The details of Sharon Magness's settlement with Kim and Gary Magness have been kept secret, but Sharon made it clear in a brief public statement that she'll continue to devote most of her time to charity. She maintains a busy schedule on the society fundraiser circuit and made a splash last summer by riding her white Arabian horse Thunder--who doubles as the Denver Broncos' mascot--at a variety show held for the Denver Summit of the Eight.
With that kind of public-spirited attitude, she may want to consider saddling up for a career in politics. After all, just as Alexis once rubbed elbows with former president Gerald Ford and ex-secretary of state Henry Kissinger in a memorable 1983 episode, Sharon hosted President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton at a reception in her Cherry Hills Village home during the Summit of the Eight. Sharon could even learn from the mistakes of Alexis, who during Dynasty's last season waged a bitter campaign against Blake for the governorship of Colorado, all the while attacking him in the pages of her Denver Mirror newspaper. (Sadly, both lost to a third candidate.)
CONGRESSMAN NEAL MCVANE (JOHN MALONE)
Congressman McVane was one of the few Denver politicians savvy and savage enough to take on the Carringtons. Although he was eventually imprisoned, he managed to blackmail Adam Carrington and frame Alexis for murdering Krystle's ex-husband, Mark Jennings.
John Malone has never served in the U.S. Congress or been to prison, but he is one of the few American CEOs to be described as a corporate "Darth Vader" by Vice President Al Gore.
In a 1993 antitrust suit against TCI, media conglomerate Viacom went even further. "In the American cable industry, one man has seized monopoly power," said the suit. "Using bully-boy tactics and strong-arming competitors, suppliers, and customers, that man has inflicted antitrust injury on virtually every American consumer of cable services and technologies. That man is John C. Malone."
Malone is the other TCI billionaire, and he and Magness were co-captains of the ship that made Denver the cable capital of the world. Between jacking up rates, threatening to boot out cable channels that displease the TCI mothership, and maneuvering to drive competitors out of business, Malone has become one of the most feared executives in the communications industry. At Magness's funeral, Malone even described himself and his late partner as "unindicted co-conspirators."
While paying the Magness brothers an extra $124 million was no doubt galling to Malone, the cable magnate is known for his obsession with maintaining control over the company, and it was undoubtedly worth it to him to make sure he was still calling the shots.
In true Malone fashion, he also made sure he got the best end of the deal. Under terms of the agreement, TCI will pay Malone $150 million in return for his giving the company the option to buy all his stock in the event of his death. To win approval for the huge payoff from the TCI board, Malone reportedly raised the possibility that his heirs could be as nasty as the Magness boys had been. Even though Malone has since faltered by suggesting he may give away most of his estimated $1.5 billion fortune to charity, Congressman McVane would have been proud.
KING GALEN OF MOLDAVIA (DANIEL RITCHIE)
King Galen's son, Prince Michael, married Alexis's long-lost daughter, Amanda, in a formal wedding that was interrupted by machine-gun-toting revolutionaries bent on shooting up the royal palace and any capitalist pigs who happened to be inside at the time. Later the King headed to Denver to spend his money and generally behave like a bigshot.
The princely Ritchie, meanwhile, is the closest thing Denver has to royalty, a former CEO of Westinghouse Broadcasting and multi-millionaire investor who, despite having no apparent academic background, was named chancellor at the University of Denver in 1989, where his fundraising skills have earned him straight A's from alumni.
Ritchie may have dropped the ball, however, when he took over as co-executor of the Magness estate. Many estate attorneys were astounded that Ritchie and Fisher didn't ask for court approval before they sold the estate's stock back to TCI. Ritchie was reportedly mortified to be named in Kim and Gary's lawsuit, and the out-of-court settlement probably didn't come a moment too soon for him. As part of the settlement, he and Fisher were fired as executors. But there was a golden parachute fit for a king: The estate agreed to pay each man $1.5 million, on the condition that the money be donated to...the University of Denver.
Long live the King!
