Buchwald’s Idea Called Catalyst for Murphy Hit

An attorney for columnist Art Buchwald implored a judge in Los Angeles today to find that the writer’s original idea was stolen by Paramount Pictures Inc. for the hit movie “Coming to America.”

“Hollywood makes movies, but not without ideas,” attorney Pierce O’Donnell declared. “At minimum, what Paramount bought was an idea, a concept. It was unique. It was original. . . . As it turned out, this was a $400-million idea.”

O’Donnell, the first attorney to present a summation in the trial of Buchwald’s $5-million plagiarism suit against Paramount, said the humorist’s story idea was “the catalyst, the springboard for Eddie Murphy’s box-office bonanza.”

Paramount contends that Murphy’s story of an African prince who comes to New York, lives in a ghetto and finds a bride has no relationship to Buchwald’s idea of an African king who comes to Washington, lives in a ghetto and finds a bride.

“In Hollywood, I doubt that you could have a more uniform opinion than that Art Buchwald had a great idea,” O’Donnell said of Buchwald’s 1982 script concept called “King for a Day.”

O’Donnell noted that Paramount invested nearly $500,000 trying to develop the project before the studio abandoned it in 1985. But O’Donnell contended it was never really abandoned but instead evolved into Murphy’s “Coming to America.”

Superior Court Judge Harvey Schneider, hearing the case without a jury, asked many questions concerning law and told O’Donnell he need not argue the question of whether Murphy knew about Buchwald’s concept.

“The evidence is clear that he did,” the judge said.

Paramount attorney Robert Draper was to argue the studio’s case following O’Donnell’s presentation. He was expected to contend that the 1988 Murphy movie had little resemblance to Buchwald’s concept and that Buchwald himself may have lifted the idea from a 1957 Charlie Chaplin movie, “King of New York.”