Thursday, Feb. 17, 2000 | 4:34 a.m.
VIRGINIA CITY, Mont. - The secret life of the late CBS correspondent Charles Kuralt unfolded in court Thursday as his mistress of 29 years sought to inherit the Montana fishing retreat they shared.
The pudgy "On the Road" reporter died in 1997 at age 62, and the fight over the property was originally between Kuralt's widow, Suzanne "Petie" Baird Kuralt, and his mistress, Patricia Shannon.
But after Mrs. Kuralt died in October, Kuralt's two daughters from a previous marriage took up the legal battle.
Shannon testified Thursday that Kuralt, the traveling correspondent known for his folksy reports about quirky Americana, played the role of husband and father for his secret family while his wife lived in New York.
Shannon described how Kuralt paid for college for her children, provided her with money to live and start a business and gave her property in Ireland and Montana. She said her son sometimes traveled with Kuralt while he was on assignment with CBS and went with him to political conventions.
"I considered, and I think he considered, and I know the children considered, that we were a family," she testified.
Shannon contends Kuralt intended that she have the fishing retreat, which consists of 90 acres and a renovated schoolhouse valued at more than $600,000.
Her claim is based on a letter Kuralt wrote to her two weeks before he died of lupus: "I'll have the lawyer visit the hospital to be sure you inherit the rest of the place in MT, if it comes to that."
"I always thought of it as ours," Shannon said of the retreat. "Charles always thought of it as ours."
Todd Hillier, an attorney for the estate, argued that Kuralt knew how to write a valid handwritten will and that if he had wished to make the letter binding, he could have done so.
On cross-examination by Hillier, Shannon acknowledged that title to the property was in Kuralt's name and that he paid for the land, buildings, taxes, insurance and maintenance.
She also acknowledged that Kuralt had talked to a neighbor about selling the property - and that he never disclosed to her that he had changed his will to leave the retreat to his wife.
Isadore Bleckman, a longtime cameraman for Kuralt, testified for the estate that Kuralt told him in 1983 the relationship with Shannon "was pretty much over." But on cross-examination, he conceded Kuralt never discussed the relationship in any detail, describing Kuralt as a very private person.
But Ken Ryder, the contractor who did the $180,000 renovation on the schoolhouse between 1986 and 1989, testified for Shannon that it was a joint project of the two.
"The appearance to me was that they were in fact married," he said. "My sense is that they had a very committed partnership as a couple."
He said he did not learn they were not married until after Kuralt died, when the lawsuit became news.
The nonjury trial, expected to run two days, concluded in one, and District Judge John Christensen said he expects to rule within 30 days. In remarks from the bench, he said a 1994 Montana Supreme Court decision may support Shannon.
He said in that case, a young jail inmate wrote his sister that if he died, he wanted his mother to inherit everything. He did die, and the Supreme Court upheld the letter as his will.
James Goetz, Shannon's attorney, called the judge's comments "encouraging," while William Dockins, an attorney for the estate, said he did not believe the precedent applied. Shannon declined to comment.
Kuralt's daughters, Susan Bowers and Lisa Bowers White, did not attend the trial.
Kuralt met Shannon in 1968, the year after he started his "On the Road" travels. He was six years into his second marriage, to Baird. Shannon was a divorced, 34-year-old social activist and mother of three.
For years, she testified, he called almost every night. They often spent time at a fishing cabin along the Big Hole River, one of America's finest trout streams.
In 1997, Kuralt gave Shannon the cabin and 20 acres, and she continues to live there. But in his will, he gave the adjacent 90-acre retreat to his wife and children.
While on the stand, Shannon read a poem Kuralt had written for her one Christmas. Titled "What I Will Give You (A Christmas IOU)," it promised: "A string of pearls, a suit and sweater, a Rubens print, a holly tree, and me. A mixing bowl, a sofa and chair, a set of china, a butcher's knife. My life."
Her voice, calm to that point, broke as she read.
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