The Unruly Life of Woody Allen (56 page)

Stacey Nelkin became a film actress and appeared in such classics as
Halloween 3
—
Season of the Witch,
as well as
Bullets Over Broadway.
During the custody hearing, she publicly defended her affair with Woody as "mature," adding that he had taught her "a lot about music and film." Now forty, she lives in Los Angeles.

Nancy Jo Sales is a contributing editor for
New York
magazine and specializes in investigative reporting about crime, street gangs, and literary figures. In 1993, while a researcher at
People,
she published a nostalgic account, "Woody and Me," about her preadolescent crush on the filmmaker and reprinted several of his letters. Still reverent about Woody, she could not help wondering "if I could possibly have had some lasting effect on him, as he so affected me." Nancy Jo is now thirty-four and lives in the Gramercy Park area of Manhattan.

Andre Previn was honored with a lifetime achievement award by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The conductor of five symphony orchestras during his life, he recently composed an opera that was based on Tennessee Williams’
A Streetcar Named Desire.
His fourth wife, Heather, filed for divorce after seventeen years of marriage, amid reports, in the
Boston Herald,
of his relations with a bassoonist in the Pittsburgh Symphony. Previn remains close to Mia Farrow but has no contact with Soon-Yi. "That is a closed chapter," he says.

Arthur Krim suffered a stroke after the demise of Orion Pictures. He died in 1994 at the age of eighty-four.

Nick Apollo Forte has spent the years since
Broadway Danny Rose
as a fisherman and lounge entertainer. Occasionally, he does a "Broadway Danny Rose" night at Manhattan clubs. "What happened to Nick Apollo Forte," he reported, "is that he never did another movie. When they put the movie in
TV Guide
now, its just Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, never a mention of Nick Apollo Forte. So what did he contribute? How come Nick Apollo Forte never gets another movie job?"

Pauline Kael retired from film criticism in 1991, after twenty-three years at
The New Yorker.
At the age of eighty, she suffers from Parkinson's disease and lives a reclusive life in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Ralph Rosenblum turned to television directing after falling out with Woody. He also taught at Columbia University's graduate film school and coauthored a book
(When the Shooting Stops... the Cutting Begins)
about his life in film editing. After the sixty-nine-year-old Rosenblum died of heart failure in 1995, Woody sent a letter of condolence to his widow, Davida, but did not attend the memorial service.

Marshall Brickman remains a loyal supporter who believes Woody received "a bad judgment" in the custody case. After their last collaboration,
Manhattan Murder Mystery
in 1993, Brickman next cowrote the screenplay for
Intersection,
a 1994 feature film starring Richard Gere and Sharon Stone. He works out of a studio on Central Park South, but lives on Central Park West, as well as in the Hamptons.

Vincent Canby shifted to theater reviewing in 1993, after a quarter of a century as the
New York Times
chief film critic. Since
Husbands and Wives,
the last Allen picture he reviewed, his opinions of the filmmaker have varied. He "wasn't crazy" about
Manhattan Murder Mystery;
"adored"
Bullets Over Broadway;
and "hardly remembers the plot"
Mighty Aphrodite,
he says.

Justice Elliott Wilk's other prominent trials involved squatters on New York's Lower East Side; civil assault
(Mitch Green
v.
Mike Tyson);
and medical malpractice (the Libby Zion case).

Elaine Kaufman's restaurant was featured in two recent Woody Allen pictures.
Everyone Says I Love You
and
Celebrity.
In 1998 Kaufman made headlines when she was arrested for assaulting a customer whom she had noticed nursing a gin and tonic at the bar.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The biographer who decides to write about a person who is still alive cannot help fantasizing. Might not the subject be willing to answer a few elementary questions about his life and work? Or, at the very least, contribute an entertaining family anecdote? If not, there are bound to be plenty of friends and colleagues with meaningful experiences to relate. And should all else fail, the biographer may even glimpse the subject in a smiling pose at a social event or chatting on late-night television with Charlie Rose.

In reality, living subjects by no means welcome the idea of a stranger, uninvited, rooting around in their personal affairs. Accustomed to a hard-won position in the driver's seat, they are more likely to rebuff offers to reminisce. Instead, they warn friends and relatives not to talk. They fire off churlish letters to the
New York Times Book Review.
They phone their attorneys with complaints of victimization, and sometimes, in desperation, they appoint an official biographer. Having spent their professional lives trying to attract attention, they suddenly wish to be left alone.

As I soon realized, however, the live subject's lack of enthusiasm is not a handicap but a blessing. Writing anyone's life story is laborious enough without having to relate to the subject too. Therefore, foremost among the many people to whom I am indebted is Woody Allen himself. Mr. Aliens disapproval compelled me to dig harder and deeper to unearth minutiae from his sixty-four years, particularly to seek out people who had direct knowledge of him but had never been interviewed before. This book would have been shorter had he decided to "help" me.

The names of those who chose to discuss with me the part they personally played in Woody Allen's story are listed in the notes. They allowed me countless hours of their time over lunches, in their homes and offices, or talking on the phone.

I regret that I can give no more than a mention to others who were equally generous in sharing their recollections: Bella Abzug, Conrad Bain, Bruce Baron, Marty Bregman, Mel Bourne, Barbara Boyle, Stan Cardinet, Tim Carroll, Irene Copeland, Prudence Crowther, Marion Dougherty, Daren Firestone, Al Franken, Harriet Garber, Baylis Glascock, Hazel Greenberg, Stuart Hample, Margo Howard, Bill Irwin, Coleman Jacoby, Dennis Kear, Nor-berto Kerner, Ruth Kravette, John Kuney, Ruth Last, Martha LoMonaco, Judith Malina, Ernest Mider, Julius Moshinsky, Joshua Peck, Marvin Peisner, Anthony Picciano, Dorothy Rabinoff, Leah Reisman, Amelia Rollyson, Jeanne Safer, Naomi Diamond Sachs, Steve Sands, Barbara Shack, Stephen Spignesi, Jules Spodek, and Jeff Weingrad.

For various types of research and tips, I must thank Louise Bernikow, Myron Brenton, Marlene Coburn, Don DeLillo, Clyde Gilmour, Amy Goldberger, John Haber, Don Harrell, Tony Hiss, Jeff Hoffman, Ted Klein, Herb Leibowitz, Michael Martinez, Angela Miller, Patricia Parmalee, Matthew Ross, Roselle Salzano, Victor Sidhu, Brian Skene, Richard Stern, Sue Terry, Pamela Turner, Philip Turner, Ben Yagoda, and Susan Yankowitz.

In gathering nearly four decades' worth of clippings, I received assistance from Liz Campochiaro, Mary Epifanio, Peggy Sprague, and Nelson Winters. Both Charles Stecy and Bob Borgen gave me access to their excellent clipping collections stretching back to the 1960s.

For genealogical research, I relied on the expertise of Laurie Thompson.