Word: vail
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...remained merely a small-bore American tragedy. For decades the vivacious, attractive former flight attendant enjoyed an enviable life. She was wed to an apparently successful real estate lawyer named Edward E. Willey Jr., the son of a powerful Virginia state legislator. The couple, who had two children, skied Vail, drove luxury cars and plied such Democratic social circles as befitted their connections and an occasional $10,000 campaign contribution. For some years, however, arguments over money had frayed the marriage, and on Nov. 28, 1993, everything fell to pieces. Edward stood publicly accused of embezzling hundreds of thousands...
...communion for 15 family members. Kennedy was pronounced dead at 5:50 p.m.; the official cause of death was "massive head and neck trauma," and deputy coroner Tom Walsh found no trace of drugs or alcohol in the body. Michael's estranged wife Victoria was spending the holiday in Vail with her father, sportscaster Frank Gifford, and she arrived to take the children...
...meatpacking and television stations, much of it financed by the junk bonds of Drexel Burnham Lambert, led by the now infamous Michael Milken. Drexel pumped out high-risk securities the way snowmaking machines create instant winter. Gillett, a Wisconsin boy, loved to ski, and he loved to ski at Vail, a powdery paradise in the Colorado Rockies. So he bought the joint...
...added adornments such as a barge business in the Pacific Northwest and a group of golf courses in Montana. Have the bankers lost their marbles again? Yes and no. Sure, Gillett went bust by taking on too much debt, but he was a proven operator who increased Vail's yearly profits from $5 million in 1985 to more than $45 million in 1991--still not enough to avert catastrophe...
Gillett personally relishes skiing "steep and deep," which is not a bad metaphor for his investment style. Like his earlier Vail venture, Gillett II rests on a mountain of junk securities, although these cost a mere 12.5% interest, well below the nosebleed rate for his last go-round. And this time he has two big partners: the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., which owns 50% of the ski operations, and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, which has 10%. Says Gillett, who has a hard time containing his optimism: "The demographics are with us. Skiing is at the same...