Actor Paul Newman exploded in anger on the witness stand on Friday in Connecticut, yelling at a lawyer who accused him of misusing profits from his salad dressing company that he promised to give to charities.
The outburst came as Newman testified for the second day in his own defense against a breach of contract lawsuit filed by Westport delicatessen owner Julius Gold.
Gold claims he helped create and market Newman’s popular dressing and was promised eight percent of the company’s stock for his help.
Newman denies the charge and says he gives all of the profits to charities.
The judge called a midmorning break to cool down tempers.
TICKLING THE IVORIES
Pianist Van Cliburn is to perform in Dallas for the first time in 11 years at the inauguration next year of the new home of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
The concert at the Morton S. Meyerson Symphony Center is scheduled for Sept. 8, 1989, a symphony official said.
The pianist, who lives in Fort Worth, began to perform again recently after 11 years. He accepted President Reagan’s invitation to perform at a White House dinner for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev last fall.
The $79 million Meyerson center will hold its first music-making event with an orchestra concert on Sept. 6, 1989. The invitation-only performance will feature violinist Isaac Stern as guest soloist.
CHARACTER REFERENCE
Wall Street bad guy Michael Douglas made his first appearance as a court witness when he testified during a murder trial in San Francisco.
Douglas, who won an Academy Award for his role as a greedy tycoon in the film, was called as a character witness at the murder trial of David Thompson, a beer importer accused of killing his landlord with a .357-caliber Magnum.
Douglas testified he met Thompson six times in 1986 when he was considering investing in the importer’s firm. He said he never saw Thompson show signs of a hot temper.
Thompson displayed “good business acumen and good marketing skills,” said Douglas, who saw some make-believe court action as a police officer in the 1970s television series The Streets of San Francisco.
AN HONORABLE STUDENT
Actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who plays Bill Cosby’s decidedly unacademic son in the top-rated NBC television show, has graduated from Professional Children’s School with high honors.
At the graduation, Warner, 17, was cheered on by one of his co-stars on The Cosby Show, Tempestt Bledsoe, 15, who plays a younger sister. In his role as Theo Huxtable, Warner struggles through his homework while dreaming of flying.
The actor said his first plans were to “buy myself a new car.”
After graduation, Warner went back to work in Three Ways Home, a three- person play at the off-Broadway Astor Place Theater. He was treated to cake at an onstage party afterward.
