Mia Farrow slams Woody Allen in tell-all book
February 5, 1997
Web posted at: 11:20 p.m. EST
NEW YORK (Reuter) -- Mia Farrow's long-awaited memoir on life
with Woody Allen hit bookstores Wednesday, painting the
director-comedian as more neurotic than anyone he ever played in
one of his films.
Forget Valentine's Day. In "What Falls Away," Farrow
wrote a poison pen letter accusing Allen of bizarre behavior
culminating in his seducing one of her adopted daughters and
possibly sexually molesting another.
But some pages in Farrow's 370-page book read like scenes
from a Woody Allen comedy -- such as his early habit of asking
his secretary to call Farrow to arrange dates and never directly
doing it himself. Alone with her, he could not bring himself to
say her name.
"Woody Allen was connected to his doctors like no one I
ever heard of: he had a doctor for every single part of his
body. Whenever one of his movies came out he'd have a screening
for his doctors and their wives. It was called 'The Doctor's
Screening' and the room was always full," she wrote, adding
that if Allen felt the least bit ill he would take his
temperature every 10 minutes.
"He kept his own thermometer at my apartment. In his pocket
he kept a silver box of pills for any conceivable ailment."
A romance gone down the drain
Farrow, whose 1992 child custody battle with Allen made
international headlines, said one of their oddest moments
together came when he discovered the drain to the shower in her
new country house was in the middle and not the side.
"'What happened? I asked, 'What's wrong?' 'The drain is in
the middle,' he said, shaking his head dismissively as if I
should have known."
Farrow had to build another shower with the drain at the side.
Farrow said that in her years with Allen, "There were three
of us in the relationship: Woody, his shrink and me. No
decisions were ever made without her. He didn't even buy sheets
without talking to her. I know that part of several sessions
went into his switch from polyester-satin to cotton."
In the book Farrow
described her shock at first discovering Allen had taken
pornographic photos of her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn and
then that he was having an affair with the 17-year-old.
Farrow also wrote of her 7-year-old daughter Dylan,
accusing Allen of sexually molesting her -- a charge Allen
strongly denied. He was never charged.
Farrow described Allen as being obsessed with Dylan,
saying, "He whispered her awake, he caressed her and entwined
his body around her as she watched television, as she played on
the floor, as she ate, as she slept. He brought her into bed
when he was wearing only his underpants. Twice I made him take
his thumb out of her mouth."
The actress, who was married and divorced from Frank Sinatra and
conductor Andre Previn, said she cannot explain why she
continued her relationship with Allen for so long.
Woody Allen's spokeswoman, Leslie Dart, said he would have
no comment on the book. Told that Farrow had used the volume to
make numerous accusations against her employer, Dart replied:
"I'm not surprised. She's been doing that for four years."
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