Business: Deals & Developments

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Fox Hunt. To the cumulative troubles of sick William Fox, hounded onetime film tycoon, two new law suits were added last week. Fox Theatres sued him and six of his friends & kin for $5,000,000 last fortnight (TIME, July 4). Fox Film Corp, last week sued to recover possibly $10,000,000 from Filman Fox, Jack G. Leo, a former vice president, and partners in M. J. ("Mike") Meehan's brokerage house, which handled many a Fox pool. A sister-in-law, Mrs. Aaron Fox, came forward too, with a $250,000 suit in behalf of her children.

Fox Film seeks to set aside the agreement (made when Filman Fox was ousted in 1930) to pay its founder $500,000 annually until 1935 for his "advisory" services, and to recover what it has already paid him. Demanding an accounting of his alleged secret profits from stock manipulations with an eye to recouping in full, it wants specifically $2,375,000. Mrs. Aaron Fox charged that Brother William "zealously guarded the name Fox as his own trade mark," willingly paid members of the family to refrain from capitalizing on it because, even when he "was obliged to retire," he expected to re-enter the film business and "continue to enjoy, for his sole benefit, the monopoly and prestige of the Fox family name." She said that when her husband incorporated Aaron Fox Film Corp., he "incurred the severe displeasure and disdain" of Brother William, who, with the connivance of a Manhattan alienist, had Brother Aaron whisked away to a sanatorium, the Hartford (Conn.) Retreat. There Brother Aaron still remains, she said, making no effort to get out for fear of further persecution from Brother William. Mrs. Aaron Fox added that Brother William had taken over Brother Aaron's affairs, had forced her children (aged 4 & 6) "to a point where they have no choice between starvation and becoming public charges."

Mrs. Aaron Fox, separated from her husband, last May was awarded $200 a week alimony.