# Is Woody Allen really that stupid? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 31, 2015, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632 "2015-07-31T04:07:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2015, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/41 "2015-07-31T22:55:33Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > absolutely no one at the time thought Sinatra was some sort of pedophile. “Hah! I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a boy!” - Ava Gardner ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/42 "2015-08-01T00:40:53Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Ummm… well I’d lose that bar bet based [on this photo](http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02833/ronanfarrow_2833413b.jpg)he looks like Sinatra 100X more than he looks like Woody Allen What an utterly beautiful young man. [Here’s Mia and Frank to compare him to](http://www.estarguapas.com/pics/2013/10/hijo_mia_farrow_y_frank_sinatra.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/43 "2015-08-01T01:12:37Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > Woody Allen is not stupid and he’s spent the last forty years projecting a deliberate image of himself to the American public. He knows exactly what he’s saying. Draw your own conclusions about why he said it; I know I have. Smart people can’t say stupid things? ---
**Author:** ![Sahirrnee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sahirrnee/32/13937_2.png) [@Sahirrnee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sahirrnee)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/44 "2015-08-01T01:24:53Z")
WRT Soon-Yi How does someone have sex with a man who was having sex with their mother? I don’t want to get too graphic but the thought of his parts going in me after they have been in my mother? It feels almost incestuous. The ICK factor would be too much for me to handle. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/45 "2015-08-01T02:30:23Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Ummm… well I’d lose that bar bet based [on this photo](http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02833/ronanfarrow_2833413b.jpg)he looks like Sinatra 100X more than he looks like Woody Allen > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > He looks like his mother. “He has His Father’s eyes!” ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/46 "2015-08-01T02:38:36Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Being in a child-like relationship with your partner is physically, emotionally and financially dangerous, and even more so for any kids involved. Emotionally, I can see it, but why physically and financially? And I’m not sure why it would be dangerous in any way for the kids. > [@](#): > > We have plenty of examples of places where women are considered the ward of their closest male relatives. Some of those relationships may be good, many of the women may be happy, but the whole dynamic is fundamentally problematic and doesn’t lead to great things. As far as I know, we aren’t in such places. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/47 "2015-08-01T06:11:22Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > “Hah! I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a boy!” > > - Ava Gardner I always heard it this way: After Sinatra married Mia Farrow, Gardner said, _“I always knew Frank would wind up in bed with a little boy.”_ [Cite](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1998-05-17/entertainment/9805170001_1_ava-gardner-love-and-marriage-frank-sinatra) Obviously Gardner’s comment was meant as an insult to Mia Farrow, not to allege Sinatra was a pedophile. I used to feel sorry for Farrow because of that remark, until the last few years when I discovered what a conniving, mean, hateful, insane bitch she really is. I suggest reading _“Mr. S, My Life With Frank Sinatra”_, by George Jacobs, Sinatra’s longtime valet who knew Farrow when Sinatra was with her. He and Farrow were friends and there doesn’t seem to be any indication his account was written to try to harm her to Woody Allen’s benefit. He describes quite clearly how Farrow dressed and behaved provocatively in order to seduce Sinatra, and he describes her plan to marry and have children by a succession of highly successful men of the arts, namely Sinatra, Leonard Bernstein, Picasso, J.D. Sallenger and Bob Dylan. (Bear in mind she was only 19 or 20 while hatching this insidious plan, having the idea in mind the whole time of divorcing one husband after the other while utterly unmindful of the hurtful effect it would have on the kids that resulted from these brief liaisons and the wrenching away from their fathers that would follow). This is one of the reasons I’ve come to believe Ronan Farrow is Sinatra’s kid. She apparently couldn’t pull off having kids by him while they were married so it seems she maintained an intimate relationship with him over the years and eventually managed to get herself impregnated by him, then forced Woody Allen to pay child support for him for 18 years. And then of course there’s the fact that she almost certainly conned her poor daughter into believing Woody Allen molested her, a belief that seems to weigh heavily on this poor young woman to this day and appears to have pretty much ruined her life. Never before in Allen’s entire history had the slightest impropriety with children raised its head, and he in fact engaged in a series of longterm relationships with a number of intelligent full grown women, such as Louise Lasser and Diane Keaton, among others. Farrows story of the alleged abuse seems to have been inspired by a song written by Andre Previn’s ex Dory, called _“With My Daddy in the Attic."_ It was on the same record as the song Dory Previn had written about Mia’s having betrayed their friendship by sneakily stealing her husband, André, _“Beware of Young Girls.”_ So she appears to have used a song written by a bitter ex-friend and ex-wife of one of the husbands she seduced in order to concoct a story to ruin an ex of her own. I would suggest that anyone here interested in knowing more details of just how Mia Farrow has behaved in the aftermath of Allen’s affair with Soon-Yi up to this time read his published account [here](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/woody-allen-speaks-out.html?_r=0). I believe it to be factual, otherwise her lawyers would surely have had a field day with the claims he made in it. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/48 "2015-08-01T10:09:01Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Yet he refers to his relationship with her as “paternal”. > > Regards, > Shodan My gf calls me “Daddy”. Before we met, I’d never had a father/parental role in her life. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/49 "2015-08-01T10:15:48Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Being in a child-like relationship with your partner is physically, emotionally and financially dangerous, and even more so for any kids involved. > > But if you hit all four, there is a pretty good chance you are a Creepy McCreepster from Creepyville. This all is a fantasy perpetuated by people who don’t like rich, older people getting sex with younger people. The above elements, if elements of a relationship they be, are possible by meeting a complete stranger on the street just as easily. BTW, what is ‘financially dangerous’? One can already see the fantastical in this post. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/50 "2015-08-01T10:43:21Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And then of course there’s the **fact** that she **almost certainly** conned her poor daughter into believing Woody Allen molested her, a belief that **seems to** weigh heavily on this poor young woman to this day and **appears to** have pretty much ruined her life. Bolding mine. “Fact” doesn’t like being abused that way. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/51 "2015-08-01T11:02:17Z")
It’s enjoyable to be in relationships with younger women where you can play the role of teacher or advisor. It’s fun to have them look up to you and turn to you for advice, and it’s fun to show them things and watch them grow. Hugh Hefner and Mick Jagger are two guys I’ve heard or read talk about part of what they enjoy about dating young women is showing/teaching them things. I remember Hefner being asked how he felt at one of Playboy’s anniversary parties where tons of Playmates from previous years and decades were in attendance. He sort of laughed and he said, _“Like a very proud papa!”_, and Hefner’s women certainly weren’t children or child substitutes. Jagger has talked about how he enjoys teaching his girlfriends about music and art, wine, etc., and opening their eyes to some of the finer aspects to life they hadn’t known about before. I think this is what Woody Allen was talking about when he used the term ‘paternal’. He wasn’t speaking in a sexual sense or as a throwback to his alleged previous role as her father. He was talking about taking her under his wing and showing/teaching her things and opening her eyes to aspects of life she hadn’t known about before. And being a guy who, although a liberal by most measures, doesn’t seem to be in tune with political correctness or understand why his relationship with Soon-Yi should be scandalous, he just blurted out a word that seemed descriptive to him without realizing what it would sound like. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/52 "2015-08-01T11:38:27Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It’s enjoyable to be in relationships with younger women where you can play the role of teacher or advisor. It’s fun to have them look up to you and turn to you for advice, and it’s fun to show them things and watch them grow. Yep, the new Fisher-Price line is amazing! ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/53 "2015-08-01T12:23:49Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > This all is a fantasy perpetuated by people who don’t like rich, older people getting sex with younger people. The above elements, if elements of a relationship they be, are possible by meeting a complete stranger on the street just as easily. > > BTW, what is ‘financially dangerous’? One can already see the fantastical in this post. When you are financially dependent on someone, you are in a precarious position if something changes. And if you haven’t had a say in things like “I’d like to get a degree” or “I’d like to take this opportunity at work.” I’m not against large age differentials, but I do think large power differentials are troubling and healthy couples work toward decreasing those gaps. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/54 "2015-08-01T12:32:36Z")
Sorry, mangled that last post, but you know what I mean. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/55 "2015-08-01T14:16:55Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I suggest reading _“Mr. S, My Life With Frank Sinatra”_, by George Jacobs, Sinatra’s longtime valet who knew Farrow when Sinatra was with her. He and Farrow were friends and there doesn’t seem to be any indication his account was written to try to harm her to Woody Allen’s benefit. He describes quite clearly how Farrow dressed and behaved provocatively in order to seduce Sinatra, and he describes her plan to marry and have children by a succession of highly successful men of the arts, namely Sinatra, Leonard Bernstein, Picasso, J.D. Sallenger and Bob Dylan. (Bear in mind she was only 19 or 20 while hatching this insidious plan, having the idea in mind the whole time of divorcing one husband after the other while utterly unmindful of the hurtful effect it would have on the kids that resulted from these brief liaisons and the wrenching away from their fathers that would follow). This is one of the reasons I’ve come to believe Ronan Farrow is Sinatra’s kid. She apparently couldn’t pull off having kids by him while they were married so it seems she maintained an intimate relationship with him over the years and eventually managed to get herself impregnated by him, then forced Woody Allen to pay child support for him for 18 years. I read this book. There is no corroboration for Jacobs’s accusations. He states that Bernstein is homosexual (he was not) and Dylan was an invalid recouping from his motorcycle accident (which he wasn’t). Farrow made no mention of this claim in her book What Falls Away. Jacobs was fired by Sinatra, supposedly for going out dancing with Mia. He wrote his memoir after Sinatra died. And his past was hardly squeaky clean ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/56 "2015-08-01T14:26:48Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > When you are financially dependent on someone, you are in a precarious position if something changes. And if you haven’t had a say in things like “I’d like to get a degree” or “I’d like to take this opportunity at work.” Why exactly are you assuming that your partner having a paternal role means you aren’t working, aren’t getting a degree, are financially dependant or don’t have a say in your own life? 😕 You seem to have an extremely caricatural view in mind. You might be the main breadwinner and still seeking a paternal role in your partner. Both are essentially unrelated. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/57 "2015-08-01T21:06:22Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It’s enjoyable to be in relationships with younger women where you can play the role of teacher or advisor. It’s fun to have them look up to you and turn to you for advice, and it’s fun to show them things and watch them grow. Hugh Hefner and Mick Jagger are two guys I’ve heard or read talk about part of what they enjoy about dating young women is showing/teaching them things. > > I remember Hefner being asked how he felt at one of Playboy’s anniversary parties where tons of Playmates from previous years and decades were in attendance. He sort of laughed and he said, _“Like a very proud papa!”_, and Hefner’s women certainly weren’t children or child substitutes. Jagger has talked about how he enjoys teaching his girlfriends about music and art, wine, etc., and opening their eyes to some of the finer aspects to life they hadn’t known about before. > > I think this is what Woody Allen was talking about when he used the term ‘paternal’. He wasn’t speaking in a sexual sense or as a throwback to his alleged previous role as her father. He was talking about taking her under his wing and showing/teaching her things and opening her eyes to aspects of life she hadn’t known about before. > > And being a guy who, although a liberal by most measures, doesn’t seem to be in tune with political correctness or understand why his relationship with Soon-Yi should be scandalous, he just blurted out a word that seemed descriptive to him without realizing what it would sound like. Ew. FWIW, Mia Farrow may have been a bitch. But Woody wasn’t exactly Mister Rogers. If anything, they deserved each other. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2015, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/58 "2015-08-03T01:41:06Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > BTW, what is ‘financially dangerous’? One can already see the fantastical in this post. Being financially dependent, especially on a romantic partner. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2015, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/59 "2015-08-03T01:50:00Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > I read this book. There is no corroboration for Jacobs’s accusations. He states that Bernstein is homosexual (he was not) and Dylan was an invalid recouping from his motorcycle accident (which he wasn’t). Farrow made no mention of this claim in her book What Falls Away. > > Jacobs was fired by Sinatra, supposedly for going out dancing with Mia. He wrote his memoir after Sinatra died. And his past was hardly squeaky clean Re Bernstein I though it was pretty much accepted fact at this point that he was bisexual. [Even his wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Bernstein) references this at several points > [@](#): > > 1951–1959[edit] > > After much personal struggle and a turbulent on-off engagement, he married the Costa Rican-born American actress Felicia Cohn Montealegre on September 10, 1951. One suggestion is that he chose to marry partly to dispel rumors about his private life to help secure a major conducting appointment, following advice from his mentor Dimitri Mitropoulos about the conservative nature of orchestra boards.[21] Bernstein was bisexual, and married to a woman. In a book released in October 2013, The Leonard Bernstein Letters, his wife reveals his homosexuality. Felicia writes: “you are a homosexual and may never change—you don’t admit to the possibility of a double life, but if your peace of mind, your health, your whole nervous system depend on a certain sexual pattern what can you do?” Arthur Laurents (Bernstein’s collaborator in West Side Story) said that Bernstein was “a gay man who got married. He wasn’t conflicted about it at all. He was just gay.”[22] Shirley Rhoades Perle, another friend of Bernstein, said that she thought “he required men sexually and women emotionally.”[23] But the early years of his marriage seem to have been happy, and no one has suggested Bernstein and his wife didn’t love each other. They had three children, Jamie, Alexander, and later Nina.[24] There are reports, though, that Bernstein did sometimes have brief extramarital liaisons with young men, which several family friends have said his wife knew about.[23] ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2015, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632/60 "2015-08-03T17:51:09Z")
> [@astro](#): > > No to excuse the skeeviness of the situation, but just as a historical note I think the chances are 99.99 percent at this point that his purported bio-kid, Ronan Farrow, is actually Frank Sinatra’s bio-kid. He had no actual biological children with Farrow. I have to agree. Look at this [pic](http://pagesix.com/2013/10/09/ronan-farrow-set-to-become-the-next-anderson-cooper/). He is the spitting image of Sinatra. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-woody-allen-really-that-stupid/726632.md?page=4)