Hardcastle
TINA Brown, 63, former business associate of Harvey Weinstein, found him ‘a beguiling Falstaffian charmer… very Trumpian… a big, blustery, rough diamond kind of a guy,’ adding: ‘He’s really fearful, paranoid, and hates being touched (at any rate, when fully dressed)… I often used to wonder if the physical dissonance between his personal grossness and his artistic sensibility – which was genuine – made him crazy.’ Not quite a ringing endorsement but more positive than the spoutings of know-all Hollywood liggers happy to pocket his money.
APROPOS Weinstein, Kate Winslet, 42, admits to Vanity Fair that she was aware of his sexual predation. This didn’t discourage her from starring as an ex-Nazi prison guard in his movie The Reader, in which she stripped off for sex scenes and won an Oscar. Now she’s starring in Woody Allen’s new movie Wonder Wheel, clearly unperturbed by allegations of his creepy-sounding previous sexual behaviour.
NO-nonsense BBC interviewer Andrew Neil is unimpressed with funeral-faced Chancellor Philip Hammond’s gloomy mien, remarking to the latter’s Treasury colleague Liz Truss: ‘Should you have a word with your boss? Can’t you cheer him up a bit?’ Appearing on BBC Two’s Daily Politics, Ms Truss unconvincingly responds: ‘He’s a very happy man.’ Neil fires back: ‘No he’s not. He looks miserable!’
AS the creator of Victoria starring Jenna Coleman, 31 (pictured), Daisy Goodwin, 55, is praised for her sensitive handling of the 19th century Irish potato famine. Her real hero is not Queen Victoria but Cork vicar Dr Robert Traill who fed the starving before dying of famine fever. Very moving. As well it might – Traill is Daisy’s great-greatgreat-grandfather.
HARVEY Weinstein, invited to the remarriage of his British father-in-law, Brian Chapman, was billeted at a modest, three-star hotel on the Isle of Wight where he ordered special linen, a valet, large TV sets, fridges stocked with ordinary and diet cola, cranberry juice, an ice machine and a special cereal. Adds my source: ‘A chef and a barman had to be on duty all night along with overnight secretarial assistance. His office explained how his cases should be packed and how his socks must be rolled.’ No mention of any special female bath-time treats.
RONAN Farrow, 29, whose exposé on Harvey Weinstein was published by The New Yorker, jokes about his mother Mia Farrow’s suggestion that it was ‘possible’ her ex-husband Frank Sinatra – rather than the actress’s long-time partner Woody Allen – was the young man’s father. Ronan tweeted: ‘Listen, we’re all *possibly* Frank Sinatra’s son.’ A variation, perhaps, on the traditional Scottish saying: ‘We’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns.’