The Smoking Gun's On The Case

The intrepid folks at the uber court document of site of celebrity, TheSmokingGun report that the Sopranos made Best Buy an offer they could not refuse.

According to the site:

"Eight cast members from The Sopranos will whack up a $1.5 million payout from the electronics chain as part of a confidential settlement of a legal beef, The Smoking Gun has learned. Last January, James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Lorraine Bracco, and several co-stars filed suit over a Best Buy newspaper ad containing a photo of the cast posing on a New Jersey boardwalk. The actors alleged that the retail giant misappropriated their images. The case was closed out last month when the parties signed the below settlement agreement, which includes a pledge of omerta when it comes to specifics of the financial terms. The document does not indicate whether the boss, Gandolfini, gets a larger taste of those seven figures. But what's unclear is why four other cast members pictured in the Best Buy ad -- Dominic Chianese (Uncle Junior), Aida Turturro (Janice Soprano), Drea de Matteo (Adriana La Cerva), and Joe Pantoliano (Ralph Cifaretto)--did not join in the lawsuit or benefit from the settlement."

Then again, Best Buy does not have the most spotless of records among consumer electronic stores. Ripoffreport.com has quite a few disgruntled reports of everything from bad customer service to refusing to honor rebates.

Anyhoo: TheSmokingGun offers another interesting piece of data. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that you heard about James Brown's latest brush with the law re: domestic violence ---pfft. But did you see the freaky misspelled ad that James Brown had published in Variety last July?

The Corsair wasn't around last July, or maybe I was just rollin' down the street smokin' endo sippin' on "Jesus Juice," but the ad reads, in part:

"Due to Mr. James Brown and Tomi Rea Brown's heavy and demanding tour schedule, they have decided to go their seperate ways. There are no hard feelings, just a mutual show business decision made by both parties."

The decision was made "for the benefit of their carriers" I think he meant careers. In the accompanying photo, James Brown, Tomi Rea Brown, James Joseph Brown II, are all smiling at Walt Disney World posing with Goofy.