Buchwald Won’t Laugh Off Suit Against Paramount

Given the fact that he recently sued Paramount Pictures for $5 million--alleging fraud, negligence, breach of contract and misrepresentation, among his 13 separate charges--humorist Art Buchwald didn’t seem to be taking the whole thing very seriously Saturday night.

“You’re probably wondering how we arrived at the $5-million figure that we did,” he told an audience of about 200 at a Beverly Hills Hotel benefit for Israel’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

“Well, (producer) Alain (Bernheim) and I were having lunch at the L’Orangerie with (attorney) Pierce O’Donnell, and we said: ‘How much should we sue for?’ And Pierce saw the price for the Dover sole and said, ‘How about $5 million?’ ”

But away from the podium on Sunday morning, the syndicated columnist (whose articles are distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate) was not laughing about this, his first-ever legal action against anyone.

“Sure I’m making fun of it. That’s how I make my living,” he told The Times. “But I am taking it very seriously.”

Five years ago, according to Buchwald’s 130-page lawsuit filed Nov. 21, he and Bernheim sold a treatment for a comedy entitled “King for a Day” to Paramount. It was a fantasy about an African prince who comes to America and learns, first hand, how badly inner-city blacks live. Under Bernheim’s tutelage, Paramount spent more than $200,000 to develop two scripts from the Buchwald treatment for comedian Eddie Murphy, according to the suit. Then, in 1985, Paramount’s top management changed. Buchwald and Bernheim were advised that their project had been abandoned, according to the suit.

In 1987, however, a script crediting Murphy with coming up with the story for “Coming to America” was filed with the Writers Guild of America script registration service. The finished feature, released last summer, has already earned more than $124 million and was the second highest-grossing movie of 1988.

“One of the reasons we’re getting a lot of sympathy from the writers is because they’re disturbed by this new thing where producers give story credit to the star of the picture,” Buchwald said. “People like Stallone and Murphy. After you pay ‘em $50 million, there’s nothing you can offer but screen credit.”

O’Donnell characterizes his client as “a 63-year-old Jewish ‘Rocky’ ” while Buchwald calls O’Donnell “a tiger” over the suit.

“I must say that working with Pierce on a suit such as mine is not only fun but very educational,” Buchwald told his Saturday night audience. “When Pierce takes a case, he puts his heart into it. Every time I call him to discuss some point he says:

“ ‘I think we’ve got enough evidence to send them to jail.’

“And I say ‘I don’t want anyone to go to jail.’

“And he says, ‘But if we don’t send them to jail, they’ll be walking the streets, looking for somebody else’s story to steal! Your wife’s story or your daughter’s!’ ”

Despite the jokes, many in the entertainment industry feel that the Buchwald suit has the potential of becoming a landmark case. Accusations of stolen stories are as old as the motion picture industry itself and the charges have become serious enough to wind up in court hundreds of times.

But only a handful of cases have created legal precedents:

--In 1949, writer Victor Desney contacted director Billy Wilder’s secretary with an idea that Desney later said became the Kirk Douglas movie “Ace in the Hole.” Desney successfully sued Wilder on grounds that the storyline that his secretary transcribed and handed over to Wilder amounted to an “implied contract” to pay Desney.

--In 1964, producer Julian Blaustein (“The Day the Earth Stood Still,” “Khartoum,” and others) successfully sued the late Richard Burton for plagiarizing Blaustein’s proposal to make “The Taming of the Shrew” into a film.

O’Donnell cites both cases, along with more than two dozen other breach of contract cases, in supporting documents filed in the Buchwald suit. He promises a “showcase trial.” The studio has flatly rejected the suit’s claims without elaborating. Though they are not named in the suit, Murphy and his co-star, Arsenio Hall, have both publicly rejected the merits of the suit. No trial date has been set.

But on the chicken-and-pea speaking circuit, Buchwald continues to mine the suit for laughs.

On Jan. 23, he has accepted an invitation from Gulf and Western Corp. chairman Martin Davis to speak at a Variety Club benefit in New York, even though Gulf and Western is the parent company of Paramount Pictures.

“Something most people don’t know is, when I was 15 years old, I worked in the Paramount mail room,” said the cigar-chomping syndicated columnist. “During the war, they sent all their employees a Paramount newsletter and a carton of cigarettes. I mean, they sent me cigarettes all through the war. So it kills me to sue them.”

But, maybe, it doesn’t kill him too much. Buchwald plans to put ballots at each of the tables at the Waldorf Astoria bash.

“I think I’ll ask the audience to vote: who’s guilty, Paramount or us?” Buchwald said.

Putting on his soberest expression, Buchwald promised to make the ballot results available to the media as soon as possible after the dessert dishes are cleared away.