When filmmaker Fred Schepisi was directing "I.Q." - in which Walter Matthau portrays a Yiddish-speaking Albert Einstein concerned not only with unlocking the secrets of the universe but also with fixing up his brainy niece (Meg Ryan) with a mentshlich auto mechanic (Tim Robbins) - he probably didn't foresee Jerusalem's Hebrew University would sue for unlawful use of Einstein's image.
Einstein died in 1955, and left his library and all his personal papers to the university he helped found. And as the legal owner of all copyrights relating to Einstein's name and persona, the university is proving a zealous guardian of his image. Since 1984, with the passage of the California Celebrity Rights Law (designed to protect the rights of dead celebrities and their heirs), the university has entrusted management of the deceased scientist's worldly affairs to Roger Richman, the author of the aforementioned law whose "clients" include Marilyn Monroe, Louis Armstrong, the Marx Brothers, Audrey Hepburn, Steve McQueen and Boris Karloff.
Before Richman took over the account, he says, Einstein's image had been wantonly appropriated for "a ghastly melange of denigrating products" ranging from posters of the physicist with his tongue out to ads for barber shops promising to tame his world-famous mop.
Richman can't always veto unsanctioned uses of Einstein's iconography - it depends, he says, upon the laws in the countries and even the American states in which his imagery is employed. But he can often guarantee Hebrew University its lawful cut of the proceeds.
Richman would not comment on the "I.Q." litigation. Nor would he divulge how much money Einstein's image has generated. But he did say that, in the last decade, he has licensed Einstein to Compaq and Apple Computers, IBM, the Wall Street Journal, United Airlines and, most recently, to Panasonic.
Sheli Teitelbaum/Los Angeles