LEGAL FILE

What Price Dimples? Actor Laurence Conroy, who claims his dimples were his key to success in landing commercials, is suing a plastic surgeon for smoothing one away in a face lift, thus reducing his livelihood from $56,000 to $16,731. In a lawsuit made known this week in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Conroy, 59, said he told Dr. James Smith how important his dimples were to his appearances in ads for Irish Spring soap, Bob’s Big Boy restaurants, Hathaway shirts, the Belmont Racetrack and Dellwood Milk, among others. He said Smith assured him that the 1983 operation would leave his dimples intact. Smith claims Conroy was told in advance that there was no guarantee how the tightening of his jowls would affect his dimples. The suit states that Conroy won one job for about every six auditions he made before he was operated on Oct. 20, 1983. After the operation, he said he won only one job for every 50 auditions. New York papers reporting the case differed on the amount involved, ranging from $5 million to $10 million.