The New York herald., 1921-11-11
FARRAR'SSUlT BEGUN
T0DIVORCETELLEGEN
Action in New York County
Revealed by Objection to
Actors Answer.
SETBACK FOR HUSBAND
SETBACK FOR HUSBAND
His Charge of Cruelty Ordered
Stricken Out as Improper
by Justice Guy.

The fact that the divorce action
threatened last September by Miss
Geraldine Farrar, the grand opera
singer, against Lou Tellegen, the actor,
has been begun and is pending in this
county, was disclosed yesterday when
husband went before Supreme Court
Justice Charles L. Guy in chambers
and argued whether certain allega-
tions which the actor interposed as
plant should not be stricken out as
irrelevant to the issues which are
raised in the suit for divorce.
Miss Farrar and her husband are
ton, which he began last August in
Westchester county asserting that she
had deserted him and that her conduct
toward him for several months pre-
cruelty within the legal meaning of
that term. Shortly after he began his
suit Samuel Untermyer, acting for
Miss Farrar, went to Paris and con-
Quoted an exhaustive inquiry into Tel
legen's youth and life before he met
Miss F'arrar. While he was there a
representative of THE New York HER
AIDS Paris bureau endeavored to learn
from him what the results of his in
quiry had been. but Mr.. Untermyer
would say only that a divorce action
probably would be brought and that it
would involve some of the leading
members of the French theatrical
world and of the half world"
It was he who represented Miss Far
rar yesterday when Justice Guy was
asked to pass upon the question of the
sufficiency of the actors answer to his
wife's suit. The motion to strike out
part of his answer was not on the mo-
ton calendar and no papers Indicating
that suit has been brought are on file
in the County Clerks Office. This last
fact is possible under certain changes in
the rules Of filing which went into effect
this autumn under the new practice act.
1t was o'clock, just before Justice Guy
left the bench in the motion term Of the
court, that Mr.. Untermyer and Harry
N. Steinfeld. attorneys for Tellegen. ap-
peared before him and announced the
nature of the motion that they desired
to argue and asked that II be heard in
chambers, and not in open court.
Justice Guy listened to the argument
twenty minutes later in his chambers in
the Emlgrant Bank Building and ruled
that the allegations OF cruelty which Tel
legen has set up in his answer to his
wife's complaint be stricken out as i'm
proper matter for the consideration OF
the court that will pass on the merits of
the prayer for divorce. Teilegen's suit
for separation. which is pending In West
chester. sets up as material grounds of
his cause of action that his wife treated
him with cruelty and refused TO live
with him.
In his answer TO her divorce suit he
names the same state of facts as y
counterclaim and asks that the divorce
be refused and separation granted in
stead OF it. Justice Guy ruled that all
this be deeted from the answer as mat
ter which Is already before the court,
although in another county. and In oc-
cordancc with the rule of pleading which
seeks to avoid multplicities of suits by
denying any pleader more than one right
of action upon any one subject matter.