Paramount, William Morris Battle in Buchwald Case : Studio Subpoenas Stars’ Confidential Contracts in Final Phase of ‘Coming to America’ Trial

As the final phase of humorist Art Buchwald’s lawsuit against Paramount Pictures heats up, the studio is doing battle with one of the town’s pre-eminent talent agencies, the William Morris Agency.

Paramount has subpoenaed all contracts between the years 1975 and 1987 in which a William Morris client received fees for producing services on a film. That means opening up the confidential files of such former and current clients as Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase, Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas, Sam Shepard and Sally Field, according to a legal filing by Roger Davis, executive vice president of William Morris and chairman of its executive committee.

Buchwald’s lawsuit, one of the most publicized legal cases in Hollywood history, began as a contest over who was the actual creator of the Eddie Murphy hit “Coming to America.” A superior court gave that credit to Buchwald and his producer-partner Alain Bernheim, and then ruled that certain provisions of their contract with Paramount were “unconscionable.”

With those provisions now void, it is up to the court to determine how much money the pair is owed. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Harvey Schneider said in June that he planned to rely on witnesses’ testimony to determine the “fair market value” of the contributions Buchwald and Bernheim made to “Coming to America.”

Paramount took the extraordinary step of seeking access to the William Morris contracts--typically held in the strictest confidence inside Hollywood studios and agencies--because one of the agency’s executives has agreed to testify on behalf of Buchwald and Bernheim. That executive is Jeffrey Robin, Morris’ West Coast head of business affairs.

“We anticipate, based on what Buchwald’s attorneys told us, that they will call Jeff Robin to testify that after Eddie Murphy became involved in the project, it would be customary to go back to the net profit participants and renegotiate their terms (for more money),” said Paramount attorney Charles Diamond. “We believe that if you look at the history of William Morris clients, such a renegotiation would have been unprecedented.”

But Buchwald attorney Pierce O’Donnell insisted Paramount has other motives in seeking access to the documents. “They’re trying to harass and intimidate William Morris,” O’Donnell said. “Mr. Robin is going to base his testimony on his vast experience in the industry, not on any William Morris contracts.”

The bad blood between Paramount and William Morris predates the subpoena. Bernheim is a William Morris client and Davis testified as an expert witness earlier in the case. The agency stands to earn a 10% fee on whatever the court awards Bernheim.

Through an agency spokesman, Davis declined comment on the Paramount subpoena. But in legal filings challenging the request, he called Paramount’s action “a transparent attempt to dissuade Mr. Robin from testifying.”

William Morris attorneys--who filed a motion Aug. 1 to quash the subpoena--also argue that the request would impose a huge burden on the talent agency, requiring several thousand hours of work sorting through 4,000 boxes of documents.

But Diamond accuses Buchwald’s side of expanding the time period under review in an effort to get more money out of Paramount. “We’d be happy to confine our request to 1982 and 1983 (when the contracts were negotiated), but Bernheim and Buchwald are not doing that,” Diamond said.

O’Donnell said that Buchwald and Bernheim have not determined how much money they will seek in the final phase of the trial--expected to begin late this fall--but he said it would be “in the multimillions.”

The subpoena is the broadest request for disclosure that the Paramount attorneys have made in this phase of the trial--but it’s not the only one. The studio is also seeking contracts from one expert witness, “Police Academy” producer Paul Maslansky, and is considering seeking such documents from another, producer David Brown (“Jaws,” “Cocoon”).

In the early part of the Buchwald trial, O’Donnell had trouble finding expert witnesses willing to testify. “It was lonely out in Buchwald land,” the attorney said. “We got turned down by a lot of people who said, ‘I’m rooting for you, but I have to work in this town. I’d like to help, but I can’t.’ ”

But that has changed with Buchwald’s victories in court. In addition to Robin, Maslansky and Brown, O’Donnell will call to the stand legendary agent Irving (Swifty) Lazar and UCLA film professor Howard Suber, among others. Paramount’s lineup of expert witnesses includes prominent producers Howard W. Koch Sr. and Martin Ransohoff, as well as movie critic Michael Medved.