Angst, glamorized

Woody Allen’s comedies and tragedies to be discussed by biographer at library in Rocky Hill

By: Kathleen McGinn Spring

The 26-year-old bespectacled comic, who would become New York’s hottest club act. Photo reproduced from "The Unruly Life of Woody Allen" by Marion Meade (Scribner)

   Even by the standards of the rarefied world of creative geniuses, Woody Allen is unusually arrogant and self-involved. That is the verdict of Marion Meade, who just spent four years researching every aspect of the actor/writer/director’s life and work for her new biography, “The Unruly Life of Woody Allen.”
   Ms. Meade, who has written two novels and a number of other biographies, including those of Dorothy Parker, Buster Keaton, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Madame Blatatsky and Victoria Woodhull, will speak about the Woody Allen biography at 1:30 p.m. June 4 at the Mary Jacobs Library in Rocky Hill.
   An enthusiastic fan of Woody Allen’s films long before she began work on his biography, Ms. Meade, in a telephone interview from New York City, where she lives, said the Woody behind the camera is not much like his movie persona.
   “He has a character, independent, unorthodox that makes him wonderful, inspirational,” she said of the movie Woody, who appeared in one of his earliest films as the hopelessly inept bank robber Virgil Starkwell in “Take the Money and Run.” In that movie’s most memorable scene, he slid a demand for cash through a teller’s window, only to become embroiled in a debate over whether it said: “I have a gun” or “I have a gub.”

Woody and Soon-Yi with adopted daughter, Bechet Dumaine. Photo reproduced from "The Unruly Life of Woody Allen" by Marion Meade (Scribner)

   The real life Woody is not as lovable as Virgil Starkwell, that bumbling bank robber, according to Ms. Meade, or even as endearing as Isaac Davis, the comedy writer he played in “Manhattan,” perhaps his most memorable film, and Ms. Meade’s favorite. In that classic black and white paean to his beloved city, Woody was sleeping with a high school girl, played by Mariel Hemmingway.
   “Only Woody Allen could get away with that,” Ms. Meade said of the movie affair with a school girl. Just one film review, written by Pauline Kael, commented on the pairing, she said, adding “I accepted it totally when I saw it. I was a totally goggley-eyed Woody Allen fan.”
   However, Woody and a high school girl in real life was a different story. His popularity plummeted when fans learned that the then-50 something actor was having an affair with Soon-Yi Previn, daughter of Mia Farrow, to whom he was “really a common law husband,” according to Ms. Meade.
   Shortly after Mia, who was then involved in a 12-year relationship with Woody, found nude pictures of a teen-aged Soon-Yi on his mantle, she said that her 6-year-old adopted daughter Dylan, whom Woody also had adopted, reported that he had touched her inappropriately.
   A good part of Ms. Meade’s book is devoted not only to the many court battles over custody of the children, but also to the effect the negative publicity had on the popularity of his films. Although the figure came in too late to make it into her book, Ms. Meade said that “Sweet and Lowdown,” Woody’s latest, grossed only $4 million, “much less than most bad movies make in one weekend,” and only one-tenth the amount that “Hannah and Her Sisters,” filmed before the affair and child abuse accusations, pulled in.

Mia Farrow and Woody with Dylan in Central Park. Photo reproduced from "The Unruly Life of Woody Allen" by Marion Meade (Scribner)

   Mia starred in “Hannah and Her Sisters,” a sunny family comedy filmed in her West Side apartment and featuring her mother, Maureen O’Sullivan, and several of her children. It was one of 12 Woody Allen films in which she appeared. Ms. Meade’s book is necessarily about Mia almost as much as it is about Woody.
   And while Ms. Meade came away from her book project, with which Woody refused to cooperate in any way, with a poor opinion of him, she is full of admiration for Ms. Farrow.
   “I’m just astounded,” Ms. Meade said of her reaction to Ms. Farrow’s ability to mother 14 children, many adopted, and many handicapped, while at the same time working at her career as an actress. “Some people said ‘Mia’s a drama queen,’ but I had only one child, and I know how hard it is to raise one child, especially if you are also trying to do something else with your life.”
   Interestingly, Ms. Meade, who spoke with hundreds of the couples’ friends and associates while researching her book, said opinions of Mia tended to separate along gender lines. “Men often said she was a bad mother, while women said she did pretty well.”
   And, of course, there was a divide between partisans of each warring almost-spouse. Woody’s friends and relatives, with the exception of his nearly 100-year-old father, portrayed Mia as an hysterical, vengeful woman who compulsively adopted children as therapy. Mia’s friends, and, significantly in Ms. Meade’s view, her household help, most often saw her as a caring mother who ran a household that was as well-organized as any of its size could be.
   Asked her opinion of whether Woody did in fact sexually abuse Dylan, Ms. Meade said she had been careful to present both sides and to “let readers make up their own minds.”
   Of one thing she is convinced, however: The allegations badly hurt his career. Ms. Meade traces that career from its beginnings in Brooklyn where a bored, restless, unhappy Alan Konigsberg cut classes to go to the movies and write one-liners, many of which were published in New York newspapers while he was still in high school.
   From joke writing, Konigsberg, who changed is name to Woody Allen early on, went on to stand up comedy, script writing, acting and directing. Ms. Meade points out that his career is unique. “He has been virtually subsidized his whole life,” she said of the fact that the money to make any movie he wanted to make, regardless of potential box office appeal, was always there. “He became very spoiled,” in her opinion.
   Ms. Meade predicts that the money will soon dry up. Incredibly prolific, turning out one movie a year for some 30 years, Woody directed two movies this year. The second, “Small Town Crooks,”
   may be among his last, she believes. Young people don’t find him funny, she said, and his affair with his longtime lover’s daughter coupled with sex abuse allegations cost him many of the middle-aged women who were his core audience.
   Woody, now in his early 60s, may well have a number of good years left. Last year he gave his voice to an animated, neurotic, hero ant in the movie “Antz,” and he received enthusiastic reviews. And after a 30 year pause, he wrote an article for The New Yorker last winter. “He could hire himself out as an actor, write for television, write short stories or novels,” Ms. Meade said of her multi-talented subject.
   As for the big winners and losers in his private life, Ms. Meade said, without a doubt, Mia’s children, and especially Dylan, who was extremely close to Woody, suffered tremendously. And while life has been extremely difficult for Soon-Yi, who was abandoned on the streets of Korea as a 3-year-old, she seems to have come out on top.
   Ms. Meade’s book is filled with details of how the young woman, who Woody married and with whom he adopted a baby girl, has taken charge of his life, ordering, for instance, a complete renovation of his longtime Fifth Avenue bachelor penthouse.
   In a section on the filming of “Wild Man Blues,” a documentary about a European tour Woody, famous for his devotion to playing the clarinet, took with his band, Ms. Meade writes of how Soon-Yi orders him around, and he more or less cheerfully complies.
   Still, the biography is the farthest thing from a romantic book. It portrays Woody as an increasingly isolated man who repulsed the judge who ruled against his custody requests, was heedless with the lives of those closest to him, and had little loyalty for devoted collaborators.
   The biggest surprise Ms. Meade encountered in researching Woody’s life and art: “I was amazed at how much he is feared.”