Review of "Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence" by Ken Auletta

In 2002, Ken Auletta published a New Yorker profile of Harvey Weinstein, highlighting the movie mogul's frightening rages; verbal abuse of staff, colleagues and competitors; and exorbitant spending, eating, and smoking. Auletta 'heard' that Harvey sexually abused women, but was unable to get anyone on the record, and had to leave the allegations out of his article.

Skip ahead to 2017, and both the New Yorker and the New York Times expose Harvey as a sexual predator. Weinstein is arrested and eventually put on trial in 2020. In this book, Auletta provides an in depth sketch of the Hollywood tycoon, from his childhood to the court proceedings and beyond. Auletta describes the once powerful Weinstein shambling into his 2020 criminal trial with a walker, wearing "drab, boxy suits; white shirts with crumpled collars; and dull, slightly askew ties." Auletta goes on to say Harvey "had lost at least seventy-five pounds, his pallor was gray, and his scruffy stubble beard failed to camouflage the crevices and lines of his swollen face."


Harvey Weinstein going to court

Weinstein's downfall came after a long career in the entertainment industry, which had fascinated him since childhood. Born to Miriam and Max Weinstein, Harvey and his younger brother Bob grew up in Queens, New York. Miriam was entranced by glamorous people in magazines, and Harvey followed her lead, becoming enamored with the "glamour and lifestyle that came along with being in the movie business." Meanwhile, Bob was good with numbers and - despite almost constant screaming matches - the brothers were business partners for most of their lives.


Miriam Weinstein

Young Harvey (right) and Bob Weinstein

Teenage Harvey Weinstein

Harvey (right) and Bob Weinstein

Weinstein's show business career started in the 1970s, when he was in college. By his junior year Harvey quit school, and he and his friend Corky Burger formed a company called Harvey and Corky presents, which promoted concerts. Harvey's brother Bob came to work for the company, and the Weinstein siblings were soon showing films as well....and dreaming of entering the movie industry. Even this early, Harvey "was cunning, brash, loud, and volatile, often screaming at those who worked with him."


Corky Burger (left) and Harvey Weinstein

It was also around this time that Weinstein's sexual obsession began. After Harvey was arrested in 2017, he implied that "he was caught up in the counterculture of the seventies, a time of more open sex [and] free love." Auletta suggests the hedonism Harvey referred to camouflaged aggressive sexual behavior.

Harvey and Bob went from showing movies to distributing movies to making films of their own. In 1979 they founded a company called Miramax, which - after a series of ups and downs - became very successful. Harvey used his show business clout to lure, harass, and assault women, especially those who wanted a career in the film industry.




Harvey and Bob Weinstein - founders of Miramax

In fact, Weinstein admitted he was "a trader of favors." This is demonstrated by the movie mogul's interaction with the actress Gwyneth Paltrow. After Harvey gave Paltrow a leading role in the 1996 movie 'Emma', he lured her to his hotel room, grabbed her by the arms and squeezed, and tried to coax her into his bedroom for a massage. Luckily, the actress escaped. According to Paltrow, she continued working with Harvey because "he had so much power. He was making all these great movies. And I was about to be in those movies.....We all wanted to make excuses for a lot of his behavior because of the movies he was making."


Gwyneth Paltrow and Harvey Weinstein

As Harvey's success increased, so did his aggression and sense of entitlement. Auletta observes, "As [Harvey] became more and more puffed up with his own importance, those working for Miramax thought his behavior became more extreme." Moreover, "Harvey had always escaped exposure, so often he was by [the 1990s] inured to the danger." This would change in 1998 when Weinstein was confronted by Miramax employees Zelda Perkins and Rowena Chiu.


Zelda Perkins


Rowena Chiu

Perkins was training Chiu to take over her position when Weinstein lured Chiu to his London hotel suite and tried to rape her. Perkins and Chiu threatened to file charges against Weinstein, which was a wake up call for the entrepreneur. Instead of mending his ways, though, Harvey - with an army of aggressive lawyers - 'persuaded' the two women to sign NDAs for compensation of about $210,000 each. This was the first of many many NDAs signed by women harassed/assaulted by Weinstein. According to Auletta, Weinstein's "secrets also stayed secret because in the movie business, abnormal male sexual aggression was thought to be common, fit for private whispers but not public shame. This was Hollywood's culture of silence."

In the the midst of all this sex and aggression hubbub, Harvey was married twice, to blueblood Eve Chilton - with whom he had three daughters, and to fashion designer Georgina Chapman - with whom he had a son and a daughter. Though Weinstein's serial infidelity was well known in the industry, it's unclear whether his wives were aware of Harvey's many peccadillos, especially the sexual assaults.


Harvey Weinstein and Eve Chilton


Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman

In 2005, Harvey and Bob founded a new independent studio called The Weinstein Company, for which investors provided initial financing of one billion dollars.

 Deplorably, by 2016, Harvey's extravagant spending had essentially bankrupted the company. This wasn't the worst of Harvey's troubles though. Auletta notes, "Whatever business anxiety he had was subsumed by a mounting terror of exposure. For four decades he had muzzled people outside the company and within it; they dared not discuss any sort of violence they'd experienced at his hands, whether it be verbal, psychological, physical, or sexual. The NDAs employees were required to sign as a matter of course ensured this." Moreover, it was well known that men in the media business were long allowed their sexual pleasures, consensual or forced.

Unfortunately for cocky celebrity bigwigs, they were no longer coated with teflon. Bill Cosby, Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, Donald Trump, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, and others were exposed as sexual predators.....and suffered the consequences (Though not so much in Trump's case, no matter he was reviled by much of the public).


Bill Cosby


Former Fox host Gretchen Carlson accused Roger Ailes of sexual harassment


Mindy McGillivray (and others) accused Donald Trump of sexual assault


Bill O'Reilly was accused of sexual harassment

In early 2017, Harvey's biggest worry was actress Rose McGowan, "who started tweeting months before about an unnamed studio head who raped her" AND she was writing a memoir. Moreover, Harvey was told that New York Times journalist Jodi Kantor was writing a profile of him, "particularly as it relates to women."


Rose McGowan

Auletta writes, "Harvey....had one mode of defense: attack." Weinstein hired a lawyer that aggressively sued journalists; retained attorneys that vehemently attacked his accusers; phoned the New York Times publisher and editor in an attempt to squelsh the Kantor story; contacted the publisher of McGowan's book and various book agents, to try to get a copy of her manuscript; and so on. All this was done on the quiet, in an effort to keep it from The Weinstein Company's board of directors and Bob Weinstein and almost all company executives.

In the end, Weinstein was pilloried anyway. Auletta writes, "The October 5, 2017 front-page headline of the New York Times story by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey blared: HARVEY WEINSTEIN PAID OFF SEXUAL HARASSMENT ACCUSERS FOR DECADES.....They got women on the record to share their horrific experiences with Harvey - Ashley Judd, Emily Nestor, Lauren O'Connor, Laura Madden, Zelda Perkins."


Journalists Jodi Kantor (left) and Megan Twohey


Ashley Judd


Emily Nestor


Lauren O'Connor


Laura Madden

Zelda Perkins

A week later, the first of several articles about Weinstein by journalist Ronan Farrow was published in the New Yorker, and more women came forward to accuse Weinstein of sexual harassment or assault. As a result, Harvey was fired from The Weinstein Company.....and later arrested and tried.

Ronan Farrow

Auletta also writes about employees who enabled Harvey by bringing girls to his hotel room, and speculates about those who might have known (and closed their eyes) to Harvey's sexual assaults. Many people admit they knew Harvey was an unfaithful philanderer, but no one acknowledges they knew he was a rapist. Maybe time will tell.

Auletta includes a good bit of information about Weinstein's parents and schooling; concerts young Harvey promoted; films Harvey and Bob distributed or made (including My Left Foot, The Piano, Pulp Fiction, The English Patient, Shakespeare In Love, The King's Speech, and many others); Oscars the movies won; actors, actresses, and directors Harvey worked with; Weinstein's business collaborators; Harvey's polititian friends; and more - all of which helps round out the Weinstein story.

Harvey Weinstein and Meryl Streep

Harvey Weinstein and James Corden

Harvey Weinstein and Bill Clinton

The book is well-written, interesting, and informative, and includes extensive notes documenting sources and a useful index.

For those interested, there's a 2022 film called 'She Said' based on Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey's 2019 book 'She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement.' In an interview, the authors note that the movie "depicts so much of what we witnessed and experienced, including the takeout, the late-night cab ride, and a few personal truths we’ve never shared before. In fact certain details are shown precisely as they were, down to the font on an incriminating document one of the victims read to us. The actors Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan convey emotions and moments we never thought could be captured, and Jennifer Ehle, Samantha Morton, and other actors embody our sources’ tenacity, deep reflection, and risk."

;
Carey Mulligan (left) and Zoe Kazan portray Twohey and Kantor

Though much has been said and written about Harvey Weinstein, the full story - with HONEST input from the subject himself - still remains to be told. Maybe someday it will be.

Rating: 4 stars