Actress wins suit

Press, 28 March 1981, Page 8

Actress wins suit

NZPA-Reuter S' New York On the day Carol Burnett won a SI.6M judgment in her suit against the “National Enquirer,” the tabloid’s lead story was focused on another celebrity — Elizabeth Taylor. “Seventh marriage crumbling. Liz Taylor and hubby in raging public fights,” headlines on the cover of this week’s edition say. A story inside the publication quotes “insiders” as saying Miss Taylor’s marriage to Senator John Warner is “crumbling around her.” It quotes a “close acquaintance” of Jliss Taylor as

saying the marriage, her seventh, “is heading for a quick ending.” Yesterday Senator Warner’s office issued a statement saying that the couple’s attorneys “are seeking a prompt retraction from the ‘National Enquirer’ for the . false story which appeared in the tabloid. If the retraction is not satisfactory, the Warners will consider litigation.” Chen Sam, a spokeswoman for Miss Taylor, said yesterday the actress was not available to comment on the “Enquirer’s” story. It was reported from Los Angeles that entertainers were expected to go ahead with legal suits seeking at

leas’t S92M from the “National Enquirer.” “This could open the floodgates” said an actors’ agent, Marty Ingles who with his wife, the actress Shirley Jones, has sued the weekly for SIOM.

A lawyer for the weekly, which has an estimated circulation of five million, said of the jury’s award: “This is the equivalent of capital punishment for a corporation. The ‘National Enquirer’ will appeal.” Tears of joy slid down the face of Miss Burnett when she heard a Los Angeles Superior Court jury award her SL3M in punitive damages and $300,000 in general