Page Six: Feud over Hamptons ‘Legs’ sculpture is being made into a movie

January 16, 2016 | By Ian Mohr
 
A bitter Sag Harbor feud that has raged in the exclusive enclave for years over the sculpture “Legs” by late Hamptons artist Larry Rivers is getting its own movie.
 
Beatrice Alda, daughter of actor Alan Alda, and J Brooke have directed the documentary “Legs: A Big Issue in a Small Town.”
 
Sources told Page Six they’ve very quietly screened it for family and friends in Southampton and Manhattan to big buzz among the social set. The directors are next angling to submit the film to premiere on the festival circuit.
 
“These were extremely private screenings,” Brooke told us in an e-mail. But “happily people seem to have a lot (good) to say about the film.”
 
We hear that after Alan Alda saw the controversial movie, he asked the directors, both Sag Harbor residents, “And where will you two be moving after this comes out?”
 
The film covers a noisy battle in the village that started in 2008 when art gallerists Janet Lehr and Ruth Vered erected Rivers’ 16-foot-tall ­Fiberglas sculpture of a pair of shapely women’s legs outside their Sag Harbor home.
 
But local officials later deemed “Legs” illegal because they consider it a “structure” rather than art, and thus too tall and too close to the property line under zoning rules. (Rivers had his own pair of legs straddling his Southampton home.)
 
According to Sag Harbor Online, a judge in ­November finally upheld the zoning board’s opinion and ruled that the legs should come down. They’re still up, however, and we’re told house owners Lehr and Vered are appealing. One resident said that every year, people have offered money to buy the glamorous gams, but so far no offers have been accepted.
 
The film features residents including artist painter and sculptor Eric Fischl and his wife April Gornik, and we hear it also tackles some other thorny issues of the area, such as race.
 
“Fortunately, while the film deals with controversial issues, it hasn’t so far reflected negatively on us,” Brooke wrote us when we asked about any local reaction to date.