Director James Toback Accused Of Sexual Harassment By Nearly 200 Women

Director James Toback has been accused by more than 30 women of sexual harassment, according to a story in today’s Los Angeles Times.

Toback is the director of, among other films, Two Girls and a Guy, was Oscar-nominated for writing Warren  Beatty’s Bugsy and most recently wrote and directed The Private Life of a Modern Woman, starring Sienna Miller and Alec Baldwin.

According to the LA Times, he lured women to auditions and meetings by offering professional opportunities.

In fact, the director’s reputation was so well known among some Hollywood women that one of his accusers says getting “Toback-ed” became shorthand for any sexual abuse “by a creepy writer-director.”

Toback denied the allegations or even meeting the women for more than five minutes.

A phone call to the office of Michael Mailer Films, the production company behind The Private Life of a Modern Woman, was answered by an old recording saying the office would be closed until September 5.

Rumors about Toback started surfacing in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein revelations, with actress Selma Blair retweeting on October 12 an article in the Huffington Post titled “James Toback Gets Us, He Truly Gets Us in ‘The Private Life of a Modern Woman’”.

Blair added a one-word commentary: “Ironic.”

   Ironic. https://t.co/c5cwNmiCcU

   — Selma Blair (@SelmaBlair) October 12, 2017

According to The Times, Toback rarely varied from his “opening line” with the women: “My name’s James Toback. I’m a movie director. Have you ever seen ‘Black and White’ or ‘Two Girls and a Guy’?”

“If you didn’t believe him,” said the Times, “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.”

According to the Times, 31 of the 38 interviewed spoke on the record. “As is often the case, none of them contacted the police at the time,” says the article. “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.”

Actress Adrienne LaValley is among the women quoted in the article. “The way he presented it,” she said, “it was like, ‘This is how things are done.’” She recalled 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.’”

As the newspaper points out, Toback’s 1987 semi-autobiographical movie was titled The Pick-up Artist, starring Robert Downey Jr. His most recent film, The Private Life of a Modern Woman starring Sienna Miller, premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

Among the women on record with The Times: Louise Post, guitarist and singer for rock band Veruca Salt; Starr Rinaldi, an aspiring actress approached by Toback 15 years ago in Central Park; and New York drama teacher, actor and playwright Karen Sklaire.

Says Sklaire, “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.’”

Earlier this month, writer Sari Kamin wrote a lengthy blog post beginning “I am one of the countless women that filmmaker James Toback has harassed.”

Today, Kamin tweeted:

   On Tuesday we were 6. By Friday there were over 30 of us who had found each other and shared the same story. https://t.co/eUvEx4R3gk

   — sari kamin (@sarikamin) October 22, 2017

Rusty wrote:Just looked through his IMDB page. I have not seen a single movie he's made. Hadn't even heard of him.

Nearly 200 additional women have come forward with allegations of sexual harassment by director James Toback, Los Angeles Times reporter Glenn Whipp tweeted on Monday.

Whipp is the reporter behind a bombshell report published Sunday detailing claims by 38 women — 31 of which were on the record — who said that Toback had sexually harassed them. One actress said Toback rubbed his crotch against her leg, while another said Toback told her he would “love nothing more than to masturbate while looking into my eyes.”

Updating again: Since this story published on Sunday, 193 additional women have contacted me to talk about Toback. https://t.co/beVGHWpdmc
– Glenn Whipp (@GlennWhipp) October 23, 2017

Toback is one of several entertainment industry figures facing accusations of sexual misconduct in the aftermath of the harassment scandal that led to the downfall of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Many women who spoke with The Times said that the news about Weinstein caused memories of Toback’s abuse to surface.

“Today, I cried for the first time since then about it,” indie rock guitarist and former actress Louise Post said. “I was crying for the 20-year-old woman who lost something vital that day — her innocence.”

Response from Hollywood has been swift, with “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn saying that a family member had told him that Toback assaulted her and that he has tried to warn people about him.

“When I lived in New York, in the ‘nineties, this dude was EVERYWHERE,” Gunn wrote. “He essentially goes up to women and says, ‘Hey, I’m James Toback, and I’m a famous director, and I feel like there’s a connection between us.’ Then he shows them some article on himself or some other artifact to prove he is who he is, and tries to get them to go somewhere else with him.”

ForeverBlu wrote:I saw Black and White, released back in 1999/2000.

It's mostly known for this scene...