She Heads for Hills, He’s Leaving Them

Pop crooner JERRY VALE has put his Beverly Hills home on the market at just under $1.6 million, and actress MORGAN FAIRCHILD has leased a Beverly Hills house for about $4,000 a month, sources say.

Vale, who will perform on Wednesday at Carnegie Hall and from Friday through next Sunday at Caesars Palace in Atlantic City, and his wife, Rita, plan to sell their longtime home and buy a condo instead. They’ve been talking about moving to the beach area, a source said.

A vocalist in the style of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, Vale has been a longtime attraction on the Las Vegas-Atlantic City casino circuit who also became a darling of younger audiences through his frequent appearances on David Letterman’s late-night TV show.

Born a little more than 60 years ago in the Bronx, Vale has been described as “part of a generation of Italian-American cabaret singers who virtually defined the pop ballad.”

Dubbed “The Silver Fox” because of his full head of silver hair, Vale has made a career out of singing about love. He recorded 50 hit albums, now being released as CDs and dozens of hit records, such as “What I Did for Love.” His new CD is “The Essence of Jerry Vale.”

“This is our seventh house,” he said, referring to the Beverly Hills home that he and his wife bought 15 years ago. “This is the longest we’ve lived anywhere, but we want to get a condo so we can close the door, travel and not worry.”

The Vales, who have been married for 35 years, already have a condo in the desert, but they also want one in the Beverly Hills area because their house is too big for them now that their two children are grown, he said. “Our son is in Vegas, running for the state assembly, and our daughter is an artist in Scottsdale,” he added.

The Vales’ home was built in 1925, but they they updated and expanded it. The nearly 4,500-square-foot, Tudor-style home has four bedrooms and a guest house.

Kathy Villa of Asher Dann & Associates in Beverly Hills has the listing.

Actress Morgan Fairchild, who plays the anti-sex girls’ school principal in “Test Tube Teens From the Year 2000” and a soap-opera star in “Body Chemistry 2,” has leased a recently remodeled, Beverly Hills house, which has four bedrooms in 3,500 square feet.

Fairchild, 44, played a bombshell/perfume executive in the 1993 Fox movie-of-the-week parody “Based on an Untrue Story,” was a series regular in “Paper Dolls” and “Falcon Crest” and has been known as an abortion-rights and AIDS activist.

Barry Peele of Fred Sands’ Directors office in Beverly Hills represented Fairchild in the lease, and Casey Bennett of Jon Douglas Co.’s Bel-Air office had the listing.

The New Jersey home of late President RICHARD M. NIXON has been sold for close to $800,000, sources say.

The townhouse, which had been Nixon’s residence from 1990 until he died in April, had been on the market since June, when it was listed at $1.2 million.

A married couple with two teen-agers bought the townhouse, which is in Park Ridge, about 15 miles from Manhattan. The buyers had been living in New Jersey.

The four-story townhouse has an elevator, three bedrooms, a solarium and a library, all in 3,500 square feet. It had been listed by Mary Lenk of Mary Lenk Properties in Cresskill, N.J.

BRANNON BRAGA, co-producer of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” series and a writer for the series as well as for the movie “Star Trek: Generations,” due to be released in November, has become a first-time home buyer with his purchase of a Hancock Park home for close to its asking price of $635,000, sources say.

Braga, who is in his late 20s, bought a Spanish-style home, built in 1926, with three bedrooms plus maid’s quarters in 3,500 square feet. Braga was represented in his purchase by Champ Davenport of Jon Douglas Co., Hancock Park.

Actor BLAIR UNDERWOOD, who played young attorney Jonathan Rollins in “L.A. Law” and slain civil rights worker James Chaney in the 1990 TV film “Murder in Mississippi,” was married in September at the DeAngelo Estate in Orange County, which is for sale at $11.9 million.

The nearly 36,000-square-foot house, on about 26 acres in North Tustin Hills, has been on and off the market since 1989, when it was listed at $22 million.

The home was built in 1985 for Pat and Michael DeAngelo, founder of Anaheim-based Clothestime Inc. The couple still owns the home, with its 10 bedrooms, two swimming pools, tennis court, disco, hair salon, gym and two racquetball courts.

Among the wedding guests were Jill Eikenberry and other “L.A. Law” cast members, according to Carole Geronsin, who shares the listing with Mickey Hartling and Marcia Saunders, all of Prudential California Realty, Anaheim Hills.