Why Kirk Douglas filed a lawsuit against Walt Disney: “You can’t sue God”
Scarlett Johansson earned plaudits from across the industry when she stood her ground and went head-to-head with the Disney monolith in a battle over lost earnings, but as it turned out, she was merely following the path Kirk Douglas had carved out almost 70 years beforehand.
Things were different for the Golden Age icon, though, most notably because Walt Disney was still alive. The record-breaking Academy Award winner and mastermind behind one of the industry’s most sprawling empires was used to getting his own way, and he wouldn’t have expected an actor he’d worked with to such great success to file a lawsuit against him.
Richard Fleischer’s 1954 favourite, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, was the first time Douglas had anchored a Disney-backed picture, and it was also the last. It was a massive success on every front, conquering the box office and winning two Academy Awards before being folded into the company’s theme parks as an attraction. But it was what happened afterwards that pissed the actor off.
To help promote the opening of Disneyland in July 1955, Walt pulled out all the stops. The marketing machine revved up to an unprecedented extent, which included the industry mogul allowing the cameras to gain never-before-granted access to his personal and professional lives.
As part of the hype package, a television special aired on ABC twice, which featured Douglas and his children visiting Disney’s home and apparently having the time of their lives riding around on the miniature railway he kept on the property. However, the Academy Award nominee didn’t agree or consent to footage of himself or his family being broadcast, so he decided to sue.
Per The New York Times, Douglas sought $200,000 in compensation, $200,000 in punitive damages, and $15,000 for his time. Being the stand-up guy that he was, he had no intention of keeping the money to himself, were he to emerge victorious in the courtroom.
Instead, he vowed that he would be “foregoing any possible personal gains and will turn over any money (after taxes and legal expenses) I may win in the court action to the Motion Picture Relief Fund”. Turning his ire towards Disney, Douglas trashed the man, his company, and the network for the way they’d “betrayed and violated” his personal security.
Douglas’ lawyer released a public statement declaring that “it is reprehensible and inexcusable to photograph an actor at a private gathering and to use such motion picture film commercially without the actor’s consent”, with the Spartacus figurehead once again ahead of the curve in defending his right to privacy.
It sent shockwaves through the industry that someone who’d recently headlined a major Disney release was now suing him, but the reverberations quickly died down when the prospect of taking the corporate machine to task suddenly became too daunting.
Did he win? No, he didn’t, because the case never saw the inside of a courtroom. Despite the protestations of his lawyer, Douglas decided to drop the lawsuit. Why? As he explained, “I doubt if I could have gotten anywhere with it. You can’t sue God”.
