Rags to riches goes bad

Interesting piece in the LAT on the unhappy story of Guess jeans founder Georges Marciano, whose classic American success story - complete with palatial residences, his own Boeing 737, fabulous art collection, etc. - fell apart because he was convinced somebody was stealing from him. But nobody was.

Lawsuits that Marciano initiated to recover assets backfired when a judge instead ordered him to pay the accused employees hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Marciano, the design prodigy credited with introducing the world to acid-washed denim and jeans as high fashion, was portrayed during the proceedings as a man unhinged from reality. Reeling from an acrimonious and bitter divorce, he binged on pain medication, pursued women barely out of their teens and, ultimately, made paranoid accusations about those closest to him, according to allegations in court papers, transcripts of testimony and reports by a sheriff's investigator. A self-made man has become, in the eyes of many, a self-destroyed man.

[CUT]

Marciano was generous, both to employees and selected charities. The trade-off was his volatile personality, according to employees' testimony. The odor of an employee's lunch or creases in a $100 bill could transform his Gallic charm into anger, they said. "You were always very afraid of the mood that he might be in because it changed in the blink of an eye," a former employee, Steve Chapnick, testified in the libel case. That increased after the Marcianos' marriage crumbled, employees recalled in court. In divorce proceedings that began in 2002, Marciano and his wife traded bitter charges over fidelity and money. She acknowledged a relationship with her personal trainer but insisted that it began after the marriage ended. He admitted placing a tracking device on her car. The fight became so nasty that the judge barred both Marcianos from speaking to their children about any aspect of the divorce. In 2004 they reached a confidential settlement.

Marciano is living somewhere outside the U.S., perhaps in Canada where he has bought and sold a bunch of property.