Widow Tells of His Mistresses, Describes Mudd as ‘Kind, Loving’ : Palimony: Vanessa Mudd offers a glimpse into the unorthodox union in the proceedings brought by the late millionaire’s companion, Eleanor Oliver.

Vanessa Mudd, widow of multimillionaire Henry T. Mudd, broke down and wept Tuesday in Superior Court as she described her “kind, generous, loving” husband, who she said continued affairs with multiple mistresses even after their marriage.

The widow, herself a former mistress who married Mudd eight months before his death in 1990, tearfully told the jury that Mudd, co-founder of Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, was “wonderful, kind, generous, loving, helpful and thoughtful.”

The emotion-filled recollections were part of Vanessa Mudd’s testimony in the trial of a $5-million palimony suit brought against Mudd’s estate by Eleanor (Lorraine) Oliver, one of Henry Mudd’s seven or so mistresses.

Vanessa Mudd’s testimony provided a glimpse into an unorthodox union in which Mudd invited his mistresses to his wedding, took them on trips with his wife and entertained them in the couple’s home. Mudd set up trust funds for many of his longtime mistresses to provide income after his death and to allow them to live rent-free in houses he bought.

Vanessa Mudd, dressed in a gray jacket and a black pleated skirt, said she met Henry Mudd at a birthday party in 1976 while she was vacationing in Los Angeles but did not start dating him regularly until she moved to the city in 1982.

“He was my best friend, and my lover,” she said in a soft-spoken voice.

She said she knew that he was also dating other women--”Paula, Patty, Betty, obviously Lorraine, Charlotte, Angie, Eileen.”

Oliver, 41, alleges that she had an unwritten contract with Mudd whereby she provided him companionship in a marriage-like relationship. In return, Oliver contends, Henry Mudd set up trusts that would provide her with an income and allow her to remain in a $600,000 hillside house in Studio City after his death.

Her suit contends that Mudd reneged on the contract after he married Vanessa in 1990, ended his 13-year relationship with Oliver and revoked her trusts. After Mudd died several months later at age 77 from complications of leukemia, executors of his estate claimed that Oliver owed back rent and successfully evicted her from the house.

The executors--Mudd’s widow, Vanessa, his accountant, Seymour Bond, and First Interstate Bank--deny there ever was a contract.

Furthermore, they contend that Mudd and Oliver’s relationship was based primarily on his paying her for sex and point out that Oliver was married to another man for nine of the years she was Mudd’s mistress.

They also contend that Oliver gave up any inheritance rights when she ended the relationship by filing the palimony suit against Mudd. The millionaire’s death made the executors of the estate the defendants.

The executors’ attorneys called another mistress and Vanessa Mudd to the stand Tuesday to press the points in their case. Both women testified that Oliver said she was seeing Mudd for the money it brought her. The testimony starkly contrasted with the picture presented by Oliver of a loving relationship in which Mudd served as a substitute grandfather to her children and spent hours talking with her about business and politics.

Vanessa Mudd said she met Oliver in 1982 and “thought we were friends.” Indeed, the two women traveled together with Mudd to Europe, Hawaii, Wyoming and New York, she said.

During one of the trips, Vanessa Mudd testified, Oliver told her “she was in the relationship for money.”

Vanessa Mudd said that Oliver also knew the conditions of the money trust. “She knew it existed and she had to be his friend up until his death,” she said.

Other women have testified that Vanessa Mudd was for some years one of the group of mistresses, who knew each other and sometimes traveled in groups with Henry Mudd. In January, 1990, Mudd proposed to her, Vanessa Mudd testified, but added that “he was going to continue to see” the other women.

About a week later, they were married in Reno. Vanessa Mudd said that two of Henry Mudd’s mistresses and a former mistress attended the wedding. Oliver, she testified, declined the invitation.

“She said she had a test coming up she needed to study for and she hoped I understood,” Vanessa Mudd said.

Following the wedding, though, Oliver accompanied the Mudds on a trip to Florida, where she told Vanessa Mudd that she was worried about the trusts, Vanessa Mudd said.

“Lorraine was worried about Henry’s children--that when Henry died that his children would try to do something to break the trusts,” she said.

Henry Mudd tried to reassure Oliver, Vanessa Mudd said. He told Oliver “that there was no problem, she would get her house trust and her money trust provided she stayed his friend the rest of her life and did not hire a Marvin Mitchelson,” Vanessa Mudd said.

Two other mistresses had hired the well-known attorney Marvin Mitchelson to represent them in palimony suits against Mudd in 1985 and 1986. The suits were settled out of court, Mitchelson has said.

Another mistress, Eileen Cavanaugh, who said she now lives rent-free in a Westwood condominium and receives $7,100 each month from Mudd trusts, testified that when Mudd received a letter from Mitchelson in April, 1990, on behalf of Oliver, the millionaire was terribly hurt. “He said he was very disappointed and he said he couldn’t understand why this was being done to him,” she said.

When Henry Mudd died five months later, Vanessa Mudd testified, Oliver did not attend his memorial service.

Under cross-examination, she said that she did not invite Oliver to Mudd’s service. At the time of Mudd’s death, Vanessa Mudd said, “I was very disappointed with Lorraine.”