Curb Files $7-Million Suit Against McCarthy

Republican Mike Curb filed a $7-million libel and slander suit Monday against his election rival for the lieutenant governorship, Democratic incumbent Leo T. McCarthy.

Curb, in an interview with The Times, said McCarthy’s statements that Curb made a fortune on 1960s exploitation movies like “The Cycle Savages,” featuring themes dealing with drugs, sex and violence, form the basis of “a landmark” lawsuit.

“He just went too far because he lied about a business,” said Curb, who served as lieutenant governor from 1979 to 1983. “There will be many, many years of severe damage to my company and my reputation.”

The lawsuit charges that McCarthy’s remark that Curb had made a “fortune” on exploitation movies was “false on its face” and had damaged Curb’s “campaign for public office, his business and . . . his standing in the community.”

McCarthy’s campaign manager, Rose King, dismissed the suit as a campaign tactic.

“I don’t believe for one minute it’s anything but a publicity gimmick because they are down in the polls,” King said.

However, Curb promised that if he loses the suit he would never again run for public office. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in 1982, losing to Gov. George Deukmejian.

“I am going to commit that I will never seek public office again if I cannot prove that McCarthy lied in this particular situation,” Curb said.

Along with radio and television campaign commercials by McCarthy, Curb cited a comment in the Los Angeles Times on Oct. 11 in which the lieutenant governor is quoted as saying: “He made his first fortune making ‘Cycle Savage’-type movies. Is this the kind of business experience we are presenting to the voters of California”?

At a Los Angeles press conference Monday, Curb’s attorney, Joel R. Strote, and the president of Curb’s record companies, Richard Whitehouse, did not deny that Curb made money on such films and music, only that he did not make a fortune.

Curb, who was listed as executive producer of “The Cycle Savages,” said in an interview from his Los Angeles office that he had no role in creating its content and is not sure he even made money on the film. He said in lieu of immediate cash, he received a percentage of the profits from the movie and the credit as executive producer.

“My belief is that I made practically nothing on that film,” he said.

During the press conference, which Curb did not attend, Whitehouse said in response to a question that it was his guess that Curb would have had to have “some semblance of knowledge” about the content of at least some of the films in order to contribute music.

The suit was filed Monday afternoon in the Burbank office of the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Running for Political Office

“Somebody has to stop this!. . . . We’ve heard enough. . . . Bad enough (that) it’s negative. Bad enough it’s innuendo. These are deliberate lies, and we will not permit it, and I don’t think any businessman who runs for political office should have to endure it,” Whitehouse said.

McCarthy has declined to issue a retraction. His attorney, Lance H. Olson of Sacramento, said in a letter to Strote on Oct. 17, “I wish to make clear there is nothing false or misleading in those broadcasts or in the Times article.”

Curb said the financial success of his company is built around its role in producing records for the Mike Curb Congregation, Debby Boone, Marie Osmond and other artists, and working with Walt Disney Productions, Warner Bros. and other mainstream Hollywood movie companies. He said his companies have produced 40 gold records and more than 100 No. 1 hit songs, including “You Light Up My Life,” which won an Academy Award.

“We really have a wonderful company,” Curb said.

Curb said his suit against McCarthy is different from other libel suits filed in the heat of election campaigns in that he is a businessman whose business has been seriously damaged by the allegedly libelous comments. He said he owns the nation’s largest independent record company.

McCarthy released a synopsis of the motorcycle gang movie, “The Cycle Savages,” done by the American Film Institute, which describes a plot in which a high school girl is kidnaped, drugged and gang-raped with the intention of turning her into a prostitute.

Curb said he was in the business of writing, licensing and and distributing music and as such sold it wherever there was a market. But he said he drew the line at X-rated or pornographic movies.

“We have never and we will never license our music in any film that is pornographic,” he said.

Explaining his early career, Curb said: “When you are 19 and starting out in the business, they don’t give you ‘Gone With the Wind’ to start out with. They give you these lesser films. For me to say these films are epic films would be incorrect, but these films were films of their time.”