(This conversation was recorded over dinner.)
CAROLWhen I was a VP at Lorimar, I was asked to take James Toback to lunch and make him my new best friend. He had a development deal at Lorimar. At lunch he put away more than a bottle of wine. He flirted, but didn’t do anything inappropriate—just bragged and bragged. Really tiresome. It seemed really important to convince me of his credentials.
TOMBut he’d just made the movie you were about to see.
CAROLIt didn’t matter.
TOMWhat was the movie?
CAROLWas it Fingers?
TOMThat was before your time. Love and Money?
CAROLMaybe. I don’t remember. What I remember thinking, this guy is friends with Warren Beatty, he’s friends with Pauline Kael, what did they see in him? He was so gross.
TOMPauline really liked him, I remember.
CAROLHe paraded his Harvard credential as if I’d care. I’m married to a Harvard grad who never boasts about it except to say you’re in the same class as the Unabomber.
TOMAnd a fellow math major.
CAROLSo then I saw Toback’s movie. And I told my boss at Lorimar what I thought of it. And he passed that along to Toback. I didn’t hate the movie, but I had some reservations, I don’t recall what they were. And the next day, Toback called me up. He called me a cunt, and said he was going to follow me out to the parking lot and kill me. I took it seriously, because he sounded insane. And I reported the conversation to my boss. And he said, oh don’t think twice about it, “That’s Jimmy.” That’s what seems to happen in these cases. You report it, and it’s waved off. OK, so we were friends with Pauline Kael, and we were invited to a party in her honor.
TOMSue Mengers’ party. The one where Chevy Chase fell on his knees before Pauline and said “My greatest wish is someday to be in a movie that you’ll like.”
CAROLAnyway, we drove her to the party, and as we were walking to the house. And I said, “Pauline, how could you be friends with this guy?”
TOMWasn’t she working with Toback at the time?
CAROLI said, “He’s horrible. He threatened to kill me.” And she dismissed it too. “Oh, he’s just a Harvard phony.” The whole thing went away, but I felt very uncomfortable for a while. No one ever threatened to kill me before. Although I’ve heard he threatened other people.
TOMDidn’t he use to boast about his mob connections? Being a gambler and all.
CAROLHarvey Weinstein supposedly told girls he had mobsters who could do damage.
TOMAlec Baldwin made that Cannes doc with Toback.
CAROLI wonder if he’ll have anything to say. Do you want to finish this salad?
TOMNo, that’s OK. There’s no more dressing.
CAROLBut the thing is, what I learned from what happened, and what these other women learned, is there’s no one to tell. You feel you might have brought it on, dressing provocatively, giving unwelcome notes, you feel a sense of shame. Though you’d hope the people in authority over him would say something.
TOMThere was no one in authority over Harvey.
CAROL“You can’t talk like that, apologize to Carol.” But they don’t.
TOMI should have done something. As your husband. I seem to remember talking to you about it.
CAROLYou always want to be my knight. Do what, though? Threaten to kick his ass? That would have made things worse.
TOMBut he didn’t hit on you, per se. He didn’t invite you to a hotel room and jerk off into his pants.
CAROLBut his come-on was creepy. I haven’t thought about this for 25 years. Have I mentioned it since then?
TOMNo, yeah, I don’t think so.
CAROLAnd I’ve worked for a lot of bad guys.
TOMYour Lorimar boss was OK.
CAROLHe was a decent man. But Toback’s the kind of guy you’d think would lie about going to Harvard.
TOMLike David Begelman lied about going to Yale. But Toback did go to Harvard, I’m pretty sure.
CAROLIt’s just he seemed so insecure, so eager for you to be impressed with him. And this behavior, this rubbing up against women, ejaculating without actually having sex, what does it mean? Is it a confession of impotence?
TOMIt’s a hostile act. Isn’t it? The woman’s not getting anything out of it. Maybe that’s the point. But at the same time, it’s self-humiliating. The woman goes away thinking, “That guy’s a creep…but did I provoke him?”
CAROLAnd Toback, according to the L.A. Times, did the same thing over and over again, with dozens of women—200 at last count.
TOMHe made the front page at last.
CAROLIt’s sort of a mystery why these guys do these pervy things.
TOMThe second season of Mindhunter! The Hollywood Years!
CAROLToback seduced the girls by saying “I invented so-and-so.” “I invented Warren Beatty.”
TOMDid Toback actually say that?
CAROLLike Harvey bragging about all the stars he worked with or supposedly slept with and that was supposed to turn women on. According to the article, Toback would hang out in front of restaurants or schools or banks and confront these girls and do his resume. Reflected glory—like Walter Matthau seducing Barbara Harris in Plaza Suite. And the girls were apparently very young—under age, some of them.
TOMHe should have invented a sex doll and left them alone.