The ski collision between Gwyneth Paltrow and a retired optometrist at Deer Valley Ski Resort that resulted in a high-profile court battle was the stuff of dreams for the tabloid media, and now it's been turned into a musical.
Gwyneth Goes Skiing is set to debut on December 13 at Pleasance Theatre, a cabaret and comedy theatre in London, and run for 10 nights. It parodies the widely publicized legal battle which took place in Park City earlier this year between the Hollywood actor and Terry Sanderson, 76, who accused Paltrow of leaving him with life-changing injuries after their 2016 collision on a beginner's slope.
"She’s the Goop-founding, Door-Sliding, Shakespeare-In-Loving, consciously-uncoupling Hollywood superstar. He’s a retired Optometrist from Utah. In 2016, they went skiing," reads the description.
"On the slopes of Deer Valley, their worlds collided, and so did they - literally. Ouch. Seven years later in 2023, they went to court. Double ouch. This is their story. Kind of. Not really."
Described as a story of love, betrayal, skiing and Christmas where the audience is the jury, the production looks set to turn one of the most farcical court cases in recent history into, well, a farce.
Sanderson initially sued the Royal Tenenbaums actor for $3 million after he accused her of skiing into him and leaving him unconscious and with "life-changing injuries." He then lowered that amount to $300,000, but Paltrow counter-sued him for the princely sum of one dollar, plus legal fees, claiming he skied into the back of her while she was skiing with her children.
"I thought, 'Is this a practical joke? Is someone doing something perverted? This is really, really strange,'" she said in her testimony.
The jury unanimously found the Goop-founder's version of events to be true, and Sanderson to have inflated his injuries. Since skiing etiquette goes that the downhill skier has the right of way, Sanderson was the liable party. Paltrow is now one dollar richer, and the citizens of London are a little more entertained.
