English Boy Star's Future

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22444, 13 June 1936, Page 16 (Supplement)

English Boy Star's Future

FREDDIE BARTHOLOMEW Tho Superior Court at Los Angeles rejected the petition of Mrs. Bartholomew, mother of Freddie Bartholomew, the 11-year-old English film star, for the restoration of guardianship over him. He is in the charge of his aunt, Miss Millicent Bartholomew. Tho hearing opened in an atmosphere of such bitter recrimination that Judge Archibald had to order all parties to keep their tempers. Mr. Leonard Meyberg, representing tho mother, indulged in heated exchanges with Mr. Felix Cunningham, counsel for the aunt, and charges of collusion, kidnapping and misappropriation of funds were made. Mr. Meyberg mentioned a fee of £SOO paid to Mr. Cunningham, while Mr. Cunningham, in turn, alleged that Mrs. Bartholomew was seeking publicity to exploit her son. The mother's suit, demands not only the voiding of the aunt's guardianship, but an accounting of the child's earnings and tho recovery of them, on the ground that parents are entitled to the boy's income. Affidavits by the grandparents and the aunt declared that the reason why tho parents failed to appear at the guardianship hearing last October was carelessness and neglect, and not bad legal advice given them by lawyers in London. The mother's counsel stressed the fact that she had been prevented from seeing her child since her arrival in Los Angeles, but the aunt's lawyers explained that tho child had been kept in seclusion not to avoid the mother, but to keep him from being harassed bj T reporters.