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| Woody Allen's Love and Death (1975) |
If a novelist or writer or any artist makes art that expresses the attraction between teenage girls and older men, is that indicative of their own personal desires and/or does it express an event they may have occurred previously in their lives? For example, was Nabokov an active ephebophile and did Tatiana von Furstenberg have an affair with a married man while she was at boarding school? Let us take a look at Woody Allen for a possible clue to the answer.
Woody Allen has written and/or directed at least nine films that contained age-discrepant relationships:
Play It Again, Sam (1972): A female character shared with Allan (Woody Allen), “Allen, I won’t deny it. I’m a nymphomaniac. I discovered sex very early. I slept with everybody. My school teacher.”
Love and Death (1975): Ninety-year-old Father Andre, the “Holiest of Holies, Ancient and Wise” shared, “I have lived many years. And after many trials and tribulations. I have come to [the] conclusion that the best thing is blonde twelve-year-old girls. Two of them, whenever possible.”
Manhattan (1979): Forty-two-year-old Isaac (Woody Allen), a comedy writer and aspiring novelist, ends his affair with a seventeen-year-old high school student (Mariel Hemingway) to be with an older woman (Diane Keaton) - only to regret it later.
Katie Duggan shared in the article “The Women of the Woody Allen Papers” published in The Nassau Weekly that I picked up while attending a function at Prince University that a draft of Manhattan’s script, which is archived in one of 56 boxes in the rare-books wing in Princeton’s Firestone Library that Heminway’s character was originally sixteen - an “infant”.
Stacey Nelkin related in 2011 on The Howard Stern Show that Manhattan was based on her relationship with Allen that began after they met on the set of Annie Hall. Nelkin was a seventeen-year-old student at the pretigious Stuyvesant high school in Manhattan and Allen was forty-two. Allen confirmed the relationship in a 2014 Op-Ed piece in the New York Times.
Husbands and Wives (1992): Gabe Roth (Woody Allen), a literature professor, began a relationship with one of his students (Juliette Lewis) after she read and praised the manuscript of his new novel. However, prior to taking Roth’s class, Rain had previous relationships with three much older men: her father’s close friend, her father’s business partner, and her analyst.
Deconstructing Harry (1997): writer Harry Block (Woody Allen) drives a prostitute, a friend, and his kidnapped son, to his former university to receive an honorary degree. One of the sub-plots involves Harry's relationship with Fay (Elisabeth Shue), a young fan who turns into a follower, then a pupil - Eliza Doolittle style, and finally into a roommate. Despite warning Fay to avoid falling in love with him and confessing his intention to “fuck” her before moving on to the next fan, Harry fell in love with Fay and was distraught to learn that she got engaged to Larry (Billy Crystal) - Harry’s “alleged” friend.
Whatever Works (2009): Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David), a middle-aged professor of quantum mechanics at Columbia University, reluctantly married Melodie Saint Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood), a young runaway from Mississippi.
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010): Alfie (Anthony Hopkins), an elderly man, leaves his wife to marry a young call girl, while Roy (Josh Brolin), a middle-aged novelist, becomes engrossed by Dia (Freida Pinto), a beautiful young woman, while desperately trying to get his second book published.
Irrational Man (2015): Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix), a philosophy professor at Braylin, finds himself in a life crisis, but he gains a new purpose in life after he begins a relationship with one of his students, Jill Pollard (Emma Stone) and becomes a one-man vigilante.
A Rainy Day in New York (2019): Ashleigh (Elle Fanning), a Yardley college student, was involved in not one, not two, not three but (possibly) four age-gap affairs. For example, after Gatsby (Timothée Chalamet) and Ashleigh visit New York City, Ashleigh becomes infatuated with Roland Pollard (51-year-old Liev Schreiber), a famous film director, whom she is interviewing for the school's paper. Ashleigh says referring to Roland, "I can see why all the leading ladies fall in love with him."
As you can see, some of Allen's work fulfills the request of almost every Hollywood movie executive, which is, “Give me the same thing, only different.” Yet, up until the filming of Husbands and Wives, there was only speculation about Woody’s intentions, but they became clear when his wife, Mia Farrow, found nude pictures of her adopted daughter, Soon Yi Previn, in Woody’s bedroom that were taken some time before Soon Yi’s 19th birthday. Thus, Woody is a great example of (his) art imitating (his) life.
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| Dylan Farrow and Woody Allen |
In addition, in 1992 Allen was accused by Dylan Farrow, his adopted daughter, and Mia Farrow of molesting Dylan when she was two and seven-years-old.
Here are some low-lights from the 33-page decision from the presiding judge in the case:
When Allen met Farrow she had three biological and three adopted children. One of whom was ten-year-old Soon-Yi. Allen and Farrow met in 1980 and "[u]ntil 1985, Mr. Allen...viewed her children as an encumbrance. He had no involvement with them." Allen even had a separate residence on the opposite side of Manhattan. After unsuccessfully trying to have a child together, Allen allowed Farrow to adopt Dylan, a newborn, in 1985.
Eventually, Woody warmed up to Dylan; however, according to Dylan and Farrow, Woody warmed up to Dylan too much. For example, when Dylan was 2-years-old, Farrow told Allen "...[you] look at her in a sexual way. You fondled her...You're all over her. You look at her when she's naked."
Then in 1990, 19-year-old Soon-Yi asked Woody if she could attend a New York Knicks' basketball game with him at Madison Square Garden. Soon-Yi "opened up" to Woody (no pun intended) after attending several basketball games and in 1991, after she enrolled in Drew College in Madison, New Jersey, Allen and Soon-Yi began speaking regularly on the phone.
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Allen, Farrow and Soon-Yi
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And in January of 1992, Farrow found six graphically nude photographs (e.g., "legs spread apart") of Soon-Yi on a mantelpiece in Allen's apartment.
Needless to say, Farrow was distraught over Allen and her (adopted) daughter's affair.
Very interestingly, Farrow is no stranger to age-discrepant relationships. For example, according to J. Randy Taraborrelli's Sinatra: Behind the Legend, nineteen-year-old Mia Farrow lost her virginity to forty-eight-year-old Frank Sinatra at his ultra-modern glass and metal house in Palm Springs after their flight on a private jet. “They had dinner on the terrace, served by an army of servants, and then he swept her into his bedroom.” Farrow described the night as “magical”.
And a November 2013 Vanity Fair article related that subsequent to her marriage to Sinatra and prior to her marriage to Allen, Farrow married composer-conductor André Previn. Previn and Farrow had three sons and adopted three underprivileged Asian girls. (You guessed it. Soon-Yi Previn was one of the adopted girls.) But what you may not have guessed is that Previn and Farrow were the inspiration for the song “Beware of Young Girls” that was written by Dory Previn. (You guessed it. Dory was André’s ex-wife.) Previn and twenty-three-year-old Farrow started an affair while Previn was conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and Farrow was filming A Dandy in Aspic. Dory separated from André after she discovered that Farrow was pregnant with André’s child. Consequently, according to The Independent, Dory was institutionalized with severe mental illness prior to composing “Beware of Young Girls”.
Subsequently, Allen and Soon-Yi adopted Bechet Dumaine Allen and Manzie Tio Allen. I won't comment on the adoption or the picture below, but based on Allen's record, one would be not surprised if "something" came out of the adoption(s).
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| Allen with Bechet and Manzie in Beverly Hills (2012) |
The Daily Mail revealed that Allen is friends with Jeffrey Epstein - another famous ephebophile. Epstein and Allen were seen hugging, whispering, joking and laughing as they strolled to Epstein's $50 million Upper East Side of Manhattan town house.
- he received three twelve-year-old French girls as a birthday present
- he had a fourteen-year-old “Balkan sex slave” that he procured from her family
- he had a fifteen-year-old sex toy named Virginia Roberts that he loaned to friends, and
- he paid forty, mostly underage girls, approximately $300 apiece to give him “messages” (i.e., hand jobs) at his second home in Palm Beach.
Is it true that birds of a feather flock together?
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| Jeffrey Epstein, Woody Allen and Soon-Yi |
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Only God knows if Allen is a pedophile, but clearly he's an acting ephebophile. But what we find surprising is that Allen didn't use his fame to marry a nymphet à la J.D. Salinger and Elvis instead of marrying his wife's (adopted) daughter.
[Update 6-23-19]
Soon-Yi related her version of the affair in Daphne Merkin's New York Magazine profile "Introducing Soon-Yi Previn: As controversies tumbled around her, the daughter of Mia Farrow and wife of Woody Allen stayed silent for decades. No more":
The first statement that Soon-Yi released was to Newsweek in August of 1992: “I’m not a retarded little underage flower who was raped, molested, and spoiled by some evil stepfather — not by a long shot.”
Soon-Yi’s first “friendly encounter” with Allen happened in the 11th grade after she broke her ankle during a game of soccer while attending the Marymount School of New York. Subsequently, Allen advised her to see a doctor and offered to take the nymphet to school after she returned from the hospital “in a cast and on crutches”.
Soon-Yi shared, “You know, he didn’t have to offer. I’d never been nice to him really.”
After that, in a bit of foreshadowing, Farrow naively suggested that the budding age-gap couple go to Knicks games together where the Catholic schoolgirl “gradually began to open up to Allen”, because she knew that Allen and Farrow were in a relationship “just because of the kids.”
It’s not clear if the nymphet opened up literally or figuratively, because Allen and Soon-Yi were “vague on how and when their friendship turned sexual”.
Soon-Yi opined, “I think Woody went after me because at that first basketball game I turned out to be more interesting and amusing than he thought I’d be.”
Soon-Yi shared that by the time she started commuting to Drew University, the age-gap couple “[...] were like two magnets, very attracted to each other,” because Allen had showed her “affection”, he was “nice” which “thrilled” her, and he made her feel “valued” which was “quite flattering”.
After Farrow found Soon-Yi’s nude photos prominently displayed on Allen’s mantel, she slapped her “[a]nd then she called everyone. She didn’t contain the situation; she just spread it like wildfire, and then she was screaming at Woody when he came over.” Soon-Yi regrets that her (adopted) mother found the nude photos “[...] but notes that they were taken in the privacy of Allen’s home, for themselves.”
Interestingly, the “molestation charge”, the public viewing their relationship “as a virtual case of incest”, and the paparazzi “deepened” their relationship. Soon-Yi shared, “I was madly in love with him [...] Completely attracted to him, physically and sexually [...]”
Subsequently, Allen released a statement confirming his real, true and loving relationship with his (adopted) step-daughter and “[...] on December 23, 1997, Woody and Soon-Yi got married in the mayor’s office in Venice [...]”
Katie Duggan also shared in the article “The Women of the Woody Allen Papers” that “[i]n one story, a male narrator talks about his crush on Thelma, who ‘although only fifteen years old was endowed with sufficient physical gifts.’” And that Allen wrote in his notes about Ashleigh Enright, a journalism student in A Rainy Day in New York (2019) “she should not be 20 or 21. Sounds more like 18—or even 17—but 18 seems better.”
Richard Morgan, who was the first to read the archives “cover to cover”, shared in “I read decades of Woody Allen’s private notes. He’s obsessed with teenage girls.” for the Washington Post:
Allen's work is flatly boorish. Running through all of the boxes is an insistent, vivid obsession with young women and girls: There's the "wealthy, educated, respected" male character in one short story ("By Destiny Denied: Incident at Entwhistle's") who lives with a 21-year-old "Indian" woman. First, Allen's revisions reduce her to 18, then double down, literally, and turn her into two 18-year-olds.
There's the 16-year-old in an unmade television pitch described as "a flashy sexy blonde in a flaming red low cut evening gown with a long slit up the side."
There's the 17-year-old girl in another short story, "Consider Kaplan," whose 53-year-old neighbor falls in love with her as the two share a silent, one-floor-long elevator ride in their Park Avenue co-op. [...] who ends up sending his 17-year-old neighbor a valentine. The contents of that love note are instructive to Allen's sense of courtship and, in creative terms, to his sense of how chemistry forms between two characters. It reads, in full: "I saw you only briefly the other day and have not stopped thinking of you. Though we shared a casual and fleeting elevator ride — one floor, to be exact — I fear my life can never be the same. Please meet me for cocktails one night this week. I live in the penthouse. I implore you not to say no. If it turns out for one reason or another you can never share my feelings than [sic] the worst you will suffer is that I will tell you how lovely you are for the duration of a single martini." [...]
Another of Allen's male characters, in a draft of a 1977 New Yorker story called "The Kugelmass Episode," is a 45-year-old fascinated by "coeds" at City College of New York. In the margin next to this character's dialogue, Allen wrote, then crossed out, "c'est moi" — it's me.
[...] in a draft of "My Apology," a short story: "Of all the famous men who ever lived, the one I would most like to have been was Socrates. Not just because he was a great thinker, because I have been known to have some reasonably profound insights myself, although mine invariably revolve around two eighteen year old cocktail waitresses and some rope handcuffs." (In the published version, the object of desire has become a stewardess whose age is omitted.)
In another draft, titled "My Speech to the Graduates," he complains that "science has failed us. True, it has conquered many diseases, broken the genetic code, and even placed human beings on the Moon. And yet when a man of eighty is left in a room with two eighteen year old cocktail waitresses, nothing happens.
[Update 7-23-19]
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| 16-Year-Old Babi Christina Engelhardt and Woody Allen |
Babi Christina Engelhardt opined in Gary Baum's Hollywood Reporter piece “Woody Allen's Secret Teen Lover Speaks: Sex, Power and a Conflicted Muse Who Inspired 'Manhattan'” that Stacey Nelkin was not the sole inspiration for Manhattan (1979). Babi presumes that she, Nelkin and the two "beautiful young [lipstick lesbian] ladies" were the inspiration for the critically acclaimed and award winning film.
Let's learn more about Babi and see what would give her that impression.
Babi shared the details of her relationship with Woody with Baum in his Hollywood Reporter piece. Baum wrote that, which is absolutely no surprise to us, that “confident” Babi “brazenly” initiated the affair with Woody:
Sixteen, emerald-eyed, blond, an aspiring model with a confident streak and a painful past: Babi Christina Engelhardt had just caught Woody Allen's gaze at legendary New York City power restaurant Elaine's. It was October 1976, and when Engelhardt returned from the ladies' room, she dropped a note on his table with her phone number. It brazenly read: "Since you've signed enough autographs, here's mine!"
Soon, Allen rang, inviting her to his Fifth Avenue penthouse. The already-famous 41-year-old director [...] never asked her age. But she told him she was still in high school [...]. Within weeks, they'd become physically intimate at his place. She wouldn't turn 17, legal in New York, until that December.
The pair embarked on, by her account, a clandestine romance of eight years [...]
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| 17-Year-Old Babi Christina Engelhardt |
Babi shared that she “liked” Woody and finds him “so interesting” because “his wit is magnetic” and that “[...] he was charming and alluring.”
Baum wrote of Babi:
She's proud of her teenage self as an up-by-her-bootstraps heroine who successfully beguiled a "celebrated genius." Even now, she holds herself largely responsible for remaining in the relationship as long as she did [...]. She considered him then, and still considers him now, a Great Man.
In reference to the article, Babi related: "I'm not attacking Woody," she says. "This is not 'bring down this man.' I'm talking about my love story. This made me who I am. I have no regrets."
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The letter Woody sent to Babit thanking her The Voice of the Moon and
(possibly) requesting a three-some. |
The most surprising part of the article may be that Babi began “[...] working as a personal assistant to Jeffrey Epstein [...]”. And the most interesting item in the article is a letter that Woody sent Babi in 2001. After Woody thanked Babi for sending him a copy of the documentary The Voice of the Moon, he wrote:
“If you're ever in New York I would love you to meet my wife [i.e., Soon-Yi Previn] — she'd like you. We get out to California every so often. If you'd like I'd call and perhaps we could all get together.”
Babi presumed that Woody was inviting her to a threesome, but she didn’t participate.
This update raises at least two questions:
- Who were the two "beautiful young ladies" and just how young were they?
- And did Epstein supply Woody and Soon-Yi with nymphets for threesomes?
