ROSE Dorothy Dauriac is two years old but she’s already in the spotlight. Last week she was pictured in Los Angeles in a floral dress, pink cardigan, pink shoes and matching handbag. Rose looked a sight more elegant than her mum Scarlett Johansson who appeared harried beside her in a T-shirt and ripped jeans. At the Academy Awards Rose was foremost on the mind of Pulp Fiction actor Samuel L Jackson.
“He scolded me for not sending him enough pictures of my kid,” says Johansson. But Jackson may soon be seeing more than enough pictures of Rose who today finds herself at the centre of what could become one of Hollywood’s most bitter custody battles.
Busy actress Johansson and her husband French businessman Romain Dauriac this week split and declared war over their child in a fight threatening to span two continents as bitter accusations fly.
“He plans to petition the court to allow him and his daughter to move to France,” says Dauriac’s lawyer Harold Mayerson.
“He believes that her schedule makes it impossible for her to have physical custody.” Johansson has vowed to fight to keep Rose in the US.
“She is never going to give her up,” says a friend. “And she will do whatever it takes to keep Rose.”
Johansson issued a statement insisting that she is a “devoted mother”. Dauriac is still reeling after being hit by the surprise divorce papers filed by Johansson in a New York court on Tuesday.
The couple have been living apart since late last summer but have been trying to find ways to reconcile.
 “She felt like they didn’t have much in common,” says a friend.
Since their estrangement Dauriac has been struggling with Johansson’s crowded filming schedule, which can take her and daughter Rose away for weeks at a time. The couple began with an informal co-parenting agreement under which each would spend a week with Rose. But Johansson’s movies made that plan virtually unworkable.
“She would take the child on these trips, like when she was shooting Ghost In The Shell in New Zealand last year,” says a source close to the case.
But once back in the US Johansson wanted to switch to a schedule in which she would take Rose for three days then send her to Dauriac for two days.
“The kid was bouncing back and forth,” says the source. “It can’t work because she travels so much.”

- express.co.uk