Harvey Weinstein: 'Beautiful Girls' Scribe Scott Rosenberg

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Harvey Weinstein wears blond wig and orange makeup while slurping soup in first sighting since rehab as NYPD detective says there is enough evidence to arrest mogul and DA assigns sex crimes prosecutor
by Chris Spargo
Dailymail.com
November 3, 2017

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Harvey Weinstein was spotted for the first time since he claimed to have entered rehab last month in Arizona

The disgraced mogul was seen eating soup at the Phoenix restaurant Chestnut with a friend, wearing a blond wig and orange makeup

Weinstein is reportedly receiving out-patient therapy after claims that he spent a week in rehab last month to treat his sex addiction

The detective leading the Weinstein investigation for the NYPD said that the evidence needed to make an arrest is in place after Paz de la Huerta's report

'I believe based on my interviews with Paz that from the NYPD. standpoint we have enough to make an arrest,' said Detective Nicholas DiGaudio

At the same time, the Manhattan District Attorney's office has assigned a senior sex crimes prosecutor to work on the case

Harvey Weinstein has been spotted for the first time since he claimed to have entered rehab in Arizona last month as he grabbed some food with a male friend on Thursday.

The disgraced mogul, 65, was seen slurping on some soup at Chestnut, a farm-to-table restaurant in Phoenix.

Weinstein managed to keep a low profile throughout the meal despite the fact that over 100 women have now accused him of sexual harassment and/or assault.

That feat was accomplished in large part because of his disguise, with Weinstein wearing a blond wig over his bald head and orange makeup covering his face before heading out in public.

His guest also appeared to be wearing a wig, with the man keeping a hand on the side of his head during their meal.

Weinstein has been in Arizona for close to a month, where he reportedly attended a week of in-patient rehab at an undisclosed location and is now receiving out-patient treatment.

Meanwhile, the New York Police Department has now gathered enough evidence and information to arrest Weinstein according to the detective leading the investigation.

At the same time, the Manhattan District Attorney's office has assigned a senior sex crimes prosecutor to work on the case.


Table for two: Harvey Weinstein was spotted for the first time since he claimed to have entered rehab last month in Arizona


Soup for you: Weinstein managed to keep a low profile throughout the meal despite the fact that over 100 women have now accused him of sexual harassment

These sudden developments within the NYPD and district attorney's office come after actress Paz de la Huerta filed a police report alleging that she was raped by Weinstein in 2010 on two occasions.

'I believe based on my interviews with Paz that from the N.Y.P.D. standpoint we have enough to make an arrest,' Detective Nicholas DiGaudio told Vanity Fair.

Detective DiGaudio is leading the investigation for the department, and has received reports from at least three women claiming they were sexually assaulted by Weinstein.

There has been no statute of limitations on rape, criminal sexual act or aggravated sexual abuse in the first degree in the state of New York since 2006, which means that de la Huerta has the strongest claim against Weinstein.

The assaults alleged by the other two women took place before that law was changed, which means that even if the district attorney's office files charges against Weinstein in those cases they could be tossed out of court by a judge.

New York County District Attorney Maxine B. Rosenthal has also been looking into de la Huerta's claims, with her lawyer confirming he turned over information and files to her office earlier this week.

Among the items turned over were notes from her therapist confirming that de la Huerta spoke about the alleged assault at the time.

'I recall you telling me that Harvey Weinstein was seeking sexual contact with you on more than one occasion with the promise of additional roles,' wrote SueAnne Piliero in a letter to the district attorney's office.

'I recall you reporting to me a sexual encounter with Harvey Weinstein involving intercourse in your apartment in 2010 that resulted in you feeling victimized. I recall you telling me that it felt coercive to you and that you didn’t want to have sex with him, but felt that you had to as he was a man of power and rank and you couldn’t say no to his sexual advances.'

On Friday, de la Huerta's lawyer Aaron Filler detailed his client's experience with Weinstein on 'Megyn Kelly Today.'

'She had known him for years because she met him when she was 14 years old when she did Cider House Rules, and she had seen him,' said Filler.

'She lived in the neighborhood in Tribecca, where he lives and right up the street from the Weinstein Company.'

Then, a decade after they met, the two ran into one another at a nightclub in the city, with Weinstein offering the actress a ride home.

De la Huerta was 25 at the time and Weinstein was 58.

When they got to the actress' building, Weinstein tried to make his way into her apartment, despite her pleas that he leave for the night said her lawyer.

'And they argued in front of the doorman. And as we've heard in the tape from the wire and from 2015 in New York [with Ambra Battilana], convinced her to let him in. And then, rape ensued.'

That was just the beginning though according to Filler.

'And following that, he began to call her, repeatedly and saying, "I'm waiting at your home. I'm in your lobby. I'm parked out front. When are you coming home?" And the doorman would warn her. She would stay away,' said Filler.

'She was afraid to come home.'

Another incident followed a short time later in Los Angeles said Filler, who seemed to struggle with his appearance on 'Today.'

'She decided to confront him and tell him you're a stalker. You raped me. You've got to stop. She confronted him in the hotel. She had come to meet him with some other people,' said Filler.

'And when she gave him the message. He exposed himself. And she left.'

'This has been going on for two months. And she decided she was going to confront him. She was very upset. The whole period of stalking and not being able to come home, day after day, really had tremendous impact on her.'


Development: The detective leading the Weinstein investigation for the NYPD said that the evidence needed to make an arrest is in place after Paz de la Huerta's report (actress above in undated photo)


In the beginning: De la Huerta first met Weinstein when she was 14 on the set of 'Cider House Rules' (de la Huerta above on set)

De la Huerta said on Thursday that Weinstein first raped her in October 2010, claiming that he joined her for a drink at her apartment after the two ran into one another at the Standard Hotel and then forced himself on her despite her protests.

'He stuck himself inside me,' said de la Huerta, noting that she was 'afraid and 'it all happened very quickly.'

She also stressed that it was non consensual.

'When he was done he said he’d be calling me. I kind of just laid on the bed in shock said the actress.

The second incident happened two months later when Weinstein came to her apartment after she had been drinking claims de la Huerta, who said she was therefore unable to give consent.

Charges were never filed against Weinstein the last time he was investigated for assault in 2015 by the NYPD, despite police sources saying they thought there was enough evidence to indict the mogul after passing off the case to the district attorney's office.

Three days after meeting with Battilana at their office, a spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Vance announced that the probe into the incident did not find enough evidence to pursue a case.

'This case was taken seriously from the outset, with a thorough investigation conducted by our sex crimes unit,' said Joan Vollero at the time.

'After analyzing the available evidence, including multiple interviews with both parties, a criminal charge is not supported.'

The New York Times revealed on last month that Weinstein surrounded himself with a very connected team of litigators before learning that charges would not be pursued in the case.

He retained Elkan Abramowitz, a former law partner of Vance, and Daniel S. Connolly, who was also a former prosecutor.

Linda Fairstein came on as a consultant and introduced Weinstein's lawyer Abramowitz to Martha Bashford, the head of the district attorney’s sex crimes bureau.

'Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein,' said his spokesperson Sallie Hofmeister in a statement shortly after the first exposes were released about his behavior.

'Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances.'

She went on to state: 'Mr. Weinstein obviously can’t speak to anonymous allegations, but with respect to any women who have made allegations on the record, Mr. Weinstein believes that all of these relationships were consensual.

'Mr. Weinstein has begun counseling, has listened to the community and is pursuing a better path. Mr. Weinstein is hoping that, if he makes enough progress, he will be given a second chance.'

There is still no confirmation that Weinstein ever entered rehab or sought counseling.

Employees at the Weinstein Company broke their silence for the first time since their boss and company founder had been accused of sexual harassment and assault by over 50 women late last month.

'We all knew that we were working for a man with an infamous temper. We did not know we were working for a serial sexual predator,' read an open letter sent to The New Yorker by 'Select Members of the Weinstein Company Staff.'

'We knew that our boss could be manipulative. We did not know that he used his power to systematically assault and silence women.'

The select staffers then stated: 'We had an idea that he was a womanizer who had extra-marital affairs. We did not know he was a violent aggressor and alleged rapist.'

The letter was included in a story detailing Harvey's final day in the office, with the group acknowledging it was written despite the fact that it is an open violation of the NDA in their contracts.

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Paz de la Huerta Says Harvey Weinstein Raped Her Twice. Will That Bring Him to Justice?: Why police may now have a case.
by Rebecca Keegan
November 2, 2017 6:52 PM

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Paz de la Huerta while promoting Enter the Void at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009.
By Henny Garfunkel/Redux.

In the fall of 2010, actress Paz de la Huerta was at her highest point professionally. Raised in SoHo and on the Lower East Side by a father descended from Spanish nobility and a mother who is a policy analyst on women’s issues in Third World countries, de la Huerta had been acting and modeling since her teens, and now seemed to be breaking through. The year before she had co-starred in Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void, which had recently opened in the U.S. And her recurring role on HBO’s just-premiered Prohibition-period gangster drama, Boardwalk Empire, as mistress to Steve Buscemi’s Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, had earned her critical praise.

One night that November, de la Huerta ran into Harvey Weinstein at the Top of the Standard bar at the Standard, High Line hotel in Manhattan. She had first met Weinstein while making the movie Cider House Rules when she was 14. De la Huerta had communicated with the producer over the years after their first meeting. At around age 21, she said, Weinstein sent her some science-fiction books and suggested she might be right for a role in one of his projects. When they met at the hotel in 2010 de la Huerta was 26 and Weinstein was at the height of his powers as an Oscar-winning producer. The Weinstein Company was about to enter a streak that would see it win best picture at the Academy Awards two years in a row, first for The King’s Speech in 2011 and then The Artist in 2012. Weinstein offered de la Huerta a ride home to Tribeca. In de la Huerta’s account of the night, Weinstein arrived at her apartment demanding to come inside and have a drink. “Things got very uncomfortable very fast,” the actress, now 33, told Vanity Fair in a phone interview on Wednesday.

“Immediately when we got inside the house, he started to kiss me and I kind of brushed [him] away,” de la Huerta said. “Then he pushed me onto the bed and his pants were down and he lifted up my skirt. I felt afraid. . . . It wasn’t consensual . . . It happened very quickly. . . . He stuck himself inside me. . . . When he was done he said he’d be calling me. I kind of just laid on the bed in shock.”

De la Huerta described a second assault that allegedly happened in late December 2010, when Weinstein showed up in her building lobby after she came home from a photo shoot. The actress said she had been drinking, and was frightened by Weinstein, who had been repeatedly calling her, despite her asking him to leave her alone. “He hushed me and said, ‘Let’s talk about this in your apartment,’” de la Huerta said. “I was in no state. I was so terrified of him. . . . I did say no, and when he was on top of me I said, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ He kept humping me and it was disgusting. He’s like a pig. . . . He raped me.”

Afterward, de la Huerta said, “I laid there feeling sick. He looked at me and said, ‘I’ll put you in a play.’ He left and I never heard from him again. He knew he had done a bad thing.”

In many respects, de la Huerta’s story mirrors the more than 60 other women who have opened up about the producer since allegations of his sexual misconduct first appeared in The New York Times and The New Yorker last month. But her case is unusual in one key respect—it may see charges brought against Weinstein. De la Huerta has been interviewed by New York Police Department detective Nicholas DiGaudio, who is leading the Weinstein investigation, and her attorney has provided material to New York District Attorney Maxine B. Rosenthal, who is considering bringing charges in the case.

Because de la Huerta alleges a forceful rape which happened after June 2006, within New York’s statute of limitations for rape in the first degree, her case is among the most compelling for prosecutors. DiGaudio confirmed that he has spoken with de la Huerta, along with other women, as part of the department’s investigation into Weinstein. “I believe based on my interviews with Paz that from the N.Y.P.D. standpoint we have enough to make an arrest,” DiGaudio said. The department has reason to assemble its case with particular care. In 2015, the N.Y.P.D. questioned Weinstein in connection with a groping allegation involving an Italian model named Ambra Battilana, but the D.A. declined to move forward with the case, citing insufficient evidence to prove a crime. Police in London and Los Angeles are also pursuing potential criminal cases.

Through a spokeswoman, Weinstein has “unequivocally denied” any allegations of nonconsensual sex. She reiterated that position when reached Thursday.

At the time of the alleged assaults, de la Huerta said she told one person—her therapist, SueAnne Piliero, who recently supplied a letter to the actress about her recollections from those sessions. “I recall you telling me that Harvey Weinstein was seeking sexual contact with you on more than one occasion with the promise of additional roles,” Piliero said in the letter, which de la Huerta has shared with Vanity Fair and with the New York district attorney’s office. “I recall you reporting to me a sexual encounter with Harvey Weinstein involving intercourse in your apartment in 2010 that resulted in you feeling victimized. I recall you telling me that it felt coercive to you and that you didn’t want to have sex with him, but felt that you had to as he was a man of power and rank and you couldn’t say no to his sexual advances.”

In 2014, de la Huerta told another person about the alleged assaults, a journalist named Alexis Faith, who recorded the conversation but never published it at the actress’s request. “I was always scared, because when I was younger anyone that had ever hurt me somehow, they were protected and I was the one who got into trouble,” de la Huerta said. “I didn’t want to say something that they were gonna make it look like I’m just some slutty girl.” Faith has provided the recording of that conversation to the D.A., a person familiar with the case said.

After her experiences with Weinstein, de la Huerta said her life and career took a dark turn. She became depressed and drank excessively; after a second season, HBO did not renew her Boardwalk Empire contract.

“I was very traumatized,” de la Huerta said. “I don’t think I was taking very good care of myself. What happened with Harvey left me scarred for many years. I felt so disgusted by it, with myself . . . I became a little self-destructive. It was really hard for me to deal, to cope.”

During a stunt accident while filming the 2013 horror movie Nurse 3D, de la Huerta broke her tailbone and fractured her spine. She has continued to work in independent films, recently playing Hippolyta in an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For the upcoming movie Puppy Love, de la Huerta filmed a role as a drug-addicted prostitute who is repeatedly abused. “I think it was very therapeutic for me to play her,” de la Huerta said. “Because I knew how she felt.”

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LAPD Officially Investigating Harvey Weinstein for Rape Allegations: Weinstein’s accuser paints a harrowing picture of the 2013 incident.
by Joanna Robinson
October 19, 2017 11:14 PM

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Following two explosive pieces in The New York Times and The New Yorker as well as growing accounts from some of the biggest names in Hollywood detailing years of sexual misconduct and assault from disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, the LAPD confirmed Thursday that it was officially investigating allegations of a 2013 rape. The alleged incident falls well within California’s 10-year statute of limitations and could mean Weinstein would potentially face up to eight-years behind bars under state law.

“Mr. Weinstein obviously can’t speak to anonymous allegations, but he unequivocally denies allegations of non-consensual sex,” Weinstein’s representatives said Thursday in response to the LAPD’s announcement. The Los Angeles Times spoke with Weinstein’s alleged victim, a 38 year-old Italian actress and model who sat down with the LAPD for two hours Thursday morning to review the 2013 incident. Though she remains anonymous out of fear of retaliation and in order to protect her children, the Times notes that the latest woman to accuse Weinstein “is well-known in Italy, where she appeared on the cover of Italian Vogue and as an actress in Italian films.”

She told the Times that her encounter with Weinstein took place at Mr. C Beverly Hills hotel in February 2013 following the 8th annual Los Angeles, Italia Film, Fashion and Art Fest. Though she declined to follow Weinstein up to his hotel room after the event, she recalls that the producer later appeared “without warning” in the lobby of her hotel after midnight, “bullied” his way into her room despite her refusal, and then “grabbed me by the hair and forced me to do something I did not want to do. He then dragged me to the bathroom and forcibly raped me.”

Weinstein’s accuser told the Times that later he “acted like nothing happened,” told her they might work together in the future, and even invited her to parties at his house. She declined his invitations. “My client is grateful to all the courageous women who have already come forward to finally expose Weinstein,” Deadline reports the woman’s attorney, David Ring, saying on Thursday. “These women may not have realized it, but they gave my client the support and encouragement to hold Weinstein accountable for this horrible act.”

The woman told the Times she was also inspired by her three children. “I feel responsible that I didn't talk for years, I feel responsible that I didn't react that night and I didn't call the police, I feel responsible that I wasn't brave enough," she said. “All these years I’ve been thinking why I didn’t call the police immediately. I regret that I opened the [hotel] door.”

The LAPD’s investigation comes three days after the NYPD and London authorities announced they were pursuing at least five other accusations of rape and sexual assault against Weinstein. The dates on these cases range from the 1980s to 2015 including the one brought by model Ambra Battilana-Gutierrez who obtained damning audio of Weinstein released by The New Yorker. There is no statute of limitations in New York for first-degree criminal sex act.

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Harvey Weinstein and Disney are targeted by a Canadian actress alleging sexual assault
by David Ng
November 01, 2017 | 03:45 PM

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A Canadian actress is reportedly planning to sue Harvey Weinstein and Walt Disney Co., contending that the producer sexually assaulted her twice in 2000. The complaint would be the first known instance of Disney being sued for a sex-related allegation against Weinstein, whose company Miramax was owned by Disney at the time.

The unnamed actress is seeking $14 million in damages, including $4 million from Weinstein, and $4 million from both Miramax and Disney, according to a report from the National Post in Toronto.

The plaintiff is also seeking $2 million from Barbara Schneeweiss, a longtime Weinstein associate who, the actress asserts, knew about her boss' proclivities but still arranged the meetings.

-- Barbara Schneeweiss, producer (C) Harvey Weinstein and Lucas Carter are seen around Lincoln Center during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week on September 9, 2010 in New York City.

In a proposed statement of claim filed in a Toronto court, the actress, who is identified only as "Jane Doe," alleges that Weinstein invited her to his Toronto hotel room while she was working on a Miramax movie during the summer of 2000. There, the producer began talking about massages, which, the actress told him, was "not appropriate for a business meeting," according to the Post report.

Weinstein later led her to the bedroom and allegedly took out his penis, telling her he had made the careers of many famous actresses. He then allegedly pulled down her skirt, held her by the wrists and, despite her saying "no" several times,"forcibly performed oral sex on her without her consent."

The second alleged incident took place at the same hotel after Weinstein asked her back to explain the "misunderstanding," according to the report. The producer allegedly "threw his weight onto her and tried to stick his tongue down her throat."

Arguments on the new claim are scheduled to be heard Monday.

A representative for Weinstein didn't reply for a request for comment. He has denied claims of nonconsensual sex. Disney also didn't respond to a request for comment.

The Burbank-based entertainment giant said in a statement published by other outlets that "the Weinsteins operated and managed their business with virtual autonomy, and we were unaware of any complaints, lawsuits, or settlements. There is absolutely no legal basis for this claim against The Walt Disney Company and we will defend against it vigorously."

Disney acquired Miramax in 1993. The company parted ways with Harvey and Bob Weinstein in 2005 and sold off Miramax five years later.

The new allegations appear to be different from those made by another Canadian actress, Larissa Gomes, who contends Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed her about 17 years ago.

More than 60 women have accused Weinstein of sexual harassment and assault since the New York Times first broke the story Oct. 5.

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Canadian actress Larissa Gomes alleges Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed her
by Victoria Kim
October 17, 2017

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(Lilly Lawrence / Getty Images)

A Canadian actress added her voice to the chorus of women bringing allegations against Harvey Weinstein, saying the producer asked her to bare her chest and tried to kiss her on the lips while name-dropping famous actresses and dangling career opportunities.

Larissa Gomes was a 21-year-old actress about 17 years ago when she was working on the Toronto set of “Get Over It,” a Miramax-produced teen flick, she wrote in an account emailed to The Times this week. Weinstein approached her and asked for her opinion about the production, and mentioned multiple films his company shoots in Canada each year.

“I had literally just began acting … and here I was meeting the most powerful producer of the time,” she wrote. “It was intoxicating, it was validating.”

Gomes, who has since appeared in the film “Saw VI” and television shows “Supernatural” and “La Femme Nikita,” said Weinstein asked her for her personal number through an assistant, then set up a breakfast meeting at his hotel. The first meeting was professional, after which he asked to meet again in his hotel room, this time in the early evening, Gomes said.

After plopping down a stack of scripts in front of her that he said he wanted her to read, he went into his bedroom and asked her to come in, she recounted.

Weinstein was on his bed, saying he had a headache, she said. He asked her to lie down with him and asked her to take her shirt off so he could see her breasts, Gomes said. She left the room, and he followed in a bathrobe and started massaging her shoulders and neck despite her saying she didn’t want it, Gomes said.

“He would not stop. He just kept pushing his hands close to my chest forcefully until I finally was able to get up and away from him,” she wrote.

Weinstein told her, “You know, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ashley Judd were exactly where you are at one point. Look at them now,” Gomes recounted.

Gomes said she made an excuse to leave at that point, and Weinstein, at the door, grabbed her and tried to kiss her on the lips. She said she turned her head, and he sneered. She never saw or spoke to him again.

“I was silent … I wasn’t even sure if this was considered assault, in my mind I thought that since I got away then it isn’t,” she wrote. “I was very young and vulnerable, and that was what he was banking on.”

In an interview, Gomes said she never got over her encounter with Weintein.

"I was so incredibly discouraged and disillusioned. I didn’t know if I wanted to be a part of the industry any more if this is what it was," she said. "This was definitely...something I’d never forget."

More than 30 women have alleged they were sexually harassed or assaulted by Weinstein. The disgraced mogul has expressed remorse about his behavior but has denied having nonconsensual sex with women.

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I Worked at a Beverly Hills Hotel and Witnessed Sickening Behavior (Guest Column)
by Chris Gardner
Hollywood Reporter
November 01, 2017 6:00am PT

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A former PR director of The Peninsula Beverly Hills reveals the protocol of handling top executives including Harvey Weinstein, who was a frequent guest: "There's a reason bellmen were tipped better than anyone."

In 1997, Ashley Judd joined Harvey Weinstein at The Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel for a breakfast meeting, which the concierge informed her was to take place in the movie mogul's room. In the suite, the shocked actress fought off his sexual advances and, as she said in an Oct. 26 interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, "made a deal" to have sex with him after an Oscar win in order to escape. "Who was I to tell?" Judd told Diane Sawyer. "Was I going to tell the concierge who sent me up to the room?" The hotel — in a statement released to THR by parent company Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels Limited — states that, yes, the concierge would have been obliged to act: "Hotel guests are entitled to privacy when staying with us, unless a complaint or allegation is made to our staff, in which case … we will not hesitate to ask a guest to leave if evidence is found that he or she has sexually harassed our staff members." However, in an interview, a former PR director for the hotel talks of a natural complicity to protect and keep VIP guests:

People have asked me, "Did you know?" I knew he was a bully. If his room service order was delayed, he would flip over the tray. Mr. Weinstein was known for screaming and for walking into the restaurant and demanding to know why his table wasn't ready, even if he had not made a reservation or canceled his reservation. He was high maintenance, but most top executives are. That behavior was common. But not so much that you would turn away the business. I don't know that anyone would ever have turned that business away.

Hotels are about generating revenue. If your guest, Mr. Weinstein, were coming in from New York, spending $980 per night for eight nights and taking meetings to include food and beverage service and room service, that's a nice piece of business. You find out his favorite wine or beverage, and you cater to that — not to his behavior but to the revenue he produces. Mr. Weinstein was probably there at least one time a month, in addition to pre- and post-Academy Awards for a significant time. The Miramax business mattered to the hotel. He and his brother, Bob, would stay in large suites, and the company would bring in other executives as well.

Guests would come to the concierge at the front desk and ask to see Harvey Weinstein, and we would call and send them up. That's how business was conducted. CAA was across the street at the time, and he held many meetings there; so did many entertainment industry insiders.

A woman would come to see Mr. Weinstein, and it would be confirmed if that is what he wanted, and she was then sent to his suite. I don't think there were women who hesitated that I knew of, but it was likely that they expected the meeting to take place in the foyer of a suite or in the office of a villa.

It wasn't at all unusual to see a high-level entertainment executive stay at the hotel for two weeks, and during that time, special guests who were clearly not the wife would join him. After entertaining those "guests" for several days, they would disappear, and halfway through the week, the wife, nanny and kids joined from New York. Everyone would know. It's an intimate, small hotel; it wasn't lost on anyone what was really going on, but it was never discussed. The wife could be 45 years old and the other guest maybe 20 years old. What happened at the hotel stayed at the hotel, and there's a reason bellmen were tipped better than anyone else in the entire hotel.

The higher up they are in an organization, the more you see it. It was so disappointing. As a 30-something professional, you wind up saying to yourself, "Him, too?" "Him, too?" "Him, too?" It causes you to lose faith in humanity a bit. On the flip side, it was fascinating to watch these men place the level of confidence they did in doormen. The doormen always knew when the girlfriend was leaving and the wife was coming, and that meant they helped take out any of the girlfriend's belongings and sweep the room just to be safe. It's a fascinating, well-oiled machine. That's one of the reasons these guys kept coming back: Their secrets were kept.

Hotels are really sexy. The more luxurious, expensive and elite, the more attractive they become — and they're open 24 hours a day. Hotels are a safe and discreet place where sex happens for people outside of their partnerships. Confidentiality is deeply entrenched, etched in the DNA of the employees. What you see is never to be repeated, and that goes for everyone from the housekeeper to the GM. If an employee had witnessed someone getting hurt or any harassment, they would raise the issue to a supervisor first. The police may not necessarily be the first phone call.

I don't know that I feel responsible for what Mr. Weinstein did at The Peninsula, but I'm really mad, saddened and sickened that this really bad behavior went on in a place where we, as employees, worked so hard to create something so special. To know that these women walked through that lobby to go upstairs to see that pig, and that's what happened? I'm really resentful that so much happened there. Gwyneth Paltrow's story in particular — no 22-year-old young lady should ever have to endure that.

***

And an in-dining employee at the Montage Beverly Hills hotel recalls a traumatizing run-in with the producer:

Before occupying his Peninsula lair, Weinstein stayed at The Beverly Hills Hotel, where his association was reportedly ended due to staff and guests’ complaints including women entering and leaving his room. (The hotel declined to comment.) Several former employees of the Montage Beverly Hills, the hotel that Weinstein utilized starting in 2008 when it opened (before returning to the Peninsula), told tales of intimidation. A kitchen worker says, “Whenever he was staying at Montage, the in-room dining staff dreaded it. The housekeeping ladies did, too — I heard that he was filthy and they hated cleaning up a room he had just vacated,” while room-service worker describes how “the staff was strictly prohibited to greet him, speak to him, or even look at him,” upon the producer’s arrival. “The description on the PMA [computerized communication] system of how he wanted his arrival to be approaching the porte cochere were made in capital letters with several exclamation marks. If something wasn’t to his liking, he would raise hell completely.” The employee recounts a traumatizing encounter in 2010.

One day he placed a call to in-room dining. I knew it was him because it came from the presidential suite. When I picked up the phone, he started to bark orders like a mad man. He demanded sushi. Our sushi bar wasn’t open yet, but since I knew he was a big VIP, I wanted to make it happen. So I asked to place him on hold to find out if I could get one of the chefs to prepare the sushi. He stayed quiet for a second, then was like, "ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE PLACE ME ON FUCKING HOLD, YOU STUPID …" It was like that. I was in such shock. So I said, "OK, I’ll just make it happen."

I’ve never been verbally assaulted before. I had to take 10 minutes and cried, really cried. I brought it to the attention of my management and they were like, "Sorry, but you know how he is." Everyone was complicit because of who he was, the most powerful man in Hollywood.

This is how it works in luxury. I’ve worked in hospitality for 10 years, nine of those years in very luxurious hotels. There’s a certain complicity between the management and the people that frequent it. Harassment happens especially in high-end hospitality because when they’re paying thousands of dollars to rent a room, we’re basically in their homes. They feel like they can get away with anything. It’s a playground for them, and they can get away with being disgusting.

It can get a little scary for women servers. They get offered money for sex. There’s a ton of stories from girls who work in high-end hospitality. I’ve seen it happen, it has happened to me. Management knows but they don’t really do much to protect us. If I bring it to their attention, "Oh, don’t interact with him again. We’ll send someone else." But as far as confronting those people, no, they don’t, because they’re afraid of getting sued. We walked on shells when we knew he was on property. It was a very toxic environment when he was visiting.

If I would have complained, I know no one would taken me seriously or taken my word over their word because of the power these people have. And [Weinstein] never tipped, not at all. (Laughs.) It was like serving an ogre, it really was.

[admin]

Uma Thurman's Response To Hollywood's Sexual Harassment Scandal Is Perfect: More than 90 women have now come out with allegations against the Hollywood producer.
by Max Koslowski
HuffPost Australia
05/11/2017 7:01 PM AEDT | Updated 05/11/2017 7:07 PM AEDT

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American actress Uma Thurman has given a chilling response to questions about allegations of sexual assault and harassment against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

At the premiere of 'The Parisian Woman' Thurman spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, saying that the actions of women who had spoken out against figures like Weinstein were "commendable".

But before expanding on that, Thurman gave this message:

"I don't have a tidy soundbite for you because I am not a child, and I have learned that when I have spoken in anger, I usually regret the way I express myself".

"So I've been waiting to feel less angry, and when I'm ready I'll say what I have to say".

More than 90 women have now come out with allegations against Weinstein, now including actresses like Gwyneth Paltrow, Lupita Nyong'o, Ashley Judd and Angelina Jolie.

In recent days the New York Police Department has declared that they are investigating claims of rape against the producer.

AP Eastern U.S. ✔@APEastRegion
BREAKING: NYC police say they have a credible rape allegation against Harvey Weinstein, are gathering evidence for possible arrest.
1:06 PM - Nov 3, 2017

The allegations against Weinstein have also spurred on fresh claims against other Hollywood figures, such as director James Toback, and 'House of Cards' actor Kevin Spacey.

Thurman has worked with Weinstein on 'Pulp Fiction' and the 'Kill Bill' movies.

[admin]

Over 300 Women Chime In After L.A. Times Details Director’s Sex Abuse Reputation: After his initial story on James Toback, the reporter says 310 women have contacted him with similar accounts.
by Doha Madani
October 26, 2017

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The Los Angeles Times has fielded literally hundreds of stories about sexual harassment involving director James Toback.

L.A. Times writer Glenn Whipp, whose article Sunday about 38 women’s allegations against Toback, tweeted Thursday that 310 women have contacted him so far about their encounters with the writer-director. Whipp’s article came in the wake of growing allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.

“He told me he’d love nothing more than to masturbate while looking into my eyes,” Toback accuser Louise Post, the guitarist and vocalist for the rock band Veruca Salt, told the Times.

Toback has had a long, ugly history with women, dating at least to the 1980s, when a 1989 Spy magazine report claimed that Toback used his position as a Hollywood director to ask women if they’d consider a role in one of his forthcoming films and then would ask them to meet him late at night.

Glenn Whipp ✔@GlennWhipp
UPDATE: The number of women who have contacted me about their encounters with James Toback now stands at 310. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/mo ... story.html …
2:42 PM - Oct 26, 2017

200 more women share their James Toback stories after 38 accuse director of sexual harassment
After a story about director James Toback's alleged serial sexual harassment broke in the Los Angeles Times, the LAPD and New York District Attorney's office began fielding calls from a growing...
latimes.com

Actresses Selma Blair, Rachel McAdams and Julianne Moore have all come forward with allegations against Toback.

Blair told Vanity Fair that her representatives set up a meeting with Toback in 1999, when the director asked the actress, then in her mid-20s, to read a monologue naked in his hotel room. After initially declining, Blair says, Toback insisted he was “training” her to be a better actress. So she complied.

At one point, Blair claimed, Toback began rubbing his penis through his pants before asking her, “Would you fuck me?”

“I tried to look away, but he would hold my face,” Blair told Vanity Fair. “So I was forced to look into his eyes. And I felt disgust and shame, and like nobody would ever think of me as being clean again after being this close to the devil. His energy was so sinister.”

Women have been opening up publicly about their encounters with sexual violence and harassment in the wake of the Weinstein accusations. A viral internet campaign, #MeToo, has highlighted the prevalence of harassment, which most believe is all too common.

Celebrities have taken a lead in telling their own stories, including Rose McGowan, America Ferrera, Reese Witherspoon and Ashley Judd. Men have also come forward detailing uncomfortable situations of harassment, including “Brooklyn-Nine-Nine” star Terry Crews.

A 2010 study based on a decade of data found that only 2 percent to 10 percent of sexual assault allegations are false reports, dispelling the myth that many women lie about it. If that percentage were applied to the Toback harassment allegations, there would still be at least 279 women reporting truthful episodes of sexual misconduct.

Sexual harassment and assault are some of the most underreported crimes in the United States. Only 344 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to police, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.

[admin]

38 women have come forward to accuse director James Toback of sexual harassment
by Glenn Whipp
October 22, 2017 | 04:40 PM

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38 women have come forward to accuse director James Toback of sexual harassment.

He prowled the streets of Manhattan looking for attractive young women, usually in their early 20s, sometimes college students, on occasion a high schooler. He approached them in Central Park, standing in line at a bank or drug store or at a copy center while they worked on their resumes.

His opening line had a few variations. One went: "My name's James Toback. I'm a movie director. Have you ever seen 'Black and White' or 'Two Girls and a Guy'?"

Probably not. So he’d start to drop names. He had an Oscar nomination for writing the Warren Beatty movie “Bugsy.” He directed Robert Downey Jr., in three movies. The actor, Toback claimed, was a close friend; he had “invented him.” If you didn’t believe him, he would pull out a business card or an article that had been written about him to prove he had some juice in Hollywood. That he could make you a star.

But first, he'd need to get to know you. Intimately. Trust him, he'd say. It's all part of his process.

Then, in a hotel room, a movie trailer, a public park, meetings framed as interviews or auditions quickly turned sexual, according to 38 women who, in separate interviews told the Los Angeles Times of similar encounters they had with Toback.

I felt like a prostitute, an utter disappointment to myself, my parents, my friends. And I deserved not to tell anyone.
-- ADRIENNE LAVALLEY, ACTRE

During these meetings, many of the women said, Toback boasted of sexual conquests with the famous and then asked humiliating personal questions. How often do you masturbate? How much pubic hair do you have? He'd tell them, they said, that he couldn't properly function unless he "jerked off" several times a day. And then he'd dry-hump them or masturbate in front of them, ejaculating into his pants or onto their bodies and then walk away. Meeting over.

The women's accounts portray James Toback as a man who, for decades, sexually harassed women he hired, women looking for work and women he just saw on the street. The vast majority of these women — 31 of the 38 interviewed — spoke on the record. The Times also interviewed people that the women informed of the incidents when they occurred.

As is often the case, none of them contacted the police at the time. When contacted by The Times, Toback denied the allegations, saying that he had never met any of these women or, if he did, it "was for five minutes and have no recollection." He also repeatedly claimed that for the last 22 years, it had been "biologically impossible" for him to engage in the behavior described by the women in this story, saying he had diabetes and a heart condition that required medication. Toback declined to offer further details.

The women interviewed during The Times' investigation offered accounts that differed from Toback's recollections.

"The way he presented it, it was like, 'This is how things are done,'" actress Adrienne LaValley said of a 2008 hotel room encounter that ended with Toback trying to rub his crotch against her leg. When she recoiled, he stood up and ejaculated in his pants. "I felt like a prostitute, an utter disappointment to myself, my parents, my friends. And I deserved not to tell anyone."

"In a weird sense, I thought, 'This is a test of whether I'm a real artist and serious about acting,'" remembered Starr Rinaldi, who was an aspiring actress when Toback approached her in Central Park about 15 years ago. "He always wanted me to read for him in a hotel or come back to his apartment, like, 'How serious are you about your craft?'"

He told me he’d love nothing more than to masturbate while looking into my eyes.
-- LOUISE POST, GUITARIST AND VOCALIST FOR VERUCA SALT

"And the horrible thing is, whichever road you choose, whether you sleep with him or walk away, you're still broken," Rinaldi continued. "You have been violated."

Like Harvey Weinstein, Toback, now 72, was a big, hulking man with a reputation, so much so that he titled his 1987 semi-autobiographical movie “The Pick-up Artist.” He has been a writer/director since 1974; his most recent film, “The Private Life of a Modern Woman” starring Sienna Miller, premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Media profiles often referred to him as a womanizer. Lurking underneath were darker rumors of creepy behavior, reported in 1989 by Spy magazine and, more recently, by Gawker.

According to the 38 women who spoke to The Times, the scope of Toback's behavior was far more serious.

"He told me he'd love nothing more than to masturbate while looking into my eyes," said Louise Post, who met Toback in 1987 while attending Barnard College. Post, now a guitarist and vocalist for the indie rock band Veruca Salt, added: "Going to his apartment has been the source of shame for the past 30 years, that I allowed myself to be so gullible."

In the wake of Oscar-winning producer Harvey Weinstein being fired after reports revealed decades of sexual misconduct, many women have been coming forward with tales of harassment, abuse and assault. On the Twitter hashtag campaign #MeToo, Toback has his own special universe. The Veruca Salt account tweeted on Monday: "Us too: by bosses, boyfriends, male babysitters, taxi drivers, strangers and movie director/pig #jamestoback #metoo."

Kelley Raleigh @kelleyraleigh
I have my own story about #jamestoback from when I was 18. It was vile & disgusting. He was around 50 at the time. That's why I believe her https://twitter.com/ambertamblyn/status ... 1359856640 …
9:50 PM - Sep 16, 2017

"It's a common thread among many women I know … after someone mentions they were sexually abused by a creepy writer-director, the response is, 'Oh, no. You got Toback-ed,'" said Karen Sklaire, a New York drama teacher, actor and playwright who said a 1997 meeting with Toback in an office ended with him grinding against her leg. "The numbers are staggering."

Toback always kept his credentials handy when he introduced himself to women. He had amassed a solid body of work over four decades: His 1974 debut, "The Gambler" starring James Caan, the three movies with Downey Jr., a sympathetic documentary about boxer Mike Tyson and, of course, that Oscar-nominated screenplay for "Bugsy," the 1991 portrait of gangster Bugsy Siegel, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Beatty and Annette Bening.

Toback's movies often examine extremes — gambling, drinking, womanizing — that he says overlap with his own demons. "The idea is not to have a separation between my life and my movies," Toback said in a 2002 Salon interview. His characters are often on edge — Harvey Keitel's pianist in "Fingers," the teenagers infatuated with hip-hop culture in "Black and White."

I was shocked and frozen and didn’t know what to do. I thought if I resisted, it could get worse. He could overpower me.
TERRI CONN, ACTRE

As a writer/director, Toback liked to push the envelope sexually. The widely panned 2004 drama "When Will I Be Loved" opened with a five-minute shot of Neve Campbell masturbating with a shower nozzle.

Off-screen he constantly brought up those provocative scenes, say the majority of the women interviewed by The Times, to see how far they were willing to go, both during the audition process and, should they be cast, in his movies.

"The more time you spend with him, the weirder it gets until it's like just like one giant red flag," said Los Angeles radio reporter Anna Scott.

Scott was an 18-year-old senior at Manhattan's Hunter College High School when Toback approached her at a deli across the street from her campus. He told her he was working on a movie called "Black and White," that it starred boxer Tyson and he was casting complete unknowns. He asked if Scott was interested in acting. She was about to attend USC to study screenwriting. She thought she had made a fortuitous connection.

Toback invited Scott to a taping of the "Charlie Rose" show, where he was part of a panel. After the taping, he told her, they could talk more about the movie. But as they walked the streets of Midtown, the conversation quickly veered into sexual territory, including queries about masturbation and pubic hair.

"It was disgusting and embarrassing," Scott said. "I tried to extricate myself from it without causing a scene."

Veruca Salt ✔@verucasalt
Us too: by bosses, boyfriends, male babysitters, taxi drivers, strangers and movie director/pig #jamestoback #metoo
11:35 AM - Oct 16, 2017

Instead, Toback steered her into a restaurant where, she said he told her, "You have to be ready to turn yourself completely over to me." Finally, she abruptly stood up and fled.

In his trailer on the set of "Black and White," Toback knelt in front of actress Echo Danon and, she says, put his hands on her thighs, telling her, "If you look into my eyes and pinch my nipples, I'm going to come in my pants right now." She resisted. She felt helpless. Eventually he backed down.

"Everyone wants to work, so they put up with it," Danon said. "That's why I put up with it. Because I was hoping to get another job."

Toback approached Sari Kamin at a Kinko's in Manhattan's Upper West Side in 2003. He pulled out a DVD copy of "Two Girls and a Guy" and told her he'd like to cast her in his next movie. He said he felt an instant connection to her.

After several dinners over the course of a few months, Kamin says, Toback convinced her to accompany him to a hotel room, telling her that he needed to experience a "real connection" with her. Alarms went off, she says. She knew she wouldn't sleep with him, but she felt like if she could make it through the evening, maybe she'd finally land a part.

Once in the suite, Kamin says, Toback asked her to take off her clothes. She protested. Toback berated her, saying that if she couldn't reveal herself to him in the hotel room, how would she be able to act in a provocative sex scene in front of a movie crew? She gave in, removed her clothes. After commenting on her body, he knelt down before her and began to vigorously rub his groin against her.

"I felt really paralyzed," Kamin recalled. "And I asked him, 'Are you trying to get yourself off?' And he said, 'Absolutely.'" She jumped out of her chair, grabbed her clothes and ran.

Not all of the incidents in the women's accounts occurred in private. Terri Conn was 23 and acting on the soap opera "As the World Turns" when, she says, Toback approached her on the street. She was intrigued by his credentials and dreamed of being in an edgy independent film. Toback asked her to meet him in Central Park to discuss his process. He took her to a somewhat secluded area — there were people yards away — and told her the best way to get to know someone is to see their soul. And the way you can see someone's soul is to look into their eyes when they're experiencing orgasm. And he knelt before her and began humping her leg, telling Conn to look into his eyes.

"I was shocked and frozen and didn't know what to do," Conn said. "I thought if I resisted, it could get worse. He could overpower me." He quickly ejaculated into his khakis, got up and asked her to meet for dinner later to continue the process. Conn ignored his subsequent phone calls and never saw him again.

Chantal Cousineau was 19 and living in Toronto when, she says, she was asked to meet Toback for an audition for "Harvard Man" in 2001. The encounter began in a hotel restaurant and ended in his hotel room, with Cousineau prepared to walk away after Toback kept talking about masturbation. When she reached the door, he told her, "Calm down, you've got the part," as though the whole thing had been a test.

Cousineau didn't believe him, but her modeling agent called shortly afterward to confirm the casting. During a rehearsal for a monologue in which her character — a drug dealer — looks directly into the camera, she heard Toback, 10 feet away, on the other side of a half wall where the set's portable monitors were located, grunting, his hands rubbing, loud and rapid, against his windbreaker pants as he masturbated. After issuing a pronounced grunt, she said, Toback told the crew to break for 15 minutes.
When he returned to the set, Toback excused the camera man and sat two feet from Cousineau's face as she delivered her monologue, the first time she had ever been on film.

"I felt so violated," she said. "And there was my abuser, inches away from me."

Several of the women The Times interviewed quit acting after their encounters with Toback. Some returned to school. Some got married and buried their incident, never telling their husbands because of a sense of shame. Then the Weinstein scandal hit, and, for many, the news dredged up memories they had long repressed.

"Today, I cried for the first time since then about it," Post said. "I was crying for the 20-year-old woman who lost something vital that day — her innocence."

Echo Danon @echodanon
If you were involved in the film business in the '90s you knew that #harveyweinstien was a sexual predator.Another one was #JamesToback
6:49 PM - Oct 10, 2017

But even as an ever-growing list of high-profile women recount their sexual abuse on social media and in first-person accounts, many women remain afraid. Several women said he told them intimidating stories, some of which verged on the ridiculous, like when he informed flight attendant Ashly McQueen in 1998 that he killed someone at the racetrack with a pencil.

This woman asked to remain anonymous; she still feared for her safety 23 years after Toback humped her leg in his office until he ejaculated in his pants. Others interviewed for this story requested anonymity as well, fearing retaliation. One woman recounted the time when she met Toback at his New York home and he wouldn't let her leave until she grabbed his nipples and looked into his eyes while he masturbated.

Another well-known actress had a similar experience in 2000 at a Los Angeles hotel during what she thought was to be an audition. As with so many other women, Toback told her he felt a connection with her but that she needed to display the sexual confidence the role required. She needed to remove her clothes. "I am really uncomfortable," she replied."That's the whole point of this exercise," she says Toback told her.

The young woman, then a rising Hollywood star, wondered why she was so uncomfortable, why she couldn't just be naked in front of someone. So she took off her sweater, but started to cry. She stumbled through the monologue Toback had given her, thinking, "God, I really am a bad actress. I can't concentrate. I'm just trying to get through this."

Toback brought up all the famous people he had worked with, boasting about how he had made their careers and telling her he could do the same for her — if she trusted him. She thought maybe he was right. But she still wanted to leave. She pulled on her sweater. He blocked the hotel room door. He told her he needed to ejaculate and she had to help him.

"People who go against me … I know people that hurt people," he warned her. Then he asked if she'd have sex with him. No. Would she jerk him off? No.

She went for the door. He told her he couldn't let her go unless he had sexual release. All she needed to do was pinch his nipples and look into his eyes and he would press himself against her and come in his pants. She felt she had no choice. And while it was happening, she tried to look away, but he grabbed her head and made her stare into his eyes.

Her manager told her not long afterward that he wanted to see her again. Her reply: He's a vile person. And you shouldn't ever send another woman to him.

Times staff writer Victoria Kim contributed to this report.

[admin]

200 more women share their James Toback stories after 38 accuse director of sexual harassment
by Glenn Whipp
L.A. Times
October 23, 2017 | 09:00 PM

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Filmmaker James Toback has long had a bad reputation with women.

Stories about the writer-director often referred to him as a womanizer, but what that actually meant did not become clear until the Los Angeles Times published an investigation Sunday in which 38 women accused the writer-director of sexual harassment.

Within two days those numbers swelled as more than 200 additional women contacted The Times and, in emails and phone calls, recalled encounters with Toback similar to those detailed in the story. The majority of the new accounts, which have not been verified, told of Toback approaching women on the streets of Manhattan, offering them the chance at a part in an upcoming movie, and a wide range of unwanted sexual advances and behavior.

"Today Show" anchor Natalie Morales, wrote on Twitter: "… add one more. Exact same playbook by James Toback when I encountered him near Central Park."

"In all honesty, I thought he was just a creep hitting on me with the oldest line in the book," Morales told The Times, after detailing her experience on "Access Hollywood."

"Like I said on our show I was just lucky. I saw pretty quickly what he was up to," she added.

22 Oct
Glenn Whipp ✔ @GlennWhipp
UPDATE: 38 women contacted me for this story. That number has now doubled since it was published. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la ... story.html …

Natalie Morales ✔@NMoralesNBC
Glenn add one more. Exact same playbook by James Toback when I encountered him near Central Park.
11:15 AM - Oct 23, 2017

The Los Angeles Police Department has fielded numerous phone calls related to Toback in the last few days, said LAPD Det. Danetta Menifee.

She said the department's special assault section of its Robbery-Homicide Division is currently sorting through the calls to determine the nature of the complaints and where the encounters occurred and if the LAPD is going to conduct an investigation.

A spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney's office said women are being encouraged to call the office's sex crimes hotline number in relation to Toback, who lives in New York. Several of the women included in The Times' investigation confirmed they had contacted the district attorney's office in the past week to file complaints.

Meanwhile, Toback's longtime agent, former ICM chief Jeff Berg, terminated his relationship with the filmmaker over the weekend, according to a spokesperson for Berg's Los Angeles firm, Northside Services.

The Times’ story detailed a pattern of behavior, carried out over four decades, in which Toback approached women in New York and Los Angeles, boasting of his movie credits and relationships with stars such as Robert Downey Jr. Then, under the pretext of meetings framed as interviews or auditions, he asked explicit questions about the women’s sexual histories, often proposing that they remove their clothes.

The encounters often ended, according to many of the women interviewed, with Toback dry-humping them or masturbating in front of them, ejaculating into his pants or onto their bodies.

Toback, 72, denied the allegations to The Times, saying he had never met the women or, if he did, it "was for five minutes and have no recollection." He also repeatedly claimed that for the last 22 years it had been "biologically impossible" for him to engage in the behavior described by his accusers.

Reached Monday for response to the additional allegations, Toback declined to comment.
Hollywood reacted to the allegations against Toback with blistering anger. "Guardians of the Galaxy" writer-director James Gunn posted a Facebook screed in which he declared he had been warning about Toback's sexual come-ons for years.

"He has done this to three girls I've dated, two of my very best friends, and a family member... twice. Yes, he came up to her twice with the same stupid line, not realizing she was the same person," Gunn wrote. "This is in addition to many other women I've talked to at parties or dinners about their interactions with Toback."

James Gunn ✔@JamesGunn
Why I’ve despised James Toback for over 20 years #JamesToback https://www.facebook.com/jgunn/posts/10154644838841157 …
12:15 PM - Oct 22, 2017

Scott Derrickson ✔@scottderrickson
If there is a Hell, James Toback will be in it.
9:36 AM - Oct 22, 2017

Reactions from Hollywood's guilds were less definitive.

Toback belongs to the Writers Guild of America, East. A representative for the organization did not immediately respond to an inquiry about any potential action to revoke his membership.

Earlier this month, in the wake of the revelations of similar charges of sexual misconduct against film mogul Harvey Weinstein, the group issued a statement calling his actions “deplorable” and saying the guild “has a role to play in moving our industry in the right direction."

Toback, who has directed a dozen films, has not been a member of the Directors Guild of America since 2005. A representative for the DGA, which announced last week it had filed disciplinary charges against Weinstein, declined to discuss Toback's history with the organization or whether any complaints had been lodged with them about his behavior.

Toback told The Times last Friday that his Directors Guild membership lapsed because he didn't pay his membership dues.

Toback has not been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for nearly a decade because he failed to pay his annual dues, an academy spokesperson said Monday. Toback had been nominated for a screenwriting Oscar for the 1991 film "Bugsy."

The Screen Actors Guild maintains a hotline for its members to confidentially report what it refers to as "safety violations including harassment and inappropriate or aggressive behavior." The guild declined to state whether it had received such complaints against Toback, citing privacy issues.

Publisher Judith Regan told The Times Monday that allegations against Toback didn't surprise her. She alleged that he threatened to "ruin her" after she filed a lawsuit against him in July for breach of contract, fraud and unjust enrichment.

Regan said Toback failed to deliver a Hollywood memoir she had paid him to write for her imprint, Regan Arts, four years ago. (Toback declined to comment.)

"He's completely impossible," Regan said. "I wish I had never met him and, from the looks of it, I don't appear to be the only one."

Times staff writer Josh Rottenberg contributed to this story.
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