Richard Mallery is so smooth. He has the velvet touch. In a real estate deal, there's no one who can touch him.
Mallery is the slickest operator in the West.
A senior partner at the powerhouse law firm of Snell & Wilmer, Mallery was a founding member of the Phoenix 40.
He is the power behind the Phoenix City Council's decision to virtually give away a controversial 18,000-seat rock concert amphitheatre to Florida promoter Zev Bufman.
It has been said that Mallery, the silk-stockinged profiteer, has enough gall to be divided into three parts. Over the years, he's been at the center of several real estate deals so questionable that they became the subject of a lengthy Bar Association investigation.
Mallery eventually emerged unscathed from the investigation.
But at one point his questionable activities made it necessary for him to resign from a high-powered business group that was pushing to build a downtown domed stadium. The resignation came after it was learned Mallery secretly owned land adjacent to the proposed stadium site.
Mallery was briefly in disgrace, even at the Arizona Republic, which had long been one of his power bases.
But Mallery has too much chutzpah to be embarrassed for long.
Besides, Arizona is a place where there virtually is no such thing as a conflict of interest. When a lucrative land deal is on the line, no holds are barred. There is no social stigma here that can possibly attach to a man who wants to make a killing.
So Mallery's back in business. It's as though no one ever suspected he couldn't be trusted.
Mayor Terry Goddard and his gang don't seem to care about the embattled residents of the area around the proposed amphitheatre. They are convinced it will ruin their neighborhood, lower their property values and destroy their quality of life.
Why should the city council be concerned?
Neither Goddard nor any councilmember lives close enough to this monstrosity to be affected.
It won't lower the property values of Goddard's home in Encanto. Neither will it change the property values of the homes of any member of the city council.
And it most certainly won't affect the property values of Mallery's impressive mansion.
Mallery lives on a secluded and charming tree-shaded street in the ultra-fashionable Biltmore district. The neighborhood is protected by city-granted barriers that keep normal traffic out.
Mallery's neighbors at his 2201 East Georgia address read like a who's who on the Phoenix power chart.
They include: Karl Eller, owner of Circle K; Dino DeConcini, the brains behind Senator Dennis DeConcini's land deals; Kemper Marley, the mysterious multimillionaire who has become famous as the man who was never indicted in the Don Bolles murder; and Carolyn Warner, the political doyenne who still yearns to be governor.
How could this amphitheatre deal happen? If you check the documents available in public records, it's really amazingly simple.
It hinges on Mallery's smoothness and the willingness of city councilmembers to be duped.
Last May, Mallery invited Mayor Goddard and all the members of the city council to a cozy gathering at the Heard Museum.
The fancy party was held to introduce Zev Bufman, a smooth-talking theatrical promoter and part owner of the new NBA franchise in Miami.
After cocktails and suitable refreshments, a presentation was made by Mallery's people showing what a wonderful thing the amphitheatre would be for the city.
It would be like Wolf Trap outside Washington, D.C., or Blossom outside Cleveland, Bufman said.
It would be a state-of-the-art design and would follow all the ordinances of the city.
Mallery and Bufman didn't sell the amphitheatre as a noisemaker that would attract thousands of troublemakers with motorcycles and pickup trucks.
At the time, there was no information that parking for 6,000 cars would be on a dirt lot that could turn the whole area into a dust bowl.
Mallery and Bufman are smarter than that.
The new amphitheatre, they said, would give people an opportunity to see top Broadway shows at affordable prices. There would be relaxing evenings under the stars with symphony orchestras.
The city council bought the whole deal right from the start.
Who realized how closely wired in Mallery was to the whole deal? Certainly, Mayor Goddard had to know. So did anyone else who has ever watched Mallery operate. Mallery, it turns out, was not only wired in. Mallery was the deal.
No one at City Hall ever even bothered to check out Bufman's financial status. Bufman was accepted by the city council on Mallery's word that he was all right.
What does Mallery get out of all this?
Even though the first shovelful of dirt has yet to be turned, a liquor license has already been awarded to the 18,000-seat facility.
The holder of that license, according to record, is Margaret L. Caldwell, a secretary at the Snell & Wilmer law firm.
Huntcor, Inc. appears well on its way to winning the contract to construct the multimillion-dollar facility.
Mallery is listed as an officer of Huntcor. The president is R.G. Hunt of 8624 North 66th Place, Paradise Valley. The chairman is R.C. Hunt of 8401 Quail Hollow Road in Indianapolis.
Mallery is in this deal because he stands to make a fortune without investing a penny of his own money.
And what does Phoenix get?
Leon Woodward, an activist opposed to the amphitheatre, called Jim Colley, director of the Parks, Recreation and Library department, to inquire about it.
"Why are you opposed?" Colley asked. "We need this amphitheatre in Phoenix. We have already lost the Phoenix Open, the domed stadium and the Cardinals. We might lose the Suns, too. We're already the laughingstock of the community.
"We all have a lot to lose. Just remember that."
Richard Mallery has perfected his role as a power broker into a high art form. Through charm and guile, he has made a career out of cultivating the rich and powerful. He has succeeded to the extent that he is now as powerful as any of them.
Mallery has told several friends that his goal in life is to make $200 million.
But Mallery is all surface. Beneath the gloss, there is the ambitious and conniving young man who grew up as Georgie Kurcz at 60 West Lynwood in central Phoenix. It is a saga of Dickensian overtones with Mallery in the role of Uriah Heep.
He was five feet eight inches tall and 128 pounds when he went to West High and emerged as a member of the National Honor Society. He ranked fifteenth in a class of 525.
One of Kurcz's greatest talents was the ability to ingratiate himself with people in a position to advance his career.
He spent a year as an exchange student in West Germany. The Elks named him most valuable student. He became vice president of the Arizona Methodist Fellowship.
This was how he met Eugene Pulliam, the powerful publisher of the Arizona Republic.
Kurcz decided to leave Phoenix and attend DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, which is the school where all the Pulliams, including Dan Quayle, matriculated.
Upon graduation from DePauw, Mallery got his master's in English at Cornell and then went on to Stanford law school.
He is, of course, on a first-name basis with two other Stanford law grads who are now sitting members of the U.S. Supreme Court: Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
As Georgie Kurcz, Mallery went all through high school and college.
Then, when it came time to enter a powerful law firm and secure a membership in the Paradise Valley Country Club, he decided to change his name to Richard Mallery, a name with a distinctly Waspish tone.
Mallery has explained:
"Just before I got married, I decided to change my name. I never liked being called Georgie."
Mallery says that before changing his name he went to his stepfather--William Kurcz, a retired civil-service employee--and announced his intentions.
Mallery says he assured his stepfather that he would use Kurcz as his middle name.
However, in Mallery's listings both in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World, he is listed simply as Richard Mallery.
No middle name is listed. Mallery's is, in fact, the only name listed which does not have a middle name.
He is a man who has ascended the steps of power while removing every trace of where he came from.
A lot of people don't trust Richard Mallery. And they have good reason.
For example, there is Bill Bliss, a Scottsdale developer.
Several years ago, Bliss hired Mallery as his lawyer. Bliss and an associate were interested in property at 44th and Van Buren Streets.
Bliss' partner, Bob Long of Cave Creek, had already purchased the land.
Bliss said he was sure the project would work because it was the eventual hookup for the East Papago Freeway and the Hohokam Expressway.
"I took the idea to Mallery, who was acting as my lawyer," Bliss says.
Mallery said he would contact some people who could help finance the deal.
Long was faced with a $50,000 mortgage payment and had to sell out. Long asked Mallery to help him sell out. He told Mallery the price he wanted. He even told him he was willing to take a lot less.
Not until the land was sold did he learn that Mallery was one of the buyers.
At this point, Mallery informed Bliss that he was out of the project, too.
Bliss, who once challenged the mayor of Paradise Valley to a public boxing match, hit the ceiling.
Mallery assured Bliss that he would take care of him down the line. Bliss was eventually paid a finder's fee of $25,000.
Mallery has gone ahead and turned the idea brought to him by Long and Bliss into the $325 million Phoenix Gateway Project.
It was Mallery's role as lawyer for the two men that piqued the interest of the Bar Association. How, they wanted to know, could the lawyer for the project, end up as the big winner without breaching his canon of ethics?
The arena hinges on Mallery's smoothness and the willingness of city councilmembers to be duped.
"Just before I got married, I decided to change my name. I never liked being called Georgie."
