June 1st. 2013

I see that my late ex will be having an Off-Broadway theatre named for her at a June 3rd 2013 ceremony in New York. The 45 Bleecker Street Theatre will thereafter be called the Lynn Redgrave Theatre. I am pleased for her. I plan to be there, and to become re-acquainted with my children and old family members and friends.

This has given me occasion to reflect on our life together.

Lynn and I, over the course of a little under 33 years, made a change in the landscape for the life of actors, for the better, I do believe. We never went looking for trouble. It came to us, and instead of burying it, we fought back.

REVIEW

First was a lawsuit against the Gate Theatre in Dublin. We put on a play starring Lynn and Dan O’Herlihy, my first directing job actually. We ran for 3 sold-out weeks (the longest they’d book us), the best box office in their history. Our deal was to split profits, which were excellent. Instead, they took half of our gross receipts. Discovery revealed that the Irish government, the owners, had years before ordered the management to make the theatre available to outside Irish companies for free. We lived locally, hired Irish actors, financed the show, and of course paid all the costs of our production. A 4-wall deal. We lost the case because their manager got me to initial a contract clause over my shoulder while I was directing a scene. The judge held me to it. We left Dublin soon after, leaving an Irish Equity with a smile on its face, for we had broken the Gate’s hold on their previous minimal actor’s salaries. It’s worth mentioning that despite (or because of) using an Irish attorney, brother of a prominent Irish actor, we lost and didn’t get our money back.

Then we headed West, back to my home town of New York, where we were soon greeted with a lawsuit filed against us by U.S. Equity who extorted 5% of my wife’s self-paid salary as dues, from a year’s tour we took across America with our own show, financed by us and directed by me. We had posted Equity bonds at each date, and they refused to return them. Again, we lost. Because of Vanessa’s political views, Lynn was under watch, and the release of her green card was held up. Equity rules defined a green card holder as actually holding it in her hand! The judge said this was a stupid lawsuit, but was forced to rule in their favor.  They returned the bonds less 5%. But, in a form of revenge you might say, we made a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, who summoned the leaders of all of the performing unions, and found that Equity alone had been breaking the law for years, penalizing foreign stage performers for daring to peddle their art in America. They had constructed a punitive discriminatory dues structure, in order to discourage them. This time we won because they won. Now foreign actors are treated equally, and have a smile on their faces too, because it has led to a relatively free exchange of actors between America and England and elsewhere. Certainly audiences have applauded this development. We however, were deprived of financial satisfaction because we were outside the Statute of Limitations (3 year rule.) Yul Brynner received hundreds of thousands of dollars which nearly broke the union, but he was very nice, he invited me to lunch with him at the Bel Air, and gave me a bunch of daffodils for her, by way of his thanks.

Next came our famous lawsuit against Lew Wasserman and MCA/Universal, when Lynn was fired for wishing to breastfeed our daughter Annabel at work. Our thoroughly compromised WMA agent didn’t help, nor did our attorneys, and UTV’s press department went to work. Our suit was quietly dismissed by a corrupted judge headed for retirement. I wrote about it in the “Housecalls, what really happened” topic on the left. Expensive yeah, and actor mothers and fathers were eternally grateful for causing all Film and TV companies to provide facilities for employees who were new mothers and their babies. That was the only positive to come out of that case. In the event, they were ordered to reimburse our attorneys’ fees. They didn’t. They’d faxed notice of a hearing to our locked office while we were performing Love Letters up in San Francisco, and avoided payment due to our non-appearance, thanks to their famed “I always win” attorney Gale Title. No transcript was made of the proceedings, so Lew kept all of our attorney fees, and we never knew how he managed to make that happen.

Next, Lynn and I were asked to lead the Players, Edwin Booth’s 1888 gift to actors on Gramercy Park, by our close friends Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon. I’d been a member for many years. The club was in dire straits. No proper books, so we gave them 20 grand to construct a proper set. Then our tough love for them proved to be too much, and we were summarily ejected. They’re still floundering. I see that steps are being taken by insiders for a clean sweep to improve its chances of survival. For my trouble, I’ve been called John Sleeper Clarke.

This gives me pause. The comparisons are striking! Booths = Redgraves! Consider: Separated by about one hundred years, it produces quite startling results. Junius Brutus cf. Sir Michael = Shakespearean actors, patriarchs and family founders, both. John Wilkes cf. Corin and Vanessa = fiery political trouble-makers, both. Asia cf. Lynn = good writers, recorders of their family stories, both. John Clarke cf. John Clark (me), married to those same sisters. We are the link by our same name. We are both lawyerly, both wicked comedians, both into management, and as Asia wrote to her brother Edwin “He lives a free going bachelor life and does what he likes.”  Sorry, no comment from me there, and he’s dead! Enough already.

COMPLAINT

To bring us up to date, I am here to say that the tradition is still alive, even though Lynn isn’t. I still choose to live dangerously, sui juris, out of some kind of personality defect, contrariness, orneriness, or just some kind of survival instinct from bad ad litem experiences – it’s not for me to say. But today I filed a Complaint with the Los Angeles Better Business Bureau, and the Los Angeles Department of Consumer Affairs against The Breakdown Services, Ltd. This is only a start, but hopefully it will lead to a satisfactory finish. Their stranglehold on the casting process is a scandal. Read it here:

I am a British born professional actor age 80, and have been a union member in England, Canada and America since 1944 (SAG/AFTRA, US Equity, ACTRA, Canadian Equity, British Equity). I am and have been a U.S. citizen since 1965. I do not use a “manager” or an “agent” because of past conflict of interest problems with them, and the experience of a major lawsuit against the William Morris Agency. I get my own acting jobs, but am effectively prevented from doing so.

I need to avail myself of full casting information from the Breakdowns, aka “Breakdown Services” (hereinafter “BS”), which is a monopoly service employed by all big and small movie and TV production and theatre companies. Scripts and story lines are received by BS from these companies, and from them, BS creates a breakdown of story plots and characters. This information is supplied EXCLUSIVELY to agents and/or managers electronically for money and profit, which is their business practice.

Actors, the subject of these notices, are shut out from seeing all, I said all, of them!

The owner/founder of BS, Gary Marsh, told his audience at a seminar he gave the evening of March 20, 2013 at the premises where I live at Oakwood, Barham Blvd. Hollywood, to a group of child actors and their mothers that he has criminal lawsuits pending against actors who have bootlegged his information. I have done this in the past. He told me that I could not buy their services at any price, only managers and agents, and between them they set the rules. I asked him if I could receive this information if I became a manager, and he said I could not qualify because I am an actor, and if I “wear 2 hats”, I would still be denied. There were at least 20 witnesses.

If you think that Mr. Marsh is not serious, look what he did to Mr. Brian Burke. He got himself a judgment of $1.3 million, and put Burke behind bars for 20 days for not obeying his court order! That’s an abuse of power, Mr. Marsh, a terrible abuse of actors who are trying to find available  work which you keep secret except for your paying privileged customers, aka agents and managers. You claim that it is the production companies and casting directors who make your rules. That, Mr. Marsh, is BS! The best of BS!

I believe that all actors are protected from this kind of discriminatory anti-competitive practice by government law, such as The Sherman Act, of July 2, 1890, ch. 647, 26 S 209, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–7. Permit yourself to read it, Mr. Marsh, assuming you respect the laws of the United States.

Breakdown Services operates and reaches across state lines from coast to coast, and abroad. There is no competitive service anywhere. 

As settlement, I DEMAND

That the Breakdown Services provides this information ONLINE, so that ALL ACTORS across the world have access to it, at NO CHARGE. Any cost or expense should be born by the Breakdown Services, and passed on to the production companies. It is their joint problem. Together, they created it.

This complaint will soon appear online for the inspection and I hope support of actors. No, not their managers, and not their agents, and not the production companies. They’ll hate it. Actors don’t wish to be “protected from themselves” (see Gary Marsh’s Q&A link above) and will care, and, I’m pretty sure, SAG/Aftra and Equity will care too. I hope the brave ones will flock to support the request. This is not to denigrate Breakdown Services, for they do a fine job. We just want them to open up to us, the central sine qua non of their business, and stop insulting our intelligence.

Follow along and let me know you support this complaint, so that regulators are assured that we actors and directors WANT to know what jobs are available, 100% of them, not just for our enablers (managers and agents) to know, if you employ them at all, but ALL of us. Actors have voices off camera too, in our free society. Let them be heard loud and clear.

My Twitter handle is John Clark@johnclarknew. Click on it. I need feedback!

I hope it will not be necessary to file a lawsuit against Breakdown Services, because I don’t like lawyers either. And this would need one. I’m also too old to see it through the byways of the U.S. legal system. Here’s another example of what I’m talking about.

 

August 11, 2006

People have often asked me this question.  They say “Look what the Jews did to you”

Indeed. Judge Arnold Gold put me in jail the day before I had to appear in court to start defending myself in my two cases initiated by Lynn and Nicolette (working together or separately, I never knew). He kicked me out of my house to sell it and pay for the fees of opposing counsel (who filed suit against me in the first place) who were 1. my wife’s killer “divorce designer” attorney Emily Shappell Edelman (Jewish) and 2. Nicolette Hannah’s killer divorce attorney (Jewish), James R. Eliaser, whose evil tactics deprived a small boy of his father, and who, I discovered quite by accident, used to be an employee of the judge’s law firm Pachter & Gold.  These two Jews conspired to conceal the fact that they used to work together, knowing full well that Judge Gold should have automatically recused himself under the rules. When I challenged them in court – wait for it – they both chimed in their answers, that they had quite forgotten about it, and then Judge Gold said that it would hardly make any difference, and I, unbelievably, BELIEVED HIM and didn’t enforce the rule.

So, in its good time, I would find that my opponents would have their wishes granted. Gold evicted me from my home, sold it, gave me just a couple of thousand dollars as my community property share, gave my co-op apartment at The Osborne opposite Carnegie Hall away to my wife, granted full custody of my son to his mother thus causing the loss of his Dad to him, and him to me, and caused the exodus of the entire Clark family, less me, to the East Coast, and the fracture of the Redgrave brand.

And so there I was, from my day one of proper pro se, caught up in a hellish circle of interlinked Jewish characters ritually conspiring in a fore-ordained dance which, in the case of my wife Lynn Redgrave, became a dance of death (which I truly believe.) Listen to the charade, and follow along on the revealed theme.

There was Family Court Supervising Judge Aviva Bobb, who I believe is Jewish, who backed Gold up, kept awarding new fees to Eliaser, and then refused to let me buy my guest house so that I could continue to live in Topanga, keep my dogs, and not store my belongings and not live in a trailer. Here is a reminder of my expectations that celebrity pandering could not happen in Hollywood’s hallowed halls of justice.  We read this

on the wall next to the entrance to the filing office.

An Appeal to the Second Circuit got me a negative review from Justice Miriam Vogel, also Jewish.

Judge Gold, meanwhile, escaped the wrath of his brothers on the Judicial Council by “retiring” right after disposing of me and my case, thus avoiding their oversight and possible disciplinary action. Must have been nervous. For my discovery of the foundation of his  personal character, read about this in the sidebar.

An Appeal to the Supreme Court, after I had written to Chief Justice Ronald George (whose office manager had encouraged me to appeal) who I believe is also Jewish, was turned down.

And the media, which wouldn’t stop, appeared to get more fodder from the site of Hebrew University, where one of their professors made me her target for an absurd made-up story setting out to prove her totally inapposite use of me in a legal paper.  Eliaser advocated for her, her name was Hila Keren, and to this day, I have received no response from her. I hope her students hold her to account.

And then of course, there was Lew Wasserman, the top Jew in Hollywood, from the old House Calls breast feeding case.

Well, my answer to this ALL-IMPORTANT QUESTION is that far from being anti-semitic, I am, perhaps surprisingly, PRO-SEMITIC AND HUGELY ENVIOUS OF THEM. Here’s why:

I have always respected the culture of the Jews, and their education, which certainly exceeds mine. I look up to them, and their low numbers among the world’s population has always astonished me.  Always an outsider, I even believe I have the soul of a Jew. I have made a point of making close friends with Jewish people.  (In fact, more than one of my girlfriends was Jewish.)

I WANT TO BECOME JEWISH, so that I could be completely like them, recognizably the same, but without their religious beliefs, a secular Jew.

I believe that there is the APPEARANCE of networking and mutual backscratching taking place.  Of course, business is all about mutual backscratching, nothing wrong with that, but if I am right, I want to be a part of THAT network.

It is absolutely no coincidence that I believe I could then enter the places where Jewish mingling and socializing take place. Clubs, temples, agents’ offices and so forth, where right now I would be unwelcome and refused entry. Perhaps because I am no longer attached to a celebrity.

It was Adolph Zukor, that originator of things Hollywood, founder of Paramount Pictures, who ages ago gave this deathless advice to newcomers to the Hollywood scene: “Talk British but think Yiddish!” That was right up my tree.

To this end, I have entertained the thought of taking a hint from Careen Johnson, a struggling black bricklayer and funeral parlor assistant who, dying to become successful as an actress, changed her name to Whoopee Goldberg.  She was smart, it got her an Emmy, an Oscar, a Tony and a Grammy. And of course she had the great talent to back it up.

Now me, I could change my name to Clarkstein or Clarkberg, but would it help? Not bloody likely! If I became a Jew aspiring to become successful as an actor or a celebrity, I would surely be advised to change it back to Clark.

Don’t think so?  Look at Emmanuel Goldenberg, Muni Weisenfreund, Julius Garfinkle, David Kaminsky, Bernard Schwartz, Jacob Cohen, Joyce Frankenberg, Aaron Chwatt and Ephraim Goldberg.  They changed their monikers to Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni, John Garfield, Danny Kaye, Tony Curtis, Rodney Dangerfield, Jane Seymour, Red Buttons and Frank Gehry respectively. And then there was Larry King (interesting choice, but what is wrong with “Larry Zeiger Live”?)

No, I’m afraid that that can only be my fantasy.

But getting back to the law, I did make a point of hiring Jewish lawyers, who always keep their original names perhaps as a badge of office, oh, and a Jewish press agent, thinking that would help.

The first to defend me was Melvin S. Goldsman, and Marci Levine, Esqs. of Freid & Goldsman, their names giving them away.

I fired them when I found that my Mel allowed his Jewish adversary to write a time sensitive stipulation to Nicolette that could have led to the cessation of hostilities, didn’t read it because he was out of the office and there’s no money in ceased hostilities, and told his secretary to tell me to sign it, which I did.  Boy, was I green at the beginning.  Perhaps they were old friends. Perhaps they performed regularly for the Beverly Hills Bar Association.

My next was Steve Mindell, Esq. I fired him because he was about as  aggressive as my little son’s kindergarten teacher.  When I asked him to get Lynn to open a joint bank account with me so that she could pay her share of the upkeep of our joint property during the three years of my lone occupation, he simply told me she wouldn’t agree. When I asked him to get our joint stock portfolo released from the freeze put on it at the height of the dotcom bubble so we could cash out, again, he wouldn’t do it. It would have meant getting a court order, and he wouldn’t go to court for it. Nothing appeared to be happening, other than his endless bills.

So then I hired noted hit man Mike Kelly, Esq., a referral from a Topanga millionaire divorcee lady friend. He’s Irish, (the worst kind, I hear someone shout – but that’s a joke). I disliked him from the start, he was of the “nudge nudge wink wink” variety, veiling the suggestion that he really knew I was trying to get away with something, but he’d-do-his-best-to-save-me. I fired him after stretched out three hundred dollar an hour months when he yelled at me for trying to get Nicolette evicted from her little house by not paying the property taxes, causing it to be sold by the taxing authorities. He hadn’t bothered to read the 1-page notice, which had been sent over to him by Eliaser, whom I’m sure had read it. Of course, it wasn’t for me, it belonged to another John Clark, on a rundown foreclosing property in South Central Los Angeles!

My last lawyer did not appear for me, he was a sort of advisor. His name was Cy Schaffer (also a Jew), to whom I paid $50,000.  In court, Judge Gold said he had made an order that I was not to use funds from a tax refund to pay this lawyer, and he should immediately refund it to me. Schaffer elaborately protested in court. Gold hunted for his order, then said he couldn’t find it, and told him he could keep the money. Of course. Naturally. I never did get a bill, or an account of his hours. I don’t forget that he got me to type up a brief for him, in his apartment. Couldn’t figure out the “Word” software.

So now I was out of lawyers because I got sick of their dishonesty and stopped believing in them.  More importantly, I’d lost six hundred thousand dollars to them, and had no more money. That’s how I came to represent myself in court, and had to learn what it is to be a PRO SE.

Having wised up, my first appearance before Judge Gold was over the unread-by-my-attorney property tax inquiry. There was Eliaser, sputtering to the judge that I was trying to get his client evicted. I showed the court a copy of the receipt to prove I had paid the property taxes, and then the 1-page notice showing it didn’t belong to me. Judge Gold just smiled, and thanked me for being smart enough to catch it. I asked for a money sanction against Eliaser for wasting the court’s time. Not granted. Of course. Naturally.

As for my Jewish press agent, a gentleman named Michael Levine, a self-styled media expert, I hired him to give me advice on handling the media now that I was suing Larry Zeiger -sorry, King. I got no advice at all; he refused to visit me at my house, but I did find that my money, about thirteen thousand dollars, went towards starting his new wannabe Drudge Report, aimed at bringing down the likes of Mel Gibson and Michael Jackson and maybe me and others who APPEAR to be breaking his moral code (chuckle chuckle). Networking again, is my opinion. But unlike Red Buttons, I did get a dinner, several actually. It wasn’t until after I had dropped him that I discovered that he used to be married to King’s current wife by whom he had a child. I think he should have told me about that before I paid him a penny.

So thanks, Arnold Gold, but no thanks. However did you get your robe of office? Must be quite a story, which I tell if you click here, and then scroll down a bit to where it says “Genesis”.

If I ever get as drunk as Mel Gibson, I’m told that I tend to act out my Jewish fantasy while singing the freedom chorus of the Hebrew slaves in their banishment.  My God, the middle one looks like HIM!

But when I sober up, I get to thinking more about what “they” did to me.  Here I am, my possessions lost or stolen, alienated by my kids and my family (I face back East to see them), removed from my house and my wealth by quasi-military enforcers, and exiled from Topanga, my Homeland. Then these words come to me.

As long as deep in the heart,
The soul of a Jew yearns,
. . . . . . . . . .
Our hope is not yet lost.

And Barbra comes to my rescue in song.

 

How would this headline have looked back in 1999? Because that is what I was trying to prevent and DID prevent, at great cost to me as it turned out.

 

LYNN REDGRAVE, SON, NANNY JAILED

Illegal Green Card Scam. Feds step in.

Lover Revealed.

   By ALISON BOSHOFF

   29 March, 1999

John Clark today reveals the truth about his 32 year marriage to actress and star Lynn Redgrave in this exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, now that his wife is headed for jail. He says he does this to “clear the air”, but that it gives him no pleasure whatsoever.

He says that about ten years into his marriage, Lynn revealed that she began a secret affair with actor Brandon Maggart, following in the same footsteps as her mother, actress Rachel Kempson, who maintained a secret 40 year affair with noted theatre director Glen Byam Shaw, bi-sexual husband of Upstairs Downstairs actress Angela Baddeley. She told John that Brandon wanted her for himself, that they loved each other, but that, like her mother, she would not dump John because of their small children, in much the same way that Rachel’s husband Sir Michael Redgrave wanted to keep his 50 year marriage going as a gay cover. However, she said she would continue the affair, and in fact arranged for Maggart to join her in the next dressing-room in the failed 1989 ABC-TV series Chicken Soup, where she co-starred with comedian Jackie Mason. Maggart proudly posted these pictures on his vanity website, as trophy proof which are worth a thousand words, he says. They show her at the Farmer’s Market in Santa Monica, then the two of them with Bill Clinton, and finally, in a picture take by their daughter Annabel, revealed her relationship with the Maggot (as John refers to him.)

 

This picture, taken from the website, shows John’s family, (and on the left Maggart’s son also named Brandon, who the court put in charge of the house during the term of his eviction.)

According to John, she became pregnant by him, but aborted the baby during rehearsals for Saint Joan, a Broadway play he directed for her. She told him that he would be “kept on” to continue to organize, manage, and assist in all aspects of her career, at her direction, so as to be able to dispense with agents, publicists, lawyers, money managers, and for protection from the press. And to continue to run the home, chauffeur the kids, and feed her horses. For his part, he says that since it was his only job, he told her “O.K. but all bets are off” as far as his own personal life was concerned. So he became the cuckolded husband.

He went on to present her in her first solo Broadway show Shakespeare For My Father, which he put together from her first scribblings, re-wrote parts of it, financed it alone, produced it alone, and directed it alone. That show was nominated for a Tony. He continued to stay in the background, uncredited, for that’s the way she insisted it be. He later found out that was a bad idea. She erased him from the record.

When the sister of their former English nanny Adeline came to live with them in 1990, the family dynamics changed. Nicolette Hannah was a “failed” Jehovah’s Witness who had been banished from the sect for having an affair with a married man. In her misery, and to help her carry on with her life, he suggested that a baby would be in order, and that he would arrange for its birth and send them both back to England where she could start a new life, and that he’d send her money until she found a husband.

Lynn was aware of this arrangement, and heartily condoned it. In fact, the day his son Jonathan was to be married in Dublin coincided with the day the baby was going to appear. He couldn’t be in both places at the same time and so, at Lynn’s suggestion, he attended the birth at a hospital in Santa Monica, and sent Benjy to Dublin.

His son from his first marriage, Jonathan, was a last minute baby appearing after his separation from Canadian actress Kay Hawtrey years before, in 1963. Furious because of his marriage to Lynn, she, using a Toronto family-law lawyer, denied him access to Jonathan in his growing years, ignoring court orders. John did not press for jail-time for Jonathan’s mother.

When Nicolette’s baby turned out to be a boy, he inevitably replaced the missing years of Jonathan. They named him Zachary John, and the only problem was that he was captivatingly adorable, and the family fell in love with him. Annabel got a brother, Lynn a grandson, and Zach got a father (but didn’t know it), raw irony at its fullest. Nicky, as she was always called, had named John as surviving parent in  her holographic will, in case anything happened to her. He became his guardian angel of a sort, and John says his first duty was to make sure the boy was happy and had a place to play and call his second home. John unwisely introduced Nicky to his and Lynn’s porn publisher friend Al Goldstein, whom they had helped save from prison in a midwest trial over his controversial Screw Magazine, being mailed across state lines. Nicky swooned into his ready arms, and decided she wanted to marry him, a horrifying outcome from Zach’s point of view.  He interceded successfully, and then the next danger came from an entirely unexpected source, Ernesto, his married Mexican plumber. He had hoped for a better quality husband for her, a nice rich jewish Beverly Hills corporate lawyer, perhaps. But it was not to be. (She did marry him, years later.)

While Lynn knew what was going on, they made sure that their children did not, and arranging for mother and child to stay in America meant careful planning, which turned out disastrously.

John is sorry that Lynn and Benjy and Zachary’s mother are in jail. It turned out to be unwise to meet with agents of the Justice Department using the “I am a celebrity” approach in an attempt to make sure they would not check up on Benjy’s arranged marriage, (for which he was well paid by Nicky.) They did check up. Was John involved in this attempted scam? Yes, he says, he was. And he wrote privately to tell them he was, and did not hear back. They left him out of it.

Meanwhile, the culprits have yet to appear in court to answer a few questions, for celebrities cannot be seen to get special treatment. In fact, they should be aware that celebrities are often used, depending on who they are, to set an example for the general public to know that they are not exempt from the harsh punishment of the law.

John says that Lynn was always a woman living “under the influence”. By that he meant that due to her strange upbringing, she was ill-equipped to handle life when she suddenly became a celebrity in competition with her already established and ambitious older sister Vanessa, and the intrusions of her father and his boyfriend’s planned projects into her evolving career. John says that, having lived the celebrity life before he met her, he was just the person to be her partner, and help her feel safe, secure, and well promoted upon their move to the United States where he was a citizen. And that if she were to leave him she will fall under another influence, probably through the advances of the always roaming sexual predators, and find that her days are numbered.

However, now that John sees his life with Lynn has come to an end, he breathes a sigh of relief, and wishes her and their kids well, and looks forward to getting back to his first love, which is acting and directing and film making, and to be a part of Zachary’s Topanga Canyon life as he grows up. He says he has no regrets at all, and perhaps his only failure, as a Redgrave, was not being a homosexual.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Google my name John Clark, and I just found that the Daily Mail was at it again. They’ve “updated” that article from 1999 when it was all happening and it was all about damage control caused by Nicolette’s lawyer James Eliaser, Esq., and attached it to the comments I made to a couple of reporters from the gossip agency Splash at my door on the occasion of Lynn’s death a couple of years ago. The Splash folks turned around and sold our conversation to the Daily Mail as though it was they who had interviewed me. Now, due to Google’s improved software, anyone googling my name comes up with that article, with the headline

The love child who broke Lynn Redgrave’s heart: In the week the actress died, her ex-husband tells of his shame and regret

By Alison Boshoff

UPDATED: 19:42 EST, 7 May 2010

I had already reported their dishonest tactics to the Press Commission in London (see that subject dealt with on the left).

There are two new biographies of the Redgrave family about to appear. One is the Donald Spoto biography titled The Redgraves: A Family Epic, and the other is The House of Redgrave, The Secret Lives of a Theatrical Dynasty by Tim Adler. I fully expect to be slaughtered again, with the same Daily Mail courtesy, a blood sport indeed. I shall buy them, read them, and report on them. As for me, an interview I gave to the Just William Society will be appearing shortly in their magazine, which will start me off on my book, yet to be finished.

In the meantime, in the sure knowledge that these authors will have got it wrong as far as my life with Lynn is concerned, let them read and ponder the facts, as filed under oath in my COMPLAINT against Larry King and CNN in District Court in Los Angeles on September 23, 2004. Here they will find out the whole story. That’s how I’ve been spending my time. Some retirement! But I think it is useful to educate the public on the workings and failings of our judicial system in these United States of America.

Anyway, it is for these reasons that I cannot let these false impressions of me sit there any longer, for there are still Lynn fans out there who refuse to accept me. It’s the same with professionals and the media, and it interferes with my rights, civil and professional, and my ability to make a living. I figure that after 12 years, the statute of limitations will have run its course. Both ladies hoodwinked me and hoodwinked you, with the help of a court of law, an evil judge, and evil attorneys by the name of Emily Edelman, and James Eliaser, all in it together for the money.

I think that readers can see from this that I have no “Shame and Regret” whatsoever. But please be advised that I was never interviewed by Alison Boshoff. If the Daily Mail cares to print this now, they have my permission, freely given.

To Lynn’s fans who are furious at me for bringing this up saying “let the dead R.I.P”, I have this in reply. I firmly believe in L.I.P. (Live in Peace). Anyway, how do we know that the dead are resting in peace? We don’t. I know that Lynn certainly didn’t die in peace, for she was essentially a good person (or I wouldn’t have agreed to marry her) and knew exactly what she was secretly doing to me, motivated by her lover, his 2 sons, a highly paid trickster of a lawyer, and a judge with a shady past. Her death resulted from something called Karma.

I needed to attend her funeral for many private and personal reasons. My son, feeling loyal and bound by her orders, forcibly stopped me at the church in Kent, Connecticut, and I nearly met my own death in a nearby hospital. I wish I could report that my kids are back with me now. Not so. I haven’t heard from them since. Meanwhile, the First Congregational Church and the Actors Fund adored her. In return for their adoration, she bequeathed $10,000 to each in her will. She later got a memorial fundraiser for the Fund, so good for them. They need the money.

In 1999 The Daily Telegraph wanted to pay me a million dollars, which would be split with their writer, for a joint book, and I turned them down, because Lynn’s life would have been destroyed, and I would have looked like a short term husband on the make. I am not, and have never needed to be, that kind of a person. I told them that when the time came, I would be writing my own book, alone, and I’ve kept their correspondence as proof. (n.b. It will not be called “Enter the Plumber”). And, BTW, I’ve never accepted a penny for an interview.

That time has come. Stay tuned. From now on I’m ready, maybe to self-publish if I have to. I need to be paid!

 

JULY 12, 2013

This is all about the colon. First there were lawyers. Then there were doctors…

Keeping fingers crossed. This ACTORVIST patient ain’t finished yet! Wife nearby.

 

JULY 16, 2013

Well, I’m still alive. Still in what’s called “recovery”.

Interesting people, doctors. They are pretty well all specialists today. They have their own turfs. And I find they don’t talk to each other a whole lot. I have to think about heart, lung, blood, liver, stroke, atrial fibrillation, and now my gut. I get back a mixture of good news and bad news. I think the key is having a good, open primary physician to be able to talk to. But they’re very very busy these days, there’s not enough of them, and they seem to be very hard to get ahold of. I’ll know more next week, I guess.

Nevertheless, I go home tomorrow.

 

Monica Thapar of the BBC’s archives, has responded with the request from the Just Willliam Society to come up with a full cast list of the Nov. 6, 1946  radio broadcast, the details of which were questioned and contested by the editing folks at Wikipedia. I cannot upload it to Wikipedia, so I need to do it here. We will see if they will apologize to me. Meanwhile, I forgive the BBC for destroying the old wax records of post wartime period favorite radio shows, and making amends by going the extra mile for us researchers.

I’m glad to be closing the books on this subject. Now on to more important things.

 

The storm in a teacup I inadvertently started has now become a veritable Mt. Etna. I do this for Notable People everywhere, of which I am deemed to be one.

As I’ve said, notable people are discouraged from editing pieces written about them by others. References from published sources are provided by WP contributors, and I have maintained that the choice of these references are biased, and contravene their own set of rules all the time. These editors cross the boundaries of “Maintaining a neutral point of view”, of “Never claiming ownership of an article”, and “Avoiding conflict of interest.” It is clear that the subject of an article on a living person, or a dead person, lies in the area of “Biographies.” Such was the featured article on my old friend, John Le Mesurier, best known from the “Dad’s Army” British TV series, repeated I believe on BBC in America.

I was accused of manipulation, making threats, advertising, lying, and making vain claims. They tried to expose me by ridicule and insult, and have blocked me from editing, which I’ve been happily doing for three or four years, creating harmless other type articles. I can still, however, express myself on my talk page, where I am linking to this. This is what SchroCat (a pseudonym hiding an identity) said to prove I was guilty of all of the above sins. He published as follows:

Having spent a chunk of my own personal time traipsing up to the British Library because of the ridiculous questioning of whether a respected and proven biographer is reliable or not, I am very happy to say that I found in back issues of the Radio Times the information that at 20:15 on 26 November 1946 Episode 10 of Just William was broadcast on the BBC Light Programme, ending at 20:35. It was subsequently repeated on the same wavelength at 16:30 on 1 December 1946.

Clark, There is no hearsay, so stop trolling. I have provided sufficient information. If you want to see it in black and white, buy the McCann book. Scans are not possible for microfiche records at the BL: I asked and was told that I would have to get it transferred to the rare book section for electronic processing. You want to do that, then you can foot the bill. If you are too parsimonious to do that, then look elsewhere. I have contacted the author to ask him: he has provided an answer. If you also want to hear it directly from him, I suggest you contact him directly. If not, then you will have to [[WP:AGF]]. If that is beyond you, then go to the reliable sources people and ask them to make a decision on the matter. I care not what you want to believe or not believe, your pointless trolling on this matter has gone far and beyond any normal or natural behaviour. – [[User:SchroCat|SchroCat]] ([[User talk:SchroCat|talk]]) 09:03, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I then contacted Graham McCann, the author of the book from which the information came and asked about the connection between Just William and Le Mez. He confirmed to me that “the information came from the BBC’s written archive records and Le Mesurier’s personal files.”

Consequently I am more than happy that what we have in this article is an accurate reflection of what is available in the reliable sources, and that those sources have provided archival information from unimpeachable sources.

Fortunately, I am a member of the Just William Society, deemed by these fellows not to be a reliable source, and one of their volunteer historians by the name of Robert Kirkpatrick went down to the library to find out if Wikipedia was telling the truth, or allowing a lie. I cannot download this to Wikipedia, because I am blocked. So I am downloading it here, on my website, to prove that lies about people are permitted at Wikipedia. He had this to say to me, before supplying proof that lies are to be found on Wikipedia. He said

 Herewith a copy of the page from the Radio Times showing episode 10 of Just William broadcast on 26 November 1946.  As you can see, there is no mention of John le Mesurier.

The episode was repeated on Sunday 1 December 1946  –  cast list wasn’t given.

So, we all agree that this Wikipedia chap is correct, in that there WAS an episode on JW on that date (which was never in doubt anyway), but if he’s saying that John le Mesurier was in it and that Radio Times proves it then he’s 100% in the wrong.

As I said, my own suspicion is that le Mesurier’s biographer got it wrong (after all, we all make mistakes  –  and in any case perhaps it was le Mesurier himself who got mixed up) and that the reference should have been to the live broadcast of the stage play from the Granville Theatre on 23 December 1946.

PS  I should add, for accuracy’s sake, that I wasn’t allowed to photocopy the page from the Radio Times at the British Library, as it was too large (i.e larger than A4).  I could have paid for it to be scanned and copied, but that would have taken 24 hours. So I went to Westminster Reference Library and was able to take the photocopy from their bound volumes of the Radio Times.

I can, of course, assure you that both copies were identical! I hope this helps and you can get your life back!!!!!”

Robert

Here’s the visible scan of the Radio Times entry:

 

I hope Jimbo Wales acts on this information, and takes steps to free up a notable’s ability to edit freely, alongside other contributors. And there are at least 3 of these lying pseudos who should be banned forever from contributing to what is otherwise a fine encyclopedia.

 

 

 

 

 

We Brits sure know how to have fun! Last night as the sun was settling down behind the mountains on the western horizon, in the gardens of Santa Monica’s very stylish Fairmont Miramar Hotel overlooking the beach, there was a promotion and celebration of all things British as it exists in the fair city of Los Angeles, California.

It was a kind of fancy dress party, inspired and themed by some members of the DOWNTON ABBEY cast who were present and being honored. This is Hollywood, after all. So we “expats” were invited to attend dressed up, if possible, in something suggesting the flapper era of England, circa 1920.

Since the story begins around the time of the S.S.Titanic sinking, and progresses on up into the twenties, there was scope for a wide choice of costume. The only other fancy dress ball I ever attended was as a child when my parents sent me as a choir boy and I won first prize. So I decided to be a man of the cloth, dressed in a cheap RC priest outfit (their robes don’t change an inch), and for good measure took a young friend who came dressed as a prostitute picked up on the way in, and whom I’d brought with me to convert. She was bursting out here and there, torn slip, retro French knickers, suspenders, seamed stockings and all. There we were, arm in arm, and quite a few heads turned.

And so the evening began, with Tin Pan Alley entertainment, tapdancing exhibitions, a lively banjo-led band, and touchy feely dancing. And we know how to enjoy being silly and sexy, as well as serious.

An Irish tourist came running up, fell to his knees, and begged me to hear his confession. He wanted to know where my church was. He was quite serious, if a little drunk on the great spiked Ginger Beer coolers. I told him I was a traveling priest, used a kind of modest curtained pope-mobile, and could come his way on prior notice. He scribbled me his motel address. It was only when I told him to bring his Master Card or cash, that he figured out that I was maybe not what he thought I was. Then I saw a couple of very attractive women sitting in a corner. I asked who they were, and they rather sheepishly confessed they were on the organizing committee, and were — Americans!

I found again many of my old and dear friends, and we duly swapped cards, past attitudes forgotten and forgiven. Attached to my business card is my California Notary card, designed unsubtly to let people know that I am able to 1. tell the truth, 2. keep secrets, and 3. uphold the law. This is Hollywood.

Famous British companies are well represented, Boots, Jaguar, Cunard and all, and I look forward to wandering around this week in search of having a good time while learning more of the business side of it, which in this economy gets to be the point. But as of this week, with the stock market at all time highs and employment improving, there is hope and a renewing spring-like step in the air. Entrepreneurship is budding.

I’ve been a contributor for many years now. I guess it started when I needed a means to rehabilitate my name and reputation after the onslaught from the court, the press, my wife, my children, my in-laws, and, ok then, if you insist, the nanny. Doing this enabled me to show that I did have a life, and a professional one at that, well before becoming a part of my wife’s life. And access to the site being free, and knowing the laziness of many journalists and other media folk, I felt that they would check me out there, and leave me alone.

Here I should mention that I love the concept, and admire it in action. They have extraordinary software which takes a while to learn, very specific rules, and on the whole there are built-in safeguards to protect against advocacy. Neutral Point of View, one of their 3 core principles. The others are Verifiability, and No Original Research.

This is all to the good, until it comes up short in their big weakness. How to deal with the BLPs. That is the Biographies of Living Persons. As many of my friends in the industry know, reputations have been shattered, as well as undeservedly exalted, by editors, some of whom are what I call fanboys, and others the exact opposite. Combine that thought with the fact that they actively prevent the target subject from having any hand at all in the creation or editing of the page. I fought long and hard to create my page, and finally I think they got fed up with me, and let it stand, so I got away with it. I haven’t touched it again in years, and now others have taken over, treating me better than I would have done for myself, so thank you!  I detect some inaccuracies, but what the heck, they do me no harm! Here, check it out.

Things had been quiet on this front until recently, when a firestorm erupted.

I noticed a featured entry on my old friend, John Le Mesurier, long passed on. The creators of the article linked to many of his co-workers, and it mentioned that he started his radio career with the series Just William in 1946. My name wasn’t mentioned, and I thought, what the heck, I’ll put in my name because I was the first William, he worked with me, was my friend, and link it to the article on me. Well, it was immediately deleted, so I put it back, and this started an edit war, a no-no at Wikipedia. Often article talk pages are more interesting than the articles they discuss. The irony is that when I asked the Just William Society to look into the matter, they found that the biographer of the book which was their source was wrong, he never was in the radio show! And I certainly don’t remember him in the broadcast studio either. So their sourcing policy has serious flaws in it anyway.

What began as a storm in a teacup has blown up to be a big issue at the Wikipedia website, and has even drawn in the founder, Jimmy Wales. As I said, it has to do with the fact that they don’t allow celebrities who have their own entries known as “Biographies of Living Persons” to in any way edit their entries. A “Conflict of Interest” rule. So even if they are misquoted, or sourced to an unreliable mention in a newspaper or book, there’s nothing they can do about it.

Does all this matter? I think it does, because Wikipedia is usually, one might say always, at or near the top of search engines. And because it’s royalty free, the press quotes freely from it all the time. I am campaigning for them to change this rule. “Celebrities” and other sentient groups, should be able to edit too. If Wikipedia claims to be democratic, i.e. for “all the people”, then all the people should be able to edit anything anywhere at any time.  And if they continue to ban celebrities? By way of illustration of possible legal outcomes, I made up the following courtroom scenario, and posted it on Jimbo Wales’s user page:

Celebrity vs. Wikipedia, does 1-30 (The does will cover senior editors, founders and 30 users)

CELEBRITY ATTORNEY: My client has been libeled in the pages of Wikipedia in an article written by users who operate under assumed names.

JUDGE: Libeled? Does your client claim privacy privileges which are quite broad?

CELEBRITY ATTORNEY: No your honor, he knows that he is vulnerable to general criticism and accepts that. He is what they call a Notable, and as such becomes part of a category called “Biographies of Living Persons”, and any content may only be changed at the discretion of other users, but not him. That is the crux of this action. He does not accept statements that hold him up to ridicule, scorn, and contempt.

WP ATTORNEY: My client claims immunity as a public website. It merely passes on what is being said elsewhere. All statements are sourced.

JUDGE: Does Wikipedia discriminate against any users?

WP ATTORNEY: Absolutely not. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site, as we proclaim publicly.

JUDGE: Can’t the plaintiff remove the offending language then?

CELEBRITY ATTORNEY: No your honor. Under Wikipedia’s restrictive rules, celebrities cannot change anything in articles detailing their lives, beyond possibly a fact here and there. It contravenes what is known as their Conflict of Interest rule, which is a core principle, and which conflicts with their own rules which my friend just stated.

JUDGE: I see. Then can you state your problem with individual users?

CELEBRITY ATTORNEY: They don’t always provide a source for their unpleasant remarks, and many are the celebrities’ fans, and in this case haters. Often-times untrue statements remain unchallenged.

JUDGE: Then I grant permission for you to bring any such users into court, as I rule they are not exempt.

CELEBRITY ATTORNEY: But how do I find them?

JUDGE: That’s your problem. (raises gavel)

WP ATTORNEY: (Quickly) May I confer with my clients?

(After a short interlude.)

WP ATTORNEY: I think we can settle this, your honor. My clients are willing to change the rule. They will henceforth include the celebrity and notable BLPers as regular users. Of course, they will then have to conform to the same rules as everybody else.

JUDGE: Sounds good to me. I will sign an order to that effect. Case dismissed.

************************
We will see what happens next. I think that the high ups, whoever they are, will think about making the change, and I predict that it will happen in the near future. Will WP fall apart? No, it will carry on in a much more acceptable way. I would hope to see the living celebrity actors, the sports heroes, the academics, the scientists, the music makers, the artists, the writers, the health specialists, yes even the politicians contribute to their spaces, and that they will become a lot more readable. There will be original research, indeed there will, but so what? Lies will come tumbling down, and truth will prevail in the long run. Because no one wants to look stupid, and the liars will eventually be caught out. Self-correcting. No longer can they blame their publicist or lawyer or agent or manager or friend for “getting it wrong, not my fault.” They can say what they want, and the burden will shift to others to prove if they are lying or outrageously stretching the truth, and so Wikipedia will become more transparent. I’d give it a new name. I’d call it WikipediaPLUS.
LATER
Oh dear, I’ve been BLOCKED! Not banished, mind you, but blocked from editing. Well, I am still allowed to express myself on my talk page, which I am doing. Here is my talk page. Start at the bottom, if you’re interested. And if you’re a “celebrity” or a “notable person”, you should be.

 

This was our home for 22 years, which I developed over that period. Its last sale price does not indicate that the property was the subject of litigation, and was the price realized upon its sale engineered by Lynn Redgrave who deserted it 3 years previously, partnered by Judge Gold standing in my shoes, who created a court order. I was evicted by the now discredited (described by Judicial Watch) corrupt Judge Gold of Los Angeles Family Court (now “retired”, meaning he works as a private judge – lol).

I sued the new owners who’d been waiting in the wings, the Katlemans. Also the real estate agent Melissa Oliver (conflict of interest), and the escrow company. The judge was anxious to grab funds which was easy, because I had no mortgage, and he signed off on it “as is”. There were no inspections that I’m aware of. Amazing how judicial orders can skate over proper procedures. My cases were dismissed, and I was charged the escrow company’s legal expenses for my efforts to get them to reveal the details. Over $12,000, 5 times what I received as my share of this “community property” (again, lol!). So much for real estate transfer laws, a pillar of a man’s rights in a free country.

Were they working in unison? At least I found out what they’d been doing to me under cover of secrecy. Only as a result of my litigation efforts, I got a statement. Later, Mr. Katleman took the front property’s address causing a visit by Malibu Building and Safety to the front guest house only to inspect it, and a deliberate diminution of its value. It was bought by Melissa’s real estate friend at a price less than what I had previously offered to the court .

My home’s address was always 21342 1/2. I was banned from entering the property, subjected to arrest, and in the dead of night Miyuki and I sneaked in in dark clothing, and rescued my diaries and records of my life. I then had a choice, before moving into my trailer to tow it to a trailer park. Burn the place down, become a Chris Dorner, or put a curse on it. I chose the latter. Gold put me in jail anyway, just for 24 hours to disable me before I could start my courtroom defense from the aggressors.

To the new buyers, be aware that the pool, which I dug, has no safety fence, and I did a whole lot of upgrading without permits, and buried huge amounts of trash on the grounds with my backhoe, as well as laying drains into a sewage pit and drain field under the car park. I also built the little studio near the tennis court without permits, also the tennis court and night lights.  I buried our dead guard dogs around the house, and their ghosts arise each night looking for intruders. The place has the smell of death and decay hanging in the air like a pall. Perhaps any new purchaser should call in an exorciser.  Demand to see all previous inspection reports if there are any, and insist on new independent ones. Look for the Devil in the details. Notice it’s right next to a huge park, full of small trees and brush, has no shelter from the sun, and sits under a steep slope which used to give me trouble from pelting rain, dust, and small rocks. Remember that a real estate agent has a duty of full disclosure.

Mr. Michael Katleman, my fellow DGA member, avoids coming to meetings at headquarters. I don’t blame him. He might run into me. I’d like to run into his pimply lawyer, because now I’d be ready for him.