£1 million? It's not that much for us says Zeta Jones

By CAHAL MILMO

For the audience packed into the stalls of Court 35, yesterday's matinee performance of Douglas & Others v Hello! was always going to be a hit: an A-list cast, a script centring on allegations of high treachery and a curious sub-plot about the etiquette of eating wedding cake.

After a week-long dress rehearsal in the High Court, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones sought redress for what they told a rapt audience was a "disgusting" invasion of their privacy at their nuptials more than two years ago.

The couple spent three hours in total in the witness box as they poured out their hurt and indignation at a series of blurred and poorly lit photographs bought by Hello! magazine from a photographer who sneaked into the ceremony at New York's five-star Plaza Hotel.

Such was the interest in their appearance in the Gothic surroundings of the Royal Courts of Justice there was standing room only in the public gallery before proceedings got under way at 10.32am.

The 33-year-old actress, seven months pregnant with her second child, wasted no time in expressing her discontent at finding out within 24 hours of her wedding in November 2000 that Hello! was planning to publish unauthorised pictures of the glittering event that was attended by 320 guests ranging from Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, to a secretly dating Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan.

Speaking in an accent that oscillated effortlessly between Beverly Hills and deep South Wales, the actress told the court her big day had been ruined.

She was dressed in a loose black trouser suit with diamond earrings glinting in the gloom of the court, which was surrounded by a set of large velvet drapes.

"Michael and I were devastated,"she said. "It was an appalling and very upsetting shock to discover our wedding had been invaded in that way. Our peace and happiness evaporated. I felt violated and something precious had been stolen from me. Our distress and anger at what Hello! did to us continues to this day."

At the heart of the clash lay a £1 million ($2.97 million) deal between Douglas, 58, his wife and Hello!'s bitter rival, OK! magazine, to sell the rights to photographs of the wedding, the court was told.

The two magazines had been engaged in a fierce bidding war for the pictures, with OK!, owned by the publisher Richard Desmond, emerging the victor only three days before the happy event, having agreed to the couple's demand that they select and vet every picture, including ordering digital "retouching" of the images.

The judge, Mr Justice Lindsay, was told the actors had entered into the arrangement in an attempt to curtail huge media interest in the wedding and ensure the privacy of the bride, groom and their guests.

Not all were in awe of the Zeta Jones/Douglas roadshow yesterday.

In a series of feisty exchanges, James Price, QC, for Hello! put it to the couple they were less interested in keeping out of the public eye, than honouring their agreement with OK! and were now seeking damages of £500,000 ($1,485,713) against its rival by exaggerating their distress.

Price asked Zeta Jones: "Are you not gingering this up a bit in order to ramp up the damages?"

The actress, who is tipped for an Oscar for her performance in Chicago, in which her character is involved in a tangle with a silver-tongued lawyer, shot back: "This is not about money at all. Our wedding was to show we were in love. We wanted to show a little slice of this with our control. I think I have the right to have that privacy, the right to have my wedding the way I wanted to have it and not to have a different person's interpretation of it."

Asked about the £1 million fee, she added: "It is a lot of money to a lot of people in this room. But it is not that much of a lot of money for us. It was trying to control the only thing we have - that is to control our privacy."

As her husband sat with a face like thunder, Zeta Jones made clear her antipathy towards the lawyer. Price sought to illustrate the couple were not obliged to sell their pictures - and pointed out he had not received a million pounds for pictures of his wedding.

Looking her inquisitor up and down, the actress said: "I can understand that."

Lawyers for the couple have alleged that Hello! plotted to get "snatched" pictures of the wedding in revenge for losing the bidding war with OK! The photographs used by the magazine were taken by Rupert Thorpe, the son of the disgraced former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, who evaded tight security to enter the hotel and take pictures with a camera at hip level.

Hello! rushed out a spoiler edition within 48 hours of the wedding and ahead of OK!'s official version, something Zeta Jones and Douglas claim was a carefully laid conspiracy.

They are claiming £500,000 damages for breach of confidence and invasion of privacy - a figure described by Mr Douglas as a "pittance".

The actor, dressed in a charcoal suit with a purple tie and sporting a striking set of copper highlights in his hair, blasted Hello! - the dominant force in celebrity tittle-tattle throughout the 1980s and early 1990s until it was dethroned by OK! - and turned in a steely performance to put his point across.

Under cross-examination about the aftermath of the wedding, he said: "It was a magical, magical night.

"But then we went from that euphoric high after that special, special event, which turned out so well for all our family and friends, to finding out that somebody, either from our party or, as it turned out, a spy, a paparazzo, had taken unauthorised pictures to be released.

"We felt that was one of the most vindictive and mean-spirited acts you can imagine."

When asked what it was about the contents of the "seedy and voyeuristic" Hello! pictures that constituted a breach of privacy, the couple said it was their poor quality and the fact that one showed Douglas feeding a forkful of cake to his wife that irked them most.

The "cake shot" was compared with an officially approved shot of Zeta Jones doing the same to her husband but she insisted the Hello! shot was deeply unsuitable.

"It is offensive because I don't think I would want the world to see that as my wedding day. It looks like all I did was eat."

The couple also complained about how the text accompanying the Hello! story said Douglas did not dance with his bride and gave her a £1 million yacht.

He said: "This is complete nonsense. I had the first dance of the evening with my bride. The reference to the yacht is a complete fabrication. Statements such as that are clearly intended to demean our marriage and imply it is a sham."

At 3.04pm, the show in Court 35 came to a close as its main players were ushered out of the court and into the dark-windowed privacy of their Mercedes.

Whether it was a deliberate snub or not, they did so before most of the waiting photographers could even raise a camera.

- INDEPENDENT