by Marion Meade
—Jane Read Martin McGrath
"His savagery toward women remains primitive. In thirty years, he never got past it. At thirty-five, he was a genius in the sense that he made the whole country respond to his neurotic New York Jew. But pursuing women was his only idea, his one emotion, one perception. He never went anyplace else. He's had a run for his money that is unbelievable."
—Vivian Gornick
"Have I talked to him? Why would I talk to him? I don't know him socially. We're not friends in that sense. I think he's great. We had a good working relationship. Why would I call him? It's just not my business. Why bother him, the poor guy? He's been bothered enough."
—Judy Davis
"I think Mia is a very crazy, vindictive woman. It's not even remotely possible that Woody would have done any of those things. The molestation charge is disgusting."
—Stacey Nelkin
"He's treated like a little god, and little gods don't have to do what everybody else does."
—Leonard Gershe
"When people ask me about Woody and his new girlfriend, I tell them, 'That's the result of a successful analysis.' If you've been in analysis for forty years you can justify anything."
—Elliott Mills
In the marble corridor outside Courtroom 341, movie fans queued up for one of the few available seats at the afternoon sessions. But with more than eighty of the press corps stuffed into the rows of hard wooden benches with their bags and briefcases, there was little room left over for the curious public. As the trial continued, Woody began hunching over in his seat. He seemed to physically shrink. One reporter described his posture as that of someone trying to "disappear by scrunching up into a small ball." Other members of the press were having second thoughts about him, especially about Mia, whom they once regarded as a frivolous person. "At first people believed Mia to be freaky because she had so many kids," recalled Joan Ullman. "But gradually that changed. She sounded like a wife, or a single mother, somebody you could identify with. Not Woody. I was horrified at the way he behaved with the kids, hanging out at Mia's, staring obsessively at Dylan." Some skeptical female journalists were of the opinion that Mia was no Pollyanna, however. "Her affect was studied," recalled Andrea Peyser, a New York Post reporter. "The Catholic schoolgirl outfit, her testimony, everything seemed like acting. It sure played well with the judge though."
The smart money argued Woody was unlikely to win. "Under New York law, he didn't have a case," said Hal Davis. "No evidence suggested Mia was unfit. On the stand, Woody Allen impressed me as a sincere fifty-seven-year-old guy with an emotional age of nineteen. Just your average adolescent male. Nobody with a brain in their head could honestly say he would be a fine parent."
Outside the courtroom, fidgety reporters stood in the halls gossiping. Did Satchel really have a gender disorder? Would he grow up to be gay? They dished about Soon-Yi and cast a Woody-Mia custody movie—Rick Moranis as Woody and Blythe Danner as Mia, with either Gene Wilder or Richard Dreyfuss as Justice Wilk. Hard to cast would be the Soon-Yi role, but the most obvious choice was Lea Salonga, Broadway's Miss Saigon. During the breaks, Woody's sister, Letty Aronson, told USA Today that Mia had made so many threatening phone calls to the elderly Konigsbergs that they were forced to change their number. "She eats bullets," huffed Letty. "That's why she's doing this to the children."
Day after day, a procession of witnesses took the stand to offer theories about Dylan O'Sullivan Farrow. Did her father fondle her? Did she make up the story? Should Judge Wilk let her see her daddy again? Sometimes everybody seemed to forget that the silent and invisible centerpiece of the custody hearing was a seven-year-old who had suffered the devastating loss of a father.
In the six months preceding the court dispute, Mia had driven Dylan nine times to be questioned by psychologists at Yale-New Haven Hospital. At St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan, Dylan had become so hysterical when doctors tried to perform a gynecological examination that the procedure was canceled. At times she could not walk on the street without being approached by a photographer or passerby. One morning her mother wrapped her in blankets and carried her out a basement door to escape photographers waiting in front of the building. Dylan’s anxiety was also fueled by worries about her mother becoming poverty-stricken. Mia, she thought, would not be able to earn money now that "Woody Allen," as she had begun referring to her father, was no longer starring her in his movies.
While Mia would later insist that Dylan had been spared the details of the trial, this was not the truth. Exposed to her parents bitter hatred of each other for almost two years, she was aware of their battle to retain custody of her. Deeply afraid that she would be forced to leave her mother’s home and live with "Woody Allen," she was agitated and depressed.
"Andre is my new daddy," she blurted out wishfully to the doctors in New Haven, following a visit from the famous conductor.
Each morning of the hearing, her mother departed for Foley Square, and she was dropped off at Brearley, the Upper East Side private school where she was in second grade. At school, teachers and classmates heard intimate details of her life on television. A staff member (the second wife of one of Woody's longtime colleagues) took a day off from school to testify that Woody Allen was a fine father, who was sufficiently involved to attend parent-teacher meetings.
As Mia's time and attention were increasingly diverted from her family to the hearing, predictably her children suffered from her absence. The woman seen in news photos, surrounded by smiling, seemingly well-behaved youngsters, was in reality contending with their disturbed reaction. Needy and demanding, her older children were especially rebellious. One evening, Mia came into Daisy and Lark's bedroom to mention a victory she won in court that day. The minute she left, Lark jumped up and shouted to Kristi Groteke, "I can't stand it." She didn't want to hear another word about the trial, she confided to the baby-sitter, which was the reason she spent "so much time out of the house. It's why I hang out with my friends so much."
That winter Dylan O'Sullivan Farrow decided to change her name. Enchanted by the movie My Fair Lady, and Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle, she selected the name Eliza. Her brother Satch, not to be outdone, changed his name to Harmon.
Custody cases are usually handled in Family Court, where child beatings, wife throttlings, and all manner of domestic free-for-alls are daily fare, and the judges' calendars a mass of motions and pleas, hearings and trials, all waiting to be disposed of speedily. Throughout Allen v. Farrow, Family Court judges who had been following the case on television could not help making snide remarks about Justice Wilk's handling of the case. As one Bronx judge thought, "Bring on the Woody Allen case. I'll show them how we Family Court judges have to do it. In the middle of the morning, after our fourteenth, fifteenth, or twentieth case, one turns to the court officers and says, 'What's next? The Woody Allen case? OK, let's get them in here. And line up the next three cases, would you?' "
The hearing lasted six and a half weeks. All too often the testimony sounded like reruns of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Some thirty witnesses tramped through Courtroom 341: psychiatrists, lawyers, social workers, nannies, tutors, teachers, and maids. Among the minor players was Paul Williams, the formerly suspended, recently reinstated social worker who said flat out that Dylan was telling the truth and the case against her father should not be dropped. Another witness was Letty Aronson, who declared Woody to be an ideal father because he "played games and colored" with his children. For many onlookers, the most mesmerizing testimony came from Jane Martin, Woody's faithful former assistant. Familiar with the daily trivia of Woody and Mia's life, she conjured up in intimate detail the Shangri-la cocoon in which the couple was sealed from the rest of humanity. As she described it, it was a world where men didn't marry their sweethearts but adopted their children, where flunkies and gofers kept life running smoothly, psychotherapists made house calls, and children's allowances were paid by check. Seizing the opportunity to get in a few lick
s at Mia, she characterized her as a reptilian stepmother who treated her daughter Lark like "a scullery maid" and expected her to cook, tote luggage on trips, and baby-sit the younger children.
In the real world, the case of Allen v. Farrow concluded quietly at the end of the balmy afternoon of May 4. During closing arguments, Woody sat at the table with his lawyer like a diner who had lost his appetite. For the last time, Alter and Abramowitz enumerated all the ways that the other's client was unfit to be a parent: Alter blasting away at Woody's affair with Soon-Yi as proof that he lacked a moral compass; Abramowitz insisting that Woody had never molested Dylan—he had simply been using the bathroom—and it was her mother's Medea-like wrath that had led her to smear his client, using her children as "soldiers and pawns." To the judge, Abramowitz suggested that Woody would be satisfied with a modified custody arrangement that allowed the children to spend half their time with him. This was noteworthy, not because Woody hoped for nothing less than full custody but because increasingly during the hearing he had not always acted as if he wanted custody at all. When asked by Wilk how he would raise the children should he gain their full custody, he simply said that he would make sure they got a good education. In the event of problems, he would consult with their therapists.
Moving Pictures:
Rain (asking to be kissed): It’s magical.
Gabe: Why is it that I am hearing $50,000 worth of psychotherapy dialing 911?
—Husbands and Wives, 1992
Elliott Wilk rendered his decision on the seventh of June, at 10:30 A.M. In a thirty-three-page ruling, he rejected Woody Allen’s request for custody of Dylan, Satchel, and Moses because there was no evidence of his parenting ability. Wilk left the children in the care of their mother, who in his opinion was the better parent. As he would say later, he had no faith in Woody's paternal instincts, nor did he "trust his insight." He determined that Woody might have limited visitation with Satch three times a week, for two hours at a time, under the supervision of a third party. He would not force Moses to see Woody and left the choice up to him. As for Dylan, separated from her father for ten months, Wilk had qualms. He refused to grant immediate visiting privileges but did leave open the door for future contact by placing the matter in the hands of professionals. Visitation would be conditioned upon psychological counseling for Dylan. Six months hence, a therapist would determine whether a father-daughter relationship would be harmful to Dylan, at which time Wilk would evaluate the progress of her therapy and review the case. This crucial sentence would be interpreted quite differently by the two sides. Otherwise, Wilk's analysis of the case could not have been more punitive in its view of Woody Allen as a parent.
The Public Record:
Mr. Allen has demonstrated no parenting skills that would qualify him as an adequate custodian for Moses, Dylan, and Satchel.
His financial contributions to the children's support, his willingness to read to them, to tell them stories, to buy them presents, and to oversee their breakfasts, do not compensate for his absence as a meaningful source of guidance and caring in their lives. These contributions do not excuse his evident lack of familiarity with the most basic details of their day-to-day existences.
He did not bathe his children. He did not dress them, except from time to time, and then only to help them put on their socks and jackets. He knows little of Moses' history, except that he has cerebral palsy; he does not know if he has a doctor. He does not know the name of Dylan and Satchel's pediatrician. He does not know the names of Moses' teachers or about his academic performance. He does not know the name of the children's dentist. He does not know the names of his children's friends. He does not know the names of any of their many pets. He does not know which children shared bedrooms. He attended parent-teacher conferences only when asked to do so by Ms. Farrow.
—Decision, Supreme Court: New York County,
Individual Assignment Part 6, Index No. 68738/92.
Woody Allen, Petitioner, against Maria Villiers Farrow,
also known as Mia Farrow, Respondent
Justice Wilk rebuked Woody for being a "self-absorbed, untrustworthy, and insensitive" father, a harsh assessment. But the most damning portion of his decision concerned the critical question of whether or not Dylan had been molested. In spite of the New Haven report, he was not convinced that she had not been sexually abused. In his opinion, the evidence was inconclusive. Even so, he thought it unlikely that Woody could ever be prosecuted and therefore "we will probably never know what occurred on August 4, 1992." Giving Mia nothing more than a slap on the hand, Wilk wrote that her biggest shortcoming was "her continued relationship with Mr. Allen." Finally, Woody was ordered to pay Mia's legal fees for having brought "this frivolous petition."
Not surprisingly, New York's legal community—its judges, matrimonial lawyers, and court reporters—busily rehashed Wilk's ruling. Nobody seemed eager to criticize the performance of Elkan Abramowitz, who'd been dealt a losing hand. In comments after the proceeding, however, some believed Woody might possibly have won with a different judge, even someone like Phyllis Gangel-Jacob, the justice known for her antimale bias. Raoul Felder was of the opinion that Abramowitz "just about lost the case when he got Wilk." The veteran court reporter Hal Davis thought that any judge who applied the standards for custody would have reached the same conclusion. "Phyllis Gangel-Jacob is more of a wild card because she is supposedly swayed by the celebrity of some cases. She probably would not have written the same scathing decision as Wilk's but would have handed down the same decision. There was no way to find that Mia Farrow was an unfit mother." Another journalist reporting on the trial, Andrea Peyser, did not doubt Mia would get custody but was surprised that Wilk "didn't take into account Mia's complicity in creating that ludicrous arrangement. Exposing her children to Allen for twelve years was indefensible. Why did she allow these horrible things—was she stupid?"
An ecstatic Eleanor Alter called Mia from a phone booth in the courthouse. "We won!" she kept shouting. "You got everything!"
"I'm thrilled I'm going to see my daughter again," said Woody, facing the bank of television cameras. "She has been withheld from me since last August." In defeat, he looked composed. Informed of the decision earlier in the day, he felt devastated because he believed that the facts of the case were overwhelmingly in his favor. It was not that he considered himself the most perfect father in the world but that he regarded Mia a deplorably bad mother, whose consuming need to adopt was an obsession. "People just irresponsibly let her adopt children and no one says, 'Hey, can you really take care of so many children?' " He did not count on getting the wrong judge.
As he began reading the complete text of the decision, however, his shock turned to anger. How dare Elliott Wilk criticize the way he behaved with his kids. He hadn't always been a wonderful parent, but he wasn't so different from a lot of fathers. Besides, he believed that Wilk had never liked him. From the first day Wilk was gaga over Mia, and throughout the entire trial he treated her like a movie star on whom he had a schoolboy crush. It would not have been surprising to hear that he had asked her for an autographed photo. But what most sickened Woody was Wilk's smear about being less certain than the New Haven team that Dylan had not been sexually abused. Suggesting that the true circumstances were unknowable cast a shadow of doubt over the dismissal of the child-abuse charges. In Woody's mind, it was a sly message to the world that he probably was a child molester but there was no way to prove it.
If the decision seemed totally unreasonable to Woody, Elkan Abramowitz viewed it differently. For the media, he was swift to characterize the decision as a major victory. His client had done very well legally because he now could reestablish contact with his daughter, which was the thing he wanted most of all. Wilk's sniping about his deficiencies as a father was offensive but of little importance. The second matter of concern was Woody's reputation, and even though his good name had taken "an enormous hit," Abramowitz admitted, the molestation allegation had been ab
solutely disproved. "I don't think any one person could do more to prove that this did not happen," he said.
The March of Time:
"No one can mistreat Mia; she has developed her own special way of not being taken to the cleaners."
—Bette Davis, 1967
That night, Wilk's decision was the leading story on every New York local television news program. Woody did not watch the television coverage. As was his habit every Monday night, he got dressed and prepared for the twenty-block drive to Michael's Pub, where he would not have to speak, only play his clarinet. Afterward, he would come home and go to sleep early. Even though his name was being mentioned on every television and radio show in the nation, he saw no reason to change his routine.
Elkan Abramowitz did not turn on his TV set, either. He and his wife, Susan, were entertaining at their home in suburban Sands Point. Arriving home at seven o'clock, he showered and changed into shorts, then sat down on the screened-in porch to a dinner of grilled salmon, roasted potatoes with rosemary, and cholesterol-free pound cake with berries. There was no talk of the day's events. Finally, a poker-faced Abramowitz brought up the subject to their dinner guest, Alex Witchel, a New York Times reporter who was writing a profile of the couple. "Custody went to Mia," he remarked tersely to Witchel. "There will be visitation within six months with Dylan. And the judge encouraged Moses to visit with Woody." Abramowitz was clearly not eager to comment on Wilk's unflattering description of his client.
In the offices of Rosenman & Colin at 575 Madison Avenue, the mood was delirious. During the trial, Eleanor Alter had frequently reminded Mia that she could pick and choose winning cases, and she had agreed to represent her. Later she said that after twenty-eight years in practice and some two thousand divorce cases, Woody's conduct toward Mia and the children remained the most shocking. "Why did he bring a custody proceeding? He never spent a night alone with them, couldn't name one of their friends, nor a pet nor a doctor." In addition to her promise of victory, she had also predicted Woody would be ordered to pay Mia's legal fees, which were estimated in excess of a million dollars.