Doctor, producer differ over each other’s roles
By DAVE DANFORTH Daily Press Staff Writer
The idea for a television show that never saw a script could have cost a Beverly Hills anesthesiologist more than $3 million.
But a lawsuit over the concept was settled last week in Santa Monica for $10,000 after the doctor’s lawyer blamed a producer who “became embarrassed that he had shot his mouth off to all his friends and now had nothing to show for it.”
The idea for a reality-based show on plastic surgery landed on the steps of the Santa Monica Courthouse after Ted Fox, of West Hollywood, sued Howard Siegel, claiming Siegel backed out on his promise to put up $1,560,000 to make 26 episodes of the show.
Dr. Siegel, who’d become mesmerized by an E! Channel segment on which he appeared in 2000, said there was no written contract for the show, and that only $623 was ever spent on it.
His lawyer claimed Fox had to save face with “a small group of his other unemployed industry friends” that he had asked to work on the program.
It began when Dr. Siegel, an anesthesiologist who practices with plastic surgeons, appeared on the E! series of two shows that followed three patients through separate procedures for a facelift, breast augmentation, and liposuction.
“People love to find out what’s new and exciting,” Siegel recalled about the program and how “everybody wants to look good.”
Siegel ran into Fox, who has two film credits from the early 1990s to his name, in a gym. Siegel did a treatment for an expanded series based on the E! program, and registered it under the name “Howard M. Siegel Productions.”
Fox and Siegel differ over what happened next. Siegel said he wanted to make a “pilot” for the show. But Fox said Siegel committed to back 26 episodes — an entire season — at a budget of $60,000 per show.
According to Fox, Siegel wanted to finance the entire production at a cost of $1,560,000. Siegel countered that it was “unheard of” to make an entire series up-front and that Fox’s $60,000 per-episode budget was twice what had been suggested by the E! Channel producer who shot the episodes on which Siegel appeared.
Had it worked, Fox maintained, each would have cleared another $2 million or so.
But after tossing around the idea in March and April of 2001, Siegel decided not to do the program after his family suggested it wasn’t a good investment. Besides, Siegel maintained, “I didn’t have that kind of money.”
Fox’s friends had submitted about $10,000 for their work to date. When Siegel said there was no agreement and no obligation to pay, Fox took him to court.
“Ted Fox needs to win this suit for them to get paid,” Siegel’s lawyer, Mark Rosen, told a Santa Monica jury last week during opening arguments in the case. Rosen said it was ridiculous for Fox to sue with no written agreement and no discussion except a couple of speakerphone conversations.
Fox claimed vindication after agreeing to take $10,000 at the end of closing arguments before Superior Court Judge Richard Neidorf.
“It was exactly what we wanted,” he said. “People who make deals need to honor them.”
“It was exactly what we wanted. People who make deals need to honor them.” — How a show that ran up $622.91 in car wash and cell phone bills resulted in a lawsuit of more than $3 million appears part-Hollywood and part-aggressive lawyering. — RICHARD NEIDORF Superior Court Judge
The jury in the case, which had been warned to hunker down for up to nine days, whooped and cheered when Judge Neidorf told them it had been settled and they were free to go.
The case got nasty when both lawyers began maneuvering for trial. Fox’s lawyer, Lee Williams, announced he intended to use a pair of disciplinary complaints against Siegel at trial. But Neidorf ruled them irrelevant, and wouldn’t permit evidence of Siegel’s “character or subjective intent” at the trial.
Enter Playboy magazine’s Miss April 1994, whose lawyer said Fox had met after he paid her $200 for a half-hour lap dance at Las Vegas’ Crazy Horse Too club in early 2001. The Playmate, Ingrid Almendarez, had become intoxicated while at Fox’s Los Angeles residence and had agreed to make a statement which wasn’t true, her lawyer later claimed.
After Williams issued a subpoena for her, the Playmate’s lawyer, William Toppi, warned both lawyers she wouldn’t lie. If called to testify, she would say that Fox had threatened to jail her if she didn’t testify that she’d met Siegel doing a lap dance and that Siegel had boasted of the deal with Fox, who’d known her since 1994 and had “credibility” in her eyes. Fox also lent her $2,500, Toppi contended.
The statement Almendarez repudiated had her saying of Siegel, “This is not the first time I have ever heard a guy telling me he is a producer, trying to see if that would interest me.” In fact, her lawyer said, she had never met Siegel, and knew nothing about the proposed show on plastic surgery.
The record isn’t clear on whether Judge Neidorf ever heard of the disagreement over the Playmate. But both lawyers agreed to refer the episode to the district attorney’s office for an investigation of “the corruption of these proceedings.”
When the lawyers told the judge about their settlement deal Thursday, one of them pointed to a reporter and asked if he was the investigator for the D.A.’s office. Neidorf then suggested that the lawyers needn’t spend lots of time working up a confidentiality agreement since the details of the $10,000 settlement had come out in open court.
A central question in the case was whether Fox had been hired for his expert-ise or had merely been working as directed by Siegel. When asked why he would agree, as an experienced producer, to make 26 episodes of a show in advance before interesting anyone in even a pilot, Fox said, “It wasn’t an issue of what makes sense. We’re talking about the deal.” Fox likened his role to a home-builder following an architect’s instructions.
That model wasn’t the relationship portrayed by Siegel, who admitted he was fired up about pushing a cosmetic surgery show but unsure of how to do it. He maintained the show was little more than talk, and that he had been involved in a pair of speakerphone conversations in which Fox outlined the $60,000-per-episode deal with an accountant and producer assisting him.
Siegel said he listened in as Fox went over the budget and said only “I understand.”
But Fox said Siegel had agreed to back the entire show, wanted to be the only financial backer, and pushed to get the show into production by May, 2001 in time for airing that autumn. The show was intended to be marketed to independent stations in the largest U.S. markets, or to a cable channel. Fox said his assistants would testify at trial that although the deal was oral, it was a firm deal.
Rosen ridiculed that notion before the jurors. He noted that Fox had said the pair had “pretty much agreed” to do the entire 26-show series. But “pretty much” agreeing does not make a legal contract constituting a full “meeting of the minds” at which all key terms are completed, Rosen noted.
The budget called for Fox to take a 10 percent “producer’s fee” or $6,000 per show, for a total of $156,000, Williams contended. Siegel said such an arrangement was never his intent.
Rosen said he had made the $10,000 settlement offer on behalf of Siegel, but that it would expire when opening arguments ended. At that moment, the lawyers requested the judge call a short recess and then agreed on the deal. Williams later said Siegel had cast doubt on his ability to pay a sizable amount and had said his practice had declined since the onset of the post-2000 recession.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 2, 2003. Read the original PDF.