Witness Says Ads Can Hurt Actors’ Worth

Top movie stars typically refuse to appear in commercial advertisements because the Hollywood community might view it as a sign that their careers are on the skids, an expert witness testified Wednesday in Dustin Hoffman’s federal lawsuit against Los Angeles magazine.

The general aversion among Hollywood’s biggest names to hawking consumer products was a factor in Jon Albert’s calculation that Hoffman should have been paid $3 million to $5 million for the use of his photo in a magazine fashion spread in March 1997.

Hoffman is suing Los Angeles magazine, contending that it printed without consent a computer-generated picture of him dressed in a woman’s gown and high heels.

Recalling his earlier role as an “actress” in the movie “Tootsie,” a caption next to Hoffman’s picture read: “Dustin Hoffman isn’t a drag in a butter-colored silk gown by Richard Tyler and Ralph Lauren heels.”

The layout gave the prices of the gown and shoes and the addresses of stores selling them.

Albert, who solicits celebrity endorsements for ad agencies around the country, said suitors would have lined up around the block for a chance to sign someone like Hoffman.

He ranked Hoffman among the two or three most bankable movie stars of the decade.

Despite his long-standing refusal to lend his name to commercial products, Hoffman did succumb to the temptation in the late 1960s when, as a rising star, he endorsed Volkswagen cars.

Albert, testifying on Hoffman’s behalf, said that happened so long ago that it would not detract from the “first-time” impact of a Hoffman product endorsement in the 1990s, another factor in his estimate of the actor’s worth.

The magazine contends that the fashion layout, which included pictures of movie stars Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Vivien Leigh, was editorial in nature.

Headlined “Grand Illusions,” the layout was intended to show what some of Hollywood’s biggest stars would have worn if their movies were made in the spring of 1997, according to the magazine’s lawyers.

Steven Perry, who is representing the magazine in a non-jury trial before U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian, tried to undermine Albert’s testimony that big-time Hollywood stars are loath to plug commercial products.

He produced a copy of the January issue of Harper’s Bazaar, which features a cover story on John Travolta and his wife, Kelly Preston. The article shows and describes the clothes they are wearing and identifies the designers.

The same edition of the magazine has an article on Meryl Streep and similarly identifies the maker of her wardrobe.

Pressed by Los Angeles magazine’s lawyer, Albert conceded that those articles could be viewed as “implied endorsements,” but he insisted that Hoffman was in a league of his own maintaining a strict policy of eschewing commercial ads.

Under questioning later by Hoffman’s attorney, Charles N. Shephard, Albert said movie stars often find it necessary to appear in such articles to publicize their latest films.

Travolta is starring in the recently released hit, “A Civil Action.”

Late Wednesday, the defense began taking testimony from its own expert, Frank Lalli, a senior executive editor at Time Inc.