Film Critic Offers a Mea Culpa to Actor

Fighting over a videotape . . . . . . Holy landlady, Batman . . . Nick Nolte and the KKK . . . A dose of medicine.

It’s not every day you see something like this: a film critic saying he’s sorry. But on Saturday in Hollywood there he was, Leonard Maltin, looking chastened and not at all happy about standing in front of his lesser peers, including a representative of a supermarket tabloid, apologizing to the guy who played Bud on “Father Knows Best.”

“I did not mean to convey that Billy Gray was a heroin addict or pusher in my review of the film ‘Dusty and Sweets McGee.’ ”

The mea culpa was staged as part of a lawsuit settlement.

Gray has accepted a public apology from Maltin, who read the statement Saturday morning at a news conference at the Roosevelt Hotel.

Maltin added that he enjoyed watching Gray on “Father Knows Best,” and wished him luck in his career.

Maltin implied in the review that Gray was a junkie when he appeared in the 1971 movie about Los Angeles heroin addicts, according to Gray’s 1997 lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court.

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DENNY EXCLUSIVE:The infamous video footage of the beating of trucker Reginald Denny during the 1992 riots was seen around the world. That fact and a federal appeals court’s ruling could make the tape worth $6 million to its owner, Los Angeles News Service.

In a 3-0 opinion, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the news service can sue Reuters for damages for violating its copyright on the Denny tape, and for distributing the footage overseas.

News service lawyer William A. Bergen said the court’s decision provides greater protection for copyright holders against the transmission of their photos and videos on satellite feeds and over the Internet.

The news service, which sells stories and pictures to the news media, shot the helicopter footage of the attack on Denny, who was dragged out of his truck and beaten as rioting broke out after the not-guilty verdicts for four LAPD officers in the beating of motorist Rodney King.

Several television stations showed the tape after paying a fee. But Reuters copied the tape and a related news service video from NBC’s “Today” show and transmitted them to subscribers in Europe and Africa, the court said.

The news service already has been awarded $60,000 for domestic copyright violations that occurred when Reuters copied the tape. But U.S. District Judge Kim Wardlaw had declined to award damages for foreign distribution, finding that U.S. copyright laws do not apply abroad.

The appeals court found, however, that when a copyright is violated in this country, an owner “is entitled to recover damages flowing from exploitation abroad.”

One small irony: Wardlaw has been nominated to sit on the appellate court that reversed her.

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HOLY LANDLADY, BATMAN: Actress Julie Newmar, best known as the original Catwoman, seems to be having trouble with her tenants in a commercial building she owns in the Fairfax district, according to a pair of lawsuits in Los Angeles Superior Court. The disputes involve a kosher baker and a barber who rented space in the building.

First the baker: Jacob Levy and his Eilat Bakery charged in a 1996 lawsuit that Newmar backed out of the lease and locked him out of his rented space after he had made extensive renovations.

Now the barber: Yakov Skrashevskiy claims in a fraud and breach of contract lawsuit that he spent $35,000 on renovations but that his landlady did not hold up her end of the deal after promising to provide hot water, parking, electricity and new drywall.

Newmar’s answering machine urges callers to “please communicate,” but in our case, she did not reciprocate.

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THE ART OF THE DEAL: Actor Nick Nolte and a production company are asking a Superior Court judge in Santa Monica to declare that they hold the rights to the story of the relationship between Ku Klux Klan leader C.P. Ellis and civil rights activist Ann Atwater.

Nolte and Gregory Productions say that in 1990 they optioned the rights to Ellis’ life story with John Hancock and Dorothy Tristan Hancock, a husband and wife writing team.

Nolte claims they were unable to interest a studio in the project and the option expired.

In March, Nolte claims, he and Gregory entered an agreement giving them the rights to “The Best of Enemies--Race and Redemption in the New South,” a 1996 book about Ellis and Atwater written by author Osha Gray Davidson.

The Hancocks are claiming they have the right to produce and direct the film. Nolte and Gregory are asking the court to state that they hold the rights to produce, direct and star in the film, and need not include the Hancocks in their project.

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A DOSE OF MEDICINE: Actress Kelly LeBrock, who starred in “Weird Science” and “Woman in Red,” is suing her former business manager and two lawyers over an allegedly botched business deal to make and distribute her own line of homeopathic medicines.

In the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, LeBrock says her Beverly Hills accountant, Howard Grossman, handled her financial affairs in a “slipshod” manner, allegedly bouncing checks and failing to pay her bills on time.

The actress and single mother of three is suing Grossman and lawyers Scott B. Zolke and Heenan Blaikie for negligence for talking her into the natural medicine deal, which drained her financially.

Neither the accountant nor the lawyers could be reached.

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BUMPER CARS: Actor Dustin Hoffman, who does a dead-on sendup of producer Robert Evans in “Wag the Dog,” and his son, Jacob, have been sued over a car crash last Aug. 2 on Sunset Boulevard.

Jacob was at the wheel of the vehicle that struck one occupied by Gity Anjomi, Payam Shadi and minor Padideh Gad, who seek damages for “great mental and physical pain and suffering and nervousness,” according to the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit.

The court papers do not say whether the elder Hoffman was in the car at the time.