By Elizabeth Flock, Art Beat, October 12, 2017<\/p>\n
Long before starmarker Harvey Weinstein was ousted over accusations of sexual misconduct and assault \u2014 behavior that stretched back decades and affected dozens of women, first reported by the New York Times<\/a>\u00a0and the New Yorker<\/a> \u2014 the Hollywood producer found time to defend big-name directors accused of sexual abuse.<\/p>\n In 2009, Weinstein circulated a petition<\/a> calling for the release of Roman Polanski. The Academy Award-winning director at the time had been arrested in Switzerland and was facing extradition, two decades after he pled guilty in 1978 to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl, and then fled to Europe to avoid more jail time in the U.S.<\/p>\n In an op-ed that year in the Independent<\/a>, Weinstein wrote that he was \u201cemailing everybody I know\u201d to keep Polanski out of jail, and argued the filmmaker was a \u201chumanist\u201d who had been made into a \u201cscapegoat.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a miscarriage of justice,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Weinstein added that he\u2019d lobby then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for help, a Hollywood actor who himself had been accused of groping multiple women<\/a>\u00a0on movie sets and studio offices without consent. (Schwarzenegger initially denied the allegations but later said he had a tendency to get \u201crowdy\u201d and apologized to anyone he \u201coffended.\u201d)<\/p>\n In an interview not long after his Independent op-ed, Weinstein reiterated to the Los Angeles Times<\/a> that he thought Polanski was misunderstood, as was the industry. \u201cHollywood has the best moral compass,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The petition Weinstein circulated to release Polanski was signed<\/a> by numerous other film industry leaders and actresses, including Asia Argento, an Italian actress and director who said this week that Weinstein once forced oral sex on her.<\/p>\n The petition was also signed by Woody Allen, a director who had been plagued by allegations of sexual misconduct. In 2003, Allen\u2019s ex-wife Mia Farrow alleged<\/a> that the filmmaker sexually abused his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow. Dylan also later asserted<\/a> that Allen abused her. Charges were never filed, and Allen denies it happened<\/a>.<\/p>\n It turns out that Weinstein helped out Allen at the time, too. In 1994, fresh off of Farrow\u2019s allegation, Allen \u201cwas shunned by Hollywood\u2019s movie community,\u201d the LA Times wrote<\/a>, but his career was rehabbed with the help of Weinstein.<\/p>\n (Ronan Farrow, Farrow and Allen\u2019s 29-year-old son, was the reporter who broke some of the more serious allegations against Weinstein in the New Yorker this week. Farrow is estranged from Allen.)<\/p>\n The LA Times reported that Allen\u2019s deal with the studio TriStar Pictures had been cut off prematurely, and his future looked uncertain. Then Weinstein\u2019s company Miramax signed him. \u201cShunned by Hollywood means nothing to Miramax,\u201d Weinstein told the paper. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about a comic genius.\u201d<\/p>\n The Allen film Miramax took on in \u201894, \u201cBullets over Broadway,\u201d went on to receive seven Academy Award nominations and win one. The Weinstein Company, the production company that succeeded Miramax, distributed<\/a> many more of Allen\u2019s movies.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, after some two dozen women had come forward<\/a> to make sexual misconduct allegations against Weinstein, including A-list and lesser-known actresses, the Mercury News asked<\/a> whether the careers of other accused Hollywood men, including Polanski and Allen, could survive the renewed attention to sex abuse in the industry.<\/p>\n