Lawsuit against well-known actor made palimony a fact of life

Michelle Triola Marvin, 75, the former live-in girlfriend of Lee Marvin whose lawsuit against the actor established the legal concept of palimony, died Oct. 30 at the Malibu home she shared with actor Dick Van Dyke, her companion of more than 30 years. She had lung cancer.

Ms. Marvin, who legally changed her surname to Lee Marvin's even though they never married, made legal history in 1976 when the California Supreme Court ruled that she and other unmarried persons could sue for property division when a relationship ended.

That decision led three years later to an often sensational, 11-week trial, in which Ms. Marvin was awarded $104,000 for what the judge called "rehabilitative purposes." Both sides declared victory, but Ms. Marvin had perhaps the best sound bite: "If a man wants to leave his toothbrush at my house, he better bloody well marry me," she said after the 1979 trial.

An appeals court later blocked her from collecting the money, but the legal principle underlying her court battle was left intact. "Palimony" became a dictionary entry and grounds for a slew of cases involving celebrities and their former cohabiting lovers.

The decision underscored the extent to which the sexual revolution of the 1960s had changed American society. Or as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the future U.S. Supreme Court justice, said in 1979 when she was a Columbia University law professor: "It illustrates the further breakdown of the legal line between married and unmarried union."

Michelle Triola was born in Los Angeles on Nov. 13, 1933, and majored in theater arts at the University of California at Los Angeles. She gained notice as a singer in the 1950s at a Sunset Strip club owned by Jerry Lewis. She also danced in the 1958 Broadway production of "Flower Drum Song" directed by Gene Kelly.

She met Lee Marvin in 1964, when she had a bit part in the movie "Ship of Fools." They began dating, and within a few months, Marvin left his wife and began staying at Ms. Marvin's Hollywood apartment. In January 1965, they moved into a house he found for them in Malibu.

Later, she testified that Marvin -- who won an Academy Award for best actor in "Cat Ballou" and starred in "The Dirty Dozen" during their relationship -- had asked her to give up her career and told her that he would take care of her.

In May 1970, she legally added Marvin to her name, but the next month the actor had her evicted from the Malibu house. He married his childhood sweetheart, Pamela Feeley, in October of that year. In November 1971, he cut off a monthly allowance he had been paying to Ms. Marvin.

In February 1972, she took him to court.

With her attorney, the flamboyant divorce lawyer Marvin Mitchelson, she calculated that her former boyfriend had earned $3.6 million during the six years of their cohabitation. She sued for half of that sum, $1.8 million. Mitchelson said he intended to "put marriage on trial" in the Marvin case.

The Los Angeles Superior Court trial was a tabloid dream. Both Lee and Michelle Marvin took the stand, providing numerous moments of high drama. He said he never loved her; she said he proposed marriage twice. He said she threatened suicide; she said he made her pregnant three times and paid for an abortion. (One pregnancy ended in miscarriage, and two were terminated.)