of Queensland is at the center of an L.A. legal squabble that centers on
allegations of deception, unkept promises and a lover’s betrayal.
By Victoria Kim, The Los Angeles Times, January 5, 2010
The boy brought home a dull-colored half-pound stone he found on the
hillside, and his father, Harry Spencer, thought of the perfect place for
it. They would use it as a doorstop.
The year was 1938, and their home was a modest shack in a sparsely
populated, dusty stretch of gem-mining territory in central Queensland,
Australia. The stone sat at the backdoor for 10 years, until a jeweler
recognized its potential and brought it across the Pacific. In Los Angeles,
it was polished to reveal a six-pronged, mesmerizingly beautiful star -- or
so goes the story that is passed down about the largest-known star sapphire
in the world.
The Black Star of Queensland would make its way around the world, weaving in
and out of spotlight and obscurity, with stops in the Smithsonian in the
'60s, on Cher's neck in the '70s, and at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto
in 2007. It would capture the fantasy of a young boy, who would dream of one
day owning it. It would be mounted on white gold and 35 diamonds added
around its rim.
Some profess the stone has a certain magic, bringing luck to the fortunate
few who have touched it. One owner said it brought on the darkest period of
her life, leaving memories she never wanted to revisit.
Eventually, as many prized things do, it landed in L.A. County Superior
Court, at the center of allegations of deception, unkept promises and a
lover's betrayal.
Harry Kazanjian learned to polish stones because of an eye infection. About
1908, his family fled from Turkey to France to escape the persecutions that
preceded the Armenian genocide. When they tried to board a ship bound for
the United States, guards wouldn't let young Harry on because of his eye. As
his family sailed across the Atlantic, Harry stayed behind in Paris and
apprenticed for his stonecutter uncle.
Kazanjian discovered he had a knack for envisioning a gemstone in the rough,
the way sculptors see a finished work in a slab of marble. When he reunited
with his family, he persuaded his brother James to go into the gem business
with him.
The brothers traveled the world buying rare and valuable stones. The Spencer
family had sold them many blue and yellow sapphires. One day in 1947, Harry
Kazanjian saw a pile of black stones at the Spencers' home that they had
thought worthless. He asked to inspect them, thinking they might be star
sapphires. Spencer told his son to go get the doorstop.
In the fist-sized stone, Kazanjian spotted a copper-colored glimmer, a hint
of the impurity that sometimes grows along a sapphire's crystals to create
the star, an optical effect known as an asterism. He bought it, reportedly
for $18,000, and brought it to the shop he ran with his brother in downtown
L.A.
Amid the whirring of grinding wheels and hissing of polishing machines,
Kazanjian studied the stone for weeks before cutting into it. Over months,
he worked, bent over a copper wheel impregnated with diamond dust, gently
carving away to create a dome.
"I could have ruined it a hundred times during the cutting," Kazanjian told
a Times reporter at the time.
In 1948, the Black Star of Queensland debuted in New York. Actress Linda
Darnell cradled the egg-sized stone in her fingers and held it up for the
cameras. At 733 carats, it was far larger than the Star of India, a
563-carat blue star sapphire previously known to be the largest.
It was valued at $300,000, but the Kazanjians "declared emphatically" that
it wasn't for sale.
Michael Kazanjian, Harry's nephew, spent his summers and weekends as a child
at the shop, trying to emulate his uncle's craft on less-valuable gems. He
had watched in awe as his uncle polished the Black Star.
To him, the stone was like a member of the family. He would occasionally
visit it at the family vault and talk to it, and it would talk back, he
said.
"The stone had a lovely personality," said Michael, who took over the family
business in the 1970s. "Very dramatic, very powerful."
One day, in 1971, he saw an opportunity to show it off when a Hollywood
manager called him with an odd request: "Can you put a few million dollars
of jewelry on Cher?" By then, Sonny and Cher had seen their fame ebb. After
a failed film venture and lackluster album sales, they were taking a stab at
something new: a television variety show. In the premiere, they planned a
sketch where Cher would be decked out in valuable gems, and security guards
would keep Sonny away as he sang "Close to You."
Cher's first stop had been Tiffany's. But when the show's producers learned
insurance would cost $8,000, they looked for another option.
Instead of insurance, Michael hired half a dozen police officers to escort
him and the Black Star to the studio. The stone was tied on by hand with a
flimsy wire to a necklace with about 100 carats of diamonds.
A few hours into the taping, he panicked. Cher was dancing. Michael jumped
up on stage and stopped the take, fearing the stone would drop and shatter.
After its brief television fame, the stone sat out of public view for the
most part, making only occasional appearances at private charity functions.
It has never been worn since.
Jack Armstrong says he was a 5-year-old living in Blair, Neb., when he first
laid eyes on the Black Star. That summer, his father, an auditor, took him
on a trip to Washington, where the Kazanjians had lent the stone to the
Smithsonian for a display with the Hope Diamond. Armstrong said he breezed
past the diamond but became fixated on the sapphire.
"It took my breath away," he said. "It's like you see your future in front
of your eyes."
In 2002, he was introduced to the Kazanjians and was invited to see their
collection. When he saw the Black Star, he couldn't believe he was looking
at the stone from his childhood and immediately wanted to buy it.
Armstrong, a former model now in his 50s with no shortage of flamboyance,
says he is an artist and a dealer of art and antiques. Attorneys have
described him in court papers as a man with no discernible source of income
who lived off a wealthy older girlfriend, a divorcee living in Switzerland.
"I've never met a personality like him," said Doug Kazanjian, Michael's son,
who met with Armstrong about the sale. "He had this overwhelming passion to
buy it."
After the sapphire had been in the family for more than 50 years, the
Kazanjians decided to sell it to fund a scholarship at the Gemological
Institute of America.
Armstrong arranged to buy the stone with his girlfriend. He was so in love
with it, he said, that he slept with it under his pillow and drove around
with it in his jacket.
But love or no love, he was quick to slap on a price tag and offer it for
sale. A month after he bought it for an undisclosed amount, he issued a
press release saying the sapphire was available -- for $50 million.
"The sale of the Black Star sapphire is a huge event in the gem stone
market," Armstrong said in the press release in December 2002. "To have a
stone like this come on the market is tantamount to having a Raphael
painting suddenly emerge for sale; it happens maybe once, maybe twice in a
lifetime."
Gabrielle Grohe had never heard of the Black Star, and in hindsight, she
might wish it stayed that way.
In her 60s and wealthy from an earlier marriage to an industrialist, she was
introduced to Armstrong in 2002.
Her version of the tale, as told in court papers by her attorney, is filled
with scathing accusations against Armstrong, her onetime lover. (Armstrong,
whose attorneys never responded to the allegations, declined to discuss the
court case.)
Within days of their meeting, Armstrong told her about the stone and
pressured her to buy it. She paid the bill, and he promised to pay part of
it, Grohe contended.
The next year, Armstrong moved to Switzerland to live with Grohe. Armstrong
said in an interview that he went to Europe to pursue his art; Grohe
contended he refused to get a job and relied on her for his extravagant
living expenses.
Soon, their relationship soured. He drank heavily, became physically abusive
and got angry when she brought up his promise to pay for the stone, she
alleged. In September 2007, Grohe called the police, bought him a plane
ticket back to the U.S. and kicked him out.
That marked the beginning of an international tussle for control of the
stone.
The next month, Grohe met with a potential buyer in Canada, where the
sapphire was on display at the Royal Ontario Museum, with its value then
estimated at $4.1 million. Armstrong foiled her efforts at a sale,
"desperate at the thought that his gravy train would end," she alleged.
When the loan to the museum came to an end in 2008, Armstrong, who was
listed as a co-owner in the museum's records, went behind Grohe's back and
asked that it be shipped to him in Los Angeles, in care of the Harry Winston
jewelry shop in Beverly Hills, according to court documents.
A few weeks later, Armstrong showed up at the shop with a woman he said was
a buyer and asked for the stone. The salon director, Goli Parstabar, had
learned of the dispute and refused.
Furious, Armstrong returned with police officers, but was rebuffed. Then he
had an attorney send a demand letter. When that didn't work, he sued Harry
Winston for $25 million and issued press releases saying his stone was being
held hostage.
"I was born in Kansas," Armstrong told the New York Post, which ran a story
with the headline "HEAVYWEIGHT GEM $CUFFLE." "If something like this
happened in Wichita, someone would have gone to jail!"
In court, the allegations escalated. Armstrong alleged that Parstabar had
cost him a lucrative deal and ruined his reputation by refusing to show the
stone to his client. Grohe accused Armstrong of fraud and unlawfully trying
to take control of the stone, for which she contended he never paid a dime.
Doug Kazanjian wears his grandfather's ring with a stone just like the Black
Star -- only 700 carats smaller.
"It's almost as if you're looking into space," he said of the stone. "It's
like having the universe on your finger."
Last year, he was asked by an attorney in the case to identify his family
heirloom.
He was ushered into a private room at a Beverly Hills bank, where attorneys,
Parstabar, and Armstrong huddled around him. Before him was a tightly
wrapped cardboard shipping box that had sat untouched since it arrived from
Toronto. All eyes focused on him opening the box.
He sifted through bubble wrap and tissue paper until he found the velvet
case holding the stone.
"It was like getting to see an old friend," he recalled.
He inspected the diamonds, and the mounting. He scanned the graining at the
top of the stone. He shined a flashlight to create the six point star.
*This is the Black Star of Queensland*, he wrote on a piece of paper, and
signed it.
The legal dispute quietly settled out of court in a confidential agreement.
According to a court document, Armstrong agreed to pay $500,000 within three
months to buy out Grohe.
At 5 p.m., on the last day that he could claim ownership, a personal check
from Armstrong arrived at Grohe's attorney's office. The check bounced.
A few months later, a judge entered a final ruling: the stone was all hers.
The Black Star of Queensland once again sits in obscurity, with its owner in
Switzerland. Grohe wants to put that period of her life behind her and would
rather not talk about it, her attorney said. She hasn't decided what to do
with the stone.
Armstrong, meanwhile, says it's enough for him that he once held the
sapphire he fantasized about as a child. Though he lost the court battle,
the gem brought him good fortune in his work and life, he said.
He wants to make a film about the stone, he says, for "every little kid who
dreams." He says he is on the brink of a deal with a studio. He imagines it
will be a tale of a princess trapped in an enchanted stone, and a boy who
finds it by chance.
"It's a magical story," he said. "It should be told."
