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Summary
Summary
A vivid biography of Harvey Weinstein--how he rose to become a dominant figure in the film world, how he used that position to feed his monstrous sexual appetites, and how it all came crashing down, from the author who has covered the Hollywood and media power game for The New Yorker for three decades
Twenty years ago, Ken Auletta wrote an iconic New Yorker profile of the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, who was then at the height of his powers. The profile made waves for exposing how volatile, even violent, Weinstein was to his employees and collaborators. But there was a much darker story that was just out of reach: rumors had long swirled that Weinstein was a sexual predator. Auletta confronted Weinstein, who denied the claims. Since no one was willing to go on the record, Auletta and the magazine concluded they couldn't close the case. Years later, he was able to share his reporting notes and knowledge with Ronan Farrow; he cheered as Farrow, and Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, finally revealed the truth.
Still, the story continued to nag him. The trail of assaults and cover-ups had been exposed, but the larger questions remained: What was at the root of Weinstein's monstrousness? How, and why, was it never checked? Why the silence? How does a man run the day-to-day operations of a company with hundreds of employees and revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and at the same time live a shadow life of sexual predation without ever being caught? How much is this a story about Harvey Weinstein, and how much is this a story about Hollywood and power?
In pursuit of the answers, Auletta digs into Weinstein's life, searching for the mysteries beneath a film career unparalleled for its extraordinary talent and creative success, which combined with a personal brutality and viciousness to leave a trail of ruined lives in its wake. Hollywood Ending is more than a prosecutor's litany; it is an unflinching examination of Weinstein's life and career, embedding his crimes in the context of the movie business, in his failures and the successes that led to enormous power. Film stars, Miramax employees and board members, old friends and family, and even the person who knew him best--Harvey's brother, Bob--all talked to Auletta at length. Weinstein himself also responded to Auletta's questions from prison. The result is not simply the portrait of a predator but of the power that allowed Weinstein to operate with such impunity for so many years, the spiderweb in which his victims found themselves trapped.
Reviews (4)
Guardian Review
What kind of barbarous creature was Harvey Weinstein, who punctuated business meetings by hurling marble ashtrays at the wall, ripped out a smoke alarm in a toilet on Concorde so he could enjoy a cigarette mid-Atlantic, ordered unsatisfactory employees to jump to their deaths from a high window, and regarded sexual abuse or rape as the equivalent of a job interview for young women anxious to appear in the movies he produced? In Ken Auletta's meticulously reported account of his downfall, people assign Weinstein to one of several alien species. Everyone agrees that he was a pest and a predator; survivors also call him an ogre, a monster, even a fiend. Odd glimpses of his flame-haired, acid-tongued mother suggest that he was "raised by wolves". A studio executive whom he threatened to topple from a terrace into the sea at Cannes describes him as "this gorilla person", like King Kong in an ill-fitting tux. Exhausting all options, Weinstein's estranged brother, Bob, formerly his partner at Miramax, concludes: "There is no real human being there." Perhaps Harvey was a humanoid, programmed with technical skills but bereft of emotion. His tantrums in the cutting rooms where he savagely re-edited films over the protests of their directors led to his being dubbed Harvey Scissorhands, a less endearing twin for the unfinished mutant played by Johnny Depp in Tim Burton's fantasy. Feared but never loved by others, disliked or disgusted by himself, Weinstein adopted another nickname during his obese adolescence, when his jokey alias was "the Gru". He later aggressively exhibited his gruesomeness by parading naked before the women from whom he demanded what Auletta calls "sexual access". These coercive sessions usually began with his request for a massage, after which he displayed a back that was cratered by cystic acne and abloom with blackheads. When he moved in for a kiss, remnants of recent meals could be seen on his bristly, half-shaved jowls, which reminded an observer of "chewed bubble gum rolled in cat hair". One actor for whom Weinstein pulled out his penis told him to put it away "because it's really not pretty". Another reported that he had no testicles - they seemingly imploded after a bout of Fournier's gangrene - and added that he "smelled like poop". Such scenes turn Auletta's narrative into a warped fairytale about a beast who ravages a succession of traumatised beauties. Aides followed Weinstein around with paper bags containing hypodermics to treat his erectile dysfunction, then returned post-coitally to clean semen from the furniture and gather up used condoms, but sexual relief mattered less to him than dominance and control. His aim was to degrade and defile women, then leave them feeling so shamed or needlessly guilt-ridden that they couldn't bring themselves to denounce him; as an extra precaution, he bullied and bribed them into silence with non-disclosure agreements. Similar tactics contrived the emasculation of the men he dealt with. Menials he considered inept were made to write "I am a moron" 100 times on a chalkboard, sign it and set it up as an ersatz pillory. A marketing discussion with Ismail Merchant graduated from verbal abuse to fisticuffs in the street. On the set of Gangs of New York, Martin Scorsese had mirrors fitted on top of the video monitors he used so that he could see the hated overseer closing in on him from behind. A rival producer retaliated by sending Weinstein 27 gift-wrapped cartons of cigarettes to speed his death from lung cancer. The squalid transactions in hotel bedrooms and the screaming rows in corporate offices were for Weinstein parables about raw power and his monopoly of it. When an aspiring actor recoiled from his unpretty private parts, he yelled: "This is how the industry works!" He was right about that, at least in the past: for producers and casting directors or for male viewers out there in the dark, the women on screen were engaged, like prostitutes, to enact fantasies. The wider world, as Weinstein saw it, worked in the same way. He enjoyed being called a mogul and behaved like a potentate or pasha. He claimed an affinity with Ariel Sharon, "a lion in the desert" who firebombed opponents, although Bernardo Bertolucci called him "a little Saddam Hussein". At a wedding in Rome, he found the church uncomfortably hot and said he would talk to the pope about getting it air-conditioned. He accepted Bill Clinton's hospitality at Camp David, but balked at the food and commandeered a navy guard to drive him to Wendy's for a hamburger. Later he employed Barack Obama's daughter as an intern, and received a letter from the president thanking him for the favour. Brought low, Weinstein whimpered to the judge who sentenced him that he had been martyred by the new McCarthyism of a #MeToo lynch mob. Then he turned to his glowering accusers in the courtroom, reminisced about the "wonderful times" they'd had, and hoped that their "old friendship" could be reignited. This lack of self-awareness prompts Auletta to classify him as a narcissist and a sociopath, free to trample on others because he was incapable of empathy - the same charges that are customarily made against Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. Yet those tidy labels don't account for Weinstein's rages, his rapacity, and the ravening appetite that made him guzzle M&Ms, swig Diet Cokes and chain-smoke Marlboro Lights while chomping on the people he persecuted and spitting them out. The film historian Peter Biskind describes him as a "cauldron of insecurities¿ battered as well by relentless waves of hubris". Although that sounds a little too grandiose, Biskind's imagery prompts Auletta to liken Weinstein's temper to a volcano, with expletives as its lava. Yes, the man was a blubbery Krakatoa, and in the end he simply blew up. It's a gross and ghastly story, but its outcome - bankruptcy, obloquy and 23 years in prison - suggests that there may after all be some remnant of moral order in our reeling universe.
Kirkus Review
A sad tale of sex, lies, and power in Hollywood. In 2002, Auletta published a profile of Harvey Weinstein in the New Yorker, portraying him as a "self-absorbed narcissist" who verbally and physically abused his employees. "Those who worked for Harvey," the author discovered, "were daunted by his talent yet terrorized by his volcanic personality." At the time, Auletta heard "whispers" that Weinstein sexually abused women but could not corroborate them. Fifteen years later, scores of women finally came forward, and Weinstein's behavior made headlines in the New York Times, soon followed by an exposé in the New Yorker. In 2017, Weinstein was arrested on charges of criminal sexual assault and rape. Drawing on 12 hours of taped interviews with Weinstein for the New Yorker piece and several hundred interviews with employees and associates, including Weinstein's brother Bob, Auletta expands his earlier profile, chronicling Weinstein's volatile career as a movie mogul and recounting in dismal detail the "numbing sameness" of his abuse of women. "His game was not seduction," writes Auletta, "but subjugation, and he sought out the vulnerable. His boastful, trophy mentality toward actresses has been noted by many, but he also prowled among his own staff." His career began in Buffalo, where, in the 1970s, he became a concert promoter, honing his persona as "a money-obsessed entrepreneur and trickster in the making." He partnered with Bob to create a distribution firm they called Miramax, combining their parents' first names, and later a production firm, the Weinstein Company, which released many award-winning films including Pulp Fiction and Shakespeare in Love. As the author shows, Bob was unable--and often unwilling--to rein in his "impulsive" brother as their business roiled in a cycle of near bankruptcy, success, and profligate overspending. Auletta's deep familiarity with the film industry serves him well in depicting the making, marketing, and reception of the Weinsteins' movies. Aiming to portray Weinstein as "more than a monster," the author offers ample evidence that he is a sociopath. An authoritative, sordid biography. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The list of celebrated movies brought to the screen by Harvey Weinstein's Miramax Films is breathtaking: My Left Foot, Il Postino, The Cider House Rules, The Piano, The English Patient, Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love, and No Country for Old Men among them. Even more breathtaking, though, was the appalling level of abuse--verbal, physical, sexual, and profoundly -emotional--that Weinstein brought for decades upon his staff, his investors, industry rivals, his own brother and partner, the media (including the author, by his account), and, most tragically, the more than 100 women who ultimately came forward with assault charges against him. Longtime New Yorker media reporter Auletta delivers a compelling, assiduously reported, full-formed biography of Weinstein, from his Queens youth all the way to his trial, conviction, and 2020 sentencing to 23 years in prison for criminal sexual assault and third-degree rape. Auletta is keenly sensitive here to the "long half-life of trauma" these many women experienced, yet also unsparingly graphic in detailing how Weinstein would entrap his victims, enabled by a host of individuals and forces that allowed such monstrous behavior to continue unchallenged for so long. A definitive, unblinking account of sexual abuse and violence in the American movie history.
Library Journal Review
Harvey Weinstein was instrumental in shaping movies, expanding the range of subject matter, presentation, and new talent. Weinstein won 81 Academy Awards and received 341 Oscar nominations. He became a figure of power in the movie industry and claimed friendship with Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. On the surface, he appeared charismatic and generous, but behind the scenes, he was abusive, screaming at employees and maintaining a state of constant turmoil. His predatory sexual practices came to light in 2017, when more than 100 women revealed how he used his influence to sexually assault women seeking movie roles at his company. He was indicted, put on trial, and sentenced in 2020 to 23 years in prison. Journalist Auletta (Greed and Glory on Wall Street) seeks to reveal how Weinstein became this person. While Auletta cites numerous experts and includes excerpts from victims, employees, and family members, listeners may still wonder how Weinstein became so corrupt. While shocking, the story is repetitive and overly detailed. Unfortunately, the audio is not enlivened by narrator Jonathan Coleman's businesslike and uneven delivery. VERDICT Readers of celebrity scandals may enjoy the book, but the audio brings nothing new. An optional purchase for most collections.--Joanna M. Burkhardt
Excerpts
Excerpts
PROLOGUE The Gray Concrete Carpet Once, he exuded power. Films he produced and distributed garnered 81 Academy Awards and 341 Oscar nominations. Only Steven Spielberg was thanked more often from the awards stage. He boasted of his friendships with Presidents Clinton and Obama, and of the famous actresses he claimed to have bedded. Inside the office, he terrified the four assistants who serviced his needs, and he bellowed at most of his executives. Outside the office, he flashed a dazzling, capped- toothed smile while strolling hundreds of red carpets, trailed by clicking cameras, often accompanied by his second wife, fashion designer Georgina Chapman, who dressed some of the stars lit by the paparazzi flashes. He was that rare Hollywood figure known instantly by his first name: Harvey. The gray concrete sidewalk Harvey Weinstein crossed daily in the winter of 2020 was not a red carpet, but a gauntlet. Waiting for him to arrive at the criminal court building at 100 Centre Street were armed police officers and metal police barricades corralling a throng of reporters who did not adhere to the respectful protocols of a Hollywood opening. Because of his recent back surgery, when his black Cadillac Escalade braked in front of the New York State Supreme Court building, Harvey had to be helped out of the back seat by two burly men. He slowly shuffled in black orthopedic shoes toward the building's entrance a hundred or so feet away on a four-wheel walker, trailed by his team of lawyers and public relations advisers. Harvey did not pause and rarely looked up to respond to shouted questions or to smile for the cameras. Once inside the building, he dutifully emptied his pockets and passed through a metal detector. An elevator whisked Harvey and his entourage to the fifteenth floor, where he passed a second gauntlet of cameras and reporters before entering courtroom 1530 for his criminal trial for predatory rape and sexual assault. Harvey's world--the world in which he was in charge--was upended forever over a few days in early October 2017, when The New York Times and The New Yorker publicly proclaimed that he was a sexual beast, and the Weinstein Company fired him. Seven months later, Harvey was indicted by a grand jury convened by the Manhattan district attorney. Now as he entered the courtroom, he faced a criminal trial that threatened to place him behind bars for the rest of his life. For eight weeks, beginning on January 6, 2020, Harvey walked this concrete carpet Monday through Friday. He now dressed more like a midwestern businessman out of a Sinclair Lewis novel than a Hollywooe power broker--drab, boxy suits; white shirts with crumpled collars; and dull, slightly askew ties. He looked miserable. He had lost at least seventy-five pounds, his pallor was gray, and his scruffy stubble beard failed to camouflage the crevices and lines of his swollen face. In court, Harvey would settle into a low-backed leather chair, flanked by his five lawyers at a table facing Judge James M. Burke on his elevated platform. His prosecutors, assistant district attorney and Special Counsel to the D.A. Joan Illuzzi and her deputy, Meghan Hast, deputy chief of the Violent Criminal Enterprises Unit, were seated at a table to his right, close to the twelve-member jury box. Every day, about one hundred twenty-five journalists and spectators crammed into the courtroom; more reporters and spectators often waited outside to enter or for a chance to verbally assail Harvey and his lawyers. Assistant district attorney Illuzzi would say more than once that Harvey's walker was "a prop" to elicit sympathy, a view widely shared by his detractors and not a few members of the press. In truth, Harvey Weinstein was not well. After a car accident in 2019, he had been dragging his right foot for a solid year, and his back was operated on days before the trial began to ease pain and correct spinal stenosis and drop foot. The operation was not successful. He also suffered from high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, chronic diabetes, a weak heart, and he was receiving what his lawyer described as "shots in his eyes" to treat macular degeneration. In all, Harvey had prescriptions for twenty different medications. Harvey had been indicted on five counts of assault and rape of three women: Miriam Haley (formerly Haleyi), a production assistant at the Weinstein Company; aspiring actress Jessica Mann; and established actress Annabella Sciorra. Woven throughout the prosecution case was the assertion that Weinstein abused his power as head of Miramax, and later the Weinstein Company, to entrap aspiring actresses, models, and women on his staff. After he coerced sexual access, sometimes brutally, they kept silent, shamed or fearful he would sabotage their careers. They wanted to be in the movie business, and he was not only their biggest but often their only connection. Harvey's team believed their defense was formidable. Sex with these women was consensual, his lawyers insisted. They pounded the jury with evidence that both Haley and Mann, on whose testimony the case pivoted, kept in touch with Harvey after his alleged assaults, sending him emails, asking for jobs and favors, and eventually engaging in voluntary sex with him. Sciorra did not maintain contact, but the defense hit back hard at her for being unable to identify the year--1993 or 1994--in which the rape occurred, suggesting that she had lied. Two of the three other female witnesses who would testify also sought favors from Harvey after he allegedly abused them. And given the flood of negative publicity about Harvey over the two years since the stories broke, the defense claimed he was robbed of a presumption of innocence because it was not easy to locate jurors who did not have an opinion about Harvey Weinstein. Just over one third of the approximately six hundred potential jurors screened by Judge Burke in the courtroom prior to the trial were excused when they said they could not be "impartial." This was understood by all to be a watershed trial. Typically in sex-crime cases, law enforcement chooses not to prosecute if there is no forensic evidence and no contemporaneous police reports. This case was even more challenging because there was email evidence that the victims not only kept in touch with their abuser but in some cases had consensual sex with him after being assaulted. By pursuing this case, District Attorney Cyrus Vance was seeking to enlarge opportunities to prosecute sex crimes. To the #MeToo movement and many others enraged by the abusive behavior of powerful men--Harvey Weinstein, Roger Ailes, Bill Cosby, Les Moonves, Bill O'Reilly, Matt Lauer, Russell Simmons, Kevin Spacey, USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, R. Kelly, among many others--the trial was seen as a reckoning, a call to justice for victims of sexual assault everywhere. On February 25, after a trial that lasted twenty-two days over two months and was followed by twenty-six hours of jury deliberation over five days, the jury foreman rose and declared that his colleagues found Weinstein guilty of two of the five counts. The packed courtroom went silent, then it abruptly flooded with two dozen armed court officers, four of whom stood directly behind Harvey at the defense table. The officers inched closer to him as Judge Burke announced that he was remanding the defendant to the prison on Rikers Island. Before Harvey was lifted by his arms and taken by two court officers out a side door, the judge set sentencing for two and a half weeks later, on March 11. On that day, Judge Burke announced that he was sentencing Weinstein to twenty-three years in prison. Harvey's head dropped to his chest. He did not unleash his famous temper. Instead, he feebly responded, as if he could not believe this was happening to him, "But I'm innocent." He said this to his lawyers three times. It was a long, dark road to this point. Innocent is a word few others would use to describe Harvey Weinstein, in this or any other context. Championing good movies and exhibiting good behavior did not always overlap in Hollywood, but Harvey broadened the chasm between the two. How extreme that divide was in the motion picture industry is one of the questions this book explores. The pressing question is how, and why, he was enabled, decade after decade, by the silence or shuttered eyes of so many in Hollywood, including so many of those who worked for him, to get away with sexually abusing women. To understand this culture of silence, it's necessary to take a close look at the architecture of collusion, both intentional and unwitting, that he built at his companies. Those who worked for Harvey were daunted by his talent yet terrorized by his volcanic personality. After a long day in the office, staff members would sometimes repair to a bar for a recuperative drink to ponder the source of Harvey's frightening rage. As Amanda Lundberg, who started working at Miramax in 1988 and in her ten years there rose to worldwide head of public relations, put it, "We used to say of his home, 'They must have done a number on those kids.' Shocked by Harvey's behavior, a former intimate confided, "He's like someone who's been raised by wolves." But upbringing can only explain so much. Harvey's life offers confirmation of the Greek philosopher's adage popularized by George Eliot, "Character is destiny." Just as Richard Nixon or Donald Trump drowned in the currents of malice and paranoia that overwhelmed their judgment, Harvey Weinstein was unable to tame the demons that warped his behavior and will shape his legacy: One, his ferocious rage, which erupted without warning, alienating colleagues and competitors. Two, his predatory sexual compulsions, which he indulged and successfully masked for decades. Three, his promiscuous spending on films and expense accounts, nearly bankrupting his companies. And four, his unhinged, Shakespeare-worthy relationship with his younger brother, Bob Weinstein, which gyrated from an impregnable partnership to screaming matches, stony estrangements, and, at least once, bloody blows. Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of crimes prompted by his raging impulses and his unquenchable need to dominate. But the question his staff asked still lingers, rooted in one of the great films Harvey loved and hoped to emulate. Orson Welles spoke of his creation, Charles Foster Kane, as being burdened by an "enraged conviction that no one exists but himself, his refusal to admit the existence of other people with whom one must compromise, whose feelings one must take into account." What is Harvey Weinstein's Rosebud--a loss, a lack, that explains what came after? Is there an explanation for a life lived as he has? Any such search begins in the Flushing, Queens, home where Harvey was raised. Excerpted from Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence by Ken Auletta All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.Table of Contents
Prologue: The Gray Concrete Carpet | p. 1 |
1 Young Weinstein (1952-1969) | p. 7 |
2 Becoming Harvey (1969-1978) | p. 18 |
3 The Bottom-Feeders (1979-1988) | p. 36 |
4 The Barnum and Bailey of the Movie Business (1989-1993) | p. 53 |
5 The Culture of Silence (1993-1997) | p. 80 |
6 The Mogul (1997-1998) | p. 108 |
7 The Art of the NDA (1998) | p. 131 |
8 "I'm the Fucking Sheriff of this Fucking Lawless Piece-of-Shit Town" (1999-2002) | p. 148 |
9 Two Divorces (2002-2005) | p. 175 |
10 "We Can Talk Anybody into Anything" (2005-2010) | p. 196 |
11 Blood, Brothers (2011-2015) | p. 209 |
12 "I'm the Chairman of this Company!" (2015) | p. 227 |
13 No More "Bobby" Weinstein (2015-2016) | p. 246 |
14 The Dam of Silence Collapses (2016-2017) | p. 260 |
15 The Victim (2017) | p. 288 |
16 The Sound Is Turned Off (2018-2019) | p. 298 |
17 The Long March to Trial (2019) | p. 312 |
18 Courtroom 1530 (January 6-30, 2020) | p. 330 |
19 Jessica Mann (January 31-February 4, 2020) | p. 353 |
20 The Defense Speaks, and Closing Arguments (February 6-14, 2020) | p. 369 |
21 The Verdict (February 18-24, 2020) | p. 385 |
22 The Convict (February 24, 2020, to 2021) | p. 394 |
23 Rosebud? | p. 408 |
Author's Note | p. 415 |
Acknowledgments | p. 419 |
Notes | p. 423 |
Image Credits | p. 453 |
Index | p. 455 |