Buddy Holly’s Widow Suing Over New Book
Yahoo news is reporting that Buddy Holly’s widow, Maria Elena Holly, is suing to stop the publication of the upcoming book Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue?
The book, authored by Peggy Sue Gerron, alleges that she is the woman who Buddy Holly’s hit song Peggy Sue is about. Gerron said that the book’s material comes from 150 diary entries she wrote during a time when she knew the singer. “We were very, very good friends. He was probably one of the best friends I ever had,” Gerron said.
After the singer’s tragic death in a 1959 plane crash, Maria Elena Holly became the owner of her late husband’s name, trademarks, images and other intellectual properties.
One of the main points of the lawsuit is that Gerron has never asked for permission to use any of those properties and Holly’s attorney, Richard Wallace, has issued a cease and desist order to the book’s publisher Togi Entertainment Inc.
So the questions are: How far should someone be allowed to go in order to protect a celebrity’s reputation — especially a deceased one? And, don’t you and I have a right to pen stories about people we’ve been in relationships with, be they famous or not?
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Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 4:27 pm under
