Anjelica Huston has a role in John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum. I didn’t know that. So, she’s doing a little promotional tour, and she ended up agreeing to do a long-read interview with Vulture. This sh-t is an absolute MESS. You can say it’s her age (67) or the fact that she grew up in Hollywood during some messy times, or you could say that she’s internalized all of the misogyny around her, from her father to her lovers to her directors. I don’t know, all of those excuses feel like cop-outs? You can read the full Vulture piece here. Some highlights:
Whether she stayed friends with Penny Marshall: “Not at the end, because her habits conflicted with mine. She stayed up all night smoking cigarettes in subzero temperatures. Her rooms were freezing. Like air-conditioned, way up. She stayed up all night, followed QVC for beanbag dolls and stuff. She had this collection of sports memorabilia. She had a sort of museum in her basement full of signed baseballs and Lakers shirts. I just couldn’t relate. And also, frankly, she took a lot of coke.
She says Carrie Fisher was taking drugs too: “From what I understand, Carrie was taking a lot of drugs. I don’t want to die from drugs, God! What a grim way to die. Unless you’re debilitated and need to get out of here. But to go accidentally on drugs, I’d hate that.
Jack Nicholson was a coke user: “Very much so. Never took overt amounts. He was never a guzzler. I think Jack sort of used it, probably like Freud did, in a rather smart way. Jack always had a bit of a problem with physical lethargy. He was tired, and I think probably, at a certain age, a little bump would cheer him up. Like espresso.
On Roman Polanski raping 13-year-old Samantha Geimer. “Well, see, it’s a story that could’ve happened ten years before in England or France or Italy or Spain or Portugal, and no one would’ve heard anything about it. And that’s how these guys enjoy their time. It was a whole playboy movement in France when I was a young girl, 15, 16 years old, doing my first collections. You would go to Régine or Castel in Paris, and the older guys would all hit on you. Any club you cared to mention in Europe. It was de rigueur for most of those guys like Roman who had grown up with the European sensibility.
On the idea of working with Woody Allen again: “Yeah, in a second.”
Whether Polanski should be allowed back in the US: “My opinion is: He’s paid his price, and at the time that it happened, it was kind of unprecedented. This was not an unusual situation. You know that movie An Education with Carey Mulligan? That happened to me. It’s about a schoolgirl in England who falls in love with an older dude, Peter Sarsgaard. My first serious boyfriend I met when he was 42 and I was 18.
Beating Oprah at the Oscars: “She never had me on her show, ever. She won’t talk to me. The only encounter I’ve had with Oprah was when I was at a party for the Academy Awards, a private residence. I was talking to Clint Eastwood, and she literally came between us with her back to me. So all of the sudden I was confronted with the back of Oprah’s head.
On Bill Murray: “He was a sh-t to me on Life Aquatic. The first week I was there, we were all in this little hotel, and he invited the entire cast to go and have dinner, except me. And everyone came down for dinner, a little dog-faced about my not being invited, and they were all like, “Oh, you know, we don’t really want to go.” That was worse than anything.
There’s SO much more, tons of stuff about her years with Jack and how they broke up, and stuff about her other lovers, husbands and partners over the years. I’ll admit to finding the Jack stuff the most interesting, although those are not new stories. I was surprised by all of the drug talk, and I sort of give her a pass on that because of her age, and drug use was just DIFFERENT in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It just was. But the Polanski stuff and Woody Allen stuff? My lord.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Everyday…
I wake up…
And discover someone that I admired FOR DECADES…
Is just….
Trash….
THIS ^^^^
I knew she was who she was by the fact that she is the daughter of John Huston. And he wasn’t exactly a beacon of virtue.
I put everything about her into association.
Yea…I know ALL about Big Daddy Huston…but I never saw him as being disloyal…or petty AF…I mean, if you were in a PERSONAL relationship with him as a woman…OH SAVE YOUR SOUL…but this type of stuff….naw…
John Huston was never disloyal or petty….to men. He was never that to men.
Apple. Tree. The fall is not that far.
And Huston was friends with George Hodel – the Black Dahlia Killer. He had some
‘interesting’ friends.
They should have asked her how she has taken care of her own daughters.
– Oh wait, she doesn’t have children. well, that is one thing she did right.
Biggest of sighs. This.
right there with you.
now I don’t want to watch her in anything anymore, and I LOVED The Addams Family and The Royal Tenenbaums. F*CK this b*tch.
and, Angelica, DEAR…perhaps Oprah and Bill Murray were sh*ts to you because they knew what kind of person you are. b’bye.
What a smug, judgmental, ungenerous person. I’m glad Oprah ignored her.
Yeah. Trash. Except for Betty White. She’s a national treasure!!
Man, isn’t that the truth!?
Rape is not a “European sensibility”
Signed, a reader from Europe.
Co-signed.
Hear, hear.
seriously.
and there’s a difference between an 18 year old CHOOSING to have an older boyfriend and a 13 year old being drugged and raped. Jeebus, she’s clueless.
Exactly. Maybe she mentioned that because her older boyfriend turned out to be abusive, but that was still a terrible comparison.
Say it louder for the people in the back.
A f-ing men.
So much of this was amazingly horrendous but she used the phrase “And that’s how these guys enjoy their time” in reference to the Polanski rape.
I mean, the same could be said of Jeffrey Dahmer. I assume that torturing, killing and eating people was how he enjoyed HIS time…but I would never say it that way. It sounds like she is comparing it to golfing ffs!
And I LOVED her in Addams Family. What a GD Bummer.
“Enjoy their time”—repulsive.
Not defending what she said or anything, but I understood ” enjoying their time ” differently, as in those were the sorts of things those men did and got up to for their enjoyment..and not that she was excusing it or justifying it, just putting it in context. please correct me if i’m wrong :/
I know, right? Maybe Bill Murray and Oprah were just “enjoying their time” by not associating with her. No big deal.
I had higher hopes for Angelica.
Thanks, European contingent!!! Misogyny is awful where ever it is.
Exactly
I was going to write the same thing.
She’s an uneducated idiot and really sounds like a horrible person. She probably didn’t stop to think that if so many people seem to have a problem with her maybe the problem is on her.
Signed: a person from one of the countries she cites, that knows that when Polanski did what he did it would also be considered a crime here
The thing is, the vast majority of celebrities really have had no education at all. We might enjoy their performances but most of the real-life humans who are famous for their film/TV roles or modeling/singing have absolutely nothing of value to say about serious issues.
Welp. How disappointing.
Damn.
Thank you, next.
I read it yesterday morning and my first thought was, “Well, sh1t.” Apparently, Penny Marshall’s QVC habit and Diane Keaton’s Pom movie and Carrie Fisher’s tragic slip and Oprah’s non-engagement with her were worse than the activities of Polanski and Allen and Nicholson and her father. Well, okay then. Up until yesterday I thought she was cool and sharp. My bad.
When you put it like that, its really puts her comments into perspective. Internalized misogyny ftw!
Yeah that’s a really good way to put it.
Wow good point. She does seem to have more anger for personality differences with Penny Marshall than Polanski drugging an underage girl and forcing himself on her.
Even her BS excuse of ‘thats how things were’ why did he drug her then? Why do that?
really well put. when it’s stated like that, it makes it even more infuriating.
Hey, when guys drug, they just need stimulation. When women do it, they are sleazy addicts. Blech.
+1.
This makes me sad.
I’m not defending her…..however I am saying she’s reflecting what she was thinking at the time. She’s contextualizing it then. And think about who she was, where she grew up, when it was, how it was, who her parents were, what they were like, who she hung around with….What I hear her saying in an awkward way: “It wasn’t that scandalous in my circle at the time.” And it wasn’t.
But hell yes, it should have been (of course it should have been) and from the benefit of her wisdom in her 60s looking back……gee I wish she had but it into the perspective of right/wrong, abuse of power, just plain abuse etc. maybe it’s a good thing she didn’t raise a child….
Except that it was rape back then too, at best it was statutory rape as Samantha Geimer was 13 when drugged and sodomized, Polanski was arrested for rape, not crimes against fragile sensibilities or differing social mores.
“Polanski was arrested for rape, not crimes against fragile sensibilities or differing social mores.”
That was great!
She seems like a good example of someone who’s been conditioned to accept this kind of garbage behavior, and that in and of itself is really sad.
That said – she’s almost 70. At some point you need to grow and change and learn that it’s incredibly effed to continue to support that behavior. There’s a way to say “it was unfortunately the norm at the time. XYZ happened to me” without writing off the victim the way she did.
I get that she doesn’t want to see her younger self as a victim (even though she was – survival tactic, I’m sure) but she should at least realize that her situation isn’t the same as others. And she should be able to look at herself once she was an adult woman and think “man, it was wrong of these old men to do that” and to at least have the decency to not continue to support predators.
100% agree: she’s rationalized a lot of men’s bad behavior so she won’t have to see herself as a victim. It’s very, very sad. Do you think she recognizes it on some level? “Well, *I* had [horrible thing] happen to me, and you don’t see me complaining!” Really? Because you DO keep mentioning these awful, awful things that happened to you.
Sigh.
Not defending it either, but in a prior story about Anjelica, a poster pointed out that she quite possibly was passed around as a young teen as well. She thinks it’s the norm because it was for her.
That seems unlikely since Angelica grew up in Ireland and England, not Hollywood. She was in boarding school in London during her teens.
On her visits home? It sounds like she had absolutely no supervision while there.
@Megan, growing up in Ireland and England wouldn’t have prevented Angelica from hanging/living in that particular circle because there are kids of famous actors, actresses, directors, and musicians in England, Ireland, and Europe as well as Hollywood. And she was born in 1951, so her teenage years were the 1960’s, not the 1970’s/80’s.
In the interview she said that she spent time in Europe as a young girl where this kind of behavior was the norm for her. Why is that unbelievable? Everyone knew that her dad was the famous director, John Huston, so she traveled/lived in that circle and from a young age could have witnessed that behavior and could have very well considered it normal behavior between young girls and older men.
Also, during that time-period people in Hollywood weren’t that concerned with how their parenting style was perceived. Mainly because reporters were still spoon fed information about movie stars and celebrities. Some kids of famous people were lucky to have one stay at home parent who cared about them more than their own lives, but those growing up in a two-actor household spent most of their time with nannies or at boarding school. Their role models were older kids and non-related adults.
There are a host of bitter baby-boomer kids of Hollywood actors, directors, etc. with mommy and daddy issues because they were shipped off to boarding schools rather than given a stable family life as a kid. Many of whom were without constant supervision and could have very well been abused by adults. And many of whom got into drugs and alcohol as a result. I’m just saying that this behavior really could have been normal for Angelica Houston growing up.
@Yvette – Angelica has written that she didn’t grow up in that circle. She only saw her father a few times a year and her life in Ireland was isolated and boring. When she moved to London she writes about doing normal teen stuff, but she was not immersed in her parents’ social life.
@Megan – In one of her autobiographies she wrote that she had an affair with English actor James Fox (he was in The Servant among other movies) when she was 17 and he was 28. She wrote she would often skip class to meet with him.
That’s what I thought of as well, at least at first, with the whole “this [the Roman Polanski rape] could have happened 10 years before and no one would have heard about it, these guys enjoyed their time”, as in, “times are changing in that now it gets out there and their time is up”, but maybe that’s just the direction part of me wished she would take.
I also believe she’s contextualizing, and possibly framing her own abuse (she vaguely mentions molestation as a 15-16 year-old plus her “relationship” at 18 with a 42 year-old – which is statutory rape), and how no one cared about it back then, as an old “normal”. She’s normalized it.
The perfect counterpart to abusive men was women who saw it as normal. Thankfully that’s over as well, at least with the newer generations.
Not that I think it was a good idea or anything, but her relationship at 18 was not statutory rape. Once you’re 18 you’re legally an adult and no statutory rape laws apply to you unless you have sex with someone under the age of 18.
Yeah, not statutory rape but certainly ill-advised and likely an abuse of power and influence on the “boyfriend’s” part.
The hours between 17 and 18 aren’t magically maturing. It’s an arbitrary legal line in the sand.
She was sexualized as a child and entered into a sexual a relationship with a man 20 plus years her senior.
That’s so messed up and just because she can’t see that she’s a victim of sexual abuse, doesn’t mean she isn’t one.
Again, I’m not saying it’s right, but you can’t classify it as statutory rape. And honestly you can’t classify it as sexual abuse just because he was significantly older.
People date with large age gaps all the time, and it doesn’t always mean the relationship is abusive. Sometimes it certainly is, but just because something seems “messed up” to you doesn’t mean you get to define it for everyone else. If she doesn’t feel that she’s a victim of sexual abuse you don’t get to decide she is one for her.
Alissa, yes I agree with you, and I didn’t mean to imply that she was sexually abused in this relationship, only that there was an unequal power dynamic that operated in favor of the man.
@tealily my comment was more in response to @Ali than it was to you, I agreed with your comment!
@Diplomanatee Ooh, I see what you’re saying! “They enjoyed their time,” when sleazebags ruled the Earth, right. Upthread I was also musing that Huston mentions a LOT of creepy stuff that happened to her, too, and that on some level she surely must *know* that she was victimized as a young woman. She clearly believes that one must ignore it and move on, lest trauma define you — but it obviously DOES define her, because she mentions the stuff that happened to her in most every interview. Yikes.
The original “cool girl,” sigh.
100% agree. People are VERY latched onto “presentism”, and absolutely refuse to look past it. 100%, it is wrong and unacceptable these days. 100% non consensual sex, power imbalances, and all that jazz is unacceptable at any time. Regardless, it was fairly common and nearly, if not completely, normal and socially acceptable. Things like that in Hollywood are still somewhat normal, despite how far we think we might have come. If you grow up in terrible trauma, you accept that trauma as normal, and it’s some things some people never really grow out of. We see it time and time again with people running back to their abusers, and making excuses for them. It all stems from trauma, and to just write it off as someone being trash is such a simplistic way to go about it. You can be both trash and traumatized. There’s nothing black or white about it.
The interview is a delicious, glorious mess. God, I’d love to hear more about the shit Robert Graham pulled.
Ok. Angelica is both trash and traumatized, in that large gray area she defines around herself and others, I’ll give you that
Actually rape was not normal nor acceptable even then. Polanski lied when Houston came to the door when he was raping Greer, he was blocking the door and said he just came out of the shower. He knew it was wrong and a crime.
https://web.archive.org/web/20090713081119/http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/polanskib15.html
Oh no way, i would never have guessed that raping a 13 year old wasn’t legal in the 70s. Incredible. Thanks for the education. 🙄
I literally did not say that rape was acceptable back then? In fact, i specifically stated that non consensual sex wasn’t acceptable at any time. But this idea of “it’s just what men do” certainly was and is still prevalent today. Thanks though.
It’s not “presentism” or context of the time or anything. You really need to read the whole interview – the stuff she says about Jeffrey Tambor – which did not happen in a different age – confirms her views are trash and she promotes rape culture.
Considering this interview and being in this mindset for decades,there’s probably another reason Oprah doesn’t talk to her.
Well she talks to Clint Eastwood….🤷♀️
I was thinking the same of the Bill Murray anecdote.
Maybe. Except Murray is a bit of an a**hole himself so…in this instance it could simply be the case of two a**holes not getting along.
I always got the impression Bill Murray is primarily an @$$hole when it comes to stuck up entitled Hollywood types but I also know he has issues when it comes to pot and alcohol.
Exactly
I’ve never like Anjelia Huston. She has always struck me in her interviews as a woman who hates other women and is far more concerned with being accepted into the “boys club”. And the best way for any woman to do that is to trash or look down on other women. Anjelica hasn’t looked around and taken stock of what the culture is in 2019. This isn’t the 70’s or even the 80’s anymore. She still thinks admiring men like Polanksi and Allen is a good thing.
As for Oprah not speaking to her…did it ever occur to her that Oprah simply doesn’t LIKE her??
White women supporting abuse to stay close to ‘power’. Sad.
A tale as old as time.
THIS. And so many many women are still just like this… they hate women and desperately want to be in the boys club. There is a new-age group like Ang: Millenial women who consider themselves feminists because they pay for men on dates, trash talk other women with the boys, and sleep around but look down on women who believe men should earn their way into a woman’s heart and bed. That’s just one example, but my point is that too many women still internalize misogyny.
Do you not see the hypocrisy and internalized misogyny in this statement? Here you are, likely a gen x woman or baby boomer woman, looking down on and trash-talking younger women with both the guys and girls for having whatever you feel is too much sex or being ‘easy’- the narrative that’s actually the status quo and usual crappy treatment of women and girls- but assuming that all of these ‘Bad Girl’ feminists and liberal youngins are busy looking down on and trash-talking women for allegedly having less sex than them.
We could go on all day about how toxic and violent it is to teach women AND men that consent and sexuality are human worth-defining things for women that we’re supposed to make men ‘work hard’ for through commitment rather than something a woman is free to participate in or reject based on her own pleasure and beliefs. We would be here for hours just discussing all the ways girls and women suffer and die because of the attitude that women who make men ‘work for it’ are More Equal Than women who aren’t as accepting of female sexual modesty. But instead, I’m just going to point out that your assumption is bs. Most feminists in their early 30’s, teens, or 20’s aren’t sitting around doing that. Many of us are friends with and allies to people who are all over the map when it comes to sex but manage to not disrespect each other for those differences. We’ll only start trash-talking the ‘True Love Waits’ types when people start dehumanizing and stereotyping. Don’t oppress, and there’ll be no mess. #MisogynyKills
General trash-talking isn’t limited to one generation, gender, or political group either. Just wanted to point that out.
“Millenial women who consider themselves feminists because they pay for men on dates, trash talk other women with the boys, and sleep around ”
You sound very out of touch. I’ve never met one person who matches this description. You seem more into blame and anger than reality.
I’m a millennial and I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who considered themselves a feminist and trash-talked other women to fit in with the boys. Unless you’re talking about teenage girls or something…I can’t speak to millennials that young. Every millennial I know is all about raising each other up and supporting each other against that kind of thing. Stronger together and all that Jazz.
@Lulu Yep! Every generation has its “cool girls.” Your comment reminds me of the book ‘Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture’ by Ariel Levy. It’s a deeply problematic work in that it relies on a lot of gendered assumptions, but its fundamental premise — that there is a “brand” of women’s “liberation” that is actually deeply harmful to women because it’s just “leaning in” and playing by established patriarchal rules — is pretty sound.
@Jenn: And just like Lulu, Ariel Levy’s book does exactly that: presents a band of ‘feminism’ that is actually deeply harmful to women and girls because it’s just playing by established patriarchal rules about what it means to be moral, self-respecting, and respectable as a woman and engaging in the typical one-sided, cowardly blaming of women’s oppression on ‘the slutty ones’. It’s the kind that demands that we all prioritize earning ‘respect’ by not being too easy/tempting for men over bodily autonomy, over fighting back against the patriarchy’s messages about ‘morality’, ‘safety’, and ‘respect’, and over fighting the punishments handed out when women or girls resist those rules. That kind of exclusionary feminism can only ever be about reinforcing ‘Good Girl’ Privilege- which is really just an extension of conservative male privilege. In the years since that book was first written, many a slut-shaming, victim-blaming male (and republican female too) has used that book to justify their misogynistic behaviors and beliefs again and again. It’s like the left-wing, ‘feminist’ bible for anyone on either side who wants to enable misogynistic abuse and hate speech. Worst Ariel’s problematic AF book has done no good for women or girls.
The Lindsay Lohan that ‘made’ it?
I read the article yesterday. So much Hollywood tea! I loved it. Maddening yes, but really good gossip. Penny Marshall’s coke use better explains her and Carrie Fisher’s friendship. It’s hard to stay sober when your bestie is still out there.
I’ve always thought Carrie fell back to using when she had to lose weight to return to Star Wars.
I don’t think there is every really one reason. One might even call them excuses. Given an addict mind, you use because you want to, the reason is secondary.
I got the impression that drugs were a constant addiction for Fisher. Tragically.
Holy sheeeeeott! What a flame thrower! To out Carrie Fischer AFTER her death? She doesn’t throw people under a bus, she drives it and throws it in reverse for good measure.
Her complete lack of awareness re sex abuse
and perpetrators is jaw dropping. Someone needs to muzzel this fossil, toot sweet!!
Didn’t they release her autopsy results because they wanted people to understand the reality of being longterm drug addicts? I don’t think she outed Carrie as being a current user at the time of her death. I thought that had already been established.
Alissa, I think you are correct IIRC.
It was my understanding she died of a heart attack but did have trace amounts of drugs in her system. Carrie was always open about her addiction issues so why pile on?!
No one wants to be referred to as a cautionary tale…
@anniefannie I looked it up, and they released the toxicology report which showed that she had “cocaine, methadone, alcohol, opiates and traces of MDMA” in her system at the time of her death. Her daughter Billie Lourd also released the following statement:
“My mom battled drug addiction and mental illness her entire life,” Lourd said. “She ultimately died of it. She was purposefully open in all of her work about the social stigmas surrounding these diseases. She talked about the shame that torments people and their families confronted by these diseases. I know my Mom, she’d want her death to encourage people to be open about their struggles. Seek help, fight for government funding for mental health programs. Shame and those social stigmas are the enemies of progress to solutions and ultimately a cure. Love you Momby.”
Her daughter felt that her mother would, in fact, want to be treated as a cautionary tale. So I don’t think Anjelica was exactly throwing her under the bus here.
Alissa, true. Carrie discussed her struggles pretty openly.
Lonely, wealthy people who grew up in that ere will medicate away their loneliness. Contrast this with the Hanks’ marriage. Maintaining any type of relationship, be it with a partner or friends, in Hollywood is hard. Most of the people working there aren’t beacons of stability or healthy relationships. The culture is part of Los Angeles culture in the circles of professionals who work and party around Hollywood types (having sex with everything that moves, fairly open drug use, trading up in relationships). Loyalty is hard there. Angelica is from that world, and she functions in it. She sounds like everybody else in certain LA circles. Trade in this type of gossip gives the “lessors” trying to work in Hollywood some power.
@Christina – What does the Hanks’ marriage have to do with this?
Where is her publicist?
Are they on the same coffee break Liam Neeson’s took?
Well it could have been worse! She could have said it wasn’t rape-rape.
‘was her publicist on a coffee break with Liam neesens’
LMAO
KittyCat! I just about spit my coffee out, lol!!!
This makes me like Oprah even more.
Lol same
Actually, I am disappointed to hear Oprah was deliberately rude to someone. She works so hard to present an image of someone who is kind and compassionate.
True, but what does Oprah know that caused her to turn her back? It must of been pretty bad. Based on her interview, anyhow.
Megan I don’t think Oprah was deliberately rude but Anjelica strikes me as…someone you need to protect yourself around and I think Oprah knew that.
Or Oprah just didn’t see her or mean to be rude but Anjelica personalized it and made it into some major diss.
@Megan she’s still human, she’s not saint oprah. of course she can be rude to people, no one is kind and compassionate 24/7.
Rape defenders don’t deserve kindness and compassion. And like olive said, Oprah is not a saint, neither she needs to be.
Wow she really went for it didn’t she? She’s been an open Polanski apologist for years so that’s old news albeit infuriating.
I can at least understand older generations’ misplaced nostalgia, but to admit “this is the way it was then” without acknowledging that things were awful that way, or supporting changing things for the better… that’s what I can’t wrap my head around? “We grew up without seatbelts and sure 50% of my high school class died in wrecks, but we all survived!” Shrug. Nobody seems to want better for anyone who comes after them and it’s depressing.
That aside, give me all your 70s cocaine stories please.
This part stood out to me: “Nobody seems to want better for anyone who comes after them and it’s depressing.”
Totally! Look at what that same generation did to the climate, so basically, it’s part of the baby boomer mentality. Ugh.
Look at all the 20, 30, 40 somethings working for Prez Lardass. Look at all the same agers in the Rethug Party ready and willing to rape and pillage the earth. Look at all their faces attending trump’s Nuremberg rallies. Look at the Nazis at Charlottesville, non-boomers all. There are enough shitbags to go around in every single age group from 15 to 95. So please stop with the ageist talk.
Jerusha – you are right — there are supremely sh***y people of all ages! It ain’t only the Boomers who have a nasty ass attitude – that attitude comes in all ages and demographics.
She’s a very typical old woman from a generation that grew up with terrible men and was traumatized but is still fine with excusing and shrugging off their behavior (see also: Helen Mirren, Judy Dench, like every French actress over 60….)
Maybe a kind of Stockholm Syndrome? Doesn’t she know anyone who isn’t her own age who didn’t experience what she did? I’m so embarrassed that in 2019 she’s living under a rock and is an apologist to the scummiest scum! (face palm)
Plus all the actresses who “didn’t know” about Weinstein. Meryl Streep, I’m looking at you.
Anjelica probably thinks that not speaking ill of them gives her a chance of being hired by them in the future. At least other actresses of her generation have stopped doing that and feigned ignorance instead. I mean it’s still awful, but it’s something.
You are not Meryl Streep. You don’t know what she knows/knew so please stop this dumb crap.
Many thought Weinstein was promiscuous but had no idea about his abuses as anyone who spoke up was blacklisted in Hollywood and labeled as crazy like Ashley just etc. Meryl Streep is not responsible for Weinsteins behavior let’s stop blaming women for abusive men’s actions
Angelica Houston isn’t responsible for Polanski or Woody Allen’s abuse but she is responsible for belittling the effects on the victims like she did in this article
@Meg: Agreed. It’s hard to know how much attention Meryl actively pays to gossip, but with Harvey Weinstein a lot of it was spread casting couch/prostitution gossip. That was the rumor a lot of people heard first. It’s too bad people don’t consider how being in an environment where that kind of rumor is always being spread about you and other members of your group(s) can color how someone looks at rumors when it comes to colleagues. Sooner or later, there’s going to have to be some uncomfortable acknowledgement of the fact that the way sexual abuse rumors and sex rumors concerning adults and kids in the public eye are treated is unhealthy, unsafe, and a little less than ethical. When the truth really did come out about Weinstein though, Meryl at least sided with the victims, unlike a lot of people.
I didn’t hear about what Helen Mirren and Judi Dench said.
I don’t know about Dench but here is what Mirren said: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/sep/01/1
Women should never have to answer for abusive men. The fact we seem to think so is insane and just another form of misogyny.
I’m a little confused by the journalist acting surprised that so many people apparently dislike her and saying “you seem so nice.”
…Does she? She spent literally the whole article excusing bad behavior and talking trash about others. Don’t get me wrong, I loved reading it, but she doesn’t exactly come across like a nice person that you’d want to get to know.
Lol, true. But that’s also probably why the journalist said “you SEEM so nice”. A journalist will seldom say things like “hey, have you ever thought that maybe you’re the problem?”
Haha true. I just felt like they could have given a simple “wow, really?” It didn’t seem like she needed much prompting to just keep talking lol.
I know times were different, etc. etc. but I feel sad that Anjelica just can’t see that she was groomed from a young age. She never will see it and no one can make her but it’s just sad. From everything I’ve heard she put up with so much abuse from Jack Nicholson and she still says their friends because she’s okay with the abuse. Just sad to me.
….it was EVERYWHERE. I was 17 in 1971, just graduated high school (in Quebec we went to Grade 11 only) …and flattered when a 31 y.o. man at my job was interested…thought each fella that wanted me was going to lead to my forever love, cause that WAS the culture taught us. Took me a LONG time to give up that fairy tale….eventually lesson learnt: there is NO SUCH THING as ‘free’ love.
Where were you born Gale? I grew up in Saguenay until I was 16. I’m so glad we got out. My sister and I moved to Vancouver when we were 16 with our aunt and uncle (my “true” mama and papa). They saw how toxic it was there for us and my papa was offered a job in Vancouver and we never looked back. I’ve never returned and I don’t think I ever will.
It was so gross even growing up in the 90s. I guess because of what I had endured in my homelife some saw me as a target but I also didn’t get as much attention thanks to my tan Latino skin. I got sick of and uninterested in fairy tale existences. I had to delete what I said from my original comment because it brought back so so many gross memories for me of being hit on by older men. They never understood why I wasn’t interested but I always knew it was wrong to be with someone that old. I’m just glad we got out of there before I did something stupid.
I grew up in the 90s and was taught the same thing…it took me years to unlearn 🙁
Big Hugs to you, Lala. I still am unlearning a lot of the behavior I grew up with. I’m just glad my basic instinct told me that older men is wrong no matter how many people told me it was right and okay.
Agree or disagree with her, but at least she’s honest. Why do we hold celebrities up to such a perfect standard? They’re a-holes, just like the rest of us. No one is exempt from occasionally saying ridiculous things – for example, saying it’s got something to do with her age.
lol. good point.
Common decency is now a perfect standard? I fear for the future, with reasonings like this going around…
Right. She’s pretty blunt and straightforward but let’s not delude ourselves. Polanski did what he did because he figured he could. Why? Because men have been doing stuff like that since the beginning of time.
I didn’t see her comments as making an excuse, she’s basically saying he did it, men before him did it, and men after him continue to do it. The sex trafficking industry is out of control and brings in billions each year.
Wasn’t Angelica Huston in the house when the rape occurred? I think I remember reading that Geimer said Huston was there at one point and pounded on the door when she heard weird noises, but she didn’t stop anything because Polanski explained it away or something. If that’s the case, maybe this is her trying to downplay it so she doesn’t feel guilty?
yeah, i think that’s right. she may have even been interviewed by police, iirc.
Stockholm syndrome. toxic men; toxic environment.
Nailed it.
That’s so sad and messed up.
Thank you, Next.
She’s always been out of it.
Female misogynists are the worst.
A lot of us work on our own built in misogyny daily. Anjelica has made the choice not to and it’s sad.
To talk s**t about penny Marshall and Carrie Fisher, women who are no longer here to defend themselves feels cruel. And the way she phrased the Carrie drug use stuff makes it sound like she’s passing along gossip as opposed to first hand knowledge
it’s not gossip that carrie was using drugs again at the end of her life – the toxicology report proves she was on multiple drugs at the time of her death.
I find it very hard to blame Anjelica. She is basically a trauma victim. I read her autobiography and she jumped from abusive situation to abusive situation, trivialised by her father who was a womaniser himself. IMO, Anjelica was raised for that to be her norm and she has internalised that to survive. She is a very strong person to have gone through what she did, and I bet at this age it would be devastating/crushing to admit all that pain and hurt. I am so glad women are turning more of a corner in terms of what we deserve, which is respect and autonomy above all. I am also very glad I didn’t grow up in these earlier times! I was a feminist from 5 years old and no way I would be happy smiling coyly at pervy old fellas!
Same. I felt very sad for her reading that interview… so much self-loathing she must have for herself. If she ever admitted to seeing the trauma for what it was… she’d be emotional roadkill. I think she is in deep debial.
That’s my take as well.
Not touching on the content of the interview as many commentators have expressed themselves much more clearly than I could but please someone excuse the first picture used in the Vulture interview?? What is happening with her hands?!?
She walked in on Roman raping Samantha. If she admits to the horror of that, she admits her own negligence and guilt.
Yea, I was coming here to ask about that. What I have heard about the Roman rape situation is that it was at Jack’s house (I guess he’s never interviewed any more but I believe he’s a Roman apologist and should have to answer for that) and that when Anjelica came home and found out what was happening she pounded on the door to try to get it to stop. Is that not accurate? If it is, that seems an acknowledgment that it at least wasn’t a good idea (even if she doesn’t want to call it rape).
As for everything else, trashing Penny and Carrie is awful, but I do love all the 70s drug stories. And she definitely reminds me of the older white women who always tell me that the ones they feel bad for are the white men – these older women have been so conditioned to center white men and take care of them and if they aren’t really engaged in what’s happening these days that conditioning will never be broken. Still disappointing, however, every time some older lady says that to me (I always assure them white guys are still doing fine – just look at businesses and DC – and that shuts them up).
According to her own testimony and Samantha’s testimony she actually walked in and they saw eachother. Samantha didn’t recognize her and Anjelica thought ‘the girl looked sullen’.
Every time I forget this heifer ain’t shit, here she comes flapping her gums to remind me.
She will always sympathize with men, always dismiss their predilection and how the victims must feel. She is a dinosaur and has long since been cancelled for me.
I’m sure she’d been a victim herself but that doesn’t excuse a startling lack of empathy or growth or her haughty nasty attitude about it.
Can we please stop calling women we dislike “heifer”? I’ve seen people call Kate this, too, and I find it really gross.
No. I quite like heifer and I use it liberally.
And I don’t merely “not like” Anjelica. I find her attitude and worldview toxic and repellant. I could go with mofo if it makes you feel better. It equally dismissive of her usefulness to the world.
If she wants to use heifer, let her. Angelina acts like one. We need to quit policing the words of other women. The idea that all of us are going to get along and it’ll all be rainbows and sunshine is as unrealistic. Angelina is mooing like an old heifer, so call her one.
I agree, Leslie. Perhaps someone can explain the hierarchy of women so we all understand where the heifer line is and what puts us in which category. I missed that memo
so she was friends with folks who did coke but the other folks didn’t like here? that’s all I got from this.
Also, Anjelica has been like this forever. I would imagine Oprah’s shunning if that’s what it even is, isn’t personal at all, just a product of knowing when people ain’t shit and have nothing for your audience.
That was an awesome read. Reinforces my happiness in my decision not to go near Hollywood people ever.
From my memory, she was in the house when Samantha was assaulted and was arrested for pot possession when the cops came to the house days later.
Also, Carrie Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd released a statement confirming that Carrie had gone back to using and that everyone should remember that it’s a disease. I miss Carrie.
I’m not defending Anjelica, but I will say growing up in Hollywood is so fuc*ed up, it just is. She had scant chance of being normal, or normal-ER like Jane Fonda. I’ve hung around these grown kids of legends, and the whole thing is just WEIRD, especially as I’m from the Midwest.
This made me laugh if not feel a bit like this is AJ in a nutshell……..:
A Walk With Love and Death was not well received. The critic John Simon wrote, “There is a perfectly blank, supremely inept performance by Huston’s daughter, Anjelica, who has the face of an exhausted gnu, the voice of an unstrung tennis racket, and a figure of no discernible shape.” I had to look up what a gnu is.
Wasn’t that pretty? That’s good, isn’t it?
Coming as it did when you were 18, did it stick with you?
It sticks with you. And now that you’ve reminded me, it will stick with me for another ten years.
I probably wouldn’t have quoted it had you not included it in your memoir.
No, I completely accept that. I think the news there is he’s dead and I’m not.
You think he’s dead?
He must be.
I was curious myself. I looked him up. He’s 93 years old. He’s alive.
He’s dead as far as I’m concerned.
People can be complex and messy. People raised from childhood in the entertainment industry especially so. I’m not surprised at her state of mind on certain things but the candor is unusual.
John Simon the film and theatre critic made his fame by bashing performers’ looks, usually female performers. Very cruel to Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, and many others. Even Diana Rigg (whom he complained was flat-chested–this was when she was appearing in a scene bare-breasted in a Broadway play). His review of the elderly veteran actor Cathleen Nesbitt when she appeared in a revival of My Fair Lady (playing a role she was known for, Higgins’ mother) was cruel. He was perceptive about the merits and flaws of some films and plays, but he’s best known for his vitriolic physical descriptions of many many performers, including Angelica Huston.
And he was racist as hell, to boot.
I subscribed to New York Magazine when he was film critic and couldn’t stand him. He said Sissy Spacek looked like a crocodile fetus. He was especially vicious if a POC played a part not specifically written as a POC.
Agree with so much of what others have written here, but I’m going to give her respect for not censoring what she thinks/feels to fit in to today’s sensibilities. She goes after Oprah for chrisesake (WHO GOES AFTER OPRAH?!). She’s not here to make friends or influence people. She’s fully aware she’s out of step with the times, and she DGAF – even if it puts her in a position where people may not want to hire her and she actually needs the dough.
Good God—is there anyone she didn’t talk shit about?
I have a feeling she and Quincy Jones will be sitting together at parties from now on.
She’s got a complex/complicated view on all of it. She did give some good quotes about how nothing’s changed, Kavanaugh, etc…. but it does’t excuse the other opinions she has.
And I’m not sure she’s taken a whole lot of time for self-reflection on this topic because that would also mean having to a) accept all the things that were done to her and b) her complicity in the role she played in what happened to other people.
Her answers are gross, I don’t care how old she is or what things were like back in the day. No, rape is not “the European sensibility”; and no, Polanski has not paid for his crimes. He literally left the country so that he didn’t have to pay for his crimes.
As posted above rape was not normalized at this time. Rape was still rape. Houston knew it was wrong too. She came to his door when she heard noises of a struggle. He too knew it was around so he blocked her view of the room and claimed he just came out of the shower. This is revisionist history to probably deal with the guilt of not helping that girl. And please 13 vs 18? Completely different body structure wise and mentally. Closer to pedo.
Just awful and horrendous insight…it’s not the 70s anymore use your big girl 2019 eyes and see the rapist pedophile for what he is and stop with the excuses
I’m obviously appalled by her comments, but I just went and read the full Vulture interview, and I’m profoundly sad for her, too. I come into contact with a lot of DV/sexual assault survivors in my line of work, and unfortunately her responses to a lot of the questions regarding Polanski/Allen/#metoo reminds me very strongly of the kind of responses we get from some DV/SA survivors. Specifically, her attitude of “the same thing happened to me” and “this is just the way men act” is not unusual. A quick search of her background shows that she had a very distant/odd relationship with her father, likely got into sexual relationships with significantly older men when she was much younger than 18, had a pattern of relationships with significantly older men, and from previous interviews she’s given, many (if not all) of her relationships were physically and emotionally abusive. Also, in the Vulture interview she made comments about how she had #metoo moments pretty much daily, and how she doesn’t think #metoo is going to ultimately stop men from just doing what they want to women. She mentioned how she recently overheard two females in a salon discussing how they’d been sexually abused when passed out the previous evening – she was horrified for them, but also seemed to be pointing out that this is just the way the world is (at least in Hollywood) even after #metoo.
The way she repeatedly said “this happened to me,” and her attempts to normalize all of it, in addition to her history of being in relationships with physically abusive men since her mid-teens makes me feel very, very sorry for her. It’s unfortunate her wrong-headed opinions are being so widely published, but she’s not the one I’m mad at in this situation.
Alas, I didn’t explicitly point this out in the body of my comment, but it seems pretty clear that she fits the criteria of a DV and/or SA survivor. I hope she finds peace, and I also hope she doesn’t give any other big interviews discussing #metoo until she’s done A LOT of therapy.
THIS. THIS. THIS. Thank you for explaining this so well.
Why does the theory persist that Polanski has “paid his debt” or “served his time”? He skipped out on the trial and can’t re-enter the US. That’s not the same as prison time, which is what this POS deserves.
It’s not her age it’s hollywood. That is how most in Hollywood think.
I appreciate her honesty. She isn’t accountable for the shitty behaviour of the men in her life.
She DOES seems resigned to their shittiness though, which to me is sad and entirely in line with her upbringing and the time period she was raised in.
Gawd. This interview makes me want to just go home and bolt the door.
The Grand High Witch has spoken.
Why is she the Grand High Witch, though?
Her role in the children’s film ‘The Witches’ (an adaptation of a Roald Dahl book)
You’re right; she’s wrong.
But, how about we stop blaming women for the actions of abusive men?
The patriarchy isn’t self sustaining. She’s not to blame for their actions but she does play a role in the culture. She needs to account for that.
I’d rather see POMS over John Wick 3 tbh.
The only thing she talks about in this interview that I agree with is..Why are DeNiro and Pacino working/making movies so far beneath their talent level? Why?
For gods sake, DeNiro and Pacino are both multi millionaires who basically changed the style of acting in American films..she is correct in saying how much money do they need?
Jack was a powerhouse actor in his day, thankfully he has retired.
How can AH need to work for money to support herself at her age?
Did John actually not have enough to leave his children to be able to retire? Where the hell where AH lawyers after all the shitty years she was devoted to Jack?
Yes, I read the entire article but, WTH?
Close to 18-20 years with Jack, thru a ton of heartbreak, and all she got was her house?
I call bs!
And yes, I know women IRL, in my age group who have been raised to almost think of their men as untouchable, can do no wrong, etc. So interesting, so talented, so whatever that they loose all sense of themselves. Therapy, therapy, therapy is needed. Yes, I was raised this way but when my now Ex cheated on me I KNEW I it was over down to my soul. AH spent years with Jack = time and life wasted.
She dated Ryan O’Neal for a few years too. That says all I need to know about her. She excuses the bad behavior of men all the time.
Reading her whole interview, all I can say is “internalized misogyny personified”.
It’s what happens when everyone around you normalizes the objectification of women, and because it’s so prevalent it’s almost acceptable to you. I’ve met so many older women like that, justifying disgusting actions only because they are accustomed to it.
This is how oppressed women who grow up in cults or extremist cultures can be too. The oppressive attitudes are so entrenched and so unquestioned that they actually accept it and tell outsiders “I’m not being oppressed”, becoming party to their own and other women’s ongoing oppression. They have no idea!
She always seemed so cool in her movies and on the red carpet and in the fashion magazines but I have long been disappointed in what a flake she sounds like IRL. I could never understand why she stuck around Jerk Nicholson. Word always was that he was an abusive pig towards her. Unfortunately all these years later she does not seem to care about broadening her horizons at all. Just because she grew up in a certain era or in a promiscuous culture doesn’t mean that she stops evolving. Also, many people have witnessed nasty behavior and maybe for a host of reasons, didn’t step in to stop it or say anything and one can carry around a lot of shame and guilt for that. But you don’t shrug it off and say “well that was the times”. Damn! She sounds so ignorant.
Cool. So good someone has opinions to offer with stories of interest about interesting starry people.
Off to find the article in full now and shall be searching for Anjelica’s autobiographies.
Wit is so rare with the focus on conformity and determination in saying nothing to find it.
Cool.
Work with Woody Allen, sure.
Roman, just doing what they did at the time.
Discussing friends drug use.
Enjoyed her acting roles, but she really revealed her lack of growth.