NEW YORK — Uma Thurman is starring in a production here today that I’m sure she’d rather not have listed on her credits. She will be the star witness in the trial of a man charged with stalking her for more than a year.

As frightening as the idea of a stalker is, especially to celebrities, the case raises some interesting issues about the boundaries of personal liberties.

The prosecution claims that Jack Jordan became obsessed with Thurman and engaged in a campaign of stalking that included numerous emails sent to the actress’ father, a professor at Columbia University, professing his love for her. It progressed to repeated efforts to contact her directly, including leaving poems and letters at her home and attempting to see her at movie shoot locations.

Sounds pretty scary.

But the defense claims that Jordan is not a deranged and threatening stalker; rather, he is an old-fashioned romantic who has fallen for the beautiful and talented actress and is simply trying, through his poems and letters, to sweep her off her feet. At worst, claims Jordan’s lawyer, he is a man who needs some psychiatric help, but certainly not jail.

We hear celebrities often decrying the loss of their privacy, even though the more thoughtful of that select and entitled breed realize that some loss of privacy represents the wages for their celebrity.

But just how much of that privacy must they give up? And what sort of boundaries should be erected by the law to protect them from the frightening — or the merely over zealous — fans who seek to get up close and personal with the stars?

That’s the question that will be answered, at least for Uma Thurman, in a small courtroom in New York, after her starring role today.

– Jack Ford, In Session anchor