At N.Y.U. Film Department, a Faculty Dispute Over a 30-Year-Old Show

By LARRY ROHTER

4:56 p.m. | Updated

“The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana” was a forgettable made-for-TV movie broadcast by CBS in 1982. But it has re-emerged 30 years later at the center of an esoteric but messily contentious dispute about screenwriting credits involving faculty members at New York University's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts.

In mid-August, the Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television, part of the Tisch School, announced the appointment of Janet Grillo, an Emmy Award-winning producer and former studio executive at New Line Cinema, as a full-time faculty member, teaching courses in film production. Ms. Grillo's credits include writing, producing and directing the recent independent feature “Fly Away,” as well as having been a producer on projects like “Spanking the Monkey,” “House Party,” “Hangin' With the Homeboys” and “Pump Up the Volume .”

But on Aug. 22, Chat Gunter, a film and television sound recorder and mixer who is also an associate professor at the university, sent an email blast to fellow faculty members and others suggesting that Ms. Grillo, who was once married to the film director David O. Russell, had inflated her resume. Along with her better-known projects, she included a reference to having been a “story writer” on the “Charles and Diana” project, an assertion that Mr. Gunter claimed was false.

“We live in a small town and by coincidence my wife worked on ‘The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana' for CBS,” he wrote. “So I researched the credits for the production and nowhere does Janet Grillo's name appear.” He added: “Why she would make this specious claim, I have no idea.”

Though Mr. Gunter did not give his wife's name, she is Selma Thompson, who is credited as a co-writer of “Charles and Diana,” along with Robert L. Freedman and three others, and is a former classmate of Ms. Grillo. Ms. Thompson was until recently an adjunct faculty member at the Tisch School and, according to the Internet Movie Data Base site, has written or co-written 11 scripts.

The next day, Ms. Grillo replied, via email, noting a difference between her role as an intern assigned to “research and write a detailed story outline” for what became “Charles and Diana” and that of the authors of the final teleplay. That distinction is common in film and television, where egos are often large and insecure and pecking orders therefore jealously guarded, but Ms. Grillo's participation was significant enough that it qualified her to join the Writers Guild of America, which verified Ms. Grillo's account in an attachment.

In the same email, Joe Pichirallo, a former newspaper reporter and film executive who became chairman of the undergradute film and television institute last year, chastised Mr. Gunter for making so “serious” an accusation outside of prescribed channels, and apologized to Ms. Grillo. “Though I am still new, it is my understanding that charges of this type are typically brought directly either to the chair or one of the deans, not circulated in the public arena before they are adjudicated,” he wrote.

Ms. Thompson weighed in by email herself, accusing Ms. Grillo of “further untruths” and maintaining that mere “employment has nothing to do with film credit.” Mr. Freedman, who has also taught at Tisch, chimed in, too, with an email in support of his writing partner.

“We are lucky that the Writers Guild has developed a careful, fair and deliberate system to safeguard its members from unworthy claims,” he wrote. He added, in a reference to Ms. Thompson: “I believe you are the one who is owed an apology.”

Mr. Gunter and Ms. Thompson did not respond to telephone messages and e-mails requesting comment on the matter. M s. Grillo said by email: “I respect Selma Thompson's accomplishment and never intended to detract from it by referencing my own employment as a writer on the project. I have every confidence in N.Y.U.'s ability to resolve this matter equitably.”

Mr. Pichirallo, who is likely to be involved in adjudicating the dispute, declined to comment, referring a reporter's request to John Beckman, a university spokesman.

“As it would in any case such as this, the Tisch School will look into the matter fairly, thoroughly, and carefully,” Mr. Beckman wrote in an email. “This matter seems to have blown up to its current level more by the manner in which the question was raised-through a widely distributed email that even included people outside the school, rather than being brought to the chair's or dean's office-than by the question itself.

“Without prejudging the matter,” Mr. Beckman continued, “there seems to be wide agreement that the faculty member involved did co-write a story outline for this production that enabled her to join the Writers Guild. What's at issue is the precise characterization of that work.”