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Florence Foster Jenkins writer in legal dispute with ex-lover over script

The writer of film Florence Foster Jenkins is taking legal action to prevent an ex-lover claiming credit for the screenplay.
British screenwriter Nicholas Martin penned the script for the Meryl Streep film, which tells the true story of Florence, a New York socialite whose dreadful singing voice saw her rise to fame as an amateur opera star during the early part of the 20th Century.
His ex-girlfriend Julia Kogan, a soprano vocalist and singing teacher, claims she deserves a credit as a co-author of the screenplay for helping him write the script, introducing him to her story and furnishing him with information about the lives and work of opera singers and the vocabulary used in operatic circles.
Kogan who dated the writer for three years tells British newspaper The Times, “I was his (Nicholas’) greatest asset. There are scenes and scenes using singing vocabulary that Nicholas simply didn’t possess.”
However Martin is taking pre-emptive legal action to refute his former lovers’ claims. Legal documents submitted to Britain’s High Court state that he, “Chose and wrote every line of every draft of the script for the screenplay; created and plotted the screenplay and every scene and every dramatic episode that makes up the screenplay; (and) chose and wrote all the dialogue (and) all of the stage directions.”
Both Kogan and Martin agree she introduced him to the story of the heiress turned unlikely opera star, but he insists her involvement was primarily as a, “critic”.
The Ukranian-born vocalist, who began dating the former television scriptwriter in 2011, claims he was struggling as a writer when she began helping him with ideas for scripts.
“He was quite depressed and down,” she says. “I did everything I could to lift his spirits, to come up with ideas that would sell.”
She contends their relationship hit the rocks after she began demanding formal recognition for her contribution to the Florence Foster Jenkins script.
Martin’s agent and the film’s financiers Pathe have declined to comment on the allegations, although his lawyer Dominic Bray has issued a statement.
“Nicholas rejects (Kogan’s) claim and the filmmakers have no reason to doubt him,” the statement reads. “Nicholas has himself taken legal action to end what he believes to be groundless allegations.”
The film, directed by Stephen Frears and starring Hugh Grant alongside Streep as Florence, has earned widespread acclaim since its release on Friday (06May16). It will open in cinemas in the U.S. on 12 August (16).

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