Filmmaker James Toback accused of sexual harassment

Screenwriter and director James Toback is facing allegations of sexual harassment from more than 30 women in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sex scandal.

In a Los Angeles Times expose, the Two Girls and a Guy filmmaker, who scored an Oscar nomination for writing 1991 movie Bugsy, is accused of trying to lure women to private meetings by promising them opportunities in Hollywood.

According to the article, published on Sunday (22Oct17), Toback often invited aspiring actresses to his hotel room or apartment to discuss possible collaborations, only to then act inappropriately by asking intimate sexual questions and reportedly masturbating in front of them. Investigative reporter Glenn Whipp explains none of the females reported the incidents to police out of shame.

Veruca Salt singer Louise Post was among the 31 out of 38 alleged victims to speak on the record about their encounters with 72-year-old Toback, revealing she met him back in 1987 while she was a student at New York's Barnard College.

"He told me he'd love nothing more than to masturbate while looking into my eyes," she recalled. "Going to his apartment has been the source of shame for the past 30 years, that I allowed myself to be so gullible."

Quantico actress Adrienne LaValley also detailed her bad experience with Toback, which is said to have taken place in a hotel room in 2008, when he allegedly rubbed his crotch against her leg and ejaculated into his pants.

"The way he presented it, it was like, 'This is how things are done (in Hollywood),'" LaValley explained. "I felt like a prostitute, an utter disappointment to myself, my parents, my friends. And I deserved not to tell anyone."

Toback firmly denied the accusations to the Times, insisting he "had never met any of these women or, if he did, it 'was for five minutes and have no recollection,'" while he also claimed such behaviour would have been "biologically impossible" for him due to his health, stating he has suffered from diabetes and "a heart condition that required medication" for the past 22 years. He did not elaborate on the nature of his ailment.

Ironically, Toback's 1987 romantic comedy The Pick-up Artist was a semi-autobiographical tale about a serial seducer, played by Robert Downey, Jr.

Rumours about Toback's behaviour as an alleged sexual predator began circulating shortly after Weinstein was accused of sexual harassment and assault in an expose in The New York Times and a subsequent article in The New Yorker magazine in early October (17). He has since been fired from his role as chief of The Weinstein Company, the production firm he co-founded with his brother Bob, and has been stripped of his membership to The Motion Picture Academy and the Producers Guild of America, while authorities in Los Angeles and London recently launched investigations into historic incidents of sexual assault purported to revolve around Weinstein.

After the Los Angeles Times piece hit headlines, two of Weinstein's alleged victims expressed their support via Twitter to the women reportedly targeted by Toback.

"James Toback damn you for stealing, damn you for traumatizing," wrote actress Rose McGowan, while Italian star Asia Argento tweeted, "So proud of my sisters for bringing down yet another pig: James Toback".