Cruze Sues

James Cruze of Hollywood directed The Covered Wagon, one of the great cinemas. He has directed many far less great. One of 23 children of Mormon parents, he is brawny, untutored, looks like an Indian.

He is married to Cinemactress Betty Compson, who calls him "the Great Dane." He has more drive than any other director in Hollywood.

Director Cruze thinks of money in big terms. For a long time his Paramount salary was $1,000 a day--whether he worked or not. Last week he sued John Decker, artist, for $200,000 damages.

Artist Decker had been commissioned to do a Cruze portrait. Long a caricaturist, he tried to impart significant character rather than flattering graces to the canvas. Sensing something prisoned about Director Cruze--perhaps the restriction of raw, vital Cruze talents by the commercial requirements of cinemaland--he painted Director Cruze behind bars. Said Mr. Cruze: "I was the most surprised man in the world when I saw it. Mouth like a gargoyle, face like a frog, it made me look like an Apache or something worse. I told Decker I wouldn't accept it. I told him I wanted a portrait, not a funny picture. . . ."

Artist Decker then displayed the portrait in a Hollywood art store window with the legend: ''James Cruze--in Prison for Debt." The Cruze suit followed. Said Artist Decker: "When a man employs an artist to paint a portrait, it is up to the artist to do his worst, as he sees best. If Cruze wanted some wishy-washy, sloppy, sentimental portrait of himself, he could have had a photograph taken or hired a two-bit painter to do it. I gave him a work of interpretative art."

Hollywood heard that the suit would be settled out of court.