NOTE to New York money manager Kipton Cronkite, who claims he’s related to CBS News legend Walter Cronkite: Your game’s over.
Walter’s longtime girlfriend, Joanna Simon, and his son, Chip Cronkite, told Page Six that Kipton has absolutely no blood connection to the famed anchorman. “He’s no relation whatsoever to Walter,” said Joanna, the noted opera-singer sister of Carly Simon. “So often people come up to us and ask us, and Walter says, ‘I have no idea who that is at all.’ ” Chip added that an exhaustive look at the Cronkite family tree found no link. “There is no genealogical relationship,” he said.
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That’s not what Kipton, 33 – director of investment relations at the Alternative Investment Advisors Group and founder of KiptonART, which gains exposure for emerging artists – has said. In the New York Observer, he called himself a “distant relation” of Cronkite, which can’t hurt when it comes to hobnobbing in social circles. Says a source: “This kid legally changed his name to resemble Cronkite. Some believe his former name was Cronk-heit.”
Last year, Crain’s New York Business called Kipton – who’s pals with the Forbes family and is on the acquisitions committee of the Whitney Museum and the young advisory board at Mount Sinai – “the grandson” of Cronkite.” That prompted a correction stating he was merely a “distant relation.” Says Chip: “Kipton called me to apologize.” A call to Kipton’s office and an e-mail to his art group were not answered.
Chip isn’t mad. “I’ve met Kipton a couple of times and he seemed like a nice fella with an interesting profession,” he said, adding that his dad takes it all with a grain of salt. “There was a Cronkite Pizza joint downtown. They just called themselves that because it sounded funny. I don’t think my dad minded that.”