Syriana Writer Weds Oil Heiress

GAGHAN ON CRUDE Stephen

For filmmaker Stephen Gaghan, oil money is the gift that keeps on giving.

Gaghan, the writer-director behind 2005's Syriana, got married last weekend, to Minnie Mortimer, a member of one of New York's most prominent society clans. Mortimer is the great-granddaughter of Standard Oil president Henry Morgan Tilford (and sister-in-law of sometime Radar mascot Tinsley Mortimer).

Syriana, of course, was a "scathing" (as it was invariably described in reviews) look at the politics of the international oil business. Promoting the film in a Huffington Post blog, Gaghan wrote, "This massive pile of wealth, of found money from a puddle under the earth, has the same effect as the gravity of a black hole that bends and swallows the morality of all who pass into its orbit. You think you're immune? Well, I suspect you just haven't been induced yet, you haven't met your devil."

Gaghan and his devil met at Barry Diller's annual pre-Oscars picnic, according to parkavenuepeerage.com, and were wed on Saturday at Manhattan's St. Thomas Church. "It wasn't over-the-top expensive, but it was pretty much what you'd expect from a rich, Upper East Side society family," says one guest. "But it wasn't gross, which it easily could've been."

Adds the guest, "Nobody at the wedding mentioned the irony, but I'm sure it wasn't lost on Steve."

Photo: Getty Images