LOS ANGELES — “Desperate Housewives” creator Marc Cherry told jurors today he has the paper trail showing that he planned to kill off Nicollette Sheridan’s character, five months before the actress accused him of smacking her on set.
The “Housewives” creator produced note cards that he claims show that he was going write Sheridan off the popular ABC program in May 2008 before he the on-set confrontation that has been at the heart of the “Housewives” star’ $6 million wrongful termination lawsuit .
In one note showed by Cherry, he mentioned “Steven drinks OJ” — allegedly a crude reference to Sheridan’s on-screen husband Steve killing cougar Edie Britt. Cherry said the “O.J.” reference was to O.J. Simpson, who was acquitted of killing his wife.
He said the oddly coded note was necessary to keep scripts secret.
“Mine is a series based on surprise and shock and secrets,” Cherry said.
Sheridan’s lawyer Mark Baute however told The Post that Cherry’s production notes are , in the end, meaningless, because writers recorded every weird, implausible and unused, possible plot twist during meetings at the beginning of the season.
More significant is the fact ABC and Cherry did not produce any formal notes that show Cherry had any intention of firing Sheridan, according to the plaintiff’s mouthpiece.
“As near as we can tell, they don’t have a single email, letter, memo, document, anywhere documenting the decision to kill off a $ 4 million a year lead character with profit participation,” Baute said outside court.
“We know what their spin is. Their spin is, this is a decision, not just an idea, our argument, we think it’s fairly clear, is this is nothing more than a bare bones idea, rarely adopted and it’s very clear that these kinds of decisions are never made until the last minute.
“Probably half the ideas on that [story idea] board were never implemented ,” the lawyer said.
“This is an idea, and an idea only, and nothing even remotely close to a decision .”
With David K. Li in New York