Names and faces
■ A tentative settlement has been reached in a lawsuit alleging that actor James Franco intimidated students at his acting and film school into gratuitous and exploitative sexual situations, attorneys for the plaintiffs said Saturday. The two sides filed a status report in Los Angeles Superior Court, telling a judge a settlement had been reached in the class-action suit brought by former students at the now-defunct school, Studio 4, though elements of the lawsuit may live on. The document does not reveal how much money may be involved in the deal. Actresses Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, who filed the suit in 2019, have agreed to drop their individual claims, according to the court filing. Their lawsuit said Franco, 42, pushed his students into performing in increasingly explicit sex scenes on camera in an “orgy type setting” that went far beyond those acceptable on Hollywood film sets. It alleged that Franco “sought to create a pipeline of young women who were subjected to his personal and professional sexual exploitation in the name of education,” and that students were led to believe roles in Franco’s films would be available to those who went along. The lawsuit said the incidents occurred in a master class on sex scenes that Franco taught at the studio, which opened in 2014 and closed in 2017. Before filing the lawsuit, Tither-Kaplan aired her allegations in the Los Angeles Times along with other women after Franco won a Golden Globe Award for the film “The Disaster Artist” in early 2018, when the #MeToo movement was sweeping across Hollywood. On “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Franco called the sexual misconduct stories inaccurate, but said, “If I’ve done something wrong, I will fix it. I have to.”
■ The Maine mansion that actor John Travolta shared with his late wife, actor Kelly Preston, has been put up for sale. The 67-yearold star of “Grease” and “Saturday Night Fever” recently listed the home on the island of Islesboro for $5 million, according to the Portland Press Herald. The couple bought the property in 1991 as newlyweds and turned it from a “very dark and somber” house into a bright family home, according to a 1999 feature in Architectural Digest. Built in 1903, the 10,830-square-foot home has 20 bedrooms and sits on a 48-acre estate along the ocean. Travolta told the magazine that he and Preston bought the home after visiting actor Kirstie Alley at her home on the island. The couple said they had always wanted a place big enough to entertain their dozens of family members. Preston, who had roles alongside Tom Cruise in “Jerry Maguire” and Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Twins,” died last year after a two-year battle with breast cancer. She was 57. Travolta became a Hollywood star in the 1970s and was nominated for an Oscar for his 1977 performance in “Saturday Night Fever,” and again in 1994 for his role in “Pulp Fiction.”