Ham on Why He Left Coast

Actor GEORGE KENNEDY, who starts work this month on “Naked Gun 3: The Final Insult,� and his wife, Joan, have purchased a newly built home in the North Ranch area of Westlake Village for close to the $1.45-million asking price.

Kennedy, who won an Academy Award as best supporting actor for his role as a chain gang prisoner in the Paul Newman film “Cool Hand Luke� (1967), has starred or co-starred in dozens of films, including “The Dirty Dozen,� “Earthquake� and “Death on the Nile.�

An actor since he was a child, Kennedy, 68, also has appeared in a number of TV series. He was “a fixture,� he says, on “Gunsmoke� and “Have Gun Will Travel,� but admits that he “was never a fixture on a horse� because he “fell off a lot.�

In recent years, however, he is probably best known for hamming it up as the comical Capt. Ed Hocken in the “Naked Gun� films. Kennedy, an avid reader, is also a novelist, having written two published mysteries, “Murder on Location� and “Murder on High.�

But it’s Kennedy’s love of water that prompted him to buy his five-bedroom, 5,500-square-foot house in North Ranch. A waterfall and brook, which flows around many old oak trees, attracted him to the home, according to his wife, a gourmet cook who was lured by the large kitchen.

The couple had been living on Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard until they sold their waterfront home, which had a boat dock, in May. “I’ve had three boats at one time, and we enjoyed that,� he said, “but now we’re enjoying our spa and pool.

“We loved Oxnard and the people there, but if you live right on the water and have arthritis, the continued dampness gets to you. Besides, all of our life together--and we’re going into our 16th year--Joan and I have wanted to live in Westlake Village, because the area is extraordinarily beautiful.�

Molly B. Friedman of Fred Sands’ Westlake Village office handled both sides of the Kennedys’ North Ranch purchase, and Carmen Donia of Cosby-Tipton Real Estate represented the Kennedys in the sale of their Oxnard home.

RICHARD GERE’S bachelor pad in the Hollywood Hills has been sold for about $1.6 million. Star of the upcoming HBO film about AIDS “And the Band Played On� and co-star with Sharon Stone of the soon-to-be-released movie “Intersection,� Gere had owned the Hollywood Hills home since March of 1991, when he bought it for $2.29 million.

He married super-model Cindy Crawford in December, 1991, and they subsequently purchased homes in Malibu and Bel-Air. The 43-year-old actor and 27-year-old model also have a home in New York.

The Hollywood Hills house has two bedrooms and maid’s quarters in about 2,600 square feet. It has a pool and a city view. Lynne Wilkes of Jon Douglas Co.’s Beverly Hills office represented Gere in the sale.

Actress MAUREEN O’HARA has purchased a home in Encino. The fiery redhead made five films with John Wayne and starred in more than 50 movies from 1939 until she left Hollywood in the 1970s. She returned in 1991 to play John Candy’s mother in the movie “Only the Lonely.�

O’Hara bought a contemporary, 4,000-square-foot house, with three bedrooms and maid’s quarters, for $650,000. After the purchase, she returned to her 25-acre estate in Ireland for six months.

She has expressed interest in making another film or two and a stage musical, but O’Hara is believed to have purchased the home for her 22-year-old grandson, who has been attending school in Santa Monica. O’Hara’s only child, actress Bronwyn Price, lives in Dublin.

The Encino house was built in 1961 but was totally refurbished by its previous owners, Sugar and Ron Swing, an interior designer who has remodeled homes for Steven Spielberg and the late Michael Landon.

O’Hara, who will turn 73 on Aug. 17, left Hollywood and moved in the 1970s with her third husband, aviation pioneer Charles F. Blair, to St. Croix. She became the first woman to run a U.S. airline when she took control of his 27-plane fleet when he died in 1978.

She also owned and wrote a general interest column for the tourist magazine the Virgin Islander, which she sold in 1980. She sold the airline in 1979.