The Unruly Life of Woody Allen (46 page)

Voice of America:

[Sean] writes: "Maco struck me from the start as an asshole lawyer in desperate pursuit of publicity at any cost." "Grifter" [Jesse] replies: "No, no Sean, if a Connecticut prosecutor says something, it must be true. State prosecutors would never tell a lie. If Maco is claiming he has evidence, he must have evidence somewhere. Mind you, it's interesting that he would see allowing a confirmed' child molester to run free as better for society than protecting the state of mind of one girl, but that's his business."

—Newsgroup: alt.showbiz.gossip Date: 1 Jan 1998

Subject: Woody Allen Is Human Scum

Whenever Satch visited Woody at his apartment, Woody always hugged him and told his son how much he loved and missed him. "I love you as much as the stars," he said, and Satchel would answer, "I love you as much as the universe." For all their playfulness, however, the visits caused frustration and heartache. One day the boy confessed, "I'm supposed to say I hate you." Another time he told Woody, "I wish you were dead." He also confided that he was seeing a psychiatrist who was going to ensure that Satch never had to see his father again. Distressed, Woody quickly changed the subject.

During his hours with Satch, his mind compulsively wandered to Dylan and before long he would torture himself by obsessing about where she could be at that moment. Was she swinging in the park? Was she sitting at the kitchen table? "Was she wondering why Satch could see me but not her? How confused could one kid become? And then I would have to refocus on Satchel," he later confided to Denis Hamill for the
New York Daily News.
Passing a playground in Central Park "sent a pang through me," and even the sight of a father and daughter coming toward him flooded him with feelings of "physical pain." He was counting the days until December, when Judge Wilk had hinted at the possibility of a reunion unless, as Wilk said, "it interferes with Dylan’s individual treatment or is inconsistent with her welfare." The possibility of something going wrong with the timetable was simply inconceivable to Woody. Nothing would go wrong.

Yet in September, shortly after Maco's press conference, Woody's hopes of seeing his daughter were dashed. With a full three months still to go, Dylan's psychiatrist warned Wilk that resumption of visits would be harmful to the child. Not only did Dylan continue to talk about how "Woody Allen touched my privates," but now she apparently remembered another occasion when her father allegedly touched her genitals one night as she was climbing to the top of a bunk bed. The psychiatrist informed Wilk that were Dylan forced to see Woody in December, she could regress emotionally. He asked for an extension until March of 1994, and Justice Wilk granted his request. But in March when the case came up for review, the therapist once again convinced Wilk that it was not in Dylan’s best interest to see her father. This time, Woody demanded the appointment of an independent, court-appointed psychiatrist to review the case, citing Wilk's "pattern of extreme bias."

Despite these setbacks. Woody continued to feel hopeful about seeing Dylan again.

In mid-December of 1993, he completed principal photography on
Bullets Over Broadway
and took Soon-Yi to Venice for New Year's Eve, a holiday that he enjoyed tremendously. Otherwise his life was fairly sedate: he worked out on his treadmill, practiced the clarinet, took a walk, came back to the apartment, and tried to do some writing. "I do it seven days a week," he said. "I could never be productive if I didn't have a very regular life."

About once every six weeks, he guiltily dined on a prime rib sirloin and hash browns at Sparks Steak House, the East Forty-sixth Street celebrity chophousc whose walls were lined with gilt-frame paintings of the Hudson River School, and the scene of a famous Mafia murder. Woody always made sure to sit in what he called "the nonshooting section."

In light moods, he vented his frustration by making snide remarks about Elliott Wdk. He couldn't really blame him, he told friends, because he was an ordinary guy and Mia could be seductive. Those chiseled cheekbones were awesome. "1 went seeking Solomon," he joked, "but I wound up with Roy Bean," the legendary hanging judge who dispensed frontier justice in the Old West. Most of the time, however, he felt sorry for himself and complained that Wilk was "just not up to the case and made a terrible mess of it." It was Wilk who did not allow him to sec his kids, a right not even denied to convicted murderers and drug addicts.

Increasingly convinced that Wilk had no intention of ever letting him see Dylan, he did not feel reassured when he read Wilk's comments about him in Cindy Adams's column in the
New York Post.
"I don't trust him," the
Post
quoted Wilk as saying about Woody. "I didn't trust him two years ago, and I don't trust him now. I don't trust his instincts. I don't trust his insights. I don't trust that he does not represent a danger to this child, because the fact that he won't beat him up and throw him out the window does not mean Satchel is safe."'

Woody Allen still couldn't figure out how his affair with Soon-Yi might have had "a devastating effect" on her brothers and sisters. The way Wilk saw it, according to the
Post,
Woody Allen had no reason for complaint; he had made a choice about how he wished to manage his life and must accept the consequences. It was Wilk's job to protect two children in danger of suffering further damage

In correspondence with the author justice Wilk denied making any comment about the case outside of the courtroom.

Buffeted by as many misfortunes as Job, Woody became increasingly defiant coward life. In fact, he hated Job's defeatist philosophy and regarded him as a blockhead. "They rain all this terrible stuff on him that he doesn't deserve, and then he asks God why." Only Job's wife deserved any respect. "Job's wife had my attitude, which was: Curse God and die. She was the one that had some balls.'*

He was sick and tired of people talking garbage about his relationship with Soon-Yi. Despite the tenuous beginnings of their liaison (he himself called it "an error in judgment" during the hearing), "a genuine love" had developed between them over the past four years, he said. Moved by her rags-to-riches saga, he saw her as a motherless little girl, who had begun life "starving to death, caring a bar of soap for food and then throwing it up," conveniently forgetting that it was Mia who had rescued her. In his imagination, she must have remained the wretched war orphan whom he could indulge and pamper. It would not be possible for any child to go through what Soon-Yi had gone through—and remain alive—without being profoundly traumatized by the ordeal.

The mature Soon-Yi was no fragile Madame Butterfly.

She was tough and dominating, a mistress who could be a scold and nag, and if she resembled anyone it was Nettie Konigsberg. Sashaying down Madison Avenue arm in arm with Woody, she generally wore a smile as ferociously triumphant as the explorer Ponce de Leon catching his first glimpse of the island of Puerto Rico.

Now a junior at Drew, she lived in a campus dorm room, but on Friday afternoons Woody's chauffeur ferried her back to 930 Fifth Avenue, where as mistress of the house she felt free to run it as she pleased. The decor was stodgy. The place fell like a mausoleum. To make the apartment more cheerful, as she insisted, Woody agreed to knock down walls and redecorate with country furniture, colorful needlepoint pillows, and antiques. Matching checked sofas were ordered for the living room, and a long oak refectory table for Soon-Yi's computer and textbooks was installed in the blue room, which was the room where Mia had discovered the Polaroids. A small bedroom was redone for Satch and named (he "Monster Room." According to Elliott Wilk's rulings, the six-year-old could not sleep at Woody's apartment, take home toys, or see Soon-Yi. Nevertheless, his room contained two eight-foot-tall replicas of space aliens, shelves of Predator videos, and toy bins brimming with a jumble of grotesque intergalactic plastic creatures that had been assembled by father and son. An immense rubber spider sprawled across the bed. After the redecoration, discarded furniture was hauled to the basement. Several tenants in the building took the opportunity to recover take home toys, or see Soon-Yi. Nevertheless, his room contained two eight-foot-tall replicas of space aliens, shelves of Predator videos, and toy bins brimming with a jumble of grotesque intergalactic plastic creatures that had been assembled by father and son. An immense rubber spider sprawled across the bed. After the redecoration, discarded furniture was hauled to the basement. Several tenants in the building took the opportunity to recover Woody's castoffs from the trash, dragging tables and chairs to their summer homes or giving the loot to relatives.

Soon-Yi s refurbishing was not confined to the interior of the apartment. The terrace also needed repair. In fact, she could hardly set foot on the decks without sloshing into puddles or stumbling over stained, broken tiles. With his attention focused elsewhere the previous two summers, Woody scarcely noticed a minor problem such as poor drainage on the terrace. He blamed the roofer who five years earlier had replaced and waterproofed both of his roof terraces but, in his opinion, had botched the job. While instigating a lawsuit against Mia Farrow, he had also filed a half-million-dollar action against the roofing firm.

At the same time, he further instructed his lawyers to threaten legal action against a postcard company for poking fun at him with a photomontage card, "Mona Allen," that depicted him as the Mona Lisa.

Soon-Yi never hesitated to speak her mind. Anyone who spent time in the couples company could not help noting that Soon-Yi was constantly correcting Woody. He, though, seemed willing to make allowances for the "kid who was eating out of garbage pails in Korea," as he liked to call her.

In the privacy of their home, she treated him as a typical teenager might behave with her father—in an affectionate, protective, but often patronizing manner. She thought nothing of mocking what she felt were stuffy friends, his old-fashioned ideas, his outdated taste in hairstyle, clothes, and restaurants. She teased him about the collegiate outfits that he had assembled in the fifties, especially his shapeless hats. Eager to improve his appearance, she plied him with suggestions for making himself over by wearing stylish Armani suits, designer glasses, and adopting a voguish haircut. In general, she was impressed by his enormous fame, but the work that it rested upon seemed not to interest her, and she cheerfully admitted having "never read anything he's written." Nor had she seen many of his films. Woody recommended watching
Annie Hall
with "one of your twitty teenage friends," but she thought it sounded boring. Once she sat through
Interiors
and found it "long and tedious." Her favorite movie, perhaps for obvious reasons, was
Manhattan.
Although she was an opinionated, and often impertinent, young woman, Soon-Yi, according to Jean Doumanian, was good for Woody.

"She's very clear and has a different way of viewing things," Jean noted. "She's very quick to say how she feels."

To some people, Soon-Yi's position as the mistress of a famous man seemed enviable, but it came with a price. She was obliged to live life with a partner who was old enough to be her grandfather, and whose lifelong routines revolved around work and his creative imagination. Entertaining friends at home never interested him. Going away on a weekend was "a punishment." He didn't like parties or rock music. And he didn't even dance. Soon-Yi, however, always liked to be on the go. She loved parties, swimming, dancing, shopping, rock music, and slinky miniskirts. She wore her hair in pigtails, a Pocahontas hairstyle that succeeded in making Woody look like the Ancient Mariner. Dutifully she accompanied him to Knicks games, but soon she was dragging him to Fashion Week collections of her favorite designer, Donatella Versace. It was to please Soon-Yi that Woody could be found in first-class seating next to the runway alongside Whitney Houston and k.d. lang. Sometimes he looked sullen, as he clamped both hands over his ears to block out the throbbing of high-decibel rock.

While they continued to be seen at Elaine's, Woody's favorite luncheonette often took second place to Soon-Yi's choice of restaurants, the new glamorous in-spots patronized by cafe society. Not long after it opened, Balthazar, the trendy SoHo brasserie, received more than a thousand calls a day. But Soon-Yi and Woody had no trouble getting a reservation—even changing their table because some loud, tequila-drinking stockbrokers at a nearby table made conversation impossible. Other favorite dining spots were the newly reopened Le Cirque 2000 (where Soon-Yi was observed eating with her fingers), Nobu in Tribeca, and a collection of less-elite Upper East Side restaurants, closely guarded secrets such as Asia, Ennio's, and Primola. Without Woody, Soon-Yi was seldom recognized in public. Together, their entrance usually electrified other diners, who stopped eating or talking to gaze spellbound at the famous film director and his young lover.

In the summer of 1994, Woody was furious to learn that Mia Farrow was moving out of the city. New rent laws contained a luxury decontrol provision allowing landlords to deregulate an apartment and charge what the market would bear if a tenant's income exceeded $250,000 a year. The monthly rent of $2,300 on Mia's apartment was in danger of soaring to the full market price of $8,000. When she debated dodging the new rule by putting the lease in her children's name, the building's owners promised to take her to court and "sue her for the rest of her life." Mia felt bad about giving up the apartment that was first rented by her mother in 1963. Maureen O'Sullivan, however, proved far less sentimental. "This used to be a joyous place," she told Mia. "But I think it's depressing now. It's a shrine to the past."

Although some of Mia's neighbors in the same predicament succeeded in negotiating compromises with the owners of the Langham, Mia decided to leave Central Park West tor her country home in Connecticut. Whether or not she could afford the new rent, luxury deregulation gave her a faultless excuse for removing Dylan and Satch from proximity to Woody. Her older children were away in college—only Moses had two remaining years of high school—and living at Frog Hollow would be healthier for her younger children. Determined not to be outfoxed, Woody took her to court to prevent the move, but he was unsuccessful and had to drive several hours to Connecticut to sec Satch for a mere three-hour visit. Unwelcome at Frog Hollow, he usually wound up raking his son, along with a chaperon, to a movie or to a mall, where they passed (he time shopping for toys and eating ice cream.