XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN DEC 08, 2002 9:04:38 ET XXXXX
GANGS OF HOLLYWOOD : AULETTA AMPUTATION OF MIRAMAX WEINSTEIN IN COMING NEW YORKER
Reporter Ken Auletta attempts to carve out pounds of fresh flesh from MIRAMAX Lord Harvey Weinstein in a coming issue of NEW YORKER, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
Headlined "Beauty And The Beast", the Auletta investigation is a feeding frenzy of Hollywood-style payback, against a movie mogul who has lived a giant life of controversy.
"In today's Hollywood, tantrums are commonplace. But even in this context Harvey
Weinstein stands out," Auletta writes, in the date-stamped December 16, 2002 issue of NEW YORKER.
One Hollywood executive says Weinstein "is on the same trajectory" as the once powerful talent agent Michael Ovitz because he, like Ovitz, "has lost the ability to see things clearly."
Another executive, at DISNEY, which owns MIRAMAX, says, "In Hollywood, they don't root for you until they hear your cancer is terminal. This is a town that smells blood. When they smell blood, they circle like sharks. In Harvey's case, there is a sense that his streak has waned, that the magic may be gone."
"Those who have been witness to his outbursts," Auletta reports, "public and
private, describe not a lovable rogue, but, rather, a man with little
self-control, whose tone of voice and whose body language can seem dangerous."
In May, Auletta reports, Weinstein spotted Barry Diller, the chief executive of
UNIVERSAL ENTERTAINMENT, at Cannes, and asked him, loudly, "Why'd you
call me a bully?" Bully Diller replied, "You are a bully."
In March, after a test screening of Julie Taymor's FRIDA at a theatre on the Upper West Side, Weinstein became incensed when Taymor dismissed the audience?s complaints about the film. "You are the most arrogant person I have ever met," Weinstein said, ripping up the test results and dropping the scraps in front of Taymor and her collaborator and partner, Elliot Goldenthal. After walking away, Weinstein returned, yelling at Taymor's agent, "Get the fuck out of here!... I don't like
the look on your face," he told Goldenthal, adding, after moving toward him,
"Why don't you defend her so I can beat the shit out of you?" One member of
Taymor's team described Weinstein's behavior as bordering on "criminal assault,"
Auletta reports. Weinstein says he did not threaten Goldenthal. "I am not saying
I was remotely hospitable. I did not behave well. I was not physically menacing
to anybody. But I was rude and impolite."
Weinstein tells Auletta, "I think Hollywood's long knives are out for everybody. That's sort of a way of life out there. If somebody's held in high esteem, based on, you know, hits, or something like that, then five minutes later everybody's got a knife out for them. It's the way of life."
MIRAMAX princess Gwyneth Paltrow tells Auletta, "Harvey has a more old-fashioned approach to relationships with movie stars. It's very sort of mafioso. We're all in this together. He looks out for me."
One powerful agent sums up Weinstein this way, on the eve of MIRAMAX's GANG OF NEW YORK epic: "He was on track to be one of the greats of this business. The degree of narcissism and the number of people he's alienated has caught up with him. What was once charming is now seen as reprehensible. I told him this. Harvey's life in show business is going to be a great book. I hope Harvey in the end is closer to who he was at the beginning."
And if the Scorsese does well, all will be forgotten.
Drudge review of Auletta: Four out of Five Knives.
Streets Monday...
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Filed By Matt Drudge
Reports are moved when circumstances warrant
http://www.drudgereportArchives.com for updates
(c)DRUDGE REPORT 2002
Not for reproduction without permission of the author
