The tale of Harvey Weinstein is now a thread that has tangled its waythrough Hollywood, connecting women, mostly actresses, in a depressinglycommon way. We all seem to have a Harvey story, each one a little different but with essentially the same nauseating pattern and theme.Women were bullied, cajoled, manipulated, and worse, and then punished.
My Harvey story is different, mostly because of timing. I was in one of thefirst films that Weinstein produced. I accepted a supporting role in asmall movie based on “Loser Takes All,” the short novel by Graham Greene. I was twenty years old. The idea of playing a supporting role ina small British movie appealed to me after having just made a big splashin the John Hughes movies. Plus, I was an enormous fan of Greene’s writing. When we began filming, in France, I was warned aboutthe producer, but I had never heard of him and had no reason to fearhim. The feeling on the set was that he and his brother Bob werebecoming powerful and were difficult to work with, and that it wasinadvisable to cross them. During a dinner at the Chèvre d’Or, in a tinymedieval village, there was a tense, awkward moment when Harvey becametesty toward our British co-workers and accused them of thinking of usAmericans as just the “little guys in the colonies.” It was sort ofmeant as a joke, I suppose, but it made everyone cringe, and all I couldthink was that the guy was volatile.
Thankfully, I wasn’t cajoled into a taxi, nor did I have to turn downgiving or getting a massage. I was lucky. Or perhaps it was because, atthat moment in time, I was the one with more power. “The EnglishPatient,” Weinstein’s first Best Picture winner, was still a few yearsaway. The worst I had to contend with was performing new pages thatHarvey had someone else write, which were not in the script; my co-star,Robert Lindsay, and I had signed off to do a film adapted and directedby one person, and then were essentially asked to turn our backs on himand film scenes that were not what we had agreed to. We hadn’t evenfinished filming, and the movie was already being taken away from thedirector.
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After that, the film was completely taken away, recut, and retitled.Weinstein named it “Strike It Rich,” because he insisted that Americanscouldn’t stand to have the word “loser” in a title. He also changed theposter: he had my head stuck onto another body, dressed in aform-fitting, nineteen-fifties-pinup-style dress, with a handreaching out to accept a diamond, like Marilyn Monroe in “Gentlemen PreferBlondes.” I wouldn’t have posed for a picture like that, since it hadnothing to do with the character I portrayed; it struck me as ridiculousfalse advertising. (I was always a little mystified that Harvey had areputation as a great tastemaker when he seemed so noticeably lacking intaste himself. But he did have a knack for hiring people who had it,and I figured that’s what passes for taste in Hollywood.) In any case,the film tanked. I had a percentage of the gross, and, as it turned out,you still make money if you have a gross percentage. I found this outabout a year later, when my lawyer called to tell me that I had beendenied the percentage owed to me. She asked if it was O.K. if she wentafter the Weinsteins. I ended up suing them for the money, which I got,and I never worked with Harvey or the company again.
While my own Harvey story may be different, I have had plenty of Harveysof my own over the years, enough to feel a sickening shock ofrecognition. When I was thirteen, a fifty-year-old crew member told methat he would teach me to dance, and then proceeded to push against mewith an erection. When I was fourteen, a married film director stuck his tonguein my mouth on set. At a time when I was trying to figure out what itmeant to become a sexually viable young woman, at every turn some olderguy tried to help speed up the process. And all this went on despite myhaving very protective parents who did their best to shield me. Ishudder to think of what would have happened had I not had them.
In my twenties, I was blindsided during an audition when I was asked bythe director, in a somewhat rhetorical manner, to let the lead actor puta dog collar around my neck. This was not remotely in the pages Ihad studied; I could not even fathom how it made sense in the story. Theactor was a friend of mine, and I looked in his eyes with panic. Helooked back at me with an “I’m really sorry” expression on his face ashis hands reached out toward my neck. I don’t know if the collarever made it on me, because that’s the closest I’ve had to anout-of-body experience. I’d like to think that I just walked out, but,more than likely, there’s an old VHS tape, disintegrating in a drawersomewhere, of me trying to remember lines with a dog collar around myneck in front of a young man I once had a crush on. I sobbed in theparking lot and, when I got home and called my agent to tell him whathappened, he laughed and said, “Well, I guess that’s one for the memoirs. . . .” I fired him and moved to Paris not long after.
After I moved to Paris, I put my career on the back burner, but I cameback to the U.S. occasionally to work. The magazine Movieline decidedto feature me on its cover, I guess because anyone who leaves Hollywoodafter having success seems intriguing on some level. In that article,the head of a major studio—and, incidentally, someone who claims himselfto be horrified by the Harvey allegations—was quoted as saying, “Iwouldn’t know [Molly Ringwald] if she sat on my face.” I wastwenty-seven at the time. Maybe he was misquoted. If he ever sent a noteof apology, it must have gotten lost in the mail.
I could go on about other instances in which I have felt demeaned orexploited, but I fear it would get very repetitive. Then again, that’spart of the point. I never talked about these things publicly because,as a woman, it has always felt like I may as well have been talkingabout the weather. Stories like these have never been taken seriously. Womenare shamed, told they are uptight, nasty, bitter, can’t take a joke, aretoo sensitive. And the men? Well, if they’re lucky, they might getelected President.
My hope is that Hollywood makes itself an example and decides to enactreal change, change that would allow women of all ages and ethnicitiesthe freedom to tell their stories—to write them and direct them andtrust that people care. I hope that young women will one day no longerfeel that they have to work twice as hard for less money andrecognition, backward and in heels. It’s time. Women have resoundedtheir cri de coeur. Listen.