Records related to legal actions involving Doris Day, the New Yorker, John Updike, and Jerome B. Rosenthal
Overview
Documents and correspondence relating to legal actions undertaken by Doris Day, Jerome B. Rosenthal, John Updike, and the New Yorker magazine.
Dates
- Creation: 1979-1986
Language of Materials
English
Conditions Governing Access
Open for research.
This collection is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine what material is offsite and retrieval policies and times.
Extent
.08 linear feet (1 box)Collection includes correspondence, depositions, trial briefs, affidavits, and clippings; most are carbon copies or photocopies.
Biographical / Historical
Actress and singer Doris Day experienced a financial crisis in the 1960s brought on when her husband and agent, Marty Melcher, in league with lawyer Jerome B. Rosenthal, squandered her millions in a wide range of unethical investments; Rosenthal commonly mixed his own funds with that of his clients in these dealings. When Melcher died suddently in 1968, Rosenthal claimed rights to half of the fortune; Day sued. She was found in 1974 to be entitled to $22 million. In 1987, following years of delaying tactics by Rosenthal, the California Supreme Court disbarred him and the case was closed.
The biography, Doris Day; Her Own Story, was published in 1975 and reviewed by John Updike in the New Yorker in 1976. The review included a reference to Rosenthal as a swindler, and Rosenthal brought suit against the New Yorker and John Updike for libel. A Los Angeles Superior Court jury found in 1982 that the magazine and Updike had not libeled Rosenthal.
Arrangement
Collection is minimally processed.
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
2020M-44. Gift of Naomi Greene, 2019 October.
Processing Information
Processed by Melanie Wisner, 2019.
Subject
- Day, Doris, 1922-2019 (Person)
- Rosenthal, Jerome B. (Person)
- Melcher, Martin (Person)
- Title
- Records related to legal actions involving Doris Day, the New Yorker, John Updike, and Jerome B. Rosenthal, 1979-1986 (MS Am 3342): Guide
- Status
- in_progress
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard University
- Date
- 2019 November 5
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou03276
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
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