30+ Women Accused James Toback of Harassment
In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein allegations, more women than ever are coming forward with accounts of abuse by powerful men in film. Today, The Los Angeles Times published an investigation citing 38 women who've accused writer/director James Toback of predatory sexual harassment and assault.
Toback isn’t in Weinstein’s league in terms of power and fame, but over his decades in film he’s assembled an impressive resume, from his debut with 1974’s The Gambler, starring James Caan, through his Oscar-nominated script for Warren Beatty’s 1991 Bugsy Siegel biopic Bugsy, to his most recent film, this year’s The Private Life of a Modern Woman, starring Sienna Miller.
Because of his lack of name recognition, his accusers reported that he displayed business cards, DVDs, and press clippings when he approached them on the streets of Manhattan, promising them acting jobs after an audition at a hotel or other secluded venue. Once there, the women allege that the encounters quickly turned sexual:
During these meetings, many of the women said, Toback boasted of sexual conquests with the famous and then asked humiliating personal questions. How often do you masturbate? How much pubic hair do you have? He’d tell them, they said, that he couldn’t properly function unless he “jerked off” several times a day. And then he’d dry-hump them or masturbate in front of them, ejaculating into his pants or onto their bodies and then walk away. Meeting over.
The allegations against Toback were, like those against Weinstein, an open secret within the industry, and Toback’s sexual proclivities were even the subject of articles in the now-defunct Spy Magazine and Gawker. And earlier this week, writer and radio host Sari Kamin wrote a Medium post about her experience with Toback.
If you were involved in the film business in the '90s you knew that #harveyweinstien was a sexual predator.Another one was #JamesToback
- Echo Danon (@echodanon) October 11, 2017
The LA Times reached out to Toback, who denied the allegations, saying that he’d never met or could not remember any of his accusers and that health conditions made it “biologically impossible” for him to commit the acts described.
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