Dancer Takes Legal Steps, Gets $35,000

A dancer whose tattered leg warmers brought classical ballet to the pop art world has agreed to a $35,000 settlement with the photographer that she alleged had promised her royalties but left her penniless.

Jonette Swider, who posed with her worn toe shoes in a series of posters that became a familiar decoration in galleries and living rooms throughout the country, concluded her two-year legal battle with photographer Harvey Edwards this week, calling the settlement a vindication for her and dance partner Bruce Wurl, who also appeared in the posters.

Wurl died earlier this year of complications from acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Glad It’s Over

“I’m happy it’s over,” Swider said of the pre-trial settlement. “Bruce and I sort of dreamed and planned about the day we’d go to court together, and there was a part of me that was resistant about having to do that, knowing he wouldn’t be there.”

Swider and Wurl agreed to pose for Edwards, who went on to become a well-known commercial art photographer, while they were practicing at a small Los Angeles dance studio in 1978. But Edwards, they alleged, never lived up to his promises of large royalties and promotional tours.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the two dancers claimed that Edwards had pledged to give them a 25-cent royalty on each poster sold and promised to use them in autograph sessions at galleries, museums and dance performance openings promoting the posters.

Edwards, who could not be reached Thursday for comment, asserted in court papers that he never had promised the two dancers anything more than the $600 modeling fee they received.

In addition to the “Leg Warmers” poster, Swider and Wurl posed for “Hands,” which depicted Wurl’s hands supporting Swider’s arched back, and two lesser-known posters, “Night Performance” and “Torso.”

“Both of us were a little naive, and didn’t know that you should get these things in writing,” Swider, a Studio City resident, said in an interview.

“It wasn’t until I was pregnant with my son many years later when I started realizing that these posters really, really took off, and he had made a lot of money.”

Sheldon Bardach, Swider’s attorney, said there is evidence that at least 110,000 copies of the posters, and perhaps as many as 600,000, were sold worldwide.

Swider and Wurl went on to dance with the Long Beach Ballet, and Wurl, a member of the Los Angeles Chamber Ballet, was dancing with the Koblenz Ballet Company in Germany just before his unexpected death in January.

Bardach said he telephoned Wurl’s mother, Joy Wurl, after U.S. District Judge Laughlin E. Waters approved the settlement Tuesday. “I really had tears in my eyes, to think that he wasn’t around to see his own vindication,” Bardach said.