Parachutist’s Hopes for Riches From Liz Taylor Wedding Fall Through

Scott Kyle Harris, the parachutist who became perhaps the most notorious--and unwelcome--guest at Elizabeth Taylor’s lavish wedding last month when he literally dropped in, is not exactly up in the air with joy these days.

Harris, 34, of Sun Valley--a commercial photographer with 16 years sky-diving experience--had hoped that the photos he could take by crashing the celebrated event with a video camera attached to his helmet would bring him minor fame and major money.

He got the fame, thanks to news film footage of dozens of security agents and Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies swarming to arrest him when he landed near the wedding tent on singer Michael Jackson’s ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley.

But Harris’ plans to get rich from the escapade have apparently fallen through.

Because of a technical glitch, he got no pictures of the Oct. 6 event. He made a few bucks--he won’t say how much--selling “the exclusive rights” to his story to the “Inside Edition” tabloid TV news program and to the National Enquirer. But that was barely enough to cover “thousands of dollars” in expenses, he said.

And money--not fan worship, thrill-seeking or history-making--was the main motivation behind his stunt, Harris said.

“The notoriety might have been worth it if I had gotten any work from it,” Harris said as he sipped coffee in the living room of his modest home. “But I haven’t made any money at all.

“I want to make one thing real clear--I am not a fruitcake,” he said emphatically. “I’m a commercial photographer. I’m not a particularly big fan of Liz Taylor’s. . . . I was just amazed at how much money was being offered by the tabloids for a shot. They were offering in excess of six figures.

“For that kind of money, I’ll do anything, as long as it’s reasonably safe and reasonably legal.”

His net income on the venture may even drop into the red when the matter of “reasonably legal” is decided. He is scheduled to appear in Santa Barbara Municipal Court on Monday on a misdemeanor trespassing charge that carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Harris said he initially had no interest in crashing the wedding, but friends “in the media” contacted him two days before the event and discussed how he could make money by sky-diving into the ceremony.

He was prepared for the task. His sky-diving helmet was already equipped with a video camera and a still camera for free-fall photography.

“It was a real puzzle how to go about it, because I knew I would not be able to walk away with the film,” he said.

Harris rented broadcast equipment that would enable him to beam images from his helmet camera to a receiver on a nearby hillside. He then planned to take still pictures from the recording of that broadcast when he was released.

“In about 24 hours,” he said, he hired people to help him with the broadcast and a pilot to carry him above the wedding.

Harris and his pilot took off from Santa Ynez Airport about 5 p.m. More than a dozen helicopters and a “paraplane,” a parachute attached to a motorized seat, joined him in hovering over the ceremony. The noise was so loud that wedding guests said later they could barely hear the ceremony. Although Harris said he tried to see what was happening through binoculars, he couldn’t really tell what was occurring on the ground.

“My plan was not to interrupt the ceremony,” Harris said. “The wedding was supposed to start at 5, so that’s when we took off, figuring it would be almost over by the time I jumped. I just wanted to get a picture, when the ceremony was over, of Liz and Larry walking back down the aisle, with all the guests in the background.”

Harris decided to jump around 6:30 p.m., diving through the circle of hovering helicopters and circling in his parachute over the Jackson estate, trying to videotape the wedding tent. As he neared the ground, he zeroed in on the area around the tent. As he approached, “I saw about 35 people on the ground, getting ready to greet me. They didn’t realize how fast I was moving--about 25 m.p.h. There were two deputies running toward me, then they dove out of the way.”

Harris finally landed about 20 feet from the podium as the couple spoke their vows. “I made a decent landing, and just as soon as my feet touched, I was hit from behind and front,” he said. “I couldn’t see any of the guests or the wedding party.”

He said he was immediately surrounded and handcuffed as he was escorted away. “They were very physical with me, but I wasn’t roughed up or anything. I’ve been beat up worse.”

Harris was questioned for three hours, escorted to the gate and released.

Coming away with nothing, Harris said he has no plans to drop in on another security-tight wedding. “I can’t imagine why I would, although I won’t say I wouldn’t,” he said.

“Like, if someone came up to me with a couple thousand dollars and said, ‘Scott,’ well. . . . “