Liz Taylor Stars in Battle Over ‘Passion’ Fragrance : Perfume: Ex-boyfriend sues the actress, saying that he developed the popular product. Trial starts this week.

It is not a horse race, but the victor may win by a nose.

In a Los Angeles Superior Court case scheduled to go to trial this week, jurors will be expected to sniff out whether actress Elizabeth Taylor’s floral perfume “Passion” was developed by a former boyfriend.

The trial is expected to be the stuff of tabloids--airing the lavish lifestyles and love lives of the violet-eyed movie legend and her onetime companion, former used car dealer Henry Wynberg.

It also promises a rare look at the inner workings of the multibillion-dollar fragrance industry, where it is not uncommon to spend $50 million to launch a new perfume and where the war for shelf space and “air rights” in upscale department stores creates one of the toughest competitions in the retail trade.

While their romance lasted only two years, the litigants’ legal battle has been waged for more than four years. At stake is about $70 million a year in profits from the highly popular line of Passion fragrances that Taylor, 57, launched with Chesebrough-Ponds Inc. in 1987, and which went on to be a spectacular seller.

The legal fireworks began in 1986 when Taylor, ready to launch that perfume campaign, sued Wynberg to get out of a cosmetics business agreement that she had signed with him in 1975. That agreement, filed in Superior Court, gave Wynberg “perpetual” rights to 30% of the net profits to any cosmetics marketed under her name.

Wynberg sued Taylor in 1987 for breach of contract, fraud and misappropriation, contending that Passion--a blend of gardenia, jasmine, rose, ylang-ylang, patchouli and other scents--was a “copycat” of a fragrance that he developed.

Wynberg, 56, says that he presented the fragrance in a purple heart-shaped bottle to the movie star in 1985, two years before Passion was introduced in the marketplace. He is asking for more than $4 million in damages. The two lawsuits will be combined in the coming trial.

The trial comes when many economists are reporting a downturn in the perfume industry. While U.S. sales totaled $4 billion last year, the number of bottles sold has plunged about 40% in the last two years.

The decline has been hastened, economists believe, because of a saturation of the market. There are more than 800 fragrances being sold, with scores of new ones arriving each year. Even with the downturn, more perfume is sold in the United States than anywhere else.

The Taylor--Wynberg trial is one of a growing number of similar legal battles being waged as competition stiffens.

While the trial will center on contracts and other business issues, it is also expected to generate much tattling and mudslinging.

Wynberg’s attorneys are expected to question Taylor about her legendary addictions and dietary problems, alleging that Taylor’s on-again and off-again “Virginia farm wife” looks over a period of several years hampered his attempts to market her cosmetics. His lawyers have requested that Taylor provide them with quarterly reports on her weight for the last 15 years.

“I think it would be more believable for a woman at 150 pounds to endorse a perfume than one at 300 pounds,” Wynberg said in a deposition taken before the trial.

While both sides have declined to discuss the case in detail, court documents and sworn depositions given by Taylor and Wynberg hint of what the jury may hear.

Taylor’s attorneys plan to make an “image” issue of Wynberg’s 1977 misdemeanor conviction and 90-day jail sentence for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He had been arrested on suspicion of fondling a 16-year-old girl during a picture-taking session with another man and four Beverly Hills High School girls at his home. Taylor said she felt that this incident would cast her company in a bad light.

Wynberg’s attorneys suggested that they also will use a “moral yardstick” offense, and question Taylor about her relationships.

The parties have already come to verbal blows while taking the sworn statements. In one session, San Francisco attorney Martin Jarvis became irritated because Taylor was applying makeup while he was trying to question her.

“You could give me the courtesy of listening to the questions,” Jarvis said.

“I can hear you,” Taylor replied.

To which Jarvis responded: “If necessary, I can adjourn this and go to court to stop her from making up her face.”

At another point, Jarvis asked the actress: “How would you rate Wynberg? Was he a skillful lover?”

She replied that she did not rate lovers.

Upset about the line of questioning, Taylor’s attorney had no qualms. “My understanding he is about a minus 7,” said Los Angeles attorney Neil Papiano.

Sensing that an unwieldy spectacle could occur in his courtroom, Superior Court Judge Coleman A. Swart has laid down stringent ground rules and has ordered extra bailiffs to be on hand for crowd control.

“I don’t want this to be a circus,” he said.

It was the French who elevated perfume to artistic heights during the early 1900s with classics such as Guerlain’s “L’Heure Bleue,” Coty’s “Emeraude,” and “Chanel No. 5.” It was not until 1969 that corporations began using designers and celebrities to sell perfume. Charles Revson introduced Norell, which was named after fashion designer Norman Norell.

By the time Taylor signed with Chesebrough-Ponds in 1987, such genteel turn-of-the-century entries as “In the Garden of My Parish Priest” and “Whither Thou Goest” had given way to the likes of “Notorious,” “Wanton,” “Opium” and “Poison.” The $4-billion-a-year perfume war was blazing on all fronts, from perfumed magazine strips to spritzing battles in store aisles.

Chesebrough-Ponds’ parent firm, Unilever Group, which manufactures Elizabeth Arden, Faberge and Brut, sent Taylor on a spectacular multimillion-dollar promotional tour of nine cities. Appearing in a purple satin plunge neck gown, she quoted Shakespeare: “Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame, each to his passion.”

Women grabbed up $165-an-ounce bottles of the scent as if it were tap water. Wrote one columnist: “It would seem that after seven marriages, enough people would have experienced Taylor’s Passion.”

Passion racked up $29 million in sales in its first five months, and garnered the coveted “Fifi” award for best new perfume, given by the industry’s Fragrance Foundation.

Why the success for Elizabeth Taylor, when other celebrity perfumes such as Cher’s “Uninhibited,” Joan Collins’ “Spectacular,” and Mikhail Baryshnikov’s “Misha” have apparently faltered?

“She is the last Great Star,” said Annette Green, the foundation’s spokeswoman.

Michael Horowitz, who oversaw Passion at Chesebrough-Ponds and is now an industry consultant, has recently been quoted as saying that market research found Taylor’s struggles with weight, substance abuse and men made her approachable. “Women figured if Liz can get control of her life, why can’t I? That forged a very strong bond.”

Long a screen legend, Taylor began her career as a child, starring in “National Velvet” and going on to appear in such films as “Giant,” “A Place in the Sun,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Cleopatra.”

Even more legendary were her many romances. Her husbands included Nick Hilton, Michael Wilding, Michael Todd, singer Eddie Fisher, actor Richard Burton--whom she married twice--and Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.).

It was the late actor Peter Lawford who introduced Taylor to Wynberg in 1973, during a separation from Burton. Wynberg, a native of Holland, ran a used car business and later started a logo licensing business called Beverly Hills Manure Co.

Together, Taylor and Wynberg were international jet-setters, photographed strolling on the Italian Riveria, attending concerts in London, or arriving on opening night at Broadway shows in New York.

Wynberg alleges in legal documents that Taylor spent $500,000 a month when they were together.

Wynberg said their romantic relationship continued until August, 1975, when Taylor said: “I’m going back to Richard, Henry. I’ll see you later.”

Even though the romance failed, they got together weeks later to ink a business agreement on developing a line of cosmetics under her name.

Wynberg met with her at a chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland. The contract was witnessed by Burton.

“We all had cocktails,” Wynberg recalled. “I cannot deny it was an emotional day for me . . . but I think from a gut level, I knew she wanted to go back to Richard. And I always figured if a woman wants something bad enough, she’ll get it done.”

Burton and Taylor flew to Botswana, Africa, and remarried, while Wynberg returned to California and formed Elizabeth Taylor Cosmetics Inc., using $50,000 of Taylor’s money.

Taylor’s remarriage to Burton lasted only a few months and she returned to Wynberg briefly in early 1976. In December of that year, she married Warner, whom she divorced five years later.

Wynberg said he spent those years consulting with chemists and manufacturers, “smelling perfumes” and looking for the perfect bottle.

“I wanted sparkling little lights like stars in there,” Wynberg said, “and I wanted it to look like money, feel like money.”

He said he finally found a purple heart-shaped bottle and a fragrance that he liked. He gave it to Taylor gift-wrapped at a dinner party in November, 1983.

“She made remarks that it was an exquisite bottle and that she’d never seen anything more beautiful than that,” Wynberg recalled. “She splashed it on herself and guests and they walked around the house smelling their arms.”

According to Wynberg’s attorneys, the actress then invited her guests to see her art collection.

“Then and there,” the attorneys claimed, “in front of one of her original Monet paintings . . . she stated to Henry Wynberg, ‘Let’s let bygones be bygones, Henry. Let’s split 50/50 on the perfume deal.’ ”

The two then retired to her bedroom, where Wynberg said that Taylor requested him to clean out a tropical fish tank.

In her deposition, Taylor denied agreeing to a 50/50 split. “I certainly did not,” she said. “He called several days later and I just said, ‘No way.’ I didn’t want any business with him.”

By this time, Taylor said, she had tried on numerous occasions to get out of the contract, first because she heard of his conviction and then because she claimed that he had not fulfilled his obligations under the contract. Her then-husband Warner tried to buy Wynberg out of the contract.

The actress formed her own company and signed an agreement with Chesebrough-Ponds, who she said developed Passion on their own without samples from her.

Among those scheduled to testify are chemists and perfumers who will discuss the chemical content of Passion and the perfume Wynberg claimed that he gave her.

There are more than 5,400 raw materials and another 5,000 chemicals that can be combined to create perfumes, experts say. Scientists can create scents similar to others by breaking them down and reconstituting them.

Newport Beach patent attorney James Hawes, who claims that he recently obtained for a client the first trademark ever for a scent, notes that perfumes can appear to be chemically the same but can smell differently, and those that are different chemically can smell the same. Because of this, he said, the industry relies mostly on “sniff tests.”

Perfume manufacturers have traditionally thought that they could only trademark their packaging and names. This has led to court battles--not over how perfumes smell, but how they are marketed, Hawes said.

Consumers are told that certain copycat or “knockoff” fragrances are virtually identical in smell to expensive perfumes. “If you like Giorgio, you’ll love Primo,” one company advertisement said.

However, a recent case argued by Hawes has opened the door for distinctive non-generic scents to be registered. Clark’s OSEWEASY, a Santa Barbara-based company that sells scented embroidery thread, was able to obtain a trademark for a plumeria bloom fragrance used on its thread, which smelled like the Hawaiian flower, said Hawes.

The attorney argued successfully that the federal Lanham Act authorizes federal registration of any “device” adopted and used by a manufacturer to identify his goods and to distinguish them from those manufactured or sold by others. Plumeria was such a “device.”

Those who create fragrances are known in the trade as “noses,” and most work for fragrance houses that create products for cosmetics companies. The business is so secretive that usually the customer will not know the components of the formula.

Some perfumers have such sophisticated noses that they can tell the difference between spring and fall roses from the same bush. “In the end, the nose knows,” Hawes said.