Kid Actors From ‘Wonderful Life’ Sue Over Privacy
LAW
by Amanda Bronstad
It may be a wonderful life, but it’s not always a private one.
Four of the child actors who had roles in “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the estate of Donna Reed have sued production company Atlas Media Corp. and A & E; Television Networks for invasion of privacy in a TV program called “American Classics Let Us Entertain You (Part 4),” which highlighted the Christmas classic.
The program aired on A & E; and The History Channel during the past year, according to the suit, which was filed May 24 in Los Angeles Superior Court by former actors Jimmy Hawkins, Bob Anderson, Karolyn Grimes, Carol Coombs and the estates of Todd Karns and Donna Reed.
The actors claim New York-based Atlas took excerpts and photographs of the movie that displayed their personal images in order to produce the TV show, which is now in home video, said Richard Ferko, the Woodland Hills attorney representing the actors.
Atlas Media and A & E; did not return phone calls.
“It’s a Wonderful Life,” released in 1946, lost its copyright in 1973 and fell into the public domain. In 1993, Republic Entertainment Inc. bought the rights to the movie.
In 1998, Hawkins and several of the other actors sued Republic for copyright violations. The case was dismissed on appeal.
Musical Chairs
Four more Lyon & Lyon LLP partners have left to join Jones Day Reavis & Pogue. The move comes only months after two other partners and at least five associates left for Jones Day.
The most recent defecting partners are Lawrence LaPorte, Donald McCarthy, Jerrold Reilly and David Randall, who join Jones Day of counsel in July. Lyon & Lyon, an intellectual property boutique based in L.A., lost rainmakers Robert Weiss and Robert Dickerson earlier this year to Jones Day.
Jack McConaghy, chief operations partner at Lyon & Lyon, said there are no plans to replace the departed partners.
McCarthy, the most senior partner of the four departing lawyers, said he left the firm after 26 years because he saw an opportunity to be with a general practice firm.
“Clients want full-service law firms,” McCarthy said. “At one time, patent litigation went to patent firms. That’s not necessarily the case anymore.”
Victor Savikas, partner at Jones Day’s L.A. office and office coordinator for its California intellectual property group, said, “some say there’s cultural reasons or management reasons” for leaving Lyon & Lyon.
Sources said that Lyon & Lyon briefly considered a merger with Jones Day’s L.A. office last year.
Savikas said Jones Day, which now has 22 IP litigators in L.A., has no additional pending offers to other Lyon & Lyon partners. But he added, “we continue to get resumes from people there.”
Staff reporter Amanda Bronstad can be reached at (323) 549-5225 ext. 225, or at
[email protected].
