Shirley Slesinger Lasswell

Shirley Slesinger Lasswell (b. May 27, 1923 Detroit, Michigan - died July 19, 2007 Beverly Hills, CA) was an American brand marketing pioneer. She is best known for licensing the rights to Winnie The Pooh to the Walt Disney Company in 1961 and later suing the company in a dispute over royalties. cite news |first=|last=|title= Shirley Slesinger Lasswell|url= http://www.legacy.com/Obituaries.asp?Page=APStory&Id=13209|work= The Associated Press |publisher=Legacy.com |date=2007-07-20 |accessdate=2007-08-07 ]

Early and personal life

Lasswell was born Shirley Ann Basso in Detroit, Michigan on May 27, 1923. Lasswell worked as a Broadway showgirl early in her career. She met her first husband, Stephen Slesinger, while working on Broadway in 1947.

Slesinger and Lasswell were married in 1948. Actress Clara Bow and her husband, actor Rex Bell, served respectively as the maid of honor and the best man at the Slesinger's wedding. The marriage lasted until Slesinger's death in 1953.

In 1964, she married cartoonist Fred Lasswell, who was best known for his work on the comic, "Snuffy Smith" and "Barney Google". Fred Lasswell died in 2001.

Winnie The Pooh

Stephen Slesinger, Lasswell's husband, had obtained the exclusive licensing rights to market and sell Winnie The Pooh merchandise in the United States and Canada from British author A.A. Milne in 1929. (However, some news reports claim that the actual year was 1930.) cite news |first=Valerie J.|last=Nelson|title= Shirley Slesinger Lasswell; fought over Pooh royalties|url= http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2007/07/21/shirley_slesinger_lasswell_fought_over_pooh_royalties/|work= The Los Angeles Times |publisher=Boston Globe |date=2007-07-21 |accessdate=2007-08-07 ] The deal included the rights to Winnie the Pooh, as well as the other now famous characters, such as Christopher Robin, Eeyore, Tigger and Owl.

Stephen Slessinger died in 1953, just a few years after their wedding. His death left Lasswell a widow with a one year old daughter, Pati. Shirley Slessinger Lasswell inherited all of the American and Canadian rights to Winnie The Pooh. She later said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, "I thought, 'Now what do I do?' But it was right there for me. I decided to promote Pooh."

Lasswell initially began designing Winnie the Pooh related products, such as clothing, toys and dolls for sale at upscale American department stores in the 1950s under Stephen Slesinger Inc. However, Lasswell also began to branch out Winnie the Pooh for other markets. She was in the initial stages of developing Pooh for television when she met Walt Disney, founder and head of the Walt Disney Company. Disney wanted to create a television show featuring the Winnie The Pooh characters. Lasswell signed the first of two licensing agreements in 1961, which gave the Walt Disney Company the rights to Winnie The Pooh in exchange for royalty payments.

Royalties dispute

The dispute over royalties between Stephen Slesinger Inc. and the Walt Disney Company had its initial beginning in 1981. Lasswell was on a trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Lasswell was buying Pooh merchandise in the park (she described herself as a "Pooh shopaholic") when she said she noticed that she wasn't receiving a royalty payments for much of the merchandise that she saw being sold.Lasswell hired a lawyer to look into the matter.

In 1991, Stephen Slesinger Inc. filed a lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company, claiming that Disney had breached their contract and miscalculated the royalties owed to Lasswell under the 1961 Pooh licensing deal. Specifically, the lawsuit claimed that Disney had failed to pay millions of dollars in additional royalties for Pooh related products not specifically covered in the 1961 licensing agreement, but promised in a verbal agreement with Disney representatives. The products in question included computer software, DVDs, videos and other electronic merchandise. The Walt Disney Company denied owing any additional royalties.

Despite the lawsuit, Winnie The Pooh became even more profitable for the Walt Disney Company since the 1990s. The Pooh franchise reportedly brings in more than one billion dollars a year for Disney, which is more than its Mickey Mouse related merchandise.

The Winnie The Pooh legal battle between Stephen Slesinger, Inc. and Disney has continued for more than 16 year from 1991 to present day. The breach of contract lawsuit has so far involved three judges and a dozen separate law firms in both the California Superior Court and the U.S. federal courts.

There have been victories and defeats for both Disney and Stephen Slesinger, Inc., with both sides winning and losing key legal battles. Disney was sanctioned when it was found to have destroyed 40 boxes of paperwork related to the Pooh dispute. A California state judge threw out the lawsuit in 2004 after finding that misconduct had been committed by the Lasswell family. The judge accused Lasswell of hiring a private investigator in order to obtain Disney company documents from the trash. He also alleged that the Lasswell family altered court papers in order to cover up the charges. The 2004 decision by the California state judge is currently being appealed by the Lasswell family as of 2007.

Shirley Slesinger Lasswell died of respiratory failure at her home in Beverly Hills, California on July 19, 2007. She was 84 years old and was survived by her daughter, Pati Slesinger, and her granddaughter.

Her 1991 breach of contract lawsuit against Disney was still on going at the time of her death.

External links

* [http://www.legacy.com/Obituaries.asp?Page=APStory&Id=13209 Associated Press: Shirley Slesinger Lasswell]
* [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2007/07/21/shirley_slesinger_lasswell_fought_over_pooh_royalties/ Boston Globe: Shirley Slesinger Lasswell; fought over Pooh royalties]

References