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Michelle said she had thrice become pregnant because Lee had an aversion to her using birth control devices. The first and third pregnancies were ended by abortions, she testified, the second by a miscarriage. She said that afterward she was unable to have children.
To buttress her claim, Michelle testified that a friend named Patricia Hulsman had found an abortionist for her and taken her to the doctor's office. But Hulsman denied this on the stand. Tears streaming down her face, Michelle later said outside the courtroom: "I'd like her to stand here and say that to me close up, face to face, because I have never forgotten that Lee told her to take me. He was afraid I might change my mind."
There was other anguish for Michelle.
Actor Richard Doughty, 34, who had met the couple when Lee was filming Hell in the Pacific, testified that he had made love to her about 25 times before begging off in a fit of morality. The reason: he had felt he was being a "false friend" to Lee. But Doughty had told Mitchelson in 1973 that he had never made love to Michelle, a contradiction Judge Arthur K. Marshall said he would bear in mind.
Having dealt with Michelle's character, the defense next attacked her pride. One of her claims was that she had given up a promising career as a singer to live with the actor. But witnesses testified that her voice was so poor that she was hired on occasion only because she was known as Lee's companion. Said Wally George, a talent booker for a club where she had worked: "I thought she was a very mediocre talent."
So it went in a trial that is not expected to end until late next month. Mitchelson produced a letter from Lee in which he had written Michelle:
"Is there no place in the world for us missfits? [sic] Well, I guess we will have to spen [sic] the rest of our lives hideing [sic] in bed. Hmmmm." If they had, they would have saved the state of California a lot of trouble, and saved a lot of former roommates, male and female, the suspense of wondering how Judge Marshall will rule in the case of Marvin vs. Marvin.