She said Hal Holbrook would be obligated by contract to refer such a question to his agent, and his agent would have to say no, to protect Hal Holbrook's future rights to the material, even though the audience was small and he would want to say yes to support something which could be seen as a tribute and was cerainly no competition.
I don't know the details of the contract, but otherwise your actress friend was wrong (or at least working from some reading of copyright which I have never officially encountered in practice).
In reply to Re^6: What qualifies as copyrighted material?
by chromatic
in thread What qualifies as copyrighted material?
by rodion
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