The threat of lawsuits from litigious neighbors has prevented a movie starring Glenn Close, Kathy Bates and Danny Glover from filming in the posh town of Bedford.
Close, who lives nearby, wanted the happy ending of “The Great Gilly Hopkins” (based on the children’s novel by Katherine Paterson) to be shot at the home of Suzanne and Stefano Galli.
But the Gallis have been embroiled for years in a variety of lawsuits brought by their next-door neighbors Ruth Toporoff and husband Michael Richman, the chief of compliance officer at Goldman Sachs.
“The production company scouted my house, had multiple meetings and signed a contract, but the town denied the permit,” Suzanne Galli told me.
The local Bedford-Pound Ridge Record Review newspaper said the town council acted “due to fear of repercussions . . . the potential for litigation.”
The movie scene will now be filmed elsewhere.
Besides suing the Gallis, Toporoff and Richman are suing Bedford’s wetlands control commission and the town zoning board.
According to the Record Review, Bedford’s town attorney Joel Sachs has asked Westchester Supreme Court to assign a special arbitrator to handle the cases to ease the burden from all the litigation.
Katherine Zalantis, the lawyer for Toporoff and Richman, said, “I have no comment because there is pending litigation.”
Galli said her neighbors, though they own horses themselves, sued her claiming her barn was too close to the property line and that the smell of manure drifts onto their land.
Richman was asked how he could tell whose horses were creating the odor. “He basically got up in court and said, ‘My poop doesn’t stink,’ ” Galli said.
But there’s something rotten in Bedford.