MOZART HAD A GOOD LIFE. NO! HE WAS NOT POOR!!

Photo: This statue of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart stands in Salzburg, Austria.

For centuries, historians have portrayed Mozart as poor, but new documents suggest the composer was not nearly as hard-up for cash as many have believed. Scholars who combed through Austrian archives for an exhibition opening Tuesday on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's later years in Vienna found evidence that he was solidly upper-crust and lived the good life. Letters show that Mozart repeatedly borrowed money from friends to pay for his travels and his social obligations, and that his family was forced to move at least 11 times. The new documents, on display at Vienna's Musikverein, reveal that he earned about 10,000 florins a year — at least $42,000 (U.S.), in today's terms. That would have placed him in the top five percent of wage-earners in late 18th-century Vienna, say experts, who were unable to prove lingering suspicions that gambling debts took a big bite out of Mozart's earnings. "Mozart made a lot of money," said Otto Biba, director of Vienna's vast musical archives. To put his earnings in perspective: Successful professionals lived comfortably on 450 florins a year, according to Biba, who said Mozart's main occupation in Vienna was teaching piano to aristocrats — a lucrative job that helped support his extravagant lifestyle. Yet Mozart earned a reputation for money-grubbing, and evidence abounds that he squandered much of his cash. Among the items on display at the Musikverein are handwritten letters in which Mozart begged his patrons, publishers and acquaintances for huge sums to settle his debts.

One penned in June 1788 requesting a loan from arts patron Michael Puchberg reads: "If you will do me this kindness ... I shall be able to work with an easier mind and a lighter heart." The exhibition, which runs through June 30, is part of a year of special events in Austria celebrating the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth in Salzburg on Jan. 27, 1756. Mozart lived in Vienna from 1784-87, at the height of his brief but prolific music career. Among the works he composed in the Austrian capital was The Marriage of Figaro. Mozart, who died in 1791 at age 35, was buried in a pauper's grave at Vienna's St. Marx Cemetery, perpetuating the notion that he spent most of his life barely scraping by in dire financial straits. A simple column and a sad-looking angel mark the spot where scholars believe he was laid to rest. No one disputes that Mozart's wealth was long gone by the time he lay on his deathbed. Researchers at Salzburg's International Mozarteum Foundation say records of Mozart's estate indicate that his widow barely had enough cash to bury him, and that he owed thousands, including debts to his tailor, cobbler and pharmacist. American composer and music historian Allen Krantz is among those who think that Mozart may simply have been a victim of his own generosity, impulsiveness and largesse. "Mozart grew up to be undisciplined, unworldly and a soft touch. Money went through his hands like water," Krantz wrote in a recent biography. "Even Mozart's mother, a gentle soul, complained: 'When Wolfgang makes new acquaintances, he immediately wants to give his life and property to them.'"

Photo: Michael Baigent, one of the authors of 'Holy Blood and the Holy Grail' book, arrives at London's High Court, for the end of a three-week trial, Monday March 20, 2006.

A lawyer whose client accuses author Dan Brown of stealing ideas for his mega-selling conspiracy thriller "The Da Vinci Code" said Monday the novelist's testimony should be treated with "deep suspicion.

Making his closing submission at the end of a three-week trial, attorney Jonathan Rayner James also asked why Brown's wife, Blythe — who did a large chunk of the research for the novel — was not called as a witness in the copyright-infringement case. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh are suing "Da Vinci Code" publisher Random House, claiming Brown's book "appropriated the architecture" of their 1982 nonfiction book, "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail."

Brown has acknowledged that he and his wife read "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" while researching "The Da Vinci Code" but said it was not crucial to their work, which also used 38 other books and hundreds of documents. On Friday, Random House lawyer John Baldwin said Dan Brown's work gathered a number of incidents and put them together in a unique way. "The ideas are of too general a nature to be capable of copyright protection," Baldwin argued. "The claimants' claim relates to ideas at a high level of generality, which copyright does not protect." Under cross-examination by Baldwin earlier in the trial, Baigent conceded that several of the plaintiffs' key allegations were wrong, including the claim Brown used "all the same historical conjecture" as "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail." Rayner James acknowledged that his client, Baigent, had been "a poor witness." "He was overawed by the circumstances and agreed almost without exception (with) anything said by the judge," the lawyer said.

Johnny Cash's first wife wrote book: Memoir will be called "I Walked The Line"

Photo: Country music legend, Johnny Cash.

The first Mrs. Johnny Cash had a line to walk, too, and before she died last year she told about it in a book that will be published early next year.  I Walked the Line, by Vivian Liberto Distin, is slated to arrive Valentine's Day 2007, it was announced Wednesday by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster. The book's title plays off Cash's hit song, I Walk the Line, which he wrote about Vivian. The same title was used for the recent Golden Globe-winning movie that focused on Cash's romance with his second wife, singer June Carter Cash. The book is based on thousands of letters exchanged by the couple before their marriage while he was overseas with the Air Force, co-writer Ann Sharpsteen said. "The letters really reveal the real man, unclouded by drugs. Letters were his dreams, fears, a variety of subjects, fidelity, alcohol, faith. It's like reading someone's diary," Sharpsteen said. The couple divorced in 1966 after 13 years. Kathy Cash, one of Johnny and Vivian's daughters, said her mother visited her father in 2003 to tell him she wanted to do the book. "He said, 'Vivian, if anyone on this whole earth should write a book it should be you,"' Kathy Cash said. The book helped Distin find closure, her co-author said. "She had never gotten over Johnny, so it was a journey of healing," Sharpsteen said. Cash died in 2003.

Dan Brown admits reworking passages. Da Vinci Code author insists he did not rip off ideas

Photo: Dan Brown said in court he did not steal ideas for his hit novel The Da Vinci Code.

Dan Brown returned to the witness stand Wednesday and acknowledged "reworking" passages from an earlier book for his best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code, but he firmly rejected charges that he ripped off key ideas for his conspiracy thriller.

The author spent a third day defending his work against a copyright infringement suit brought by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of a 1982 nonfiction book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.  The suit is not against Brown, but his publisher Random House, which also published The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Random House denies the claims, and Brown says the assertion that he copied is "completely fanciful." "I'm not crazy about the word 'copied,'" Brown testified. "Copying implies it is identical. It's not identical." Brown said The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was "one of the books in the mix" when he and his wife, Blythe Brown, were researching the novel.

He acknowledged "reworking" passages from the earlier book. "That's how you incorporate research into a novel," Brown said. Both books explore theories — dismissed by theologians — that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, the couple had a child and the bloodline survives. The lawyer for the plaintiffs, Jonathan Rayner James, spent the morning citing passages from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail that he said had near equivalents in The Da Vinci Code. "I'm sorry, again, I have to disagree," said Brown, who appeared frustrated at the attorney's painstaking and sometimes repetitive questioning. "These are points of history that were available in a lot of other books we were using." If Baigent and Leigh succeed in securing an injunction to bar the use of their material, they could hold up the scheduled May 19 film release of The Da Vinci Code, starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou. Patrick Janson-Smith, who was involved with both books as former publisher of Transworld, a division of Random House, took the stand briefly to support his former employer. In a witness statement, Janson-Smith said saw similarities between the two books, but no evidence of copying. "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail purports to be nonfiction; The Da Vinci Code is a thriller," he said. "I thought the latter was a romping piece of good fiction. Like any thriller, no doubt it took ideas from any number of sources."

The Da Vinci Code has sold more than 40 million copies since its release three years ago, and has turned Brown, 41, into a literary superstar. Brown testified Tuesday that he was certain he and his wife, who conducts much of his research, had read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail only after he had submitted his synopsis for the novel that would become The Da Vinci Code to his agent in January 2001. "I think it would be very unlikely that Blythe would be reading it without my knowledge," Brown said. "I'm very doubtful that she would buy it and I wouldn't know." Brown has acknowledged that they read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail while researching The Da Vinci Code, but said they also used 38 other books and hundreds of documents, and that the British authors' book was not crucial to their work.

The third author of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Henry Lincoln, is not involved in the case. A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Paul Sutton, refused to say why he was not participating. Lincoln, who is in his 70s and reportedly in poor health, could not be reached for comment.