A fictional vignette set on the night of Tuesday the 10th of October.
At the home of fashion designer Donna Karan, Gaby hands her mother a cell phone:
“It’s uncle Harvey,” she says.
“I don’t want to talk to him,” Donna says. She turns away. She has been crying.
“Tell him yourself,” Gaby says.
Donna takes the phone. She hesitates, wondering whether to press End or throw it across the room.
“Don’t Mom,” Gaby says, “it’s my phone.”
“Hey,” Donna says.
“Can you come over?” Harvey is on speakerphone.
“You’re kidding right? How about a thank you first?”
“Your stocks are up you know?”
“Jesus, they are?”
“Gun stocks went up last week, after the Vegas shooting. It’s a fucked up world darling.”
“I don’t give a shit about DKNY stocks.”
“Come over. Georgina left me. I learned it from a People Magazine news alert.”
Donna looks at her daughter for help. Gaby shakes her head – NO.
“There are reporters outside. I can’t do this right now.”
“I’ll send a car. Use the back door. I need you. I’m alone. God knows what I might do.”
Donna ends the call and hands the phone back to her daughter.
“Do it already,” Gaby says under her breath.
Harvey is in a hotel suite. The TV is on in the background. Pictures of Paltrow and Jolie flash across the screen. The sound is off. He is wearing a large white bathrobe wrapped around his huge frame. There is a knock on the door. He gets up, a white tie drops to the floor and the robe opens. He is naked underneath. Holding the two pieces of fabric together with one hand, he opens the door.
“Put some fucking clothes on,” Donna calls from the corridor. “Jesus Harv, what is WRONG with you.”
“Oh come on, I’m not gonna jump you.”
“That’s not the point, it’s just so fucking inappropriate right now.”
“Maybe it’s appropriate. I’m comfortable this way. Who fucking cares.”
“At least put this around you,” Donna enters the room, picks up the white strip of fabric and hands it to Harvey. She ends up putting it around him herself, adjusting the large robe as if he’s a model in one of her shows. He puffs on a large cigar, blowing the smoke sideways, away from her.
“There,” she says almost maternally. “Now I need a drink.”
They sit down across from each other. Donna picks up the remote, flicks through the channels and stops at National Geographic. She pulls her legs under her and rubs her face. Harvey too is rubbing his large head.
“Fucking idiot asshole,” she says and looks up at him. “I thought you’d stopped this shit when you married Georgina. What were you thinking?”
“It’s what we do.” Harvey shrugs. “Trump did it. Look at him – our President! He flaunts it and they love him!”
“The press doesn’t love him. New Yorkers don’t. Our friends don’t. Anyway since when is Trump your role model?”
“It’s the reason men achieve. In movies, fashion, business. The money. The fame.”
“What is?”
“Women! Sex!”
“Not for me! Imagine me groping and propositioning every male model that walked in for a casting?”
“Don’t say you haven’t thought about it?!”
Donna looks right at Harvey who has a semi-erotic smirk on his face. She shakes her head.
“I’m not here to talk dirty with you. And no I haven’t. It’s not how we think.”
“WE?”
“Women. We may look at a hot guy and joke about how he makes us feel, pretend we’d sleep with him, but I don’t know any woman who would force herself on a young, sexy guy the way you did with these poor girls.”
“Poor girls?! I made their careers! Gwynie, Angie! I gave them everything they dreamed off! I never hurt them! Some of them got a million bucks just for showing their tits and watching me – you know– for a few minutes!”
Donna looks disgusted.
“Stop! You’re a pervert. A creep. I had no idea it was this bad. None!”
“I’m not proud of it.”
“You just don’t think it’s a big deal?”
“Everyone did it. Or at least tried. What about dear old Sydney Kimmel? And Warren Beatty?”
“Beatty stopped years ago, and he was hot.”
“And I’m fat and ugly.”
“You abused your power.”
“Power is all I’ve got. No girl wants to fuck me!”
Donna studies him. He is too large for his chair, as he sits slouched with his legs spread, a big cigar between his thick lips. One chubby hand stroking the kind of beard that looks good on Clooney and Beckham but fails miserably as an attempt to hide his pock-scarred face.
“Oh boo-hoo,” she says, “you had Georgina. You got two lovely kids. You got it all! You’re a sick fool and now the whole world knows it. And NO – ONE is EVER going to feel sorry for you.”
“I don’t give a shit about pity. But really? You know that they all showed up looking sexy and seductive? They wanted me to want them. Right? But they do not want me! They want to be the next Marilyn – so every man in the world… and I could make that happen for them. All they dream of are teenage boys jerking off to their fucking pictures. And I have that power! But because I look like the fucking BEAST in Beauty, I am called a sexual predator when I ask for some jerking off in return. Ironic no?”
“You hate women.”
“Perhaps. They never liked me.”
“You really do.”
“It’s bewildering. Like you said last night.”
“I don’t even remember what I said. Exactly.”
“You said a stupid thing.”
“Thanks. I was trying to find a way to defend you, for Georgina and the kids. I love them.”
“You don’t love me. “
“No Harv, right now I don’t love you.”
“You never loved me, you never even liked me. You tolerate me because I’m Harvey Weinstein.”
“I can’t believe I said what they say I said.”
“You better own it.”
“It’s so not me. Everyone knows that.”
“No they don’t. Right now the insatiables are tearing you apart. It’s the perfect companion story to my debauchery. The fashion designer enabler! Like the madam! Everything you’ve ever done, for women, for kids, New Yorkers, Haitians. Forget it. It’s all been erased. You are the bitch that sold out women. Welcome to Hollywood baby.”
“Hollywood?” Donna looks puzzled.
“Georgina believes Hollywood pits women against each other. But it’s just how women are. You’re just as competitive as men, but your hierarchy is unclear. We fight it out honestly, man to man. There are no illusions; it’s all sport – the winner wins. You bitches just pretend to support each other, but really all you do is compete.”
“Bullshit! I am a woman’s woman! I went out of my way to hire only women. I paid them well. I loved working with my all women teams. We did great stuff together. That was what made Donna Karan the brand! When I sold the company I opened Urban Zen, gave money to Hillary, Planned Parenthood, I started women’s labor incentives in Haiti. Health Care programs for low income families here in the City, everything I did was for women and their families!”
“No one cares about that now! You sold your women out. You said they were asking for it — for sex with me!” Harvey laughs. “..and here we are — thinking we’re both champions for women…” He laughs harder.
Donna weeps. She drinks down her wine, gets up for a refill and starts pacing.
“You and I are NOT the same. I am angry! Furious at what you guys create in the name of the female sex. The way YOU portray us! And then we all need to live up to that warped idea of us! I was so fucking pissed at that DKNY dog-walking commercial with that Gone Girl actress.”
“Emily Ratakovski, is her name. Cute girl.”
“It was NOT MY WORK! That bra has MY NAME on it, and yet I have nothing to do with that branding. NOTHING! I don’t even know who ran that campaign.”
“I thought the ad was cute.” He takes a suggestive drag on his cigar and readjusts his robe.
“CUTE!? I no longer design the ‘cute’ shit that is out there with my name on it. I designed for real women twenty years ago! Working women! Not girls. Not grown women who want to look like sexy young girls. Not girls who want to prove that they have a positive body image of themselves by walking down the street undressed. Or post nude pictures – look at me, look at me, how I love my body — my body is better than yours.”
“Instagram is one fucking competitive shit-show of hot women trying to out-hot-body each other… but I can’t touch them!”
“No you can’t. Different thing. It’s complicated but it’s different.”
“Not to me. Not to men. Men think it’s all for them.”
“Well, get with it. That’s the depressing part. It’s for ourselves and each other. Not to get laid. I almost kill myself with daily yoga so I look fit, I’ve had nips and tucks and lifts and it all hurts and goes south anyway and I wish I could just stop. Believe that it doesn’t matter. But I can’t. I need to feel young to feel good. And feeling good is all about looking good. For me. In this bloody business. Fashion…. and also in your fucking films.”
“So move to your beloved Haiti.”
“I might. It’s great. For that reason, perhaps. Also. When I am with people who have so little, are so positive, so loving, I don’t even look in the mirror. I go days without thinking about myself. My age, my saggy arms, my wrinkles. And yet I feel sexier there than I ever do in New York.”
Harvey stares at her.
“Actually … Haiti is the only place I still feel sexy. Worthy. Real. Myself.”
“You sound like Georgina,” he sounds bored.
“Why?”
“You know what Donna? I’m tired. I’m totally fucked. I lost everything I’ve worked for my entire life, so I don’t really give a shit when or why you feel sexy. When any woman feels sexy.”
“All you care about is yourself.”
“That’s right — I’ve earned it.”
“ A lonely place Harvey, I can’t help you there.”
“ I never asked you to.”
“No, I did that all on my own. Three off-the-cuff, inebriated sentences, and MY reputation of 30 years is down the toilet. All for the least deserving man in the universe. And all I want to do is talk to Stephan. He’d know what to do. You didn’t deserve another marriage. But I loved him. I was faithful. I thought we’d be together forever. Then he dies! So now this one is on me and me only. And I have no idea what to do. How to be in this gotcha world – I try but it’s all too much and I miss him.”
Harvey yawns. “Goodnight Donna. Thanks for stopping by.”
“Goodnight Harvey fucking Weinstein.”
—————————————————————————————————————————————-
This is a piece of satire that reflects my sense of the culture that created these two “fallen icons”. I have met them both. I interviewed with Donna in 1999 and saw her socially in the Hamptons and Miami. She is a loving, open woman whom I truly believe has done a lot to support and help modern women. She lost her husband to cancer in 2001. He was her champion and partner. I don’t know why she said what she said this week, or how she meant it, but I have no problem cutting her some slack. Weinstein however…
I have my own Harvey Fucking Weinstein Story.
In 1989 a British actress friend insisted I go out with him. I don’t know if she was trying to ingratiate herself, I don’t know how he’d treated her. I do know that he introduced her to Woody Allen who subsequently used her in Husband and Wives. She told me he was a bit of a groper, but that she’d warned him to keep his hands off me. Ha!
It was to be a drinks and movie date and we met at the Bemelmans Bar. First thing he said to me was “I promised Lysette I’d keep my hands to myself.” Nevertheless I kept peeling him off me over cocktails and then he fell asleep within the first ten minutes of the movie. Relieved, I left him there, snoring loudly, and skipped out.
Lysette and I laughed about it and he never mentioned the date to her again.
Years later I was in an elevator with him, my husband and a glam crowd at a film award ceremony for Richard Gere. Liam Neeson had just smiled at me so I felt feisty. From my corner of the elevator I said loudly, for everyone to hear:
“Harvey! The only date that ever fell asleep on me!”
He glared at me. He was furious.
Love in Time of Corona 