ON A SHOESTRING: Edward J. Leven arrived in town in 1960 with a handful of rubber checks and proceeded to buy a couple of multimillionaire Avery Brundage’s properties on a shoestring.
Brundage, onetime virtual czar of the Olympics, would soon regret the deal and that he hadn’t looked closely into Leven’s dubious real estate dealings.
Leven also bought the family-owned Santa Barbara bus company, perhaps for the nickels in the fare boxes.