Hollywood star Olivia de Havilland is suing FX network and Ryan Murphy Productions for “false light” over the way she is portrayed in a docudrama “Feud” that concerns a rivalry between two other stars, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Davis and Crawford are dead, but de Havilland, at age 101, is still very much alive.
“I believe in the right to free speech,” says de Havilland, “but it certainly must not be abused by using it to protect published falsehoods or to improperly benefit from the use of someone’s name and reputation without their consent.
The suit raises the interesting question of how much a living historical figure can control what is said about them. See: New York Times story March 3, 2018.
