Вуди Аллен: Apropos of Nothing

Alec Baldwin was one of the very few with the courage to speak out bravely and clearly on my behalf. Javier Bardem was also very outspoken and angered by what he called a public lynching. Blake Lively defended me, risking abuse from social media. Scarlett Johansson defended me in no uncertain terms, but she’s always been courageous on issues of injustice. On TV, Joy Behar backed Scarlett and staunchly defended me. Wally Shawn was someone who saw what was going on early and wrote about it passionately and bravely at a time when it invited abuse. The fact that despite the fears of flack from social media, there was zero penalty paid by anybody for taking my side. The women in my life all stood by me. My first wife, Harlene, Keaton of course, Louise, Stacey. You have to figure knowing me intimately and even living with me over the years, they would have some inkling if I were capable of or interested in abusing an infant. I must say I was disappointed by the reaction of the New York Times . I guess because I grew up loving the paper, looking forward to reading it over breakfast every morning, and being proud of their rational humane courage.

Anyhow, the Times was very much against me, clearly buying into the notion that I had abused my daughter. It was one thing when silly actors and actresses would pop up and mindlessly trumpet that they regretted working with me, but the Times , I felt, consisting of serious men and women very much on the right side of issues I cared about, certainly surprised me. And yet, over and over they printed articles that implied or assumed I had done a bad thing, always writing that I had been accused of molesting my daughter and sometimes adding that I denied it or even that I was never charged. What they never mentioned, although they knew, is that I had been thoroughly investigated and totally cleared of the accusation by both separate major investigations. And so only the accusation was left in the news story to hang as if my innocence had never been resolved, when indeed it had been. I mean, what is that—he denies it? Al Capone denied it. So did the defendants at Nuremberg. If I had done it, I’d have denied it, too. And as I said, they knew that highly responsible investigations had determined no molestation had ever occurred. The Times had allowed me a response years ago, but since then there had been numerous attacks, and barring a more recent single piece in my favor by Bret Stephens, they had no interest in accepting anything written supporting me. But back to the question: Why were so many people in the press and in my profession so willing, so determined, to hurt me? I could only think that over the years I must have rubbed people the wrong way more than I realized and they were expressing pent-up anger or irritation. Else why not give me the benefit of the doubt over a highly questionable accusation that defies common sense? I couldn’t figure exactly how I had accumulated this bad will, but then a dog does not see its own tail.

And before I leave the subject of principled stands, a special word about Bob Weide. While Alec Baldwin and Javier Bardem look like heroes and play them in films, Weide resembles the nearsighted Czech patriot in an old war movie who is dragged off by the Nazis and shot as he natters away about the eventual triumph of democracy. In actual fact, he is a producer and director on Curb Your Enthusiasm , and I met him for the first time when he interviewed me briefly for a documentary he was doing on Groucho. I never saw or spoke to him again till years later when he filmed an American Masters documentary on me for PBS. For whatever reason, Weide saw the dishonesty and ugliness of my plight right off and spoke out courageously from the start with nothing to gain, as his PBS documentary had come and gone successfully. Along with the great support his writing on the subject has received, there has been also vulgar abuse and even death threats from cranks, but that’s who’s out there. In doing the documentary, Weide had carefully researched my life and looked into the case deeply. He had read all the transcripts and was outraged by the injustice.

He wrote about the situation, exposing with cool, well-documented facts the sham that was being perpetrated. As he was not Zola, few people listened, and he was denied venues to answer scurrilous and smearing articles. Reduced to his own blog, he hung in and persisted with no payoff other than the knowledge he was pursuing a just cause. As we were not close or social friends, it was not like he was coming to a buddy’s aid. Still, the satisfaction of righting a wrong obsessed him. It was an act of good citizenship, of conscience, of simple decency versus the hailstorm of a mob, willing and seemingly anxious to believe a lie. If the truth ever sinks in—and notice I don’t say becomes known, because it has been known for years—Weide will at least have the personal good feeling of having been on the right side of a nasty issue, unlike a great number of people he had tried vainly to persuade who will no doubt be awash in assorted creative rationalizations. If it turns out there is a heaven, I believe Weide will have a good table—in the nonsmoking section.

In writing about this whole affair I’ve tried to document whatever I could so the facts would not be simply my version but the on-the-record words of the investigators, the experiences Moses had witnessed and Soon-Yi had lived through that corroborated him. I’ve quoted the Yale and New York investigations word for word plus the court-appointed monitors exactly as the appellate judge recorded their testimony. There were appalling incidents attested to by two separate women who worked in Mia’s house and witnessed a number of encounters firsthand. They also corroborate Moses. But even without all of that, I appealed to people’s simple common sense. And yet I have no illusions that any of it will change minds. I believe if Dylan and Mia recanted today and said the whole thing was one big practical joke, there would still be many who would cling to the notion that I abused Dylan. People believe what is important for them to believe, and each person has his or her own reason, sometimes not even known to them. Therefore, when I write about this case, which personifies what Alan Dershowitz calls in his book “guilt by accusation,” it is only because in writing about my life it played such a dramatic part. Hopefully it will give some confidence to the very decent people who spoke out on the right side of the issue. They made the correct choice.

And how have I taken all of this? And why is it when attacked I rarely spoke out or seemed overly upset? Well, given the malignant chaos of a purposeless universe, what’s one little false allegation in the scheme of things? Second, being a misanthropist has its saving grace—people can never disappoint you.

Finally, there’s a very different perspective one has when you view something as an innocent person rather than what a guilty man must go through. You relish the close looks and investigations rather than fear them, because you have nothing to hide. You’re eager to take the lie detector test rather than ducking it. It’s like sitting at a poker game and holding a royal flush. You can’t wait till all the bets are in and the hands are shown. But what if I never get a chance to play my cards? What if I’m gone before I scoop up the chips? Well, as someone who’s never had any interest in a legacy, what can I say? I’m eighty-four; my life is almost half over. At my age, I’m playing with house money. Not believing in a hereafter, I really can’t see any practical difference if people remember me as a film director or a pedophile or at all. All that I ask is my ashes be scattered close to a pharmacy.

A crazy question: Is there any humor to be falsely accused of a crime? A sex crime, yet? There was a funny sidebar, and that was the flap with Louis C.K. Louis is a very nice man whom I worked with briefly on Blue Jasmine . I always wanted to do a screen comedy, both of us acting together. With the right script I thought we’d be funny playing off each other. He agreed. We both wracked our brains to come up with an idea. I spent a lot of time to no satisfactory avail. He tried as well, but nothing emerged as the one to work on. Now a few years pass, and he contacts me saying he has a script he wrote and wants me in it; has a great part for me. So I read it and I’m appalled. Not that it was a bad story—it was a good one—but I’d be playing an iconic film director who once either molested a child or was accused of it, and the director has a too close relationship with his daughter.