Several paintings by actor Robert De Niro’s late father were sold without the actor’s permission as part of an art scam by a New York gallery, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said on Tuesday.

Art dealer Lawrence Salander, 59, was indicted on additional charges for stealing $5 million from several estates on Tuesday after he was arrested in March for orchestrating a sophisticated $88-million art investment scam that also duped former tennis champion John McEnroe and Bank of America.

Salander and other dealers at his New York gallery sold the works by Robert De Niro Sr., an abstract Expressionist painter who died of cancer in 1993 aged 71, and did not pay out the majority of the sales to his estate, according to the charges.

As a result of the scam, De Niro Sr.’s estate lost more than $1 million, the DA’s office said.

Other victims relating to the additional charges include the Lachaise Foundation, who consigned the works of French-American sculptor Gaston Lachaise, as well as the estate of Elie Nadelman, an American sculptor who died in 1946.

Robert De Niro has organized exhibitions of his father’s works around the world and has said he keeps many of his works at home.

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are teaming up in a lawsuit against a movie distributor and a watch company they say used their likenesses without permission.

The actors said in the lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday that they never authorized a commercial tie-in between Tutima watches and the movie “Righteous Kill.” They’re seeking unspecified damages.

The actors recently starred in the movie distributed by Overture Films. The lawsuit names Overture and Tutima as defendants.

Overture and Tutima did not immediately return telephone messages seeking comment.

Robert De Niro was such a big pain during the making of the 1997 movie “Jackie Brown” that then-Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein had to calm down director Quentin Tarantino.

“This is a great actor and actually a great guy, who’s going through a difficult time . . . I think he’s really having like a scratching-his-head session, you know, with his own life and his own career,” Weinstein says to Tarantino in a phone conversation leaked to Page Six. “I think he knows he can play a certain kind of role from now for the next 20 years. But I think he wants to change the course of his career.”

LISTEN To The Phone Conversation

In the movie, a tribute to ’70s blaxploitation flicks, De Niro plays an ex-con named Louis Gara. He apparently believed he should have been paid more. “He thinks he’s going to . . . make John Travolta look like that was an amateur night in Dixie,” says Weinstein in the 11-year-old recording, referring to Travolta’s comeback in Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction.”

Responds Tarantino: “He’s still dealing with, subconsciously, the fact that he’s not going to get paid for doing the thing that he’s created after 20 years . . . He’s built his reputation on roles like Louis . . . ‘How can you not pay me?’ ”

At another point, Weinstein warns Tarantino he might get a “weird midnight phone call” from the star. Tarantino rages: “Tell Bob not to call me yelling and screaming . . . I don’t know if I’m going to be nice [if] the guy calls up yelling and screaming at me like a maniac, calling me a [bleep]er!”

Weinstein’s lawyer, David Boies, said, “We are disappointed that any member of the press is trafficking in illegal tape recordings and compounding the damage by taking them out of context,” referring to the tape that was sent anonymously to Page Six.

De Niro’s rep said, “Unless you were privy to actual conversations . . . I would draw an analogy to the blind man who picks up the tail of an elephant and exclaims, ‘This animal must be quite slender and very wiry.’ ”

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Check out Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro’s interview with Brian Williams from the Today Show this morning. They cover a range of topics from 9/11 to politics, growing up in NYC, acting together, and of course their upcoming movie, Righteous Kill – in theaters today!

Al Pacino and Carla Gugino

Trilby Glover and Chevy Chase

Al Pacino and Robert De Niro

Al Pacino and Robert De Niro were in fine spirits Wednesday night as adoring fans greeted them at the premiere of their movie “Righteous Kill.”
But then we had to mention Francis Ford Coppola.

You may remember that, last fall, Coppola suggested the two actors he’d put in “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II” had squandered their talent.

“I met both Pacino and De Niro when they were really on the come,” Coppola told GQ. “They were young and insecure. Now Pacino is very rich, maybe because he never spends any money; he just puts it in his mattress … I don’t feel that kind of passion to do a role and be great coming from those guys.”

Considering that “Righteous Kill” is the first movie where they share substantial screen time together, we figured the two tough guys might want to fire back at the director. We figured wrong.

“I’d really rather not talk about it,” Pacino said, sinking into his seat at the Ziegfeld. “I’d really rather not talk about anything.”

De Niro, ever loquacious, suggested he had no quarrel with the man who helped produce his movie “The Good Shepherd.” “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said.

But others argued against the claim that the New York icons had lost their way.

Former mayor Rudy Giuliani said, “They’re two of my favorites. And here they’re playing New York City detectives! What could be better?”
“Righteous Kill” director Jon Avnet said it was “humbling” to work with them: “They’d defied my expectations.”

“Inside the Actors Studio” host James Lipton insisted, “These guys are two of the finest actors of their generation. They don’t write the movies they appear in. They don’t have infinite choices. … I think Coppola is being disingenuous. I don’t disrespect anybody for working for living.”

Meanwhile, sources deny De Niro quit “Edge of Darkness” last week (after one day) because of a feud with co-star Mel Gibson.

“Bob didn’t think [director Martin Campbell] was shooting the right way,” said an insider. Campbell is “doing two takes and then moving on like it was a TV shoot.”

Campbell’s agent didn’t return a call. De Niro’s rep blamed his departure on “creative differences.”

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Mariah Carey and Robert DeNiro

ENDEAVOR talent agency is challenging Creative Artists Agency for supremacy in Hollywood. While CAA has long had the biggest stable of actors and directors, Endeavor scored a coup Wednesday evening when Robert De Niro defected from the powerhouse – with his producing partner, Jane Rosenthal, and their company, Tribeca Productions. While CAA helped further De Niro’s career with $18 million comedies such as “Meet the Fockers,” serious roles have been drying up. According to deadlinehollywooddaily.com, De Niro’s exit from CAA was amicable – their long association had simply run its course. De Niro’s surprise move caps one of the more eventful weeks in the history of Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor, which just hired exiting UTA agents Nick Stevens, Lisa Hallerman and Sharon Sheinwold, and brought Ben Stiller into the fold. Other clients, Jack Black included, may move from UTA to Endeavor, as well.

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THE citizens of Stamford, Conn., should brace themselves. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are shooting their thriller “Righteous Kill” today in the model apartments for the upcoming 34-story Trump Parc Stamford. The Post’s Lois Weiss reports tech wizards will later add the New York skyline to the windows in the “Manhattan-style” building, where apartments range from $650,000 to $3 million. The film has been shooting around New Haven and Norwalk for two months as the producers take advantage of an incentive program to lure Hollywood to Connecticut.

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It’s Raging Bull vs. the Thin White Duke.

Robert De Niro, who co-founded the Tribeca Film Festival, is said to be steaming mad at David Bowie, who’s curating the upstart High Line Festival, a 10-day “mash-up of music, film, comedy, visual art and performance,” which begins three days after De Niro’s highly commercial extravaganza ends on May 6. The High Line series is being touted as younger, hipper and edgier.

“I hear it’s driving Robert De Niro crazy,” an insider tells nymag.com, the Web site of New York magazine. “And that’s just great because he’s a big, old wrinkled thug versus these young guys.” At 63, the Oscar winner is only three years older than rock legend Bowie, but he’s ancient enough to be the father of High Line producers David Binder, 39, and Josh Wood, 33.

“Ours happens to be a little younger and rougher around the edges and more multidisciplinary than theirs,” Binder and Wood boasted to nymag.com.

But a source at the Tribeca festival sniffed to Page Six: “I think they are envisioning themselves as Slamdance to our Sundance and living off the success of Sundance.”

Some High Liners believe De Niro has already sabotaged them by keeping Tribeca’s public relations team, Rubenstein Communications, from doing press for High Line, the Web site reports. De Niro’s flack had no comment. But one longtime De Niro pal insisted, “He could care less.”

Rubenstein Communications President Steven Rubenstein denies there’s any feud, adding that Bowie was set to attend last night’s Tribeca kickoff party sponsored by Vanity Fair. Bowie told us in a statement: “I am afraid I have no control over the inexplicable comments from the High Line producers. I think the Tribeca Film Festival is unique and irreplaceable.”

In five years, Tribeca has become a fat-cat festival – it’s sponsored by American Express, for which De Niro shills in ads, and this year will premiere the summer blockbuster “Spider-Man 3.” High Line is backed by budget-fashion giant H&M and features hot alt bands like Air and the Polyphonic Spree, as well as comic Ricky Gervais.

Robert De Niro, who co-founded the Tribeca Film Festival, is said to be steaming mad at David Bowie, who’s curating the upstart High Line Festival, a 10-day “mash-up of music, film, comedy, visual art and performance,” which begins three days after De Niro’s highly commercial extravaganza ends on May 6. The High Line series is being touted as younger, hipper and edgier.

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