Another day, another sexual harassment accusation. Yesterday, it was Jeremy Piven. Today, it’s Dustin Hoffman.
His accuser is Anna Graham Hunter, who claims she was 17-years-old and working on Death of a Salesman in 1985 with Hoffman when he assaulted her.
Here’s what Hunter wrote in an essay in The Hollywood Reporter:
When I was a senior in high school in New York City, interning as a production assistant on the set of the Death of a Salesman TV film, he asked me to give him a foot massage my first day on set; I did. He was openly flirtatious, he grabbed my ass, he talked about sex to me and in front of me. One morning I went to his dressing room to take his breakfast order; he looked at me and grinned, taking his time. Then he said, “I’ll have a hard-boiled egg … and a soft-boiled clitoris.” His entourage burst out laughing. I left, speechless. Then I went to the bathroom and cried.
That’s the first paragraph of her essay. So…as you can imagine, it only gets worse. In fact, Hunter has detailed accounts of her entire five-week stint on the set. She kept a log of everything that happened and mailed letters to her sister to let her know how she was doing.
Hunter seemed infatuated with Hoffman when she first started working on the movie. She even wrote, “After Tootsie, I thought I wanted to marry him.” But, the more Hoffman talked about breasts, she became turned off. Here’s a pretty damning paragraph:
Today, when I was walking Dustin to his limo, he felt my ass four times. I hit him each time, hard, and told him he was a dirty old man. He took off his hat and pointed to his head (shaved for the part) and said, “No, I’m a dirty young man, I have a full head of hair.”
And:
Today, I realized some things about this business that scare me. First of all, Dustin’s a lech. I’m completely disillusioned. After Tootsie, I thought I wanted to marry him.
Elizabeth [another production assistant] asked him what he wanted for lunch and he said, “Your left breast.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“OK, your right breast.”
“You pig.” She walked away.
In her final letter, she wrote, “Dustin’s a pig, but I like him a lot.”
There are photos of the letters. I know they’re real because no one has paper or good handwriting anymore.
Hoffman responded to the claims and his response is just as bad as every other response in the past few weeks:
“I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation. I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am.”
Does no one know how to apologize?
That’s not a denial from Hoffman, which means the allegations are likely true.
Come back tomorrow when another old man is accused of sexual harassment. Go ahead and get your bets in now.