Word: burnette
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Burnett's $1.6 million punch
Flashbulbs popped and reporters shouted questions when a jubilant Carol Burnett emerged from Los Angeles county superior court last week, hugging fans and signing autographs for jurors. After eight days of testimony and three of deliberation, the jurors had provided a classic Tinseltown ending to a televised trial that was followed as avidly as a soap opera. They awarded Burnett a whopping $1.6 million in damages in her libel suit against the sensation-seeking National Enquirer (circ. 5,100,000). Said the relieved star: "There...
...verdict capped a five-year legal battle that began when the Enquirer claimed that Burnett had been "boisterous" at a Washington, D.C., restaurant called the Rive Gauche. The gossipy weekly reported that she "had a loud argument with another diner, Henry Kissinger," spilled a glass of wine on a second patron, then tried to share her chocolate souffle with everyone in the place. Burnett did not deny that she dined at the restaurant that night, spoke to Kissinger and had "two, maybe three" glasses of wine. But, she testified, "They portrayed me as drunk." The Enquirer maintained that its information...
...reminiscent of the mid-1950s, when lawsuits, particularly those by Robert Mitchum and Heiress Doris Duke, severely dampened Confidential magazine's penchant for unfounded gossip. Confidential's circulation plummeted from 4.1 million to about 300,000, and the magazine folded in 1969. The Enquirer boasts that the Burnett case is the first libel trial since Generoso Pope Jr. bought the tabloid in 1952. But that is because it occasionally settles out of court...
...gossip items had to be backed up by two independent sources-who were often paid by the Enquirer. But faced with flagging sales and increased competition from Rupert Murdoch's racy rising Star (circ. 3.5 million), Pope soon ordered up more pizazz. The outcome of the Burnett case and other suits may well determine whether he ordered up too much...