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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
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Former Agent Sues Julianna Margulies

(CN) - "The Good Wife" TV star Julianna Margulies owes her former managers their 10 percent commissions, D/F Management claims in Los Angeles Superior Court.

D/F Management sued Margulies and her loan-out company, Toast Productions, for breach of contract.

Margulies, formerly a star on the TV show "ER," suffered some career reverses before D/F helped revive it by getting her the slot on "The Good Wife" and getting her a spokeswoman job with L'Oreal, D/F says in its complaint.

D/F claims that Margulies hired it in early 2009, after her poorly rated 2008 show, "Canterbury's Law," was canceled after a few episodes. Margulies was then under different management.

According to the complaint, Steve Dotanville represented Margulies in the early 1990s, when he was with International Creative Management, now known as ICM Partners. Dotanville, who is not a party to this complaint, retired in 2005 and Margulies got another agent, D/F says. It says that when Margulies hired D/F to represent her, in early 2009, Dotanville was a principal of D/F.

Under their February 2009 oral agreement, D/F says, Margulies agreed to pay it 10 percent commissions on her gross earnings. It claims it helped her get the leading role in the CBS show "The Good Wife" in March 2009, for which Margulies won a Golden Globe, two Screen Actors Guild awards and an Emmy for Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

"By the summer of 2010, with a hit show, an extremely lucrative contract with CBS, and several awards under her belt, Margulies had in large part obtained what she sought when she retained D/F Management - she was once again extremely wealthy, popular, and successful," the complaint states.

It continues: "Nevertheless, Margulies began pondering ways to save money and cut back on her admittedly stellar representation. Ironically, given her trusted relationship with D/F Management, she sought D/F Management's advice in order to 'figure out' how to eliminate or significantly reduce a portion of her entertainment lawyer's commissions."

Margulies sent D/F an email on July 12, 2010, stating "... I've been paying him [her attorney] a lot of money my whole career, he gets 5% of everything I do, but really only works once every blue moon for me ...," according to the complaint.

D/F cites several other messages from Margulies that praise its work. It claims that it also got her "an extremely lucrative, multi-year contract" as a spokeswoman for L'Oreal Cosmetic. But on April 29, 2011, Margulies fired D/F and "wrongfully and inexplicably stopped all payments," the complaint states.

D/F says she owes it its 10 percent commission from the "Good Wife" and L'Oreal deals: "no less than $420,000."

D/M Management is represented by Mathew Rosengart with Greenberg Traurig.

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