NEWS - Cherry Boom! Ultima ora, la battaglia legale tra Marc Cherry e Nicolette Sheridan in cui quest'ultima rivendica esclusione dal cast di DH+aggressione s'infiamma...

Articolo di Ted Johnson per "Variety"

An attorney for "Desperate Housewives" creator Marc Cherry tried to show inconsistencies in actress Nicollette Sheridan's claim that Cherry struck her in the head during a script dispute, an incident at the heart of her multimillion-dollar wrongful termination suit.

On cross examination in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday, Sheridan sparred with attorney Adam Levin as he queried her on why she called Cherry's strike a "slap" in one government document but testified on Thursday that she was "hit." Sheridan said that the "slap" reference actually was made by her lawyer in filling out an official state form on the incident. Sheridan, who played Edie Britt on the show, claims that Cherry had her character killed off after the 2008-09 season in retaliation for complaining about the incident. On Thursday, she testified that in September 2008, she took Cherry aside on the set and queried him on why one of her lines was excised from the script. Cherry, she said, "stepped toward me and he took his right hand and he hit me upside the head." She said that he later came back to her trailer to apologize. Cherry's lawyers contend that he gave Sheridan a light tap meant to give her direction for a scene.

Sheridan admitted that in the immediate aftermath she did not contact human resources executives, the Screen Actors Guild or police, and later that day she went to Tiffany's in Beverly Hills and to meet a friend at the Grill. But a day later she did express her concerns about the incident to George Perkins, one of the show's executive producers, and told him that Cherry "needs to know that he can't behave like that." She also asked that Cherry send her flowers.

Levin also tried to show that killing off her character was not unusual for a series where many cast members come and go.

He spent a great deal of time trying to show that Sheridan was not a star of the show on par with Eva Longoria, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross and Teri Hatcher, pointing out that their picture appeared in the opening credits and hers did not. And he cited some of their nominations in the best actress Emmy category, while she earned a supporting actress nomination at the Golden Globes.

Levin even showed jurors a seven-minute video montage, titled "Deaths on Wisteria Lane," of what may have been every character ever killed off on the show -- dozens of shootings, maimings, clubbings -- including Sheridan's character Edie Britt. But Levin was rebuffed by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Allen White as he sought to question Sheridan on how this was similar to another show in which she was cast, the primetime soap "Knots Landing."

Meeting with lawyers after jurors had been excused for the day, White said that "Knots" was a "'Dynasty'-like show" and "not a comedy, so it is not really comparable," adding that jurors would be able to decide for themselves.

Levin persisted, but White said, "I am not going to discuss the history of television in this case."

Outside the court, one of Sheridan's lawyers, Mark Baute, dismissed concerns that his client lost her composure during cross examination. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," he said.

He also said that the characterization of a "slap" and a "hit" was not important to the case. "She said probably 8 to 10 times that she was hit, and hit hard," he said.

(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)