Daily Breeze, March 16, 2001

SNARING THE WEALTH 
Learning Annex teaches "How to Marry the Rich" 

BY COREY LEVITAN
	"This is your chance to get a life -- and have it 
financed," said Ginie Sayles, the teacher of a 
Learning Annex course called "How to Marry the 
Rich."
	She spoke in a conference room at the 
Radisson Hotel in Culver City recently, to 15 
women eager to commit marry-kari. Picture 
"Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?" without the 
swimsuit competition.
	"They will let you spend money to look 
good," Sayles continued, her dynamism verging 
on drill sergeant. "If you need lipo, that's fine, 
they understand that." Hungrily, the budding 
Darva Congers scribbled down her every word.
	The 50ish Sayles is a former Dallas 
stockbroker with two ex-husbands. Her first left 
her a single mother on welfare. After her second 
marriage, to a doctor who was away all the time, 
she resolved to wed someone very wealthy. He 
was millionaire oil tycoon Reed Sayles and 16 
years later they remain happily married.
	Sayles detailed her shortcuts to breaded bliss 
in a 1987 book called How to Marry the Rich and 
has been lecturing ever since. Among the 
fundamentals...
	* Change your address. You must live where 
the rich live (even if it's in an attic) to socialize 
with them. "Think of your mind as a cup of 
steaming hot water," Sayles told the class, "and 
imagine a rich neighborhood as the exotic tea 
with all the flavors."
	* Upgrade your clothing. The rich prefer pure, 
natural fabrics such as 100 percent linen and silk. 
"And they don't wash their cottons," Sayles said.
	* Crash country clubs. Sneak onto the 
grounds and sign up for lessons in croquet, lawn 
bowling and tennis. Pro golfer Lee Trevino 
married a woman who worked at a concession 
stand, Sayles said, "and I always say that she got 
the last laugh because she got paid to meet her 
multimillionaire."
	* Work for a rich man. "You may not want to 
marry him," Sayles said, "but you will meet other 
rich men through him. Notice, Bill Gates married 
a women who was working for him."
	"Don't feel guilty for wanting to marry the 
rich," Sayles told her students, who paid $49 a 
pop to hear it. "The most important thing is 
what's in a person's heart. But at the same time, 
you already know that sex, love and power are 
the foundation of any marriage.
	"And the rich will marry somebody. Why not 
you?"
	Beware my affluent brethren: It's not the rest 
of your life some women want you to spend with 
them, but the rest of your life savings.
	I took a Learning Annex course once before, 
on how to improve your memory. I forgot 
everything I learned, but I remember the titles of 
some of the other classes that intrigued me. "How 
to Marry the Rich," given every few months, 
always seemed the most absurd. I decided to 
bring my reporter's notebook.
	"Money always follows emotion," Sayles said 
at one point. "Therefore, if someone who is rich 
tells you he loves you but will not spend money 
on you, it is a lie. This is a person who thinks 
nothing of dropping $30,000 on a charity dinner, 
but won't help you with your light bill?
	"Uh-uh."
	All men want is sex with beautiful young 
girls, or so I've been told in between volleys of 
frying pans at various points in my life. Women, 
on the other hand, look deeper when considering 
possible mates.
	Yeah, deeper into the man's wallet. Here I 
was, thinking marriage meant taking stock in a 
sacred bond with someone, when the real 
meaning was taking stocks and bonds from the 
loser. The vows should read "'til bankruptcy do 
you part."
	It's not a particularly new way of thinking, 
and it does a lot of relationship explaining -- from 
the couplings of Anna Nicole Smith to the 
triplings of Hugh Hefner.
	"Don't you know that a man being rich is like 
a girl being pretty?" Marilyn Monroe cooed way 
back in the 1953 movie "Gentleman Prefer 
Blondes."
	"You might not marry a girl just because she's 
pretty but, my goodness, doesn't it help?"
	As if to help illustrate the point, seated next to 
me in class was the most strikingly pretty girl I'd 
seen in weeks. She was a slender, 30ish woman 
who resembled Mariah Carey without the 
dancing male posse. In between her careful note-
taking, I noticed how often she flipped her curly 
hair.
	"Stop it!" I scolded myself. Enrolling in this 
class made her a worse idea than the 405 in rush 
hour. Not only did it mean she was materialistic, 
but it placed the dreaded m-word on her mind's 
front burner.
	Naturally, how wrong she seemed only piqued 
my interest more.
	"So why is marrying rich so important to 
you?" I broke the ice during a 10-minute recess 
between our lessons in Signing the Prenup and 
Planning the Wedding.
	"Why isn't it?" answered the goddess, 
otherwise known as Allison Taylor from Toluca 
Lake. "Buying any home in L.A. is half a million 
dollars. It's an expensive city to live in."
	Allison had a point, as well as a lovely 
speaking voice and piercing eye contact. I 
wondered how I'd ever admit to our children 
where we met.
	"There is someone in my life who wants to 
marry me and I have not agreed to because he 
doesn't have the financial stability," she 
continued.
	My eighth-grade teacher, Mr. Votino, was 
correct about how stupid I can be. Did I actually 
think that someone bent on marrying the rich 
could want me? While Allison's figure certainly 
impressed me, my figures could never impress 
her. As a journalist, my first job after college paid 
$13,500 a year.
	Then it dawned on me. With a 50 percent 
chance that any marriage will end in divorce, I 
might as well go into it with a profit motive, too. 
Even if I'm not marriage material, that's no reason 
not to be marriage materialistic. Considering my 
mounting debt in loans and credit cards, only as a 
divorcee would I have the financial clout required 
by an Allison Taylor.
	"If you're going to be in a relationship with 
someone, you can control what economic level 
you want to be in," Allison said, echoing my 
thoughts.
	What was my alternative -- to follow the 
example of my father the science teacher, who 
married my mother the secretary out of something 
as short-sighted as love? That's why they could 
only afford to send me to a state college (which 
probably explains why I wasn't smart enough to 
realize the truth sooner).
	Despite what Tom Arnold may claim, he 
ultimately can't have any regrets about marrying 
Roseanne Barr. Ditto Ivana Trump. Even the 
Beatles, who wrote "All You Need Is Love," also 
sang "Money (That's What I Want)."
	According to Sayles, who also teaches a 
Learning Annex course in power flirting, the RM 
(rich mate) for me is the divorcee, one that lives 
on assets from a settlement instead of alimony -- 
otherwise she won't marry me until the alimony 
runs out. (A rich heiress is off limits, since she 
won't marry beneath her financial class.)
	Art class is a good place to meet my rich 
divorcee. Or I could go to the opening nights of 
operas or ballets, as well as get on the mailing 
lists of auction houses. "You don't have to buy 
anything," Sayles said, "and frequently they'll 
have elegant cocktail parties."
	Being a journalist is good, too. "That way you 
can set up interviews with the rich people you 
want to meet," Sayles said. And she's right, damn 
the ethics. After all, during the course of this 
article I have already hit on one of my interview 
subjects.
	But my best bet is to dress to the hilt and 
crash a hoity-toity soiree at a major hotel 
ballroom. "Don't crash until after 9:30," Sayles 
said, "because they've all been drinking by then. 
Wait until people of your sex go to the rest room, 
and when they start back in, you go with them."
	My life was suddenly coming into focus. No 
wonder I've been so unfulfilled. The last woman I 
dated slept on the couch of her brother's living 
room while circling the want ads. What's wrong 
with me that I've never thought so clearly?
	"There isn't anything Ginie's teaching that we 
don't already know," Allison said.
	Alas, the world may not be ready for a dose of 
enlightenment this pure. As it turns out, Allison 
Taylor is not my new friend's real name. She 
didn't want that published in the newspaper.
	"It's not that I'd be embarrassed to tell anyone 
I came here," she said. "But I believe there'd 
probably be a misconception."