AL JOLSON AT LAW

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 650, 30 September 1933, Page 3

AL JOLSON AT LAW

SUIT FOR £100,000 ACCUSES GOSSIP-WRITER OF "SAYING THINGS ABOUT HIS WIFE." HOLLYWOOD SENSATION. ..Nwe York, Sdptember 1. It is war to the kntfe hetween Mr. A1 Jolson, New York's highest paid songster and comedian, and Mr, W'al.ter Wirichell, New York's highest paid writer of newspaper gossip and scandal. A few weeks ago, at Hollywood, during the progress of a prize fight, attention was usddenly deflected from the ringside hy the spcctacle of the singer knocking down the gossiper. To-day Mr. Winchel lserved Mr. Jolson with a damage suit for £100,000 He asks for this amount not for physical damages inflicted on him, but for injury to his reputation among his millions of readers, who, he says, I have bcen led to believe by Mr. JolI son's attack that he could'be guilty of maligning the wife of an old-time I friend. I Mr. Jolson and he had heen friends , for 15 years, Mr. Minchell said, and when he passsd him in the Hollywood Stadium he greeted him cheerily. But Mr. Jolson, instead of rei turning the greeting, aimed a blow at his face, and, as he ducked, caught " him several blows on the back of the neck, exclaiming: "You will write things about my wife, will you?" Mr. Jolson's wife, Miss Ruhy Kel1 ler, was crying and M3r. Winchell's ' wife hit Mr. Jolson with her shoe, , which she ha^ hastily pulled off her foot. Mr. Winchell's offence is emhodied in a scenario he sold to Twentieth Century Productions. The singer declares the scenario purports to represent his romance with Miss Ruby Keller and to connect his wife with gangdom and the notorious New York gangster, Larry Fay. "Why cannot Mr. Winchell let us alone?' 'asks Mr. JolsoP. "We have heen married almost five years and we are the quietest couple in the theatnical business. In all that time we have never been in a night club, and yet this 'egomaniac' comes along and tries to stir up a lot of dirt out of nothing."