Good news: Valli – born Francesco Stephen Castelluccio – is still alive and well, at age 82. However, we can understand why you might think otherwise, since most of Valli's official website hasn't been updated since 2007, when the singer with the famous falsetto register released the album Romancing the '60s.
By the time you read this, Valli should be playing an extensive series of concert dates extending in 2017, mostly hugging the East Coast, although he is slated to perform two Phoenix engagements in December. Previously, the seemingly indestructible Valli made his Broadway debut with a one-week stand in 2012. USA Today reported of the occasion that Valli "proved a perfectly capable host for this two-hour-plus golden-anniversary party."
Caesars Entertainment's official reply to the closing-night query was that Valli would probably not be in attendance. However, the date in question – Sept. 18 – falls into a lacuna in Valli's touring schedule, between a Sept. 10 London appearance and a Sept. 23 gig at Firekeepers Casino in Battle Creek, Michigan, so Valli could theoretically squeeze in a Vegas stopover. But the man is an octogenarian, so perhaps we should cut him some slack.
Most of the headlines Valli and creative partner Bob Gaudio have made lately, however, have been in connection with a long-running court case, filed in the waning days of 2007. It alleges copyright infringement in connection with Jersey Boys and seeks a $6.5 million cut of the proceeds. Plaintiff in the lawsuit is Donna Corbello, widow of writer Rex Woodard. The latter was collaborating with former Four Seasons member Tommy DeVito on DeVito's autobiography when Woodard died in 1991.
The ex-Four Season had been impressed with Woodard's writings on the Four Seasons' travails in the early Seventies, leading to the abortive collaboration. According to The Hollywood Reporter, after DeVito explained that contrary to the band's wholesome image, the group was engaged in criminal enterprises and had 'underworld contacts,' Woodard signed up to write an authorized biography with credit and an equal share of the profits. Woodard used interviews, old news articles, Freedom of Information Act requests filed with law enforcement agencies and more to write a book told from DeVito's perspective. Among the book's spicier allegations was that DeVito and Nick Massi retained those "underworld contacts" after the Four Seasons hit it big.
In 2005, Corbello tried unsuccessfully to interest DeVito in shopping around her late husband's manuscript. A copy of it was sent to DeVito, who said he want to re-edit the text and Corbello heard nothing more until – a few days before Jersey Boys opened on Broadway – DeVito's lawyer told her the book was "not saleable."
Corbello subsequently learned that not only had Valli and Gaudio obtained access to said manuscript, DeVito had granted a 1999 license for them to freely adapt "biographies" of his life. One of her expert witnesses contends that 30 percent of Jersey Boys is derived from the manuscript. (Among the issues the court system is parsing is whether "biographies" covers the known facts of DeVito's life or should be more narrowly construed to pertain to materials like the Woodard book.) Her case was bolstered by a quote from Jersey Boys director Des McAnuff that an "unpublished autobiography" of DeVito was a source material for the show. Corbello sued, saying that the disputed manuscript "inspired the form, content, and structure of the musical …"
Last October, Judge Robert Jones opined, "every relation of a historical fact beyond direct observation is tainted to some degree by some person’s interpretation, so distinguishing between historical facts and 'interpretations' of those facts in the context of copyright would destroy the rule that historical facts are unprotected." The original District Court ruling, rejected by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in February 2015, was that DeVito had given Valli and Gaudio (along with various and sundry other codefendants) a "selectively exclusive license." DeVito had also taken the precaution of copyrighting the book manuscript in 1991, crediting himself as sole author.
The Ninth Circuit overrode that argument and tossed out a 2012 summary judgment against Corbello, along with a requirement that she pay court costs, putting the ball back into District Court in Las Vegas. A retrial was initially anticipated for May but Courthouse News says that it will now go before the court on Halloween.
Further complicating the proceedings is the existence of a so-called "reversionary clause" in the 1999 agreement, whereby rights to DeVito's life story would revert to him. Since Valli and Gaudio's initial attempt to find backing for Jersey Boys was unsuccessful (they were luckier with a second effort), does the reversionary clause have precedence over subsequence arrangements with DeVito? A producer of the show argues that DeVito, Valli and Gaudio had a 2004 oral agreement that remediated the apparent breach. It is issues like this with which jurors will have to wrestle … and the question of overseas rights infringement has yet to be adjudicated, too.
As viewers of Jersey Boys know, DeVito's gambling debts and problems ultimately led to his ouster from the Four Seasons. Decades later, DeVito is still spelling trouble for Valli, whose sunset years are destined to be clouded with litigation.
