Actress Accused of Acting Up Drops Defamation Lawsuit

Gossipland is at peace. There is not a single libel suit pending against the National Enquirer, according to the tabloid’s Washington attorneys, Gerson Zweifach and Paul Gaffney.

The last of the litigating celebs, Mimi Rogers, dropped her $10-million defamation case against the Enquirer and the Home Shopping Network last week.

The actress, who appeared in “Lost in Space” and is the former wife of Tom Cruise, sued the network last year in federal court in Los Angeles. She added the Enquirer to the case when the tabloid wouldn’t give up its sources.

Turns out the story--”Mimi Rogers Goes Berserk & Trashes TV Studio Room”--was pretty much true, according to the witnesses in the case.

“She blew up like a stick of dynamite,” a security guard recalled in a pretrial deposition. “She was screaming at the top of her lungs. Her arms were flailing around.”

Other employees reported that Rogers blistered their ears with profanity. In the celebrity waiting room, chairs were turned over, a fruit basket was scattered, glass was broken and the floor was “a gooey mess” when Rogers left it, a guest assistant recalled.

Rogers, while admitting that the F-word is in her lexicon, denied invoking it at the studios or otherwise running amok.

Last month U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson ruled that Rogers had not proved the story false. As a result, she had no right to know who snitched her off to the tabloid, he said.

“None of the defendants is paying a dime, and she certainly isn’t getting any apology from any of us,” said Home Shopping Network attorney Doug Kari, who called the outcome a vindication.

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HIGH-OCTANE DISPUTE: Jay Leno also is accused of using the F-word and other spicy epithets while allegedly calling an Italian designer of exotic cars “a crook” during a finger-pointing encounter at an antique car show in Van Nuys in February.

Claudio Zampolli, described in the Los Angeles Superior Court suit as a “world-renowned automobile engineer,” seeks $150 million from the “Tonight Show” host and his personal assistant.

Zampolli says that Leno and the assistant slandered him--she by bad-mouthing him to Leno, and Leno by loudly confronting him and calling him a crook at the car show.

During the face-off, court papers say, Leno allegedly asked Zampolli, who had just had a kidney transplant: “Aren’t you dead yet?”

As the confrontation ended, the suit states, Leno said: “What are you going to do about it, sue me or what? Go ahead and sue me, you [bleeping bleep].”

And so Zampolli did, claiming that Leno’s diss “devastated” his rep in classic car circles.

Peter Seligman, a Leno spokesman, said that there is “no basis or merit” to the suit and that Leno expects to prevail in court. As for Leno’s alleged bad language, Seligman said, “He doesn’t remember the exact words he used, but it was in a joking manner.”

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PAYBACK: Silent Susan McDougal, of Whitewater fame, has sued her former employers--symphony conductor Zubin Mehta and his wife, Nancy--in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming the couple falsely accused her of embezzling money.

McDougal, a bookkeeper and assistant to the Mehtas between 1989 and 1992, was acquitted Nov. 23, 1998, of the theft charges after a three-month trial in Santa Monica. She is seeking unspecified damages, alleging malicious prosecution, libel and slander.

Her suit claims that the Mehtas, who could not be reached for comment, supplied false information to police so she would be arrested. Even after she was acquitted, the suit states, Zubin Mehta told a London newspaper that she stole $500,000. In fact, she’d been accused of taking $150,000--an amount a judge later reduced to $50,000.

Prosecutors insisted that the Mehta trial was unrelated to Whitewater. But McDougal attorneys Mark and Matthew Geragos charge that it was payback for her refusal to cooperate with former independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation of the president and first lady.

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ISN’T THAT SPECIAL? The owner of a Malibu beach house once rented by comedian Dana Carvey has asked a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to overturn a $36,000 arbitration award in Carvey’s favor.

Landlord Walid Al-Omar contends that he wasn’t present at the Feb. 18 arbitration hearing and received improper notice of its outcome.

Retired Superior Court Judge Lawrence Waddington said in his arbitration findings that Carvey paid $14,000 a month for a Malibu home with a “persistent” water leak problem. The carpet was damaged and a tarp was draped on the roof.

“The testimony indicated that the blue tarp was an eyesore, particularly when compared to the $168,000 total rental for the year,” the arbitrator wrote. Al-Omar is seeking another arbitration hearing.

Carvey is best known for his stint on “Saturday Night Live.”

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PIRATED SKIVVIES? Former Van Halen lead singer David Lee Roth is suing a former manager, claiming that the man has set up an unauthorized Web site peddling Roth T-shirts and other collectibles--including red long johns with fake flames shooting out the back flap.

Roth’s Los Angeles Superior Court suit acknowledges that he struck a deal in 1998 with former assistant Edmund Anderson to sell “certain limited surplus merchandise.” But, the rocker claims, after he shut down the Web site and canceled the deal, Anderson set up shop elsewhere on the Internet. Anderson is selling new products without his permission, Roth claims. The suit, filed by Irvine attorney Jeffrey S. Benice, seeks unspecified damages for breach of contract, fraud, unfair trade practices and other counts. Anderson could not be reached for comment.