With one of his top teen television stars taking too much off the top in Gear and the adult magazine's listing him as a senior editor on top of that, 7th Heaven's producer is giving Gear a Spelling test - Aaron Spelling has filed a $100 million dollar lawsuit against the magazine and its editor-publisher Bob Guccione, Jr.
The suit actually springs from comments made by teen actress Jessica Biel, who stars in 7th Heaven and posed topless for the May issue. But Spelling fumed over Guccione's listing him as a senior editor of Gear in the issue - and for all but calling him a pimp regarding his television star daughter.
Guccione has said the masthead was meant as a gag, but Spelling and his attorney aren't buying it, says the New York Post. "Instead of saying 'I'm sorry I created a problem here,'" Spelling attorney Burt Fields tells the paper, "Guccione said Mr. Spelling was pimping for his daughter and turned her into a cardboard cutout slut. That certainly didn't make Mr. Spelling take kindly to Mr. Guccione."
The pimping remark alluded to Spelling's daughter, Tori, who has been a star on Spelling's Beverly Hills, 90210 (now known only as 90210) from the show's creation in 1991.
Guccione's attorney Victor Kovner tells the Post the Gear article was done carefully and "perfectly appropriate", promising a clarification in the April issue.
The entire uproar began when word got out that Biel was quoted in her article as saying Spelling stopped her from getting choice film roles, even to where she quoted Spelling as telling her he owns her.
She has suggested the topless layout and article were part of a bid to get herself off 7th Heaven, a gentle family drama which she says has her typecast as a straight-arrow and thus unable to get different film roles. But the Post also says she has just landed a role in the forthcoming Summer Catch with Freddie Prinze, Jr.
She was 17 when she posed for the layout, but her father's accompanying her made it legal, the Post says.
