Smart Family Hires Entertainment Lawyer

CBS News ^

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Smart Family Hires Entertainment Lawyer

SALT LAKE CITY, April 5, 2003

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Elizabeth Smart with her father, Ed (AP/Deseret News, Tom Smart) Elizabeth with her parents Lois and Ed (AP Photo/Deseret News, Tom Smart)

(AP) Elizabeth Smart's family has hired a Los Angeles entertainment attorney to help them screen movie and book proposals about Elizabeth's abduction and remarkable return.

Kelly Crabb, who reportedly has negotiated contracts for Paul McCartney, Dave Matthews and Muhammad Ali, was hired a week ago, said Chris Thomas, the family's spokesman.

According to his firm's Web site, Crabb's areas of practice include motion picture, television and other programming production and financing; composer agreements, personal appearances and motion picture distribution.

"These kind of contracts are very specialized," Thomas said.

Crabb received bachelor's and master's degrees from Brigham Young University before earning a law degree from Columbia University in 1984. He also worked for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee.

Elizabeth, now 15, was abducted from her bedroom on the night of June 5. On March 12, she was found in a Salt Lake suburb with her alleged kidnappers.

[Utah Girl]

Smart is donating his share of the proceeds to a childrens' foundation

[Servant of the Nine]

If you love your kid you don't exploit them by allowing Hollywierd to do any kind of movie on them until the kid is healed mentally and you have thought long and hard about the repercussions of this.

They don't have that choice. Hollywood is going to make a couple of unautherized versions whatever you do. They cannot be legally stopped. The only choice the parents have is to trade the Authorized Story rights for some control of the content of one of the movies, to try to get at least one movie to paint a sympathetic portrait of the girl.

So9

[Utah Girl]

The Smarts have said that they will donate any proceeds to a childrens' foundation. Tom Smart, the uncle, who took the first photos of Elizabeth at home, sold the photos to Getty, and is donating his part of the proceeds to a childrens' rescue and recovery foundation. Mary Katherine Smart is up for part of the reward for helping to find Elizabeth, that reward money will be donated to a childrens foundation.

[Mamzelle]

If you've ever seen, at close range, someone achieve celebrity--it is a very strange thing to behold. Even those around the celebrity become amazingly addled. Fame is a commodity like wealth, it forever changes one, long after the fame is gone the individual is still compulsively striking poses for effect.

Attention can be intoxicating, and intoxication leads to addiction. It's a rare individual who can keep his head on straight--and some lose theirs much more easily.

[babylonian]

I agree with you to a point, but the quote you reference in your post #8 of the uncle saying "It's a beautiful story" makes all the difference to me, in this case. That one inadvertent comment told me from the gitgo that there was a hidden side to this whole thing, and the Smarts knew more than they ever revealed. Probably even to the cops.

No screenwriter is ever going to explore that dark area in the telling of the story. It'll simply be TV fodder as a story of a family's struggle, with a happy ending. I think only the Smarts know the true plotline here, and they obviously ain't tellin'. That's the story I want to hear.

[Utah Girl]

Sorry to take offense, but when you say "Mormon freak show" exactly what am I supposed to think? And I already thanked you for the explanation. I understand your point now, again I'm sorry.

[Marysecretary]

My own feeling about this is that they think they should get the story out before someone else does who wouldn't write it well. I could be wrong.

[Marysecretary]

Are those her real legs or is this virtual calving?

[bonfire]

Illbay pointed out that the comment from the Uncle was bogus. I don't have any credible links to whether Tom did or did not say that. I'll concede this one to Illbay unless someone has a link?

[Marysecretary]

I agree.

[Cincinatus]

I don't know -- we're still looking for volunteers for a suicide mission to find out.

[Mamzelle]

If someone said "Baptist Freak Show" I'd assume we were discussing Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Of course, a Southern Baptist might assume we're discussing Independents. Independents might assume we were discussing Southerns.

A thick skin is a blessed thing.

[Dengar01]

Those parents were creeps from the start. Who exploited Elizabeth more, the kidnappers or her parents? I'd say it is a toss up. It's one thing for strangers to exploit you but when your parents exploit you it is the worst.

[Utah Girl]

Ed Smart was on TV for the first few days after Elizabeth was found, but he sure hasn't been around since that first week. I think the Iraq war starting had a lot to do with booting the Smart story off the front page. Last I heard of him, he had written a letter to the Congress about the Amber Alert bill, the family has really dropped out of sight. And I know that my view is not the popular one here by any means, but Ed Smart being able to stay in the public eye, making friends with John Walsh, helped get the sketch of Mitchell on America's Most Wanted. Mitchell's family members recognized the name (not the sketch so much), sent in recent photos of Mitchell, and that is how Elizabeth was found.

[Risa]

>>This was a simple runaway-kid story from the beginning,..<<

I hadn't considered she was a run-away; I am curious what makes you think so?

I would hope that most Americans find the story line as boring as I do. Watching two adults, whose minds are twisted by untreated psychosis, going about their sick little lives, and hijacking the vulnerable mind of a young person, is hardly entertaining--it's cheezy and repulsive and I hope no one watches it. Society surely deserves better from the entertainment media, imo.

risa

[BSunday]

He said that? What a moron.

[hergus]

"Meanwhile, David Smart, Elizabeth's uncle, will participate Monday in a panel discussion on "How the Media Treated Me"..."

Next we'll be seeing L.Lin Wood representing the Smart brothers against the tabloids a la the Ramsey's.

[mountaineer]

I agree, it looks like America's Most Wanted "cracked" the case by getting Mitchell's face and name before the public.

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

AUGH!!

[Marysecretary]

Nah, it's there, Illbay.