Carlisle v. Fawcett Publications, Inc.

• Decision Date: 23 March 1962
• Citation: 201 Cal.App.2d 733,20 Cal.Rptr. 405
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: John Kenneth CARLISLE, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. FAWCETT PUBLICATIONS, INC., et al., Defendants and Respondents. Civ. 69.

Page 405

20 Cal.Rptr. 405

201 Cal.App.2d 733

John Kenneth CARLISLE, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. FAWCETT PUBLICATIONS, INC., et al., Defendants and Respondents.

Civ. 69.

District Court of Appeal, Fifth District, California.

March 23, 1962.

Kane & Canelo; Martin J. Rosen, Merced, for appellant.

Pacht, Ross, Warne & Bernhard; Jerry Pacht, Los Angeles, for respondents.

CONLEY, Presiding Justice.

Based on an article appearing in the nagazine, Motion Picture, the plaintiff sued the defendants, Fawcett Publications, Inc., a corporation, Schroeder News Company, a corporation, and Janett Helen Morrison, also known as Jeanette H. Morrison, also known as Janet Leigh, in two counts, the first alleging libel and the second invasion of privacy. The defendants filed a general and special demurrer to the complaint; after argument, the trial court sustained the general demurrer as to each and both causes of action without leave to amend; judgment of dismissal was entered and the plaintiff appealed.

The publication complained of is the leading article in the December 1960 issue of Motion Picture. The standard of taste and intelligence exemplified by the magazine is sufficiently indicated by the table of contents, which includes, besides the piece in question, a listing of the following 'exclusive stories' concerning moving picture actors and actresses: Sherry Jackson, "Why I Ditched Elvis Presley"; Susan Kohner, "When I Think of Marriage, I Think of George"; George Hamilton, "Trouble Is, I Don't Want to Get Married"; Troy Donahue, 'They Made Me a Criminal'; Tuesday Weld, 'The Girl Who's So Far Out She's In!'; Nancy and Tommy Sands, 'You Are Cordially Invited to the Wedding' ; Glenn Ford, 'The Last of the Red Hot Playboys'; Doug McClure, 'The Astonished Heart of Doug McClure'; Brad Dillman, 'Any Guy Who Stays Single Is a Jerk'; Liz Taylor, 'Liz Has a New Love!'; Esther Williams, "I Didn't Break Up Fernando's Marriage!" Some cynic has said: 'Widespread literacy is not an unmixed blessing.'

Turning to the article itself on page 19 of the issue, we find the title, 'Janet Leigh's Own Story--'I Was a Child Bride at 14!'', with the picture of the actress appended. The composition deals with the life story of Miss Leigh, a well-known moving picture actress; it seems clearly intended to improve her rating with moving picture 'fans,' as well as to build up the circulation of the magazine; it includes the following excerpts:

'For the small tawny-haired blonde and the lean, dark boy their world was coming to an end that desperate summer. They put their arms around each other in the dark and held tight, afraid.

'The world itself was headed for disaster those warm days in 1941--to Pearl Harbor and World War II, to Hiroshima and the atomic bomb--but the boy and the girl were in love and very frightened.

* * *

* * *

'That summer in Merced, a small town south of San Francisco with only one motion picture theater, Jeanette Morrison--the girl who was to become Janet Leigh--was 14. The dark boy we'll call 'John' was 18.

"Never make fun of young love,' Janet Leigh says today.

"Never laugh at it.'

"I might have become a tramp,' says Janet Leigh.

'Today, she is an April girl, as fresh as a happy morning, a warmly adoring young mother, friendly, clear-eyed, forthright. Sometimes, she seems as innocently wiggly and eager to please as a blonde kitten. But sometimes--sometimes--you look in her eyes and they darken, and she seems far away, and wise, and careful.

'For what seems at first glance to be a smiling story of boy-girl teen-age infatuation, of sex impulses shy and decent and wondering, might have been--and so nearly was--a psychological disaster.

"I was hurt. I might have become a tramp,' says Janet. 'You know what I mean. Or I might have become a frigid woman, afraid of men.'

* * *

* * *

'This is the story that Janet kept secret so many years, afraid to tell it. Now, she has resolved the deeply psychological effects of young shame and fear. She understands them well. She knows them technically because only a short time after that hurtful marriage she became a brilliant student of psychology in a first-rate college. There, from time to time, in books and lectures, she saw herself in the dark mirror of the subconscious first revealed by Sigmund Freud.

'Today, Janet looks back objectively, almost clinically, to the bewildered, frightened girl she was at 14, as if that little girl was another person, or case history, or someone she read about long ago.

'But she does not laugh.'

The biographical piece states that Miss Morrison was an only child with 'bright hair burnished until it shone like a splash of sunlight,' and that she was 'the brightest kid in school' at Stockton. Some of the alleged history of her family is then set forth, and more of the characteristics of the actress. Her family moved to Merced from Stockton.

'The complex in Merced began with love and sex. She met the boy, John, in Merced because her parents moved there briefly, from Stockton, when her grandfather died.

* * *

* * *

'She was the youngest student in her class, as always, and the brightest, as always. She was too young to have 'car dates.' But the kids were unusually friendly in Merced in 1941. They liked Jeanette and accepted her--not at once, but slowly, as she proved she was 'regular.'

'She 'went steady' with John. He was a tall, handsome fellow and a senior. Jeanette wore his letterman sweater and around her neck was a thin gold chain from which dangled his class ring.

'The precocious 14-year-old girl from out of town, popular but not sure of herself, not yet really one of the gang, had found security and affection in an older boy. Jeanette Morrison fell utterly in love.

'They kissed. And for the first time in her very young life Jeanette knew what a kiss meant.'

The family moved back to Stockton, but another girl asked her back to Merced for a two weeks' visit in the following summer and '* * * tall John, looking diffident and embarrassed and very eager, * * *' was at the station to meet her.

'It was all fun at first--sheer fun and teasing, romping, dating, playing. There were picnics and lunches on the banks of the Joaquin River. There were lazy warm days in the sun, swimming or napping in the shade. Then, as afternoons wore out, they'd race back to town to Merced's one movie house before five o'clock, when the prices went up.

'John and Jeanette sat close in the dark, hand-holding, smuggling kisses, watching the glamorous people on the screen, hooting at the comedies and associating themselves with the lovers in love scenes.

'It was a lovely summer time. Then time ran out.

"Only a couple more days, then you'll go home and I won't see you again,' said John.

"I know. I've got to stay here, said Jeanette. 'What can we do?'

'Late at night, she and her girl friend sat up in bed talking about the problem that had no solution: how could 14-year-old Jeanette live in Merced when her parents lived in Stockton?'

Either her feminine friend or one of the principals concocted the marriage scheme, and John said that they could go to Reno, 200 miles away, that he would borrow the family car, and that if they drove there nobody would ask any questions; they could get married and they then could return and live with his mother and father and go to school, so that she would not have to leave Merced.

The article continues:

'That was how it was--not on a binge (nobody drank; they knew they were to young for that), not on a dare, not in defiance of authority. The three kids worked out a problem the best they could and marriage was their answer.

'Only Jeanette's girl friend knew what was up. Jeanette packed a little bag and hid it. John 'borrowed' the family car--he had none of his own--and suddenly and solemnly they were off to Reno to get married.

'They were silent most of the way. Jeanette--always good at problems in books, remember--began to do sums in her head. 'I'm supposed to be eighteen,' she said to herself, 'so it's 1941 now, and that means I was born in 1923, only I was really born in 1927. July 6, 1927. I've got to remember to say 1923 when the man asks me. But how'll I prove it?'

'They parked near the court house, walked up the steep steps as self-consciously as if they were mounting a stage with an audience watching, and stammered their way to the marriage license bureau.

'Jeanette spoke so softly that the man had to ask twice when he came to her age. But he didn't look up, didn't challenge her, didn't demand proof. Marriage, divorce and gambling are Reno's business. They don't discourage business if they can help it.

'They went through the next step, the marriage itself, like robots. Later, neither Jeanette nor John could recall where they were married, by whom, or who stood up with them as a witness. They know that a justice of the peace mumbled a hurried ceremony, declared them man and wife according to the laws of the state of Nevada, and pocketed John's crumpled three dollars with a grunt.

'Then they walked out into the clear Reno sunshine and stared at each other.

'They thought first of telephoning Jeanette's girl friend in Merced. They did that, almost hysterically, and made the girl friend promise not to tell--certainly not to inform a parent. Then they sought a small hotel for their quick little honeymoon.

'Registering under the eye of a bored room clerk who couldn't have cared less was the most embarrassing part. After that, they were alone and in each other's arms.

"Never laugh at young love."

'It was, for the short frustrating time they had, a marriage. One night, and they had to return to Merced and face adult authority. They began to have misgivings.'

The annulment followed.

When the young woman returned to Stockton she was much perturbed.

'She thought that everybody knew all about her and was talking. Some did know--one way or another, stories like this get out--and they did talk.

"What kind of...