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L.A. Entertainment Attorney Signs Smarts, Salt Lake City Tribune newspaper

Kelly Crabb reportedly has negotiated contracts for Paul McCartney, Dave Matthews and Muhammad Ali. A week ago, the Los Angeles entertainment attorney added another celebrity to his client list: Elizabeth Smart.
    Actually, it is her parents who hired Crabb to help them screen movie and book proposals about Elizabeth's abduction and remarkable return. According to his firm's Web site, Crabb's areas of practice include motion picture, television and other programming production and financing; composer agreements, personal appearances and motion picture distribution.
    "These kind of contracts are very specialized," said Smart family spokesman Chris Thomas, and Kelly Crabb "has an impressive resume."
    Not to mention Utah connections.
    Crabb received bachelor's and master's degrees from Brigham Young University before earning a law degree from Columbia University in 1984. He worked for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee -- experience that helped his current firm, Morrison & Foerster, land a contract with the Beijing Organizing Committee of the 2008 Olympic Games.
    Crabb was in Boston and could not be reached for comment.
    The Smarts' top priority is negotiating the story rights for a television movie to counter "unauthorized" versions of Elizabeth's abduction that may already be in the works. On Thursday, the Los Angeles Times reported that some producers and networks have lost interest in doing the story. Specifically, NBC has reportedly backed away from a plan to air a movie about the Smarts in May during ratings sweeps.
    Thomas, however, said none of the producers or network representatives angling for the exclusive rights to tell the Smarts' story has called to take themselves out of the running, including those with ties to NBC.
    "We've had at least a dozen meetings in the last week with producers, and family members met with executives at two networks and all of them have been calling ferociously to find out what their status is," Thomas said. "The family wants to be thorough and it's driving some people crazy."
    Meanwhile, David Smart, Elizabeth's uncle, will participate Monday in a panel discussion on "How the Media Treated Me" at the Radio and Television News Directors Association convention in Las Vegas. Smart said other panelists include people thrust into the spotlight by tragedy, such as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the 1996 ValuJet crash in the Florida Everglades.
    Smart said the most frustrating part of the experience was the amount of inaccurate -- and often salacious -- information with which the family was confronted.
    "It can be pretty ugly at times. But overall, the family was willing to take it and to do whatever it took to get her back," Smart said Friday. "Our goal was to keep the media involved and the public involved, and in the end that is what brought her home."