'Desperate Housewives' Trial: Will Nicollette Sheridan Win The Retrial?
Nicollette Sheridan's lawsuit against ABC is headed for a retrial after a Los Angeles judge refused to dismiss the "Desperate Housewives" wrongful-termination case. What are Sheridan's chances of winning the retrial? Reuters

Nicollete Sheridan claims producer and creator of the show Desperate Housewives, Marc Cherry, gave her a wallop to the head, Cherry testified yesterday it was part of a demonstration for a scene.

Cherry testified that Sheridan approached him and asked why a humorous line in one of her scenes had been cut. He said that he tried to explain that he wanted Sheridan's character to do some physical comedy instead, at which point she looked confused.

[I] tried to help her, Cherry testified.I tapped her on the side of the head.

After which, Sheridan gave Cherry an odd look, yelled You hit me, and stormed off the set.

Cherry said that he had his assistant drive him over to Sheridan's trailer to get her back to the set. He also maintains he was not angry with Sheridan.

Sheridan claims that Cherry struck her on the head, describing it as a wallop, and then decided that her character, Edie Britt, was going to be killed off the show. Cherry disputes the claim, explaining that he decided to kill off Sheridan's character at least four months before the incident and that ABC executives approved the decision.

[I waited till the] last possible second to tell her because the script came that night and we were to shoot the next day, Cherry said.

Sheridan's lawyer also read aloud an email from Cherry's assistant, Jessica Ganzel, who drove him over to the trailer on the day of the incident.

Marc was showing Nicollette how to play her exit of the scene and they just finished rehearsing, Ganzel wrote. As they were going over the different buttons to the scene, Marc was demonstrating one of the options which included tapping Nicollette on the head. She asked that he not touch her and stormed off the set. Marc and I went to her trailer where Marc apologized. She forgave him and said she understood that he was just showing her how to play the button of the scene.