Clint Kicks Chair Maker in the Seat

Wed., Jan. 16, 2008 10:00 PM PST by Natalie Finn

Clint Eastwood's day has not been made.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker sued the makers of a chair called "The Eastwood" Wednesday, accusing the furniture company of illegally trading on his star power without his permission.

According to the federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Palliser Furniture has offered a line of home-theater seating with designs named after other prominent actors, including Marlon Brando, James Cagney, Gary Cooper, Charles Bronson and Sean Connery.

But being in good company apparently didn't change Eastwood's mind about firing back.

"Mr. Eastwood had a longstanding history of rejecting third-party licenses, reserving the exploitation of his personality rights and the goodwill associated therewith to his motion picture and other entertainment-related projects and to other business ventures in which Mr. Eastwood is personally involved," his complaint says.

The Dirty Harry star is seeking unspecified damages and an injunction preventing further advertising, sale and distribution of "The Eastwood." The suit names Palliser's Manitoba, Canada, and North Dakota branches as defendants.

Brando's estate also filed suit against Palliser and an L.A. furniture store last March to stop them from selling "The Brando," a leather recliner with cup holders and a built-in subwoofer. The Godfather star died in 2004.

Palliser hasn't yet commented on Eastwood's suit, but said in response to the Brando family's beef that the furniture line was named after a town on the French isle of Corsica—not after the silver-screen legend.

"Brando is a tourist centre of Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea and hence its inspiration. Palliser is certainly not associating its use of the name with the Hollywood Brando name," a Palliser exec wrote to estate attorney Jeffrey Abrams before the suit was filed.

In the meantime, Eastwood will be directing the goodwill associated with his personality back toward his own motion picture projects soon.

After ushering two Oscar-nominated World War II epics to the screen in 2006, the Unforgiven auteur's work was missing from the big screen in 2007, minus his Golden Globe-nominated score for Grace Is Gone. But theater seats are once again going to be filling in the name of Eastwood later this year.

The hardest-working 77-year-old in showbiz returns to the multiplex in November with the 1920s-era mystery The Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie as a mother who senses something isn't right after her kidnapped son returns home and ends up confronting a corrupt L.A. police force. Amy Ryan and John Malkovich also star.