Tom Cruise: code name Sissy?

The Anthony Pellicano trial is getting hotter in Los Angeles despite the laughable Los Angeles Times trying to get rid of it. On March 8, it actually ran a story titled "Pellicano Trial Is Yesterday’s News."

The trial, however, is Today’s News: Thursday morning, Pellicano aide and Maxim girl Tarita Virtue’s very informative testimony is being interrupted for testimony from actor/comedian Garry Shandling. His attorney may be the eminent David Boies.

Shandling’s role will be to further solidify the relationship between Pellicano and Paramount chief Brad Grey. Courtroom ears will be perked to hear if Shandling also mentions attorney Bert Fields.

Grey’s name has been much on Virtue’s lips since she began her testimony. She’s already testified that Grey hired Pellicano to dig up dirt on producer Bo Zenga over "Scary Movie." I told you two years ago that the government can line up wiretaps Pellicano made of Zenga, his family and lawyer that coincide with depositions in the "Scary Movie" lawsuit between Grey and Zenga.

In that case, Zenga claimed to have been hired by Grey executive Peter Safran to produce "Scary Movie," a Miramax/Dimension movie released in 2001. Dimension bought the idea and went ahead with the project.

Zenga claimed he had an oral agreement to be partnered with Bernie Brillstein and Grey as producers on the film. When he felt he'd been cut out by Brillstein-Grey, Zenga sued them for breach of contract.

There’s going to be more made of that whole episode shortly.

Shandling and Grey have a bad history, and that will be the focus of his testimony. Boies represented Shandling in a lawsuit against Grey when the latter was the former’s manager during the era of "The Larry Sanders Show."

Boies wrote about the eventual settlement he cut with Grey’s lawyer, Fields, in one of his books. Of course, at the time, Boies had no idea Pellicano allegedly was wiretapping everyone involved in the case. So that should be interesting.

Virtue’s other virtue so far was in discussing Pellicano’s passwords and code names for clients. When U.S. Attorney Dan Saunders put up an exhibit in which the word "sissy" came up, according to a blog posting by reporter Alison Hope Weiner, in reference to Tom Cruise, Saunders asked if that was Cruise’s code name. Virtue replied that she guessed that it was. Zenga’s code name was "Gypsy Boy."
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