Suits Claim Too-Close Star Encounters

Actresses and automotive mishaps . . . Squabbling over Kevin Spacey . . . The horn section vs. Phil Collins.

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BUMPER CARS: The legal trend of the week involves actresses and auto accidents. First, a homeless man sued Alicia “Clueless” Silverstone for allegedly hitting him in a crosswalk near a downtown Los Angeles ramp of the Hollywood Freeway. Then, a waiter sued Stockard “Six Degrees of Separation” Channing for allegedly running a red light and slamming into his car at a Hollywood intersection.

In both lawsuits, the person on the receiving end of the star car claims to have received serious injuries. Bruce Brodnax, a 64-year-old World War II veteran, suffered a broken arm in the Oct. 29, 1996, mishap over which he is suing Silverstone and requires further surgery, lawyer Don Lake said.

Silverstone, 20 at the time, was not cited by police, and the suit was filed after Brodnax rejected a $5,000 settlement offer from her insurance company, Lake said.

Meanwhile, waiter Anthony Jankowski claimed in his lawsuit against Channing that she hit his 1990 Geo Storm after running the light at the intersection of Highland and Fountain avenues on Nov. 21, 1996.

Jason Matison, the Santa Monica lawyer who represents Jankowski, said the 36-year-old waiter suffered neck and back sprains. Two passengers also were injured, he added. Matison said his clients filed suit when Channing’s insurance company refused to pay their claims. The 54-year-old actress, who was driving a car rented by Viacom Productions, was not cited by police.

Publicists for Silverstone and Channing said they knew nothing about the suits and could not comment.

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LITERARY LICENSE: Award-winning author Barbara Chase-Riboud is suing DreamWorks SKG, alleging that Steven Spielberg’s upcoming epic “Amistad” is remarkably similar to her historically-based novel “Echo of Lions.”

Chase-Riboud alleges in her suit that the similarities are no mere coincidence, since her friend, the late book editor Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, sent a manuscript of “Echo of Lions” to Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment in 1988.

According to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Amblin turned down the tale of a revolt aboard a slave ship, saying it was “too big” for a feature film. Years later, however, it resurfaced at DreamWorks as a shooting script called “The Other Lion,” the suit said.

Both the 1989 novel and the upcoming film are based on the true story of Joseph Cinque, who in 1839 led 53 fellow Africans in a mutiny aboard the Spanish slave ship L’Amistad off the shores of Cuba. They were captured and imprisoned in New Haven, Conn., and charged with murder and piracy.

Alleging copyright infringement, Chase-Riboud is seeking $10 million in damages and an injunction blocking distribution of the film.

DreamWorks representatives did not return phone calls.

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WHADDYA MEAN, SMARTY PANTS?: Michael Viner and his actress wife, who hit the jackpot publishing dirt-dishing books about Hollywood hookers and O.J. Simpson, are suing the New York Observer for libel.

Viner and his wife, Deborah Raffin Viner, claim that their reputations were damaged by an August article that called them “a smarty-pants couple” and their business “a gimmick.”

Christopher Byron wrote that the Viners created Dove Entertainment Inc. to “raise money on Wall Street, so that a smarty-pants husband-and-wife couple from Los Angeles could strut around Beverly Hills and pretend they were rich,” according to the suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Dove cleaned up by publishing the stories of key players in the Heidi Fleiss and O.J. Simpson cases. The Viners are seeking a retraction, and compensatory and punitive damages.

Brian Kempner, attorney for the New York Observer, had no comment.

Meanwhile, Dove has a date in court this week with writer Liza Greer, who claims she is owed millions of dollars in royalties from sales of her book, “You’ll Never Make Love in This Town Again.”

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BEFORE THEY WERE STARS: Another week, another Hollywood tale from those left behind when a star starts to rise. This time, though, the key players are the lawyers to the stars.

Prominent entertainment law firm Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp is suing former partner Douglas Stone, alleging that Stone took some of the firm’s top clients with him when he defected to set up his own practice. As far as MSK is concerned, the firm invested plenty making Stone and his clients stars, and it wants its share.

According to the suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, law firms often agree to represent no-names in contractual and other matters for a percentage of their future earnings. In many cases, the client never hits the big time, so the legal work is practically gratis. But in other cases--say, a Kevin Spacey or a Dean Devlin--the client becomes a star and the fees start rolling in.

MSK contends that Stone began working for the firm in 1986 and was made a partner in 1994. By the time he left in January 1996, the suit contends, his clients included Spacey and Devlin, who were about to hit it big. He took them with him when he left, the suit says.

Soon after that, Spacey received an Academy Award for “The Usual Suspects.” Devlin co-wrote and co-produced “Independence Day,” which raked in $800 million, making it one of the top-grossing films of all time.

The other partners contend they are owed $1 million or more in fees for legal work the firm performed for Spacey and Devlin.

Calls to both sides were not returned.

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SUE-SUE-SUDIO: Phil Collins, or at least his corporate alter-ego, is being sued by half his horn section for royalties that could add up to millions.

The suit names as defendants Philip Collins Ltd. and Hit & Run Music Publishing. The musicians, Louis Satterfield and Rahmle Michael Davis, contend that Collins Ltd. et al agreed to pay them half a cent per album, and did so for six years. But, earlier this year, the companies stopped paying royalties, saying the musicians had been overpaid because they worked on only some of the album tracks.

According to the suit, the companies reinterpreted the terms of their contracts with the horn players and began withholding royalties in March.

Satterfield and Davis seek an unspecified amount of money and want Collins’ company to pay their attorney fees.

“It is unfortunate that after six years of paying royalties, the defendants would try to change the contract to their advantage,” said attorney Adam Siegler.

A representative for Collins could not be reached.