Word: lait
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...their gutter-eye view of America, U.S.A. Confidential, the New York Daily Mirror's Editor Jack Lait and Nightclub Columnist Lee Mortimer threw enough mud to bring six libel suits against them (TIME, May 19). Biggest of the six was by Dallas' elegant Neiman-Marcus store. It sued for $7,400,000 on the basis of Lait & Mortimer's statement in the book that "some Neiman models are call girls-the top babes in town . . . Price, a hundred bucks a night. The salesgirls are good, too . . . twenty bucks on the average." Named with Lait & Mortimer were Crown...
Last week all but Lait & Mortimer agreed to a crow-eating settlement with Neiman-Marcus. It called for 1) letters of apology to every one of the store's 1,500 employees, 2) a guarantee that the offending paragraphs will not be printed in future copies of the book, 3) a cash settlement with the store, 4) a half-page apology "to the highly regarded Neiman-Marcus store and its employees" paid for by the defendants and printed this week as an ad in seven big-city dailies...
Neiman-Marcus will continue to press its suit against Authors Lait & Mortimer. Say the two authors doggedly: "[The others] threw in the sponge and surrendered, [but] we propose to establish the truth of all our assertions . . . We reject and repudiate such an apology . . . We believe [the] suits against U.S.A. Confidential are politically inspired...
...wordy but provocative sketches of favorite Post whipping boys, e.g., Senator McCarthy, Walter Winchell, Westbrook Pegler. When U.S.A. Confidential began making headlines and the bestseller lists, Wechsler spotted ideal subjects for his next serial scorcher: the book's authors, the New York Mirror's editor, Jack Lait, and its nightclub columnist, Lee Mortimer, who are already defendants in twelve libel suits for their offhand reporting (TIME...
Wechsler set a task force to work, but Old Newshands Lait and Mortimer refused to see them. Instead, they wrote Wechsler that he would be accountable for any "unjust and damaging" statements. When Wechsler wrote back that one way to avoid inaccuracies was for Lait and Mortimer to give the Post an interview, Mortimer replied darkly: ". . . Your . . . letter . . . has been referred to our attorney for his attention." Last week, the oft-sued Lait and Mortimer became plaintiffs themselves: they began suits against the Post for $1,000,000 (half for each author). They had been libeled, said their suits...