Dustin Hoffman has apologized for his behavior after he was accused by an author of sexual harassment when she was 17 years old.
Writer Anna Graham Hunter has penned a piece for The Hollywood Reporter, in which she details her time working on TV movie Death of a Salesman in 1985, starring Hoffman and John Malkovich.
In her guest column Hunter begins by stating the story is one she’s told many times, and she always begins with the line, “Dustin Hoffman sexually harassed me when I was 17.”
The author was a high school senior in New York City when she got the job as a production assistant on the movie and she recalled how Hoffman, now 80, asked her to give him a foot massage during her first day on set, was openly flirtatious, “grabbed” her butt, and continuously talked about sex while he worked.
In one incident, which happened when she went to his dressing room to take his breakfast order, she alleged Hoffman requested: “‘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.”
She also claims the Tootsie actor ordered the “left breast” of another assistant for lunch one day and on another occasion Hunter he touched her buttocks four times as she walked him to his limo, to which she responded by hitting him hard.
“(I) 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,'” she alleged. The incidents reportedly occurred during the five weeks she worked on set which she detailed in a diary she mailed to her sister at the time.
And when Hunter brought up Hoffman’s behavior with his assistant Frankie, the star later confronted her about “badmouthing” him and her viewing him as a “sexist pig”. His behaviur changed soon after.
Hoffman released a statement on Wednesday (1Nov17) addressing Hunter’s piece, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “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.”
The veteran actor is the latest male in Hollywood to be accused of acting inappropriately, with the scandal beginning last month (Oct17) as women came forward about allegedly suffering serious sexual assaults at the hands of producer Harvey Weinstein. Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey and Entourage star Jeremy Piven are just two of the other men who are facing allegations.
