Book Cover Brings a Frown to MONA’s Lips

A deal’s a deal . . . Putting the kibosh on Enquiring minds . . . Litigation.com . . . Kato wins one . . . Plaintiffs’ hit parade.

For more than a year, the neon Mona Lisa smiled serenely over Universal’s CityWalk. Then it found a permanent home, becoming the logo for downtown Los Angeles’ Museum of Neon Art, fortuitously known by the acronym MONA.

MONA wasn’t smiling, however, when Mona showed up on the cover of a book written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable.

The museum and Lili Lakich, the artist who created Mona, are seeking $85,000 in damages in a copyright infringement suit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Named as defendants were Huxtable, publisher New Press and distributor W.W. Norton & Co.

Lakich says she discovered that her artwork had been used for the cover of Huxtable’s 1997 book, “The Unreal America: Architecture and Illusion,” when she spotted it on a bookstore shelf.

Lakich says she never would have given permission for her Mona to appear on the cover of Huxtable’s book because it criticizes faux-themed urban developments like CityWalk.

An attorney for the publisher and distributor has denied the allegations in court papers. Huxtable could not be reached.

Said Lakich: “It’s ironic that the book’s theme is an attack on anything ‘fake,’ yet she has infringed on [my] copyright.”

What would Leonardo da Vinci say?

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RAQUEL’S PAYDAY: One of our burning ambitions has always been to get paid to stay home. Most places, that’s called being suspended with pay. But Hollywood has an even sweeter arrangement. It’s called the pay-or-play deal.

Raquel Welch says in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court that she signed such a pay-or-play deal to star in the South America tour of “Victor, Victoria.” The tour never happened.

Now, Welch claims the producers owe her $1 million anyway, under terms of her pay-or-play contract, signed in May.

Papers in Los Angeles Superior Court say that Welch was due $50,000 on June 1 and that the remaining $950,000 was supposed to have been placed in an escrow account. Instead, the tour was canceled.

The producers could not be reached.

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ENQUIRING MINDS: Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lawrence Crispo has told lawyers for the National Enquirer that Lisa Marie Presley’s relationship with the Church of Scientology is out of bounds at the upcoming trial of her libel suit against the tabloid.

Attorneys for the tabloid had wanted to question Presley about her ties to the controversial church during a deposition. But Crispo ruled that such questions would invade her privacy.

Presley sued the Enquirer last year over a story called “Lisa Marie Suicide Drama,” which said she tried to take her own life around the time of the 20th anniversary of father Elvis Presley’s death. A trial has been set for Jan. 25. No comment from the Enquirer.

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LIKE A VIRGIN: Internet Entertainment Group, the folks who brought us the Pam and Tommy Lee tape caper, are involved in another federal case of cybersex. This dispute involves the first Internet deflowering, which turned out to be a hoax.

A $5-million breach of contract suit filed by Kenneth Tipton, mastermind of the “Mike and Diane” hoax, was moved recently from Superior Court to U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. IEG’s lawyer, Alan Isaacman, says he plans a countersuit for fraud.

IEG had planned to carry the couple’s supposed first-time encounter, but backed out upon discovering it was a hoax. The “virgin” couple were played by actors who never planned to, ahem, consummate the deal.

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ONE FOR KATO: A state appeals court has reinstated Brian “Kato” Kaelin’s libel suit against an acquaintance who said Brentwood’s most famous guest house tenant had confided that he helped O.J. Simpson hide bloody clothes.

The case had been dismissed after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert A. Letteau determined that Kaelin could not prove that Klein Al’n’s statement was a deliberate or reckless falsehood, as required for a libel suit by a public figure.

But the 2nd District Court of Appeal said Thursday that jurors who believed Kaelin could conclude that Al’n had lied.

The 3-0 ruling allows Kaelin to proceed with his suit against Al’n. It does not affect Kaelin’s dismissed lawsuit against the Globe tabloid or its reporter. Kaelin continues to appeal Letteau’s order that he pay about $25,000 in legal fees for the tabloid, according to his lawyer, Gary Bostwick.

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CAPITOL CASE: Attorney Thomas V. Girardi’s list of plaintiffs in a royalty dispute with EMI-Capitol Records is a veritable hit parade:

Pat Boone, Chubby Checker, Jan and Dean, Freddy Fender, the Dovells, the Fortunes, the Dakotas, Donnie Brooks, the Lettermen. (Whew.) Ace Cannon, Jimmy Clanton, the Foundations, Spencer Davis, Swinging Blue Jeans, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Frankie Ford, Freddie Garrity and the Dreamers, Peggy Sue Gerron, Denny Laine, the Casinos. (Whew.) Buddy Knox, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Badfinger, the Crickets, the Hondells, Tommy Overstreet, Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, the Troggs, Tommy Roe, Danny and the Juniors, Bobby Vee, Herman’s Hermits and the Classics IV.

The lawsuit charges that the record company “retained the royalties from the production, distribution and sale of recordings without reimbursing plaintiffs, who are the rightful owners.”

Capitol Records had no immediate comment.