Gloria Allred
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Gloria Rachel Allred (born Gloria Rachel Bloom on July 3, 1941) is an American lawyer and radio talk show host. She is also the mother of Court TV hostess Lisa Bloom.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Allred was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and grew up in Pennsylvania. She is Jewish.[1] After high school, she attended the University of Pennsylvania. There she met her first husband and got married. At age 19, she became pregnant with her daughter Lisa. Soon after Lisa's birth, Allred and her husband divorced. Unable to collect child support from her former husband, she was forced to return to her parents' home.
A newly single mother, Allred moved back in with her parents and continued her studies in school, graduating with honors with a bachelor's degree in English in 1963. She tried her hand at a variety of jobs before she decided to become a teacher. After taking a position at Benjamin Franklin High School, she began working on her master's degree at New York University. While there, she became interested in the civil rights movement, which was beginning to gain momentum. After earning her master's degree in 1966, she returned to Philadelphia to teach at a high school with a predominantly African-American enrollment.[citation needed]
Allred moved to Los Angeles and married her second husband, Raymond Allred, in 1968. They were divorced in 1987.[citation needed] Allred attended Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, California and was admitted to the California State Bar in 1975.[2]
[edit] Career
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She represented Amber Frey when Frey was a witness in the criminal case against Scott Peterson. She has also represented cases against the Boy Scouts of America for not allowing girls, something she referred to as gender apartheid, a case against K-Mart for having both a boys and a girls toy section, as well as representing actress Hunter Tylo when producer Aaron Spelling fired her because of her pregnancy.[1]
Early in her career in Los Angeles, Allred made a name for herself by successfully suing the then all-male Jonathan Club, an exclusive private club, over its membership discrimination policies.[citation needed] The lawsuit was brought by a professional woman in the late 1970s who was spurned by the club when her application was rejected based solely on her sex, which the club denied, but Allred proved in court.
She used to co-host a radio talkshow with Mark Taylor on KABC in Los Angeles. She also served as a panelist on the 1990 revival of television game show To Tell the Truth.[citation needed]
Craig Smith, a legal commentator, said in reference to her that "lawyers shouldn't try their cases in the media and Allred has tried far more cases in the media than she has ever tried in any courtroom."[citation needed]
She is also known for her criticism of pop singer Michael Jackson. After watching media coverage of the Berlin event with Michael Jackson, Allred wrote a letter to California's Child Protective Services, asking for an investigation into the safety of Jackson's children. She also spoke on CNN about the subject. Child Protective Services does not make their investigations public, so it is not known whether any action was taken as a result of Allred's letter.
When a reporter asked Jackson what he thought of Allred's complaints, he remarked "Ah, tell her to go to hell."[3]
She has also represented the family of slain transgender teen Gwen Araujo in the Bay Area, as well as the girlfriend of Scott Dyleski, 17, who has been charged with killing the wife of prominent Bay Area attorney and legal analyst Daniel Horowitz, and whose silence about Scott's intentions could have contributed to Daniel's wife's murder.
She was the University of Pennsylvania's College of Arts and Sciences' Distinguished Speaker at its 2006 graduation.
Most recently, she failed in a Supreme Court appeal to limit the gag rule on the attorneys of criminal defendants.
She is generally considered a liberal.
[edit] Allred in the media
Allred appears in a cameo role in the film Rat Race wherein the character Wayne Knight plays exclaims "Oh shit, it's Gloria Allred!", after she has witnessed him hit a pedestrian. She also appears earlier in the film where the Cody brothers, played by Seth Green and Vince Vieluf, attempt to start a lawsuit against a hotel by slipping on a glass they placed at the top of a set of stairs. Before they go through with their plan, a woman slips on the glass and falls down the stairs. At the bottom, Gloria Allred introduces herself and plans to sue the hotel for not having gender compliant stairs.
In the Family Guy episode "I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar," Peter is sued by a co-worker for sexual harassment, and the coworker's attorney is named Gloria Ironbachs.
In the South Park episode "Cripple Fight," Gloria Allred is Big Gay Al's lawyer against a Boy Scouts-like club that excludes homosexuals.
In an episode of The Fairly Oddparents, when Timmy has to bring his mom to a father-son scouting event instead of his dad, Mrs. Turner employs a lawyer named Gloria Bullhead to force the scouts to allow it.
In the Simpsons episode "Behind the Laughter," a portrayal of Allred appears as Lisa Simpson's attorney at a quarrelsome Thanksgiving dinner. When Marge insults Lisa for writing a tell-all book, Allred (identified as a "shrill feminist attorney" in a caption) rises and shouts, "That is assault!"
In an airing of The Adam Carolla Show Gloria was challenged for her representation of the black hecklers of Michael Richards. Her representation was challenged by Adam as opportunistic and frivolous.
[edit] See also
- Fight Back and Win (2006) by Gloria Allred. ISBN 0-06-073928-2.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Waxman, Sharon, Richard Siklos. "New Dispute Over Firing of Publisher", The New York Times, 2006-12-19. Retrieved on 2006-12-18.
- ^ http://members.calbar.ca.gov/search/member_detail.aspx?x=65033
- ^ Victims' Rights Lawyer: TV Fixture. CBS News (May 25, 2002). Retrieved on 2006-11-11.
[edit] Sources
- Gloria Allred's website
- Allred, Maroko & Goldberg, Gloria Allred's civil rights/employment law firm
- "Holding news conferences to announce nothing, Gloria Allred champions her clients' right to privacy"
- What Part of "No" Didn't She Understand?
- Gloria Allred: Activist Lawyer, Ambitious Woman
Categories: Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | Accuracy disputes | 1941 births | American lawyers | American radio personalities | California lawyers | Living people | Feminists | Jewish American activists | Jewish American lawyers | People from Philadelphia
