Steinbeck films stall as wrathful relatives take feud to court
Author’s stepdaughter at odds with his son’s widow amid claims Hollywood movie deals were sabotaged
CLASSIC works by John Steinbeck are at the centre of a bitter court battle between relatives involving powerful Hollywood studios and A-list stars.
The denouement to a decades-long family feud is playing out in a court room in Los Angeles, a few hundred miles south of the Salinas Valley where Steinbeck grew up and which inspired much of his work. In court, the cast of characters was headed by his octogenarian stepdaughter Waverly Scott Kaffaga, and Gail Knight Steinbeck, widow of the author’s late son, Thom.
When the Nobel Prize-winning author died he left control of his work, including masterpieces The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and Of Mice and Men, to Elaine Steinbeck, his third wife. Mrs Kaffaga is her daughter from a previous relationship.
Under an agreement reached in 1983 control of Steinbeck’s work was granted to Mrs Kaffaga.
In 2014 Mrs Kaffaga sued Mrs Steinbeck, and her company The Paladin Group, accusing her of interfering with prospective Hollywood movie deals.
The Grapes of Wrath had been made into a big-screen classic starring Henry Fonda in 1940, and East of Eden starring James Dean came out in 1955.
More than half a century later, Hollywood was keen on remaking East of Eden, to star Jennifer Lawrence, and in reworking The Grapes of Wrath, this time directed by Steven Spielberg.
But Mrs Kaffaga claimed every time she was close to a deal, Mrs Steinbeck intervened and threatened legal action, forcing the studios to back off.
Mrs Kaffaga is seeking at least $6.5million (£5.03million) in damages from Mrs Steinbeck, and the case is being considered by a judge and a jury of six. In the witness box, Mrs Kaffaga described her stepfather as a man who “wrote quite a few books,” and said she was 12 when she first met him. Elaine Steinbeck, her mother, a stage manager, was married to him for 18 years until his death in 1968.
Mrs Kaffaga said: “She (my mother) felt it was important that John not be forgotten. I haven’t been able to do what my mother wanted me to do,;what John would have wanted me to do.” She said the author’s work had been “dirtied by these legalities”.
Mrs Kaffaga accused Mrs Steinbeck of secretly signing a “side deal” worth $650,000 with the Dreamworks studio in relation to the Spielberg version of The Grapes of Wrath. That deal was said to include an “executive producer” credit for Thom Steinbeck.
Taking the stand later, Mrs Steinbeck was asked to spell her name. She said: “Steinbeck. Like Grapes of Wrath.”
Susan Kohlmann, Mrs Kaffaga’s lawyer, responded that she had married into the family and had never met John Steinbeck.
Mrs Steinbeck, through the estate of her late husband who died last year, receives $120,000 a year in royalties the books still generate.
The court heard that Mrs Steinbeck had sent emails saying she would turn the proposed East of Eden film into “litigation city”. In one email she wrote: “This movie will never get made.” Confronted with the emails, Mrs Steinbeck said: “Oh, that was silly.”
She denied trying to scupper the movies, saying: “No way. Are you kidding? It’s Steven Spielberg. He’s a genius. We wanted this deal to happen.”
The case continues.
‘She (my mother) felt it was important that John not be forgotten. I haven’t been able to do what my mother wanted me to do; what John would have wanted me to do.’