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.
Canadian adds her name to more than 200 others alleging sexual misconduct
Selma Blair, about James Toback
Canadian actress Rachel LOS ANGELES McAdams and U.S. actress Selma Blair have joined the growing list of women alleging that writer and director James Toback sexually harassed or assaulted them.
The Los Angeles Times details the accounts of 38 other Toback accusers. Since Oct. 22, the number has ballooned to more than 200. Toback has denied the allegations to the Times and declined to comment to Vanity Fair on the new allegations.
He has not responded to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
Meanwhile, in her first public comments since accusing producer Harvey Weinstein of rape, actress Rose McGowan said Friday she won’t remain quiet about sexual assault and harassment.
“I have been silenced for 20 years,” McGowan said.
“I have been slut-shamed, I have been harassed, I have been maligned, and you know what? I am just like you. What happened to me behind the scenes happens to all of us in this society. It cannot stand and will not stand.”
In a Vanity Fair article published Thursday, Blair and McAdams describe encounters similar to those detailed in the L.A. Times report — many of which assert that Toback, now 72, would talk up his accomplishments and promise stardom, often referencing his friendship with Robert Downey Jr., before masturbating or simulating sex acts on the women.
Blair arranged to meet Toback at a hotel restaurant for a possible role in his 2001 film Harvard Man. Blair said when she arrived, the hostess said Toback wanted her to meet him in his room.
There, she described a long meeting in which Toback asked her to perform a monologue naked, propositioned her for sex and said he would not let her leave until he “had release.”
Blair said he then simulated sexual intercourse on her leg. “I felt disgust and shame, and like nobody would ever think of me as being clean again after being this close to the devil,” Blair said. “His energy was so sinister.”
Afterward, she said Toback implied that if she told anyone, he could have her killed.
“I didn’t want to speak up because, it sounds crazy but, even until now, I have been scared for my life,” Blair said.
McAdams met Toback at age 21 when just starting out in the business. After an audition he told her he wanted to workshop with her. They met in his hotel room where she said the conversation quickly turned sexual.
“He said, ‘You know, I just have to tell you. I have masturbated countless times today thinking about you since we met at your audition,’” McAdams said. He later asked if she would show him her pubic hair. McAdams said she eventually excused herself and left.
“I was very lucky that I left and he didn’t actually physically assault me in any way,” she said.
Blair also said she hoped that “someone bigger” than she would “call him out.”
Weinstein accusers, who now total over 50, have ranged from assistants to aspiring actresses to some of the industry’s most famous, including Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie.
Filmmaker Ava DuVernay tweeted that Blair and the others are “big enough.”
“You’ve helped someone out there. You have,” DuVernay wrote to Blair.
Like Weinstein, reports of Toback’s alleged behaviour toward women have been around for decades. Spy magazine wrote about him in 1989, and the now-defunct website Gawker also published accounts from women in New York who had had run-ins with Toback on the street.
On Tuesday, Julianne Moore said on Twitter that Toback had approached her on the street in New York in the 1980s, asking her to come to his apartment to audition.
But exactly what might happen to Toback is still a question. As Blair pointed out, unlike Weinstein and Amazon executive Roy Price, Toback is not an employee of a company from which he can be fired. He is also not currently a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
“Toback was an Academy member but stopped renewing his annual membership nearly a decade ago. He is no longer a member of the Academy,” a spokesperson said Thursday.
He does, however, currently have a completed film, The Private Life of a Modern Woman, starring Sienna Miller and Alec Baldwin, that debuted at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year. It does not yet have a distributor.
Some see a silver lining in the dominoes falling like this.
“For years, many in power tried to divide & conquer women in order to dominate, control, & victimize them,” actress Jessica Chastain said on Twitter Thursday with a link to the Vanity Fair article. “The inexcusable behaviour stops now.” The Associated Press