Feature

Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams

LeRoy has tried to stay close to his three children with Kay -- Jennifer, Max, Carolyn. His daughter Bridget (from a brief first marriage) lives in a house on his property in Amagansett. "I've been careful not to have the family-breakdown stuff happen to me," LeRoy says. "Hollywood is full of that kind of stuff; people hide in closets when their relatives come over, like a farce. It's one reason it's been so difficult for me to have the divorce."

But it has been a difficult time, anyway -- especially for the children, who Kay LeRoy says are deeply upset by all the public squabbling. The LeRoys were unable to reach a financial settlement, and so the divorce went to trial, its sordid details making the tabloids on a daily basis. Kay contended that Warner had three mistresses; for one, he'd purchased a house and a BMW. He also dated a Hungarian gymnast, a woman LeRoy claims is "just a friend." His last girlfriend, an aspiring country singer, he dispatched to Lainie Kazan -- one of Kay's best friends -- for voice lessons.

David Aronson, Kay's attorney, says that LeRoy "flaunted those relationships. He took these women to the same restaurants where he and Kay would go, and he arranged for one of his mistresses' sons to have a birthday party in the same room at Tavern on the Green where he and Kay had parties for their children."

At the time of this writing, the couple is still technically married, although Warner and Kay have been granted a divorce. In June, the court awarded Kay 40 percent of LeRoy's fortune, which translates into a $20 million share, with the couple's 60-acre Amagansett dacha thrown in. For the divorce to become final, both parties must sign off on a judgment that divides the estate between them; their attorneys are still wrangling over the precise terms. Warner LeRoy himself claims to be unsure whether he is married or divorced.

The confusion on all ends is understandable: The summer of 1999 proved to be the Summer of Love for the LeRoys. By the end of August -- to the astonishment of her lawyers -- Kay had apparently succumbed to Warner's conciliatory overtures, and suddenly he was squiring her to plays and dinner parties again. Aronson notes that, while he has certainly seen couples reconcile during divorces, he's never been involved in a case in which this kind of money was at stake, there was a trial and a judgment, and then the couple decided to get back together. The case is still so unsettled that one of Kay's lawyers advised New York to check on the status of the marriage at midnight before this story went to press: Kay's attorney Norman Sheresky said he expected the judge to sign off on the divorce judgment by the time this issue hit the newsstand.

A friend of Kay's who has known the family for several decades says Kay would probably have settled early with Warner if he'd just given her credit for helping him create his restaurants. In the seventies, Warner freely admitted that his wife had given him many ideas he incorporated into Maxwell's Plum: She was the one who scoured the country looking for surviving plates of Tiffany glass, for example. Today, he denies her contributions, which her friends find deplorable. Even on opening night at the Tea Room, Kay quietly announced to LeRoy's table that she felt the urge to check up on things in the kitchen. "She really was half of that marriage," says the friend. "She really did devote herself to all his enterprises in a hands-on way." Once, when Tavern on the Green's dessert chef quit, Kay stepped in. "We're talking about six o'clock in the morning with flour all over her. But Warner dissed her. She would have taken $10 million if he'd just announced what a help she had been."

Friends say Kay LeRoy has been treated for severe depression and that Warner is now moving in on her at a moment of weakness. "This spring, Kay was expressing nothing but major hatred toward him, and she was so elated when she got the judge's ruling," says one friend. "But then I think she went into a depression after that."

Kay's lawyers say that even if the couple reconciles, their relationship will be permanently altered in the eyes of the court. Essentially, Kay LeRoy has secured what amounts to a postnuptial agreement. "Kay will be his financial equal in this new life they are entering," says Aronson. "Even if the reconciliation doesn't work out, they won't have to go through this again."

Warner is happy to discuss the incipient reconciliation. To the cynics, he only has this to say: "In the first place, I don't live my life in the past -- ever. I don't carry grudges. Also, I don't really care what the press says. During the trial, I never read a single word written about me. My wife and I decided to get back together and try again. We were apart for 9 years, but we had 25 fabulous years together."

To woo her, LeRoy flew to Dublin in August, where Kay, a dignified but shy Brit who is a decade younger than her husband, was visiting family. By the time she returned to the States, Warner was again being allowed to wander his Amagansett rose garden, inspect his rare-tree collection, and feed his Japanese koi fish -- now the size of newborn babies -- in his man-made pond with its fountain vaguely reminiscent of an Aztec pyramid.

Asked to share the secret behind the couple's ability to forgive and forget after such an acrimonious and public divorce, LeRoy offers the following explanation: "In the first place, we love each other. In the second place, we were going to spend the next five years in court. There were years of appeals ahead. Forking over money was actually a long way off." LeRoy adds that he and his sort-of ex discussed how much they had already spent on the more than fifteen attorneys who have been involved with the case at one point or another.

As for the mistresses, Warner resolutely contends he had nothing to do with any of them until after he and Kay separated. He also survived two bouts of cancer: seminoma (soft-cell) and prostate. He points out that he was battling both these cancers during the time he was allegedly tomcatting around town. The prostate cancer did not leave him impotent, he is quick to assert, although it did leave him unable to produce any more children the old-fashioned way. (Just in case, he says, he's stored enough sperm "to make millions of kids.")

A friend of the LeRoys sees a classic Warner move behind his sudden, conspicuous affection for Kay. "He doesn't have any malice, but he's the most manipulative person, shoving cake down your throat that you don't want."

Watching last week from her seat at the table as Warner and his maroon velvet coat were reflected infinitely in the Russian Tea Room's mirrors and brass, Kay LeRoy said she was pleased for the man she's battled in court for five years -- even though she couldn't say whether they were going to stay married.

"It's complicated. We're still friends. And I'm here," she said. "We had lunch together during the trial, and my lawyers were very upset. He's still the most interesting man I've ever met."