pellicano notebook
5:06AM STV | Prison Break: Die Hard director John McTiernan is the latest celebrity to clear jail waivers this week after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated his four-month prison sentence for lying to federal investigators in the Anthony Pellicano case. McTiernan, who at first denied hiring Pellicano to wiretap his Rollerball producer Charles Roven, pleaded guilty to the charges last year; soon after, he appealed to withdraw the plea on the basis of inadequate legal counsel and, in his words, “All this for Rollerball? Have you seen Rollerball?” Free to direct again, he has since been sentenced to four years of B-pictures, with time off for good behaviour. [AP] More »
Tears, Sneers Ensue as Anita Busch Faces Pellicano’s Third Degree
4:10AM Defamer Hollywood | All kinds of drama unfolded Wednesday in one of the more turbulent days of the Anthony Pellicano trial, with ex-journalist Anita Busch following fork-tongued Michael Ovitz to a slow death on the witness stand. As if you had to ask, the cross-examination showdown between Busch and Pellicano — whom the writer all but accused in court of infamously harrassing her out of writing articles about Ovitz after joining the LA Times — did not go smoothly: More »
Witness Michael Ovitz Gives Thanks For the Gift of Anthony Pellicano
5:00AM Defamer Hollywood | Michael Ovitz hit the Pellicano witness stand this morning with a heart full of gratitude for his former private investigator, whose ongoing wiretapping trial became a state-sanctioned love-in as the ex-CAA/Disney/AMG boss recalled all the fun they had back in the day while paranoiacally destroying people’s lives: More »
When Kenny Met Taarna
11:12AM Seth | Yesterday, we promised you a brainmeltingly awesome new thing, and dare we say, you got it. We only wished the entire episode could have existed inside the cat-pee-induced, hallucinatory world of Heavy South Metal Park [South Park] HuffPo’s Allison Hope Weiner, who’s dutifully provided us with every juicy tidbit to emerge from the Pellicano trial thusfar, may be subpoenaed by the defence. That could transform her into the Hollywood Wiretapping Trial of the Century’s own Judith Miller, Patron Saint of Source Protection. [THR ESQ.] Will Paul Giamatti’s next role as a U.S politician require him to wipe his arse with the historical document John Adams helped create? [Vulture] As Kate Bosworth giggled with Paul Shaffer, UTA wept. [DHD] If you live in the Hills, a blog called The Daily Coyote isn’t something you’d likely need or want. For everyone else: Look! Coyotes! Daily! [The Daily Coyote] More »
Brad Grey Insists Under Oath That He Didn’t Want To Know How The Pellicano Sausage Was Made
8:08AM Seth | There was little that could have come from Brad Grey’s testimony at the Anthony Pellicano trial today that would have matched the sensationalism of the last bombshell to emerge from this ongoing saga of backdoor Hollywood intrigue–i.e., the Chris Rock: Accused Rapist tapes. Still, there was plenty of opportunity for another Moment, the diminutive studio emperor having a sizable axe to grind with Garry Shandling, who pulled no punches on the stand in a brutally frank testimony against his former manager. (It would surely have included some waterworks had the Larry Sanders Show star not years ago had his face pulled tighter than a conga drum, effectively sealing every one of his above-the-neck mucus membranes tighter than Tutankhamen’s tomb.) As it turns out, Grey did not use the opportunity to take some public jabs at his nemesis, instead delivering straightforward statements relieving himself of all knowledge of Pellicano’s shadowy surveillance methods: More »
Now This Is More Like It: The Anthony Pellicano-Chris Rock Rape-Claim Tapes
2:34AM Seth | Maybe this Anthony Pellicano trial isn’t as hopelessly bereft of A-list manure-flinging as we had initially thought. Just a day after Garry Shandling’s bitterly frank testimony about former manager Brad Grey–which so riled the Paramount Emperor that the planned The Love Guru ice cream social was cancelled with a company-wide e-mail instructing staffers to, “Go enjoy a cup of Garry Shandling’s steaming, fudge-covered horseshit instead”–comes something even better: A tape, which prosecutors say was made by Pellicano and obtained by The Huffington Post, containing a 31-minute conversation between Chris Rock and the private investigator. Rock secured Pellicano’s services after the then-separated comedian engaged in a brief fling with what he describes as “a girl with big tits and white pants” back in 1998, who then turned around and accused him of rape. (Interesting side note: He took her to a dinner party at Guy Oseary’s house attended by Madonna and Elisabeth Shue!) The charges were ultimately found to be bogus, and were never officially filed. More »
This Is Garry Shandling’s Searing Indictment Of Former Manager Brad Grey. How Do You Like It So Far?
9:24AM Seth | If the old adage about the lawyer who represents himself having a fool for a client is true, then Anthony Pellicano’s cross-examination today of Garry Shandling at his own trial (Underwhelming Hollywood with Nothing of Juicy Significance Since 2002™) was like the Comedy Store main room. When asked by the court what he does for a living, Deadline Hollywood Daily reports, Shandling responded, “That’s a bad sign. I’m a comedian.” To which the judge responded, “Not to me you’re not.” (To which the entire jury snapped in unison and remarked, “Ooooooh girl.”) Shandling was there in connection with a long-running feud with onetime manager Brad Grey over lost earnings from his The Larry Sanders Show deal, during which Scary Hollywood Lawyer Bert Fields, a regular subscriber to Pellicano’s eavesdropping services, allegedly used the P.I. to tap Shandling’s calls. From DHD’s courtroom report:
