Gloria Allred: Difference between revisions
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In the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "[[Cripple Fight]]," Gloria Allred is [[Big Gay Al]]'s lawyer against a [[Scouting|Boy Scouts]]-like club that excludes homosexuals. |
In the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "[[Cripple Fight]]," Gloria Allred is [[Big Gay Al]]'s lawyer against a [[Scouting|Boy Scouts]]-like club that excludes homosexuals. |
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In the ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode of "[[I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar]]," the character of Gloria Ironbox is a parody of Gloria Allred. |
In the ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode of "[[I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar]]," the character of Gloria Ironbox is a parody of Gloria Allred..{{Citation Needed|date=August 2009}} |
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She appeared on [[Dr. Phil]] with [[Nadya Suleman]] aka "Octomom". |
She appeared on [[Dr. Phil]] with [[Nadya Suleman]] aka "Octomom". |
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Revision as of 15:46, 16 August 2009
Gloria Rachel Allred (née Bloom; born July 3, 1941) is an American lawyer. She is also the mother of former Court TV hostess Lisa Bloom.
Early life
Allred was born in Philadelphia, on July 3, 1941. After high school, she attended the University of Pennsylvania. There she met her first husband and married. At age 20, she gave birth to Lisa. Soon after Lisa's birth, Allred and her husband divorced.
A newly single mother, Allred moved back in with her parents and continued her studies in school, graduating with honors with a bachelor's degree in English in 1963. She tried her hand at a variety of jobs before she decided to become a teacher. After taking a position at Benjamin Franklin High School, she began working on her master's degree at New York University. While there, she became interested in the civil rights movement, which was beginning to gain momentum. After earning her master's degree in 1966, she returned to Philadelphia to teach at a high school with a predominantly African-American enrollment.[citation needed]
Allred moved to Los Angeles and married her second husband, William Allred, in 1968. They divorced in 1987.[citation needed] Allred attended Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, California and was admitted to the California State Bar in 1975.[1]
Career
 | This article's factual accuracy is disputed. (March 2008) |
Gloria Allred represented Amber Frey when Frey was a witness in the criminal case against Scott Peterson. She has also represented cases against the Boy Scouts of America for excluding an eleven year old girl named Katrina Yeaw, something she referred to as gender apartheid, and a case against the former Sav-On Drugstore chain for having both a boys and a girls toy section, as well as representing actress Hunter Tylo when producer Aaron Spelling fired her because of her pregnancy.[2]
Early in her career in Los Angeles, Allred made a name for herself by successfully suing the then all-male Friars Club in Beverly Hills, an exclusive private club, over its membership discrimination policies. [citation needed] The lawsuit was brought by a professional woman in the late 1970s who was spurned by the club when her application was rejected based solely on her sex, a fact which the club denied but Allred proved in court.
In 1981 she sued California State Senator John G. Schmitz for slander for $10 million for calling her a “slick butch lawyeress,” but settled for $20,000 and an apology.
She formerly co-hosted a radio talkshow with Mark Taylor on KABC in Los Angeles. She also served as a panelist on the 1990 revival of television game show To Tell the Truth.[citation needed]
She represented Paula Jones in the sexual harassment case against former U.S. president Bill Clinton, as well as Nicole Brown Simpson's family during the O. J. Simpson murder trial. She also represented photographer Henry Trappler in a lawsuit against Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee. Allred is also known for her criticism of pop singer Michael Jackson. After watching media coverage of the Berlin event with Michael Jackson, she wrote a letter to California's Child Protective Services, asking for an investigation into the safety of Jackson's children. She also spoke on CNN about the subject. Child Protective Services does not make their investigations public, so it is not known whether any action was taken as a result of Allred's letter. When a reporter asked Jackson what he thought of Allred's complaints, he remarked "Ah, tell her to go to hell."[3]
In November 2006, Cindy Streit, etiquette consultant in the film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan hired Gloria Allred, who demanded that the California Attorney General investigate fraud allegedly committed by Sacha Baron Cohen and the film's producers.[4]
On July 19, 2007 she filed a lawsuit in Superior Court on behalf of Elizabeth Mazzocchi against actor Esai Morales for "intentional and negligent transmission of a sexually transmitted disease, assault, battery, and breach of contract." Elizabeth Mazzocchi alleges that actor Esai Morales assaulted her and gave her herpes. The suit also alleges that Morales told Mazzocchi that if she ever called the police, he would have "every gangbanger in town looking to kill (her)."[5]
She represented three former Circuit City employees in an age discrimination lawsuit against that company after they fired 3,400 workers in April 2007 Circuit City is now bankrupt and all stores have closed.[6]
In September 2007, she represented Tony Barretto, a former bodyguard of pop singer Britney Spears, in the child custody case between Spears and ex-husband Kevin Federline.
She represented Mandi Hamlin in a March 2008 complaint against the TSA.[7] Hamlin was reported to have been humiliated when she was made to take off her nipple rings in a Lubbock, Texas, airport.[8]
In April 2008, it was reported that she had been hired by the family of the teenager who had been beaten and filmed by eight Florida teenagers.[9] She also appeared on Today with Jessica Gibson, who is counter-suing Rob Lowe for sexual harassment.[10]
On February 24, 2004, Gloria Allred and her law firm, Allred, Moroco and Goldberg, filed the first lawsuit in California challenging the denial of marriage licenses as being unconstitutional. She took the case pro bono for Robin Tyler and Diane Olson and Rev. Troy Perry and his husband Phillip Ray De Blieck. On May 15, 2008, the California Supreme Court[11] ruled in favor of equal marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples.
On July 30, 2008, Gloria Allred filed a complaint with federal regulators against Downey Savings and Loan Association regarding check-cashing procedures. Marc Retmier, a 19 year old US Navy Hospitalman, was killed in action in Afghanistan in June 2008. Downey Savings refused to immediately cash his family's military bereavement checks, and Marc Retmier's family were forced to look elsewhere to secure funding necessary to pay for his funeral services.[12]
Allred in the media
 | This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (September 2008) |
Allred appears in a cameo role in the film Rat Race, where Wayne Knight's character exclaims "Oh shit, it's Gloria Allred!" after she has witnessed him hit a pedestrian. She also appears earlier in the film where the Cody brothers, played by Seth Green and Vince Vieluf, attempt to start a lawsuit against a hotel by slipping on a glass they placed at the top of a set of stairs. Before they go through with their plan, a woman slips on the glass and falls down the stairs. At the bottom, Gloria Allred introduces herself and plans to sue the hotel for negligence.
In the The Simpsons episode "Behind The Laughter," she is featured at the family's lawyer-ridden Thanksgiving, being described as a "shrill feminist attorney."
In the South Park episode "Cripple Fight," Gloria Allred is Big Gay Al's lawyer against a Boy Scouts-like club that excludes homosexuals.
In the Family Guy episode of "I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar," the character of Gloria Ironbox is a parody of Gloria Allred..[citation needed]
She appeared on Dr. Phil with Nadya Suleman aka "Octomom".
See also
- Fight Back and Win (2006) by Gloria Allred. ISBN 0-06-073928-2.
Footnotes
- ^ State Bar of CA :: Gloria Rachel Allred
- ^ ARIANNA ONLINE - December 24, 1997 - Goodbye, 1997 - Gloria Allred (soulless media whore) and her petty grievances
- ^ "Victims' Rights Lawyer: TV Fixture". CBS News. May 25 2002. Retrieved 2006-11-11.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Sweetingham, Lisa. "Etiquette expert is latest to lash out at 'Borat' creator, claiming humiliation". Court TV. Retrieved 2006-11-17.
- ^ Associated Press (2007). "Ex-girlfriend sues Esai Morales, saying actor assaulted her". mercurynews.com. Retrieved July 23 2007.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|dateformat=ignored (help) - ^ http://video.msn.com/v/us/Money.htm?g=911ce441-4f24-423a-9443-a085e32f8485&f=15/64TodaysPick&p=hotvideo_money%20top%20ten&fg=
- ^ Hamlin
- ^ http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/28/nipple.ring/index.html
- ^ Lindsay Family Hire Allred, http://www.tampabays10.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=78204
- ^ http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20191459,00.html
- ^ [http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S147999.PDF
- ^ http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-retmier1-2008aug01,0,1879814.story