Photos: Hollywood’s most unglamorous feuds
By Patrick Kevin Day
George Takei vs. William Shatner
The former Mr. Sulu wed his longtime boyfriend, Brad Altman, in a ceremony in Los Angeles in September 2008. “Star Trek” cast-mates Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig were in attendence. Conspicuously absent was Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner. However, Shatner made his feelings known weeks later in a video message released on YouTube in which he claimed he wasn’t invited to the wedding and that Takei’s antipathy towards him was a “psychosis.” Takei responded by saying Shatner was invited, but failed to respond and that his giant ego would not allow anyone else to have the spotlight. (Gus Ruelas / Associated Press)
Spike Lee verus Clint Eastwood
While talking to the press for his film, “The Miracle at St. Anna,” at the Cannes Film Festival, Spike Lee claimed Clint Eastwood used too few black actors as soldiers in his film, “Flags of Our Fathers.” Eastwood responded in the press by saying his films were historically accurate and that Lee should “shut his face.” Lee told ABCNews.com, “First of all, the man is not my father and we’re not on a plantation.” He then said Eastwood sounded like an angry old man. Lee later told The New Yorker magazine that he ended the feud by telling Steven Spielberg to tell Eastwood that it was over. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)
Jon Lovitz versus Andy Dick: According to the Page Six, the two comedians have been feuding ever since Phil Hartman’s death in 1997, which Lovitz has long-blamed Dick of contributing to by giving Hartman’s wife cocaine at a party, setting her off on a bender that ended in Hartman’s death. Dick approached Lovitz at a Hollywood restaurant last year and claimed to put “the Phil Hartman hex” on him, saying he’d be the next to die. When the two met at the Laugh Factory in July 2007, Lovitz took matters a step further by smashing Dick’s head on the bar “four or five times,” until “blood started pouring out his nose.” We’re awaiting round three. (Dan Steinberg / AP / Peter Kramer / Getty Images)
Producer Cathy Schulman versus producer Bob Yari: Last March, independent film financier Bob Yari, right, sued the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Producers Guild of America for unlawfully denying him a producers credit on Crash. But the true subjects of the attack were Cathy Schulman, center, and Tom Nunan (not pictured; another producer, Mark Harris, is on the left), who were credited as the films producers. The same day, they filed suit as well, charging that Yari failed to pay them more than $2 million in fees connected to the movie. (Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images)
Advertisement
Director Peter Jackson versus New Line CEO Robert Shaye: After helming the blockbuster, multi-Oscar-winning “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Jackson, pictured, thought New Line Cinema was being stingy with the profits. He filed suit to open the books. Shaye thought Jackson was behaving more like a Nazgul than a colleague, so he cut ties with the New Zealand-based filmmaker, stating, “He will never make any movie with New Line Cinema again while I’m still working for the company.” (Mark J. Terrill / AP)
Joe Eszterhas versus Michael Ovitz: Screenwriter Eszterhas, left, became a Hollywood hot property after scripting the thriller “Basic Instinct,” starring a pantyless Sharon Stone. Before that incendiary episode Eszterhas tried to fire Creative Artists Agency superagent MIchael Ovitz, fueling a conflagration that, according to Eszterhas, prompted Ovitz, right, to write him a note reading, “My foot soldiers who go up and down Wilshire Boulevard each day will blow your brains out.” (LAT / AP)
