People

By Michele Orecklin

SPARING NO EXPENSE

KIRA KERKORIAN may live like royalty, but she is not without a social conscience. According to her mother, LISA BONDER KERKORIAN, Kira donates $7,000 a month to charity. Impressive considering Kira is only 3 years old. Not that the toddler suffers for her philanthropy; Lisa also contends that every month Kira spends $4,300 dining in, $5,900 dining out and $144,000 on travel. Such details about the juvenile jet set were revealed in court documents filed in Los Angeles, where Lisa, a former tennis pro, is petitioning ex-husband KIRK KERKORIAN to increase Kira's child-support payments. Kerkorian, 84, a casino and movie-studio mogul worth an estimated $6.4 billion (he announced last week he was putting MGM up for sale), had been paying $50,000 a month, but Lisa, 36, wants the sum increased to $320,000. Kerkorian has countersued for an unspecified amount, saying Lisa has violated confidentiality agreements regarding his finances. The two wed a year and a half after Kira was born because Lisa wanted to give her child legitimacy. Kerkorian consented on the condition that Lisa divorce him after a month and waive spousal support. Lisa says Kira's current stipend does not adequately allow the child to maintain a "station of life ...befitting the daughter of Kirk Kerkorian." That goes for her pet rabbit too; Lisa is also asking for $436 a month for her bunny's upkeep.

NEXT, HE'LL TRAIN ON THE DEEP FRYER

The NBA has yet to find an effective way to tame bad boy MARK CUBAN. The billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks has made something of a side career out of taunting game officials, but rather than recoiling from the resulting fines, he thrives on the publicity they bring. Two weeks ago, he was fined a record $500,000 for claiming he wouldn't hire the league's top ref to "manage a Dairy Queen." The expected media miasma followed, and this time Dairy Queen decided to horn in on the action. With mock indignation, the chain invited Cuban to spend a day dishing ice cream to see just how challenging it could be. So last week, surrounded by television cameras, newspaper photographers, circling helicopters, hordes of fans, the Mavericks' mascot and Tom Arnold (never one to pass up a publicity bid himself), Cuban and Dairy Queen executives converged on a DQ outlet outside Dallas. In the battle for publicity primacy, Dairy Queen thinks it had the edge. Says spokesman Dean Peters: "This is the best thing to happen to the company since the invention of the Blizzard."

THIS GOOD GIRL ISN'T DOING SO BAD

JENNIFER ANISTON is married to Brad Pitt. She's a TV star. Her minor car accident last week (she was unhurt after being side-ended) made news around the nation. So it may be hard to picture her as a small-town store clerk. But that is her role in the film Good Girl, which debuted at Sundance last week and was picked up for $4 million by Fox. The studio wants audiences to expect a darkly comic tone. Says marketing chief Nancy Utley: "They shouldn't be tricked into thinking it's Friends: The Movie." Fans of Joey, be warned.

FASHION VICTIMS, UNITE

Designers are not impervious to the travails of the working stiff. But that compassion usually takes the form of donating clothes to actors and agonizing over what to wear at the growing parade of awards shows. In his menswear collection for Emporio Armani in Milan last week, GIORGIO ARMANI took his designer social conscience a step further, even delivering a paean to the proletariat. "I want to pay homage to...the dignity of the workers with their simplicity and straightforwardness," he declared after a show he said was inspired by soldiers, factory workers and miners. The clothes displayed military details, with coats warm enough for working on the docks, if such laborers could afford them. Earlier in the week, the man known for his sumptuous fabrics and five-figure price tags proclaimed, "Luxury disgusts me." Publicity ploy or change of heart? Only his next big collection will tell.