Two New Orleans homes owned by actor Nicolas Cage were sold at foreclosure auction for a total of $4.5 million.

New Orleans Civil Sheriff Paul Valteau said Regions Bank based out of Birmingham, Ala., made the only bids on the two homes, purchasing Cage's French Quarter home for $2.3 million and his Pataniya Street property for $2.2 million. The French Quarter home (which Cage claimed was the “Most Haunted House in America”) was appraised at $3.5 million and the Pataniya Street home at $3.3 million.

The auction came amid significant financial troubles for Cage, 45, including $5.5 million the Ghost Rider star owes in mortgage payments. Cage, who also owes $151,730 to the city of New Orleans in real estate taxes, has blamed his troubles on his former financial manager, Samuel Levin.

On July 14, 2009, the Internal Revenue Service filed documents in New Orleans in connection with a federal tax lien against property owned by Cage in Louisiana, concerning unpaid federal taxes. The IRS alleges that Cage failed to pay over $6.2 million in federal income tax for the year 2007. In addition, the IRS has another lien for more than $350,000 in unpaid taxes dating from 2002-04.

Cage filed a $20 million lawsuit on Oct. 16, 2009, against Levin, alleging negligence and fraud. The lawsuit states that Levin "had failed to pay taxes when they were due and had placed [Cage] in speculative and risky real estate investments 'resulting in (the actor) suffering catastrophic losses'."

Homes Cage owns in California and Nevada also face foreclosure auctions.

A painting by pop artist Andy Warhol, "200 One Dollar Bills," brought $43.8 million at auction, more than three times its highest presale estimate of $12 million.

The piece, one of Warhol's first silk-screen paintings, sold at Sotheby's on Nov. 11, 2009. The auction house did not reveal the names of the buyer and seller.

Bidding for the seminal work was spirited and fast. Auctioneer Tobias Meyer opened bidding at $6 million, which was immediately doubled. Five more people in the room jumped in, competing until a phone bidder was declared the winner.

The current record for a Warhol is $71.7 million for "Green Car Crash, sold at Christie's in 2007.

Executed in 1962, the painting was once owned by taxi tycoon Robert C. Scull, who purchased it directly from Warhol's dealer. The current owner bought it in 1986 for $385,000.

It was the highest price fetched at the Contemporary Art sale, which totaled $134.4 million, well above the high presale total of $97.7 million.

Other Warhol paintings also drew strong prices.

His 1965 "Self-Portrait," which the artist gave to Cathy Naso, a receptionist who worked at his Factory, sold for $6.1 million. It had been estimated to sell for $1 million to $1.5 million. Naso, who attended the auction, was 19 years old when Warhol gave her the painting inscribed to her. She displayed it briefly and then stored it in a closet, where it remained until this year.

"I think I am dreaming," Naso said. "Andy has made me famous for 15 minutes and I've come to realize that 15 minutes of fame is more than enough."

Al Capone's legend of bootlegging, gangland slayings and tax evasion lives on more than 60 years after the Chicago gangster's death. Now comes a footnote that is a sign of the times: foreclosure.

A Wisconsin lodge that may have been one of Capone's old hideouts goes on the auction block this week with a starting bid of $2.6 million.

The two-story stone lodge, tucked away on 407 acres in Couderay, Wis., was owned by the Capone family in the 1920s. It will be auctioned Thursday on the steps of the Sawyer County Courthouse, three hours from Minneapolis, Minn., according to an ad in the Chicago Tribune.

The property includes a 37-acre lake and eight-car garage.

The Tribune ad was placed in September by the Chippewa Valley Bank. The property,owned by Hideout Inc. owner Guy Houston, went into foreclosure in April 2008. The Houston family purchased the property in the 1950s and transformed the home into a touist spot. Visitors paid a few dollars for a walking tour of Capone's reputed hideout. The lodge is fortified with stone walls at least a foot thick and a guard tower. There is a separate facility that resembles a jail on site.

A New York art gallery has temporarily removed an Andy Warhol portrait of Michael Jackson from the auction block. The Vered Gallery in East Hampton says enormous interest prompted the decision. The auction was to close Sunday.

The 30-by-26-inch painting shows a smiling Jackson in a red jacket from his Thriller days. Pre-sale estimates ranged anywhere from $1 million to $10 million.

There's renewed interest in all things Jackson since his death. His albums are back at the top of the charts.

Gallery co-owner Janet Lehr says in a statement she wants to offer the 1984 work to "the greatest number of prospective purchasers." She did not immediately return inquiries for comment Monday. The portrait is reportedly owned by a New York collector.
 

The annual charity auction of a steak lunch with billionaire investor Warren Buffett, which raised a record $2.11 million last year, is off to a slow start. The high bid was just $70,100 as of Tuesday in the 10th annual fund-raiser, which began Sunday on eBay. The auction ends Friday.

It was unclear how the recession will affect this year's bidding. In previous auctions, a flurry of activity typically drove the winning bid higher in the last couple of hours.

The winner and up to seven friends may dine with the world's second-richest person at New York's Smith & Wollensky steakhouse. The auction benefits San Francisco's Glide Foundation, which offers housing, job training, health and child care, and meals for the poor.

Zhao Danyang, the hedge fund manager who paid more than $2.11 million to have lunch with Buffett last year, said he owed his firm's 600% return over the past six years to lessons he learned from Buffett and his books.

Christopher Lee's black cape from the 1958 film version of Dracula is expected to fetch up to £30,000. The woollen cape is one of nearly 250 lots of film and TV costumes from the archives of Angels The Costumiers.

Outfits from Blackadder, Doctor Who and the Harry Potter films are also up for sale at the auction, at Bonhams in London on June 16.

Lee's cape is being sold together with a letter signed by the actor confirming the authenticity of the item, as well as a still image of him wearing the cape as Dracula. However, fans with a smaller budget still have the chance to snap up a pair of waistcoats worn by Lee in 1976's Dracula Pere Et Fils and a 1971 production of Sherlock Holmes. They are expected to fetch the more meagre sum of £100-150.

Other items available at the auction include a full-length cloak worn by Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia, two monkey masks from The Mighty Boosh and Halle Berry's wetsuit from James Bond film Die Another Day.
 

A rare leather-bound book that played an influential role in America's early history could bring a windfall for a soldier training for his second tour in Iraq.

Indiana National Guard Capt. Nathan Harlan was a high school junior when he paid $7 for a 1788 first edition of volume one of The Federalist — a two-volume book of essays calling for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

Harlan, a 35-year-old from Granger, Ind., said he always thought his find might be worth about $500, not the thousands it could fetch when it's sold online Tuesday by Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas.

"I'm really hoping it goes for $100,000, but I'm not holding my breath," he told The Associated Press.

The divorced father of three was 16 when he bought the 227-page book in 1990 after his mother spotted it among book stacks as they browsed at a South Bend, Ind., flea market.

Harlan's high school history class happened to be discussing The Federalist — also known as The Federalist Papers — that same week, so he knew the book was special.

The two-volume set was published months after the Constitution was drafted in September 1787 in Philadelphia. Its collected essays helped rally support for ratifying the document that provided the federal government's framework, said Mark Dimunation, chief of the rare book and special collections division at The Library of Congress.

The essays were penned by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, all of whom used the same pseudonym to focus attention on their pro-ratification arguments.

"It's one of the great political documents to come out of America," Dimunation said. "And the favorite parlor game of the late 18th century was who wrote which essay."

Convicted "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski, who terrorized the country with a series of mail bombs over nearly two decades, is fighting to stop a public auction of his diaries and other personal possessions.

But Kaczynski's five-year legal battle will come to an end soon unless he can convince the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

"I regard him as the essence of evil. He's evil and amoral. He has no compassion," said Dr. Charles Epstein, who was seriously injured in 1993 when a bomb went off in a piece of mail he opened at his home. The blast destroyed both of Epstein's eardrums, and he lost parts of three of his fingers.

Epstein, 75, is a world-renowned geneticist and retired professor at the University of California at San Francisco. He is one of four victims who are owed $15 million in court-ordered restitution from Kaczynski, and he told CNN the auction was important to victims.

"Who would think that we would still be sitting, this many years later, still having dealings ... with the man who tried to kill us?" Epstein said.

Kaczynski was arrested in 1996, pleaded guilty in 1998 and is currently serving a life term in the federal "Supermax" prison in Florence, Colorado. CNN was given exclusive access to videotape the items that will be up for auction, which were seized from the Montana cabin in which Kaczynski lived for years and held in evidence by the FBI in San Francisco and Washington.

The property includes tools, typewriters, knives and a hatchet; Kaczynski's degrees from Harvard and the University of Michigan; and the glasses and hooded jacket made famous by an artist's rendering of the suspect. But experts say the most valuable items probably will be the 40,000 pages of Kaczynski's diaries and other writings.
 

From coffee mugs to caskets, the men of Kiss have never been above selling out. But Gene Simmons has upped his game by auctioning off his kidney stone on eBay for a righteous $15,000. "I passed a kidney stone and I put it on eBay for charity," the Kiss bassist told the Today Show. "I got $15 grand."

Host Kathie Lee Gifford then asked Simmons how much he might get for other parts of his body. To which Simmons -- who was plugging his A&E series Gene Simmons Family Jewels -- jokingly snapped, "Settle down."
 

A hunting license once issued to former Red Sox left fielder Ted Williams was reported missing last week from a New Hampshire auction house, just days before the Hall of Fame ballplayer's personal effects were to be sold.

John Pappas, auctioneer at the Knotty Pine Auction Service in West Swanzey, N.H., said the one-of-a-kind license, issued to Williams by the state of New Hampshire in 1970, disappeared around 5 p.m. Thursday during a preview of the auction, which was held Saturday morning. The value of the license, which was bundled with Williams's fishing hat and an aluminum pinback, had an estimated worth of $300 to $500, but could have fetched upward of $1,000, Pappas said.