He’s Suing for $1.5 Million Over a Hollywood Invasion

A sleepy Leo Guild, 76, assumed that the screaming and gunfire and light-bathed man standing in front of his window was just a nightmare.

It wasn’t, but it wasn’t exactly reality either.

It was Hollywood.

It was on a night last May when Hollywood came calling on Guild’s apartment building in the mid-Wilshire area--and the elderly ghostwriter said it was a surprise visit that not only scared him half to death but produced a lingering tremor in his writing hand.

Guild recalled that it was about midnight when he was awakened “with a start” by screaming and what sounded like gunfire outside his apartment window, which is about 15 feet above the street.

“Outside my window there was a man rising on a platform,” he recalled. “I could hear people scurrying all over and there was a bright, bright light behind him. I grabbed a golf club. I didn’t know what to do.

“It was like a fantasy nightmare,” he said. “For a moment, I wasn’t even sure it wasn’t a dream. I expected at any minute to have a bullet go right through me.”

His apartment building, he said, is in a high-crime neighborhood of Los Angeles, so he feared that a robber was trying to break into his home.

A visitor to the apartment building also heard the commotion and, after a brief, panicky conversation with Guild, went outside to investigate.

“If they’d let me know, I would have enjoyed watching,” said Guild, who has helped write books on Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Liberace and other celebrities.

Guild filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court in October, alleging that the makers of a movie tentatively called “Dead or Alive” filmed scenes in Guild’s neighborhood without proper permits and without informing the residents.

The suit asks for $1.5 million in punitive damages.

“The arrogance, the neglect and recklessness of these people,” Guild’s attorney, William Greene, said. “They should have notified the tenants, but they have no regard for people.”

Guild’s suit is against New World Productions, whose attorney denies it was involved in any aspect of the movie.

“He sued the wrong person,” said Maureen McKinley, an attorney representing the production company. “(Greene’s) investigation has been very sloppy.”

She doubts that Guild’s lawsuit has merit.

“I don’t know of any production company that can block off a city street without a permit,” McKinley said.

In addition, of the 230 residents of the 23-story building, Guild admitted that he is the only one to sue.

Immediately after the incident, Guild said, he developed a tremor in his left hand and other health problems that have so far cost him $2,500 in medical bills.

Because of the tremor, he can no longer type or write with his left hand, he said.

“About half of the tenants in that building are elderly,” Greene said. “It was outrageous to permit a simulation of shooting or riotous conditions. They should have known it would upset people. This is the kind of arrogance that seems to be prevalent right now in the entertainment industry.”