywood buzz. What is astonishing about Adelson's story is the heights from which he has crashed. So what happened? Where did the money go? Only Adelson knows for sure, and he's not talking. But through dozens of interviews with friends and former business associates emerges a story that indeed reads like a Tinseltown screenplay. With houses in Bel Air and Malibu, as well as his ranch in Aspen, Adelson put himself at the center of the Hollywood scene. The biggest TV stars of the day were among his closest friends. The trouble is, Adelson has borrowed heavily against his Time Warner stock. And that, those people say, has gotten him into real trouble.