NEW YORK WORLD-TELEGRAM April 12, 1938

• Jackie Coogan sues his mother
• Hollywood child actor star
• Uncle Fester - The Addams Family fame
• California Child Actor's Bill prelude

The bottom of the front page has a three column heading: "'Promised Nothing.' Mother of Coogan Says, As Husband Jeers Stepson's $4,000,000 Claim" A related pictorial is on page 8. (see images)
Complete with 34 pages, light toning at the margins, small binding holes along the spine, generally in nice condition.

Background: Jackie Coogan’s 1938 lawsuit against his mother and stepfather for his squandered $4 million childhood earnings stands as a historic legal watershed that fundamentally reshaped the entertainment industry and child labor rights in the United States. Coogan, who became one of Hollywood's first major child stars after starring alongside Charlie Chaplin in The Kid (1921), reached age 21 only to discover that California law treated a minor's income as the exclusive property of their parents, allowing his guardians to absorb and spend his multi-million-dollar fortune. His desperate, highly publicized legal battle in April 1938 yielded only a small fraction of his original earnings—roughly $126,000 net after court costs—because most of the money had already been dissipated, but the public outcry directly spurred the passage of California's landmark Child Actor's Bill of 1939 (commonly known as the Coogan Act). The enduring significance of this litigation lies in its establishment of a permanent legal mandate requiring that at least 15% of a minor performer's gross earnings be locked into a blocked trust account ("Coogan Account") untouched until adulthood, while firmly establishing that a child's income belongs legally to the child rather than the parents, thereby establishing financial safeguards and fiduciary protections that shield child actors to this day.