Unruly Life of Woody Allen

by Marion Meade

  At noon, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, Mia huddled around a conference table in Alter’s office with her lawyer to read the judgment. She gasped when she heard Judge Wilk's low opinion of Woody as a parent. Then, as she and Kristi Groteke, who had accompanied her to the lawyer's office, were eating a lunch of poached salmon and avocado salad they had picked up at a cafeteria downstairs in the building, Alter reminded them that a press conference was about to begin. Rosanna Scotto from Fox Five News and Carol Agus from Newsday were already waiting in the conference room. Mia sent Kristi back to Mia's apartment to pick up a change of clothes—a skirt and blazer— and her makeup. When it was time to face an armada of cameramen, her hair was fluffed, her makeup flawless. In her moment of triumph, she radiated happiness. "For so many, many months, my family has been living through a nightmare," she said tearfully. "My children have been ripped apart emotionally." Her indirect reference to her children's turmoil, psychological damage which might prove permanent, suggested to some reporters that she had won a Pyrrhic victory. But in her jubilation, she quickly passed over the shadows. "I'm so proud of how they've held themselves together, stood by one another and stood by me."

  That night at Mia's apartment, there was no celebration among her children. In the living room, Daisy, Moses, and Kristi Groteke leafed through Fletcher’s senior yearbook from Collegiate School, from which he would graduate in two weeks. In the bathroom, eighteen-month-old Isaiah was playfully throwing his toys into the toilet. Dylan and Satch, who had school the next day, went to bed early after watching television. Later, dressed in a slinky black baby-doll dress designed by Betsey Johnson, Mia celebrated at dinner with William Goldman, a screenwriter (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) whom she was dating.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Second Law of Thermodynamics

  Two days after Judge Wilk's decision, Eleanor Alter filed a motion in Surrogate's Court asking Judge Renee Roth to overturn Woody's adoptions of Dylan and Moses, in effect reversing her 1991 decision to permit the adoptions. It was clear Woody had committed fraud, Mia's attorney contended. He was sleeping with Soon-Yi long before the adoptions, "a fact both had freely admitted at first, but that they now denied under oath." In her heart, Mia had no doubt whatsoever that both of them were lying. Judge Wilk's restrictions did not go far enough to suit her or Eleanor Alter, who wanted to sweep Woody completely from the lives of Mia and her children. "He'll hound them as long as he has legal rights," Alter said. "He has the money and the power." Judge Roth was given phone bills showing hundreds of calls between Woody and Soon-Yi in 1990 and 1991. A raft of witnesses swore under oath to seeing the couple together, including the paparazzo Dominick Conde, who submitted a print of his famous hand-holding picture—the Rosetta Stone of Woody's guilt and a key piece of evidence, Alter believed. After hearing all the witnesses, Surrogate Roth seemed reluctant to reverse her earlier position. Sympathetic to Woody, she continued to skirt the issue of fraud and requested additional hearings. Eventually, facing the financial choice of sending her children to college or continuing the warfare, Mia decided to drop the matter.

  Although he was loath to admit it publicly, Woody was emotionally drained by the prolonged custody battle. Jean Doumanian suggested that people send him messages of encouragement because he was feeling downcast, convinced that the whole world hated him. Among those who responded was Jean's friend Stephen Silverman, who wrote to reassure Woody that he would be remembered for his work, not for the scandal. Silverman received "a lovely little note thanking me," he recalled.

  With others Woody was less courteous. His behavior was nobody's business, he said to a Rolling Stone writer, and what people know, "they know tenth hand from tabloid newspapers," he bristled. When he dined at Elaine's, he squeezed past the long smoky bar to his special table, acting as if nothing had happened. Whenever he spoke of the custody case, he described it as "a pain in the ass." Suggestions from the Rolling Stone reporter that his audiences might turn against him provoked an outburst. "I don't care," he retorted. If people wanted to see his movies, "fine. If they don't, they won't." People had no notion of what he was really feeling. "I do what I want, and they can take it or leave it."

  That summer, far from doing what he wanted, he found himself battling helplessly for crusts. Judge Wilk had given him the right to see Satchel, but this proved easier said than done because Mia made it as difficult as possible. In July, she departed for Ireland with Dylan, Satch, Tam, and Isaiah. She was costarring with Natasha Richardson and Joan Plowright in Widow’s Peak, a dark comedy of revenge that was being filmed in the green hills of County Wicklow and at Ardmore Film Studios in Bray, about an hour south of Dublin. Knowing Ireland well, Mia looked forward to reunions with her aunts and cousins and a peaceful summer. She no doubt also counted on putting an ocean between Satch and his father. But, as she shortly discovered, she had misjudged Woody's determination. In mid-August, accompanied by Soon-Yi and armed with a court order, he arrived in Ireland to visit his son. News photos taken of them at the Dublin Zoo showed Woody in his fishing hat carrying the pouting five-and-a-half-year-old blond boy, as if Satch were an infant or an invalid. Even after his father bought him ice cream, he continued to look anxious. Because Wilk had forbidden Soon-Yi to be present during the visits, she stayed out of sight.

  In Ireland Satch no longer answered to the name of Satchel, or Harmon, or Sean. He wanted to be known as Seamus, but Woody was riled by this rigamarole and refused to cooperate in what he perceived to be another one of Mia's tactics to obliterate his presence in their lives. Mia tried to justify these renamings by maintaining that Satchel's classmates, making fun of the name "Satchel," called him a suitcase. But in truth there was no lack of precedent for the transformations. In addition to Misha/Moses, Daisy, who was originally named Summer Song, received her new name after Mia played Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, and subsequently Summer Song's sister, who was originally called Kym Lark, was renamed Lark. In the Farrow household, even the pets assumed new names, with the dog sometimes being called Maggie and the cat at other times. Woody took comfort from the fact that Satch's and Dylan's new names weren't legal, but he still thought the changes were "the stupidest thing in the world." Obviously, the man who was known to the world as "Woody Allen" had forgotten about reinventing himself at age fifteen when he had changed his name from Allan Konigsberg.

  Moving Pictures:

  Sally: It's the second law of thermodynamics: Sooner or later everything turns to shit.

  —Husbands and Wives, 1992

  In the meantime, Frank Maco, the Litchfield County prosecutor, was winding up his fourteen-month investigation. On September 24, 1993, Maco held a news conference in Wallingford, Connecticut, to announce that he was dropping the sexual-molestation charges against Woody. Next, in a curious turn of events, and despite all the evidence to the contrary, he added what seemed almost an afterthought. In his opinion, he said matter-of-factly, there was no question that Dylan Farrow had been molested. There was persuasive evidence to prove his case in court and an arrest warrant for Woody had been drawn up, but he had decided not to pursue the case in order to spare Dylan the trauma of a criminal trial. "This was no time for a damn-the-torpedoes prosecutorial approach," he declared.

  Making such a statement—a man is guilty but would not be prosecuted—was an unusual step. Maco was certainly not obligated to make public his reasoning. In his defense, however, he said that he felt compelled to explain his decision to constituents who might assume Woody Allen got preferential treatment as a celebrity. In fact, like Paul Williams, he genuinely believed that Woody Allen, celebrity or no celebrity, was guilty. And unlike Elliott Wilk who, uncertain of the director's guilt, doubted that he could be prosecuted, Frank Maco apparently believed he could be successfully prosecuted.

  Understandably, Woody was upset by Maco's branding him a child molester. Although the New Haven group had cleared him of any wrongdoing, the prosecutor's impromptu postscript left him, in effect, stigmatized as
a pedophile without the benefit of a trial. He believed Maco to be an exhibitionist seeking his fifteen minutes of fame, who knew perfectly well that Woody was an innocent man but went after him simply because he was a celebrity. Woody also believed that Maco's disinclination to credit the Yale-New Haven findings had an insidious ripple effect that must have influenced Judge Wilk and adversely affected his chance of winning custody of the children. (Maco had faxed copies of his statement to Wilk and Renee Roth, who were ruling on both visitation rights and on a motion to annul the adoptions, a questionable action, in Woody's opinion, and one that had a prejudicial effect on the case.)

  Evidently Frank Maco had touched a nerve because Woody swiftly called a news conference the same day. Losing his customary cool, he characterized Mia and Maco as "a vindictive mother and a cowardly, dishonest, irresponsible states attorney" whose "cheap scheming reeks of sleaze and deception." For a half hour he let loose in front of a packed house at the Plaza Hotel, coincidentally the same room where he had announced his custody suit the previous summer. Clutching a prepared typed statement, he kept his head down as he delivered a rambling, incoherent speech against Mia and Maco, who "squirm, lie, sweat, and tap-dance" to protect themselves. Maco, he charged, disliked his movies. Or perhaps it was chauvinism that motivated the Litchfield County prosecutor. He was "prejudiced against me because I'm a diehard New Yorker and Ms. Farrow a Connecticut local."

  In a bizarre finale, he suddenly lifted his head and stared purposefully into the television cameras. "Because this is being taped, I want to send a message to my little girl," he said. He was sorry to have missed her eighth birthday "but they just wouldn't let me do it." Dylan must not worry, however, because "the dark forces will not prevail." All the "second-rate police," "publicity-hungry prosecutors," the tabloid press, all the "pious or hypocritic or the bigoted" who had rushed to judgment would be punished. "I'm too tough for all of them put together, and I will never abandon you to the Frank Macos of the world." Three weeks later, he filed an ethics complaint with Connecticut's State Criminal Justice Commission, the body that appoints state's attorneys and can also reprimand or dismiss them. He demanded that Maco be disbarred for professional misconduct. Prosecutors are seldom held accountable for their professional conduct, but numerous legal experts agreed that Woody had sufficient cause for grievance. Woody's complaint against Maco failed to bother Eleanor Alter, however, who darkly hinted that "if Woody puts Maco in a position of having to divulge what he has, he won't be happy." As a result of the complaint, the Litchfield County prosecutor was suspended from trying cases. By the time the suit was settled four years later, it had cost the Connecticut taxpayers a quarter of a million dollars to defend Maco against Woody's allegations.

  Voice of America:

  "ar831" [Sean] writes: "Maco struck me from the start as an asshole lawyer in desperate pursuit of publicity at any cost.

  "Grifter" [Jesse] replies: "No, no Sean, if a Connecticut prosecutor says something, it must be true. State prosecutors would never tell a lie. If Maco is claiming he has evidence, he must have evidence somewhere. Mind you, it's interesting that he would see allowing a 'confirmed' child molester to run free as better for society than protecting the state of mind of one girl, but that's his business."

  —Newsgroup: alt.showbiz.gossip

  Date: 1 Jan 1998

  Subject: Woody Allen Is Human Scum

  Whenever Satch visited Woody at his apartment, Woody always hugged him and told his son how much he loved and missed him. "I love you as much as the stars," he said, and Satchel would answer, "I love you as much as the universe." For all their playfulness, however, the visits caused frustration and heartache. One day the boy confessed, "I'm supposed to say I hate you." Another time he told Woody, "I wish you were dead." He also confided that he was seeing a psychiatrist who was going to ensure that Satch never had to see his father again. Distressed, Woody quickly changed the subject.

  During his hours with Satch, his mind compulsively wandered to Dylan and before long he would torture himself by obsessing about where she could be at that moment. Was she swinging in the park? Was she sitting at the kitchen table? "Was she wondering why Satch could see me but not her? How confused could one kid become? And then I would have to refocus on Satchel," he later confided to Denis Hamill for the New York Daily News. Passing a playground in Central Park "sent a pang through me," and even the sight of a father and daughter coming toward him flooded him with feelings of "physical pain." He was counting the days until December, when Judge Wilk had hinted at the possibility of a reunion unless, as Wilk said, "it interferes with Dylan's individual treatment or is inconsistent with her welfare." The possibility of something going wrong with the timetable was simply inconceivable to Woody. Nothing would go wrong.

  Yet in September, shortly after Maco’s press conference, Woody's hopes of seeing his daughter were dashed. With a full three months still to go, Dylan's psychiatrist warned Wilk that resumption of visits would be harmful to the child. Not only did Dylan continue to talk about how "Woody Allen touched my privates," but now she apparently remembered another occasion when her father allegedly touched her genitals one night as she was climbing to the top of a bunk bed. The psychiatrist informed Wilk that were Dylan forced to see Woody in December, she could regress emotionally. He asked for an extension until March of 1994, and Justice Wilk granted his request. But in March when the case came up for review, the therapist once again convinced Wilk that it was not in Dylan's best interest to see her father. This time, Woody demanded the appointment of an independent, court-appointed psychiatrist to review the case, citing Wilk's "pattern of extreme bias."

  Despite these setbacks, Woody continued to feel hopeful about seeing Dylan again. In mid-December of 1993, he completed principal photography on Bullets Over Broadway and took Soon-Yi to Venice for New Year's Eve, a holiday that he enjoyed tremendously. Otherwise his life was fairly sedate: he worked out on his treadmill, practiced the clarinet, took a walk, came back to the apartment, and tried to do some writing. "I do it seven days a week," he said. "I could never be productive if I didn't have a very regular life." About once every six weeks, he guiltily dined on a prime rib sirloin and hash browns at Sparks Steak House, the East Forty-sixth Street celebrity chophouse whose walls were lined with gilt-frame paintings of the Hudson River School, and the scene of a famous Mafia murder. Woody always made sure to sit in what he called "the nonshooting section."

  In light moods, he vented his frustration by making snide remarks about Elliott Wilk. He couldn't really blame him, he told friends, because he was an ordinary guy and Mia could be seductive. Those chiseled cheekbones were awesome. "I went seeking Solomon," he joked, "but I wound up with Roy Bean," the legendary hanging judge who dispensed frontier justice in the Old West. Most of the time, however, he felt sorry for himself and called Wilk an incompetent bungler who was "just not up to the case and made a terrible mess of it." It was Wilk who did not allow him to see his kids, a right not even denied to convicted murderers and drug addicts. Increasingly convinced that Wilk had no intention of ever letting him see Dylan, he did not feel reassured when he read Wilk's comments about him in Cindy Adams's column in the New York Post. "I don't trust him," the Post quoted Wilk as saying about Woody. "I didn't trust him two years ago, and I don't trust him now. I don't trust his instincts. I don't trust his insights. I don't trust that he does not represent a danger to this child, because the fact that he won't beat him up and throw him out the window does not mean Satchel is safe."* [*In correspondence with the author, Justice Wilk denied making any comments about the case outside of the courtroom.]

  Woody Allen still couldn't figure out how his affair with Soon-Yi might have had "a devastating effect" on her brothers and sisters. The way Wilk saw it, according to the Post, Woody Allen had no reason for complaint; he had made a choice about how he wished to manage his life and must accept the consequences. It was Wilk's job to protect two children in danger of suffering further damage. />
  As the months passed, it became clear to Woody that Wilk was bent on thwarting him, a belief shared by a number of attorneys, even some who had nagging doubts about Woody's innocence. With such "a harsh, punitive decision," one attorney said, it was obvious that Wilk was unreasonably picking on Woody, making him pay "an awful price, beyond the price one should have to pay. Okay, it may be that he is degenerate. But Hitler murdered six million Jews and we're still buying Volkswagens. There comes a point when further punishment becomes unchristian. The worst animal could be rehabilitated."

  But Mia's attorney, Eleanor Alter, did not believe that the past could be forgotten. "Whatever hell was created, was created by him," she said, in a near-biblical frame of mind.

  Buffeted by as many misfortunes as Job, Woody became increasingly defiant toward life. In fact, he hated Job's defeatist philosophy and regarded him as a blockhead. "They rain all this terrible stuff on him that he doesn't deserve, and then he asks God why." Only Job's wife deserved any respect. "Job's wife had my attitude, which was: Curse God and die. She was the one that had some balls."

  He was sick and tired of people talking garbage about his relationship with Soon-Yi. Despite the tenuous beginnings of their liaison (he himself called it "an error in judgment" during the hearing), "a genuine love" had developed between them over the past four years, he said. Moved by her rags-to-riches saga, he saw her as a motherless little girl, who had begun life "starving to death, eating a bar of soap for food and then throwing it up," conveniently forgetting that it was Mia who had rescued her. In his imagination, she must have remained the wretched war orphan whom he could indulge and pamper. It would not be possible for any child to go through what Soon-Yi had gone through—and remain alive—without being profoundly traumatized by the ordeal. The mature Soon-Yi was no fragile Madama Butterfly. She was tough and dominating, a mistress who could be a scold and nag, and if she resembled anyone it was Nettie Konigsberg. Sashaying down Madison Avenue arm in arm with Woody, she generally wore a smile as ferociously triumphant as the explorer Ponce de Leon catching his first glimpse of the island of Puerto Rico.