|
Brian Quintana: Why Paris Hilton Hates Me
TONY CASTRO, Columnist, Photos by Dana Tyson 05.APR.06
Politics & Culture: He could have been Antonio Villaraigosa and he’s now an heiress’s nightmare.
To
hear Brian Quintana tell it, he bit the bullet for Antonio
Villaraigosa. He gave up his budding political career so that the
ambitious mayor of Los Angeles could have one.
It was the spring
of 1994 in the east Hollywood area, and Brian Quintana was about as
well known as Antonio Villaraigosa, then a gofer for Superintendent
Gloria Molina and a labor activist.
Quintana, then 26, and a
protege of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco and today the House
Democratic Leader in Congress, was a candidate for the 45th Assembly
seat covering East Hollywood and into Northeast Los Angeles, a position
being vacated by onetime Latino Caucus leader Richard Polanco.
Polanco
was supporting his chief of staff, Bill Mabie, a non-Latino in a
district that was heavily Latino and recognized as “a Latino seat.” But
with Quintana and Villaraigosa both in the race, the two of them
threatened to split the Latino voter bloc.
Molina, according to
Quintana, telephoned him and — as she has done over her long career in
trying elect Latino candidates — used her influence to get him out of
the race.
“She said she had supported me [against Polanco] when
I ran against him in 1992 but she was now supporting Antonio, and she
asked me to step aside and defer to Antonio.”
Villaraigosa was
15 years older, and Quintana sensed a kinship. Both were from the
Eastside: Villaraigosa from City Terrace; Quintana from neighboring
Boyle Heights. Both had been raised poor: Villaraigosa by a single mom
after an abusive father abandoned the family; Quintana in a one-bedroom
home with 11 family members. Then there was Roosevelt High School:
Villaraigosa had graduated from there; Quintana’s mother had been a
homecoming queen.
Finally, there was the name. Brian was
Quintana’s middle name. He had been christened Antonio Brian Quintana.
In Mexican culture, being a tocayo — sharing the same first name is a
special symbiotic connection.
“I did it for my tocayo,” says Quintana. “He won, and the rest is history.”
Quintana,
now 37, continued his involvement in politics — volunteering on Bill
Clinton’s 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns, working for California
Democratic Chairman Art Torres for a while, and today serving on one of
Senator Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign finance committees.
In
the process, as a byproduct of California politics, he networked with
some of the most influential people in the entertainment industry,
their agents, business managers and the restaurants, clubs and watering
holes where celebrities hang out.
Quintana fashioned a
promotion, public relations and facilitator’s business out of those
connections: If you had money or were a budding star and wanted to be
part of the inner circle of the city’s celebrity scene, Quintana could
get you in.
It was, in a sense, Quintana in business selling what Quintana had been doing all his life — rising above yourself.
At
the age of 15, Quintana was discovered by an organization that places
underprivileged youngsters in fancy East Coast boarding schools.
Quintana, who otherwise would have attended Roosevelt High, spent his
high school years rubbing elbows with the sons of the wealthy and
privileged at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, CT.
From there,
Quintana moved on to UC Berkeley, attending the school at the same time
as two future Eastside Latino politicians, Los Angeles City Councilman
Jose Huizar and former Councilman Nick Pacheco.
With his
education, cultured manner and good looks, Quintana could entertain and
engage the wealthiest of the world’s clients seeking connections and
entree in California — which he did.
Greek shipping tycoon
Philippo Niarchos, at onetime the world’s richest man, became
Quintana’s prized client. Niarchos reportedly values his privacy —
Quintana says that only 11 known photographs of Niarchos exist for
publication — and his charge to Quintana was to continue guarding that
privacy even as he helped his oldest son, 20-year-old USC film student
Stavros Niarchos III, acclimate to L.A.
And how he did.
A
professional kiteboarder, young Niarchos had a reputation of an
international playboy even before he arrived in Los Angeles, where
Quintana hooked him up at all the “in” nightclubs — where he met and
started dating actress Mary-Kate Olsen.
Through the celebrity
scene, Quintana also knew Paris Hilton, who when Stavros Niarchos hit
the L.A. nightclub circles was engaged to yet another Greek shipping
heir, Paris Latsis.
But the way Quintana tells it, Hilton was
already bored of one Greek and looking to take away the other Greek —
Stavros, whom Quintana refers to as the “young Bruce Wayne of Monaco” —
from a celebrity she regarded as a competitor.
“Paris calls me
one day and tells me that ‘Stavros needs to leave Mary-Kate for me,’”
recalled Quintana. “[Paris] saw herself and Stavaros as the ideal
international couple — incredibly beautiful and rich and meant for one
another. She said, ‘If he will leave Mary-Kate for me, I’ll leave my
fiance for him.’
“That’s what happened, and everything was fine for about three months. She got what she wanted, and I got to build my business.”
But Quintana says that when Hilton’s paradise began falling apart, life became hell for him.
For
starters, Philip Niarchos and his wife Victoria Guinness were unhappy
with the notoriety their son was amassing in the short time he had been
dating Hilton — continuing run-ins with the paparazzi, a
highly-publicized videotaped fender-bender while apparently under the
influence of alcohol in Hilton’s Bentley, a $100,000 charge for the two
of them trashing a room and hall at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas,
among others.
But Paris Hilton had developed tunnel vision about
marrying young Niarchos and planned a big family holiday meeting
between the Hiltons and Niarchoses in Maui, where the Niarchos family
spends each of their Christmases at their private compound.
Paris’ plans, however, became a disaster — of her own making, according to Quintana.
On
the day, Paris and Stavros were to drive over to the Niarchos compound,
Hilton did what she apparently does on a regular basis when she is
going out and wants public attention: She alerted the media.
Using
her own Blackberry, Quintana says, Hilton e-mailed various reporters
with a “tip sheet” that included her itinerary. As she and Stavros
drove over to the Niarchos home, Quintana received a telephone call
from a reporter who had been sent the “tip sheet” asking for directions
to the Niarchos compound.
Knowing that the last thing Philippo
Niarchos wanted was an encampment of paparazzi laying siege to his home
during Christmas, Quintana alerted Niarchos, who reportedly wasn’t too
fond of having the meeting anyway.
“They flipped out and when
Paris and Stavros arrived wouldn’t let them in the gates to the
compound. Paris was furious and embarrassed, and Stavros kept screaming
into the intercom at the gate, ‘I’m your son! Let me in!’
“But they absolutely refused to let him inside so long as he had Paris with him.”
It wouldn’t be the last scene of melodrama involving Hilton, young Niarchos and the go-between, Quintana.
But
from then on, everything that went wrong for Hilton — according to
Quintana; Hilton did not return calls for an interview — she blamed on
the onetime homeboy from Boyle Heights.
That even included
reports of Stavros and Mary-Kate Olsen seeing each other again,
something that Quintana maintains he had nothing to do with.
Meanwhile,
Quintana says Hilton began making his life miserable with threats made
in person and by phone calls — calls that he claims always carried the
same message: “I hate you. You’re a dead man.”
Quintana finally
hired a Beverly Hills lawyer and, after several go-rounds in court, got
a restraining order against the heiress.
“I don’t enjoy all the
newfound attention,” Quintana laments. “My job is to keep my clients in
the spotlight, or out of the spotlight, depending on what they want.
“But, oh, did you see that I made the Dominick Dunne column in Vanity Fair?”
Vanity Fair.
Antonio Villaraigosa hasn’t made that magazine yet.
Tony Castro can be reached at tcastro@laindependent.com.
Tony Castro Archives
 
27.SEP.06 Heaven help me: I married the Black Dahlia
05.SEP.06 Villaraigosa Waits for the Fat Lady to Sing
30.AUG.06 The mayor's stepping stone to the future
30.AUG.06 Antonio reaches for the political heavens
23.AUG.06 Is L.A. squelching the public’s voice?
02.AUG.06 Anti-Semite Passion of the Road Warrior
26.JUL.06 The melancholy prince of undercover cops
19.JUL.06 Too many guns, not enough rosaries
05.JUL.06 Monica Garcia: The female Villaraigosa?
28.JUN.06 Sopra Spuntini & Bar: Romantic L.A.
14.JUN.06 Hollywood Black Film Festival opens
14.JUN.06 The NFL: Coming to Villaraigosa's house, if not L.A.
07.JUN.06 De León rides Villaraigosa’s coattails
07.JUN.06 What the election means for Villaraigosa
31.MAY.06 AD 45 and the political legacy of Antonio
31.MAY.06 Adelphia to WeHo: Pay until it hurts
31.MAY.06 AD 42: Will Abbe Land move on or stay?
31.MAY.06 In the footsteps of an American Idol
24.MAY.06 Just call Antonio L.A.'s 'Jetset Mayor'
17.MAY.06 WeHo to Antonio: Hold your horses
17.MAY.06 Give us this day, our daily bread
10.MAY.06 Looking for Hemingway
26.APR.06 Political 'vision' or political Waterloo?
05.APR.06 Young gods: Immortality and youth
|
|
|
|
|
