And the Winner Is...

Given her druthers, she might have sent them both to bed without supper until they could learn to share. Instead, on April 10 New York state supreme court Justice Eileen Bransten settled for a judicial scolding of billionaire corporate mogul Ronald Perelman and his ex-wife, Democratic party fundraiser Patricia Duff, whose name-calling, dirt-dealing, money-burning custody war over their 6-year-old daughter Caleigh had lasted nearly five wearying years. “Both parents have acted deplorably with each other,” Bransten admonished the pair in an 80-page ruling. “[They] have made this a take-no-prisoners, scorched-earth battle to the death.”

Once the smoke cleared, Perelman—who owns an 83 percent share of Revlon and is worth an estimated $4 billion—emerged the apparent victor, having won legal custody of Caleigh, with physical custody and vacations to be equally shared. “On balance,” concluded Bransten, “the father is better able to prioritize Caleigh’s interests and promote her well-being.” Until now Caleigh has spent two-thirds of the year with Duff, who divides her time between a lavish home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and a 14-room mansion on 21 acres in Southport, Conn. Under the new ruling Caleigh will spend every other week with Perelman—who married actress Ellen Barkin, 47, last June—at his townhouse in Manhattan, his $23 million Palm Beach mansion or his 57-acre estate in the Hamptons. In all these locations she’ll have access to her own phone, with a separate line and speed dial to the other parent. Perelman, says his friend Howard Gittis, “is gratified by the ruling.” As for Duff, “it hurt, of course,” says her brother Tom Orr, 48. “[But] she’s upbeat.”

Unless appealed, the decision ends a dispute that mixed The War of the Roses with Kramer vs. Kramer, lasted three years longer than the couple’s 18-month marriage and included mutual allegations of physical abuse (which were thrown out by the judge). Along the way, Perelman, 58, and Duff, 47, racked up millions in legal fees (Duff, who went through more than 20 attorneys, is now suing Perelman to cover her $5.2 million tab; he’s contesting) and tied up the courts with testimony that ranged from the petty to the bizarre. Perelman, an orthodox Jew, accused Duff of feeding Caleigh leavened cookies on Passover and allowing her to hunt for Easter eggs. Duff claimed Perelman was behind the disappearance of designer clothes and jewelry from her Connecticut home as well as an infestation of bark beetles in her bedroom (the judge didn’t buy it).

Regardless of the outcome, say lawyers close to the case, the whole affair never warranted such a circus. “I had this case settled for a joint custody and she turned it down,” says Barry Levin, who represented Duff for six months before quitting in frustration in February 2000. Observes another ex-Duff attorney: “There was a battle of wills. You’re not going to dictate to these people.”

That stubbornness may be the one thing they have in common. The Los Angeles-born daughter of a Hughes Aircraft executive, Duff was twice divorced (from high school sweetheart Thomas Zabrodsky and Washington, D.C., lawyer Daniel Duff) and working on her third marriage, to Hollywood studio chief Mike Medavoy, when she met Perelman through mutual friend Melanie Griffith in late 1992. Perelman—the father of five children from previous marriages to banking and real estate heiress Faith Golding and gossip columnist Claudia Cohen—was immediately captivated. “She looks great and she moves great and she smells great and she sounds great,” he later told Vanity Fair. “I thought, this is great!”

Together, though, they were anything but. Duff split from Medavoy in 1993 and she and Perelman were married in January 1995, five weeks after she gave birth to Caleigh. From the beginning “there were lots of tears,” says a friend of Duff’s. “It seemed glamorous but it wasn’t.” Duff claims Perelman was obsessively controlling, insisting she and Caleigh be tailed by armed guards. He says she was cruel to Samantha (his 10-year-old daughter by Cohen) and kept the rest of his children at a distance. The couple split in August 1996 and their divorce was granted two years later. By then they were embroiled in separate custody and child support cases that, oddly, were heard by different judges. (In a 1999 judgment, Duff, who received $30 million in cash and property, sought child support of $1.3 million a year but was awarded only $153,000.)

How Caleigh has weathered the court case that has spanned over half her young life is unclear. “People come up to us on the street and say, ‘Is that the little girl I’ve been reading about?’ ” Perelman testified during the trial. “She’s a fabulous child and she should not be burdened with this.” On that much, he and Duff might just agree.

Anne-Marie O’Neill

Elizabeth McNeil in New York City

Related Articles