My nights with the Henry VIII of film
‘Who’s she, who’s that one? he demanded, pointing like a child in a sweet shop’
Am I the only woman who has been in a hotel room with Harvey Weinstein and not been invited into the bathroom to watch him take a shower? If so, I count myself lucky. In girth and mien, Weinstein is most like Tony Soprano, the fictional TV mafia boss. Imagine a toddler, complete with temper tantrums, inside a Baloo the Bear costume, but possessed of vast wealth and limitless power, and you get some idea of the monstrosity. I suppose the only upside for any young actress who felt she had to meekly follow Harvey into the en suite is that, so vast and pendulous is the mogul’s belly, she wouldn’t be able to see his Indiana Jones.
I met Weinstein several times when his company, Miramax (later the Weinstein Company), was making a film of I Don’t Know How She Does It, my first novel. I thought of it as a unique insight into what life must have been like at the court of Henry VIII, except the Tudor monarch did not share Harvey’s Diet Coke habit. At the mention of their master’s name, Weinstein’s retinue jumped to attention in a manner that suggested dread rather than devotion.
Here’s how it went. Email arrives at 9.23pm on Tuesday. “Harvey has a party tonight at the Sanderson. Your name is on the door.”
“But I’m in my pyjamas, I’ve just done kids’ bedtime, it’s a school night and I’m about to go to sleep.”
“Enough with the excuses, serf. Harvey has commanded it and thou shalt obey!”
One day, I was waiting at The Ivy for a lunchtime meeting when I got a call saying that the meeting was now at The Berkeley. At 4pm, or maybe 6, or maybe breakfast tomorrow: “We’ll get back to you.” Harvey was still in New York or – who knows? – auditioning some wannabe starlet in his shower. I was one of the little people and, therefore, by definition, could not be inconvenienced by a studio head to whom I owed undying gratitude and, almost certainly, a soapy back-rub.
In an acceptance speech, Meryl Streep famously referred to Harvey Weinstein as “God” (boy, is she regretting that now). She thought she was joking but, as Hollywood Royalty, Streep would have seen only the beguiling side of Harvey’s omniscience. (He could be charming in his hulking way, and has an infectious passion for movies.) The flicker of fear in the eyes of his subordinates told another story.
I worked closely with two female producers in the Weinstein organisation and, whenever Harvey came up, nothing would be said explicitly, but eyes would roll. They talked about their boss as you would about a badly trained and incontinent dog. If you hadn’t been savaged by him, it was a good day.
I will never forget visiting the set of
I Don’t Know How She Does It back in 2010. My PA, Catherine, a lovely young brunette, was with me and Harvey locked on to her like an Exocet missile. “Who’s she, who’s that one?” he demanded, pointing like a child in a sweet shop. It took a split second for me to glimpse the predator in him.
Just look at that chilling picture of Harvey with Ashley Judd at a premiere only a few months after he propositioned the actress in his hotel room. The Beast isn’t so much holding Beauty’s hand as clutching it to stop her running away.
“Not everybody knew,” Meryl Streep said after allegations of Weinstein paying off and silencing women who accused him of sexual harassment appeared in The New York Times.
Harvey, she insisted, had always been respectful towards her, although actresses like Ashley Judd and Rose Mcgowan who had spoken out against him, were “heroes”. Other leading ladies with impeccable liberal credentials find themselves in a similarly awkward position. Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicole Kidman and Dame Judi Dench have all had their careers shaped by Svengali Harve. Dench, a fan since she won an Oscar in 1999 for her performance in the Weinsteins’
Shakespeare in Love, even had her make-up artist tattoo the initials HW on her bottom. Dame Judi chuckled that she had shown it to the producer, who was “embarrassed”. I’m not surprised. What are the chances Harvey had ever seen a bare bum aged more than 26?
“I was completely unaware of these offences which are, of course, horrifying, and I offer my […] wholehearted support to those who have spoken out,” said Dame Judi. Kate Winslet is another shocked A-lister, but she is honest enough to admit she had heard some of the allegations: “I had hoped that these kind of stories were just made-up rumours. Maybe we have all been naïve.”
Is naïve really the right word here? Or should it be complicit? Hollywood loves a winner and Weinstein was the victor ludorum. His Oscar campaigns became legendary for their ruthless effectiveness. From a guerrilla campaign for the art house My Left Foot via Pulp Fiction, The English
Patient and Good Will Hunting, Harvey had the golden-statue touch. Many actors were in his debt, and the rest would dearly like to have been.
Let’s not kid ourselves, human nature is such that people see what they want to see, edit the reality to their own advantage and leave the dodgy bits on the cutting-room floor. And Weinstein was never a monster as a facilitator of art. To his credit, in an era of bubblegum movies for pubescent boys, he insisted on making bold, satisfying films for grown-ups. You gotta love the guy, right?
One of the more disturbing allegations of the past few days is that, when a reporter was working on an exposé about “Slimy Weiny”, Matt Damon and Russell Crowe called her directly to get her to drop the piece. Damon’s publicist will be in full damage-limitation mode after a furious Rose Mcgowan tweeted: “Hey @Mattdamon what’s it like to be a spineless profiteer who stays silent?”
Listen. Can you hear that moan and creak of ancient timbers? It’s the sound of tables turning. Hollywood, which has been far too timid about calling out abuse of power, is now even more afraid of falling foul of sexual politics. Weinstein was ridiculed when he said that he grew up in a time when “all the rules about behaviour and workplaces were different”.
But he had a point. Plenty of ambitious girls have been as keen to leap aboard the casting couch as movie producers were to get them there. “Vetting” actresses like Britain’s own Romola Garai in your bathrobe, when she has just landed a part in your new film, is no longer just repellent. It’s illegal.
In a searing letter to executives at the Weinstein company, concerning a distraught young assistant who gave Harvey a massage when he was naked, Lauren O’connor wrote: “I am a 28-year-old woman trying to make a living and a career. Harvey Weinstein is a 64-year-old, world-famous man and this is his company. The balance of power is me: 0, Harvey Weinstein: 10.”
Well, not any more. Weinstein has been sacked by his own company. The King is a pariah. Harvey’s Queens, from Meryl to Judi, are as united in condemnation as they once were in adoration. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. That’s what I thought when I first met Harvey Weinstein.
He will be remembered as an ugly man who made some beautiful films. But, lest we forget, his behaviour and what he was allowed to get away with for so many years, is a microcosm of what women in workplaces everywhere have to put up with.
Someone should make a film about that.