Grease Producer
Allan Carr dies
Legendary Hollywood producer Allan Carr, 62, died June 29 in his home of cancer. Best known for having produced the stage hit La Cage Aux Folles and the megablockbuster film version of Grease (for which he was named producer of the year in 1978 by the National Association of Theater Owners), Carr was described in obits as "flashy," "larger-than-life," "a rare showman," and even "delicious." Although renowned in Hollywood's upper-crust Gay circles for his lavish parties, Carr neither hid nor discussed in the press his personal life. Having begun his career as a talent manager, Carr discovered Marlo Thomas at USC and managed celebrity clients such as Ann-Margret, Rosalind Russell, Tony Curtis, and Michelle Pfeiffer. He worked with Robert Stigwood on the movie Tommy, and the duo then produced Grease. Carr later produced Grease 2, Can't Stop the Music, and the remake of Where the Boys Are. In 1989 Carr produced the notorious Academy Awards telecast that opened with Rob Lowe's singing a duet with an unauthorized Disney Snow White; the resulting barrage of bad press, friends say, Carr took personally, and he largely withdrew from public life. His last great success was last year's theatrical rerelease of his greatest triumph, Grease. After recovering from a kidney transplant last Christmas, Carr reportedly learned he had cancer only a month ago. "He was a fabulous creature," Advocate columnist and Academy Awards joke writer Bruce Vilanch told The Hollywood Reporter. "He had an abiding love for the glamour of Hollywood, and for a brief period there, he was a part of it and one of its guiding lights."
FL Lesbian Mom
Denied Right
to Seek Visitation
A Florida appeals court has ruled that a Lesbian mother who raised a child with her former partner but lacks a biological or adoptive tie to the child does not have the right to seek visitation or custody now that the couple has split up, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said recently.
A three-judge panel of the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach on June 23 refused even to give Penny Kazmierazak the opportunity to present evidence about the maternal bonds between her and her daughter Zoey, now six years old.
"The court focused on the rights of Penny's former partner without stopping to consider the harm that befalls a child who is cut off from one of her parents," said Staff Attorney Stephen R. Scarborough of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.'s Southern Regional Office in Atlanta.
"Penny was there from the moment Zoey was born. She planned for Zoey's birth and even paid the medical bills. The law is truly out of step with the times if it won't allow a loving and caring mother the opportunity to see her child," said Scarborough, who argued the case in May. Lambda along with Vero Beach attorney Elizabeth Brooker represents Kazmierazak.
Kazmierazak and her former partner, Pamela Query, had been in a committed relationship for years when they planned to have a child together. Because Kazmierazak, a disabled veteran, could not get pregnant, Query carried the child, who was born in 1993. Kazmierazak was present in the delivery room and the women sought to have her listed on the birth certificate as a parent. More importantly, she was Zoey's primary caretaker, including while Pamela cared for an ailing relative.
Banned from adoption under Florida's anti-Gay law, the couple tried to protect their daughter's relationships with both mothers by executing a "delegation" of parental authority" to Kazmierazak. But when the couple split up in 1997, Query began restricting Kazmierazak's contact with Zoey, and in the spring of 1998, she cut off contact altogether.
The appeals decision upholds a trial judge's 1998 ruling that Kazmierazak had no standing to seek custody or even visitation-refusing even to reach the question whether Penny and Zoey had a mother-daughter relationship.
Said Kazmierazak, "My heart is broken with this ruling. The court just slammed the door on me without even hearing the facts. There is no justice in separating me from my daughter."
The court declared in its unanimous 5-page opinion in Kazmierazak v. Query that psychological parents do not have the same rights as biological parents, and that courts could not intervene absent evidence of harm to the child. yet the ruling means that no evidentiary hearing will be held to determine what is in the young girl's best interest.
MA Court: Gay People Have Visitation Rights
Gay people who help their partners raise a child have visitation rights if the couples break up, Massachusetts' highest court ruled June 29. The Supreme Judicial Court ruled in a case of a Lesbian who helped her partner raise her son, saying the woman was "de facto" a parent of the child. "It is to be expected that children of non-traditional families, like other children, form parent relationships with both parents, whether those parents are legal or de facto," Justice Ruth Abrams wrote for the four-member majority. Gay and Lesbian parents can adopt in Massachusetts, which would make them legal parents. But in the case considered by the court, the non-biological parent had not adopted the child. Justice Charles Fried, in a strongly worded dissent, said allowing visitation "was wholly without warrant in statute, precedent or any known legal principle."
