Spiegel Stuff: Move Over, Harvey: Here Comes James Toback

Vanity Fair

ESSENTIAL INDUSTRY and AWARD NEWS FROM HOLLYWOOD, compiled by REBECCA KEEGAN

Monday, October 23, 2017

It's Monday, it's going to be 101 degrees today in L.A., and you fools are still wearing beanies.

Hello from Los Angeles, where we're learning the secrets of a creepy Pick-Up Artist, hoping Justin Timberlake brings sexy back to the Super Bowl, and stringing Christmas lights to celebrate the return of Stranger Things.

CRINGE OF THE DAY

The Harvey Weinstein scandal has cracked open this town's ugly secrets. The latest come from 38 women who told the L.A. Times's Glenn Whipp that writer-director James Toback sexually harassed them. Toback's career would seem to have peaked around the time of New Coke; he is best known for writing and directing the 1987 Robert Downey Jr. movie The Pick-Up Artist, about a man driven by his erotic compulsions, and for writing the Oscar-nominated screenplay for the 1991 Warren Beatty vehicle Bugsy. But, like an aging high-school football star, Toback was still bragging about his best plays years later and using his Hollywood credentials to lure women to private "auditions," allege the women who spoke with Whipp. Those auditions involved humiliating personal questions, boasts of sexual conquests, and Toback forcing them to watch him masturbate, the women allege.

As with Weinstein, Toback's behavior had been something of an open secret in Hollywood for years; Gawker and Spy magazine—as far back as 1989—had both previously reported on his creepy cruising techniques. But, in part as a result of the #MeToo hashtag, the old stories are getting new light, and from many women speaking on the record, including Louise Post, guitarist and vocalist for the band Veruca Salt. Toback, meanwhile, denied the allegations to the L.A. Times, saying that he had never met any of these women or, if he did, it "was for five minutes." He also said it would be "biologically impossible" for him to engage in the behavior described by the women, for health reasons. The 72-year-old is still active in the film industry; his movie The Private Life of a Modern Woman, starring Sienna Miller, premiered at the Venice Film Festival last month. But his longtime agent, former I.C.M. chief Jeff Berg, is no longer representing Toback, according to The Hollywood Reporter's Abid Rahman and Kimberly Nordyke. Berg did not tell T.H.R. when that representation ended.

By Theresa Dillon/Bigel/Mailer/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock.

OVER THE RAINBOW

V.F.'s Yohana Desta writes:

Renee Zellweger's return to the spotlight has taken a fascinating new turn toward the musical roots she first planted with 2002's Chicago. Variety reports that the actress is set to play Judy Garland in an upcoming biopic, titled simply Judy. The film will retell Garland's five-week run of sold-out shows in London in 1968. It was a heady time for the legendary singer—she was 47, going through her second divorce, and sorting out sundry personal issues, including a lifelong battle with drug addiction. She would fatally overdose one year later in a rented home in London. Judy will be written by Tom Edge (The Crown), and produced by David Livingstone. And fear not—the film will also feature some of Garland's most famous tunes. Principal photography will begin next February. Somewhere out there, Judy Davis is perusing the report with a raised brow—and, if Zellweger is lucky, an almost imperceptible nod of approval.

SORRY, MS. JACKSON

V.F.'s Hillary Busis writes:

This is for real: after weeks of coy teasing, Justin Timberlake confirmed Sunday that he will in fact return to headline the halftime show of Super Bowl LII in 2018. Naturally, he announced his big gig with the help of his close pal Jimmy Fallon, whose late-night show also happens to air on the network that will host the game next year, NBC (synergy!). Timberlake did not, however, address the question prompted by his repeat performance: will it address his last Super Bowl appearance in 2004, the one that thrust the term "wardrobe malfunction" into the lexicon when Timberlake accidentally revealed his co-star Janet Jackson's breast on live television? As our own Yohana Desta points out, Timberlake's career bounced back quickly after the incident; his 2006 album FutureSex/LoveSounds was a multi-platinum hit. Jackson, by contrast shouldered a disproportionate amount of the blame—Viacom blacklisted her music from its TV channels and radio stations, even after she publicly apologized. Timberlake, for his part, understood how unfair the situation was: "If you consider it 50/50, I probably got 10 percent of the blame. And I think that says something about society. I think that America's harsher on women, and I think that America's unfairly harsh on ethnic people," he told MTV around the time of FutureSex's release. Does that mean he plans to acknowledge Jackson in the leadup to his next performance, or even bring her out to share the stage with him once more? Only time will tell—but either way, the world will be watching.

ROLLIN' WITH THE HOMIES

V.F.'s Katey Rich writes:

In its first three seasons, Lip Sync Battle managed to gift us with Channing Tatum dressed as Beyoncé (while standing next to the actual Beyoncé) and the cast of Stranger Things battling each other with Train and Maroon 5 covers. But is it possible that the competition's greatest coup will be . . . actual time travel? Lip Sync color commentator Chrissy Teigen tweeted a photo Sunday of herself and her 18-month old daughter, Luna, standing with Alicia Silverstone—who was wearing Cher's iconic yellow-plaid outfit from Clueless. Further Instagram evidence points to a showdown between Silverstone and Mena Suvari, apparently riffing on her teenage temptress from American Beauty in a Queen of Hearts-inspired outfit; the two star in the upcoming series American Woman, which premieres on the Paramount Network—the re-branded channel that is also home to Lip Sync Battle—in 2018. The battle won't air until the show returns next year, but pardon us as we spend the time between now and then wondering which Clueless soundtrack staple Alicia will perform. Jill Sobule's "Supermodel," your long-awaited comeback, may have arrived.

PEOPLE ARE STRANGE

V.F.'s Hillary Busis writes:

Shortly after Stranger Things debuted in the summer of 2016, it became a bona fide cultural phenomenon—memed, referenced, and publicity appearance-ed into oblivion. (Remember when the Emmys trotted out the kids to croon "Uptown Funk" before the show began?) All the attention made it difficult to remember that the hubub began with a humble, eight-episode television series—and the zeitgeist is also casting a shadow over the show's imminent second season, which premieres Friday on Netflix. V.F. critic Richard Lawson writes that while the series remains engaging, it suffers from a classic case of overexposure: "After a year of having these ragamuffins paraded in front of us, I wasn't exactly eager to spend more time with them." What's more, the new episodes reference those first eight the same way they reference countless 80s cultural touchstones—but "Stranger Things hasn't yet earned canonization the way those hallowed properties have," which makes its self-regard read as premature. Ah, well; we'll always have that first batch of Eggos.

That's the news for this blistering Monday in L.A. What are you seeing out there? Send tips, comments, and a sadder, wiser Judy Garland to ‪‪Rebecca_Keegan@condenast.com‪. Follow me on Twitter @thatrebecca.