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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Burl Ives’ Widow Sues Writer Over Planned Autobiography

Associated Press

The widow of actor-balladeer Burl Ives is suing an Anacortes writer over an “as-told-to” autobiography of Ives and for $3,500 in unpaid personal loans.

Dorothy Ives filed the lawsuit against Lester M. Goldsmith last week in Skagit County Superior Court.

“I evidently got involved with a flake,” Ives said Sunday from her home in Anacortes, about 15 miles west of here and 65 miles northwest of Seattle.

Burl Ives and Goldsmith signed a contract on Nov. 3, 1993, to work together on a book to be called “The Best of Times … After Sixty, the autobiography of Burl Ives as told to Lester Goldsmith.”

They were to share profits from the book equally. The agreement was to expire within a year if they had not gotten a contract with a publisher by then, or within 18 months if the book was not published by then.

Before Ives’ April 14 death, Goldsmith submitted a portion of his manuscript.

“I read Burl parts of it six weeks before he died,” Mrs. Ives said. “He said, ‘This is everything I had in my first book. I’d be plagiarizing myself.”’

Since Ives’ death, Mrs. Ives said, she has asked repeatedly to see the manuscript.

“I asked and I asked and I asked and nothing. Burl had spent two years talking to this man,” she said. “We hated to do this, but we didn’t have any choice.”

The lawsuit seeks return of all documents Goldsmith borrowed and tapes he made of interviews with Ives and others. It also asks that Goldsmith be barred from publishing any material concerning Ives.

Goldsmith declined comment on the lawsuit, but said the book project was under way.

“It’s been in the process for quite some time,” he said.

His attorney, Michael Gossler, also declined comment.

Mrs. Ives and and her daughter Barbara Vaughn also seek repayment of $3,500 in personal loans to Goldsmith.

The lawsuit says he has made no attempt to repay a $1,000 loan from Mrs. Ives made Sept. 23, 1994, which was to have been repaid by Oct. 31, 1994.

Goldsmith gave Vaughn a $2,500 check to repay a loan from her, but stopped payment on it, the lawsuit says.

No trial date has been set. Mrs. Ives said she hopes the lawsuit will prompt a settlement. She and her late husband met Goldsmith three years ago when he requested an interview.

“Burl wasn’t really up to doing any interviews, but he told Burl that he had been a writer for Variety and Burl really liked him - so did we all,” Mrs. Ives said.

Goldsmith wrote a weekly column in the Anacortes American for several months in 1991. It was discontinued after disputes about its quality, said the paper’s former editor, Mark Carlson.