# Woody Allen's autobiography cancelled by publisher **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 6, 2020, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028 "2020-03-06T21:03:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/161 "2020-03-28T06:15:40Z")
Cannot wait to buy it. ---
**Author:** ![Casparlatete](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/casparlatete/32/3377_2.png) [@Casparlatete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casparlatete)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/162 "2020-03-29T13:04:35Z")
Thanks eunoia for pin-pointing Lional Shriver’s delivery on Allen in my link above. There’s also more boisterous support for him from Taki in The Spectator; '… Which brings me to Woody Allen. It used to be called being railroaded, now it’s called justice. Justice for whom, I ask you. Mia Farrow is a fabulist who has a Medea-like revenge in mind because Woody dropped her and went for a young South Korean whom Farrow had long ignored and maltreated after having adopted her for the publicity. The two Farrows, Ronan and Dylan, I think of as egregious liars and publicity freaks. Woody was twice judged innocent of Dylan’s charges in the ’90s, yet the cancel culture prevails and kills Woody’s memoir. In other words, how dare he publish something that Mia and Ronan and Dylan don’t agree with? The trio would have fitted in nicely back in the ’30s in Berlin. Woody Allen, as good an artist as there is nowadays, is canceled by three of the biggest phonies on the planet, and Hachette plays along, as outrageous an injustice as there is, but par for the course. Cowardice is not new, especially in movies and publishing. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/163 "2020-03-29T13:50:37Z")
> [@Casparlatete](#): > > There’s also more boisterous support for him from Taki in The Spectator; Taki in the Spectator is a right-wing nutjob, or the British equivalent. He doesn’t have any credibility. I see that you carefully removed what he said immediately before the paragraph you quoted. Here it is: > [@](#): > > On a more serious matter, the deficiencies of globalisation are revealed when people who have been lulled to sleep by those EU con artists wake up to countless threats while the unelected scrubbers in Brussels drink and make merry, though no longer at our expense. The mainstream left-wing media is as complicit as hell in the latest fiasco, more concerned that no Chinese person feels insulted than with what the criminal commie government tried to conceal. > > Globalisation is a fait accompli. There is no turning back, alas. But a re-examination of our reliance on China as ground zero for manufacturing needs a second look. Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods were long overdue, but then up popped the virus, so people put two and two together and got five. The Chinese rulers are bad and mad but they didn’t infect us on purpose. Still, China took away factory production from Uncle Sam, and I’d like to see the good uncle claim those jobs back. But will Americans sit in large numbers behind sewing machines stitching up clothing? Nah, the jobs should leave China and head for Vietnam and Bangladesh. Americans watch too much television and cannot stay awake over assembly lines fitting electronics into circuit boards. Also one needs strength of character and patience to work on an assembly line, and Americans are now too feminised by the constant #MeToo propaganda to be able to hold firm. Plus they cry so easily now, and everything upsets them. They actually root for movie superheroes to defeat super monsters. The whole nation has been dumbed down to moronic levels. > > Which brings me to Woody Allen… And what he said immediately after: > [@](#): > > America has turned into a bad joke, a paradise for phonies, self-important grievance-mongers, foul-mouthed whiny women, vomit-inducing feminists and New York Times imbeciles. Not that France is any better, but at least they had the guts to give my friend Roman Polanski first prize. I was around Polanski in the year that his latest accuser claims to have been raped by him. It seems strange that the woman in question kept silent all these years, then suddenly went public the day his great film about Dreyfus was released. > > This should sound a bell to wake us all up about what is happening. The phonies have taken over and are using strong-arm tactics to silence anyone they don’t agree with. Quoting Taki in support of Woody Allen doesn’t do him any favours. ---
**Author:** ![Casparlatete](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/casparlatete/32/3377_2.png) [@Casparlatete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casparlatete)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/164 "2020-03-29T15:56:57Z")
GreenWyvern; Taki’s views on the USA, Polanski or anything else are not the subject of this thread, he has views on many things like we all do, perhaps you don’t agree with them, but quoting them as if they in some way nullify what he has to say about the Allen family does not remove their validity. Woody has been stitched-up & anything said by anybody in his support \*does \*do him a favour in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/165 "2020-03-29T17:07:38Z")
> [@Casparlatete](#): > > GreenWyvern; Taki’s views on the USA, Polanski or anything else are not the subject of this thread, he has views on many things like we all do, perhaps you don’t agree with them, but quoting them as if they in some way nullify what he has to say about the Allen family does not remove their validity. Woody has been stitched-up & anything said by anybody in his support \*does \*do him a favour in my opinion. On the contrary, the fact that Taki is opposed to feminism in general, opposed to #MeToo, friendly with Polanski, boasts of his sexual conquests, etc. is highly relevant. Taki knows nothing more about Allen than anyone else does, but he will support him on general principles regardless. He knows what his readers want to hear. He is not a person whose opinion carries any weight. It means nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Casparlatete](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/casparlatete/32/3377_2.png) [@Casparlatete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casparlatete)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/166 "2020-03-29T22:14:02Z")
GreenWyvern; I see you are a person of the, “shoot the messenger” type, preferring to dismiss someone entirely because their views on ‘A’ don’t chime with your views on ‘B’, which is easier than countering what has actually been said by reasoned argument. In such a narrow-minded outlook, it appears that one must either agree with someone’s position on everything they uphold, or dismiss any utterance they make on any subject, which is like saying, either one has to agree with everything, say, Nietzsche has said, or nothing at all? am I correct? ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2020, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/167 "2020-03-30T05:41:40Z")
:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2020, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/168 "2020-03-30T06:06:12Z")
Back in 2003 he had deals for an autobiography for a total of nearly $5 million dollars–but reportedly wanted more so didn’t do the book: > **[TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN ; WOODY’S TELL-ALL BOOK NO ‘SLEEPER;’ POT NOW UP TO $5M](https://nypost.com/2003/10/17/take-the-money-and-run-woodys-tell-all-book-no-sleeper-pot-now-up-to-5m/)** > > FILMMAKER Woody Allen has found a U.S. publisher for his racy tell-all autobiography. He’ll be getting an advance estimated to be about $2.7 million from Penguin’s Riverhead imprint for… With only a 75,000 first printing from a minor publisher it is clear he is going to make only a small fraction of what he could have made in 2003. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2020, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/169 "2020-03-30T07:14:43Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > With only a 75,000 first printing from a minor publisher it is clear he is going to make only a small fraction of what he could have made in 2003. 75,000 hard cover at $27. No paperback edition yet. But a LOT of people buy ebooks by preference today. It’s currently #1 in Movie History & Criticism on Amazon’s Kindle store, and rated 4.6/5. And how are sales in countries other than the USA? ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/170 "2020-04-05T05:08:50Z")
I’ve read the book. It was entertaining, quite funny in places. It didn’t change my mind about anything. I still think Woody’s icky but short of being a sex criminal. I still think Mia’s a monster, hiding behind her “saint who adopts crippled children” persona. I wasn’t aware that Woody’s movies lost as much money as they apparently do, or that Tony Roberts and Michael Murphy are not, in fact, the same person. He doesn’t mention Babi Christina Engelhardt, the teenage (at the time) model he is alleged to have dated in the 70s. I find his explanation of the Mariel Hemingway flirtation unconvincing. I compiled the budgets and grosses as estimated by the IMDB\* to get a context for the lawsuit against producer Jean Doumanian and her business partner / boyfriend Jacqui Safra. Those movies lost a metric shit-ton of money, possibly because Doumanian and Safra forgot to distribute them in Europe. If you believe Mia, this won’t change your mind. If you believe Moses, this won’t add much in the way of information. Woody has some glaring moral blind spots, but he doesn’t slap his kids or throw telephones at them. Mia scares me way more and always has. * * * \*These involve a lot of guesswork and “Hollywood accounting,” but when the domestic gross and worldwide gross are the same number, you just know someone was asleep at the switch. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ecks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bcef8e/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ecks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ecks)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2020, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/171 "2020-04-14T13:23:43Z")
So, I’ve finished it and it was fine. He comes off as someone I would like to meet, but not to know, if that makes sense. I got tired of his aw, shucks, I’m just a Jewish kid from Brooklyn” act pretty fast- he’s been an industry insider since high school, and he drops names every paragraph, he can’t have it both ways. His constant asides about how attractive this or that woman was make it clear that he’s a letcher. I found the bits about the molestation accusations a slog, and his justifications for his relationship with Soon-yi are thin and unconvincing. I would have respected him more if he simply said he was wrong but he loves his wife too much to regret it; alas, we get pages and pages of evil Mia and poor abused Soon-yi. Despite all that, he’s smart and funny and it’s interesting to hear the origins of his films and his opinions of them. The story of his rise through the show business ranks is worth reading, though I would have liked more details about the nuts and bolts writing and moviemaking process. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2020, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/172 "2020-04-14T20:39:24Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ecks](#): > > So, I’ve finished it and it was fine. He comes off as someone I would like to meet, but not to know, if that makes sense. I got tired of his aw, shucks, I’m just a Jewish kid from Brooklyn” act pretty fast- he’s been an industry insider since high school, and he drops names every paragraph, he can’t have it both ways. > His constant asides about how attractive this or that woman was make it clear that he’s a letcher. > I found the bits about the molestation accusations a slog, and his justifications for his relationship with Soon-yi are thin and unconvincing. I would have respected him more if he simply said he was wrong but he loves his wife too much to regret it; alas, we get pages and pages of evil Mia and poor abused > Soon-yi. > > Despite all that, he’s smart and funny and it’s interesting to hear the origins of his films and his opinions of them. The story of his rise through the show business ranks is worth reading, though I would have liked more details about the nuts and bolts writing and moviemaking process. Sounds good. The wife and I will be making an Amazon order this week, and I’m definitely going to include this book if it’s there. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2020, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/173 "2020-04-22T07:15:21Z")
I ordered _Apropos of Nothing_ from Barnes & Noble last week, and it arrived yesterday. Will start reading it this week. Looking forward to it. I hope I catch some old biddy giving me the evil eye for reading it so I can start running my tongue around my lips suggestively. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2020, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/174 "2020-04-24T04:04:35Z")
LOL! ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/175 "2020-05-04T01:36:37Z")
Finished _Apropos of Nothing_. Loved, loved, loved it. I would not change a single word. My thanks to every poster in this thread, because I did not know beforehand that his autobiography was ready to come out, and you helped bring it to my attention. Woody is one of only a handful of writers from whom I’ll buy a hard-cover copy. Every single poster in this thread is responsible for my putting money straight into in Woody’s pocket. I thank you, and Woody thanks you. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/176 "2020-05-29T07:32:19Z")
Bumping this thread for a good article in the Guardian today, ahead of the release of _A Rainy Day in New York_ in the UK: [‘Do I really care?’ Woody Allen comes out fighting](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/may/29/do-i-really-care-woody-allen-comes-out-fighting) The article is balanced and generally supportive of Allen, but not uncritical. > [@](#): > > … > > Allen can be, at best, naive and, at worst, obtuse. Reviewers of the memoir have gleefully pulled out the comments he makes about Scarlett Johansson and Léa Seydoux’s attractiveness, while ignoring his long paeans on the talents of Diane Keaton, Dianne Wiest, Judy Davis and many more. He writes that he has “a reputation as someone obsessed with young women. I have used the May-December ploy as a comic and romantic theme a few times, just as I have used psychoanalysis or murder or Jewish jokes, but only as good material for plots and laughs.” > > This is true, but you will never guess which of these plots features in Rainy Day (clue: it is not psychoanalysis or murder). So I ask, given that he knows what people think about him, did he not consider ditching the plotline about the middle-aged director (Liev Schreiber) lusting after a college student (Elle Fanning), or declining to make a joke in his memoir about Johansson’s pheromones? > > “No, I never think about that for a second,” he says. “ It’s hard enough to get a good joke for the situation. That’s what you concern yourself with. The rest is of absolutely no importance.” In other words: Allen does not think he needs to tread carefully, because he has done nothing wrong. > > … > > Allen is innocent: this is according to the law and the agencies that investigated him. Dylan and Ronan believe he is guilty. It is the latter view that has led some to lobby universities to drop him from film courses, exclude his movies from film festivals and talk about him as if he were a criminal. But this attitude is immoral unless it is proved he committed a crime – and, 28 years later, no one has been able to pin so much as a parking fine on him. > > Many point to his movies as evidence of wrongdoing, but it is the height of intellectual laziness to conflate film plots about older men and twentysomething women with child molestation. A 21-year-old woman is not – and this, apparently, cannot be said enough with regard to Allen – a seven-year-old girl. It is extraordinary how many people argue otherwise, claiming to do so in the name of feminism. You may not like Allen’s movies – or his marriage – but people can be complicated, even unlikable, without being criminal. > > There are signs that some people are starting to realise this, and to question some of the narratives around him. Despite the pandemic, the lack of a US release and having been disowned by its star and other cast and crew members, Rainy Day is Allen’s most successful film in years. Perhaps the public simply wearied of a story that has not changed in decades. Perhaps some took the time to read the facts. > > … ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/177 "2020-05-29T22:48:23Z")
Great excerpt, thanks. I really want to see _A Rainy Day in New York_, but I live in the U.S. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/178 "2020-05-31T09:26:07Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Great excerpt, thanks. I really want to see _A Rainy Day in New York_, but I live in the U.S. ☹ Indeed. My wife is arguably Woody’s biggest Thai fan. We both would love to see _Rainy Day_. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/179 "2020-05-31T15:57:53Z")
I bought and read Allen’s book. I’ve mentioned from time to time that I have a huge humor collection, which includes virtually every book by every comic and comedian in the 20th century. So there was no possible way I wasn’t going to get this book. It was a disappointment. Not actively bad, but certainly not very good. The timeline is odd, skipping from point to point in his career without laying the proper foundations. That makes it repetitious when he circles back to talk yet again about something he already covered. He’s an annoying narrator. A drinking game that has you chug every time he tells you he’s not good at what he does would destroy a St. Patrick’s Day parade. He’s an unreliable narrator, namedropping incessantly while insisting that he doesn’t socialize with celebrities. Those tales typify what’s really wrong with the book. Every time he’s eating at Elaine’s with Aristotle, Spinoza, Bergman, and Henny Youngman he makes a point to mention what great, funny stories they told. And then never repeats them. That’s really all we want from a celebrity autobiography. Great anecdotes. Funny stories. Insights into other stars. People they’ve slept with. We get only the last bit. Louise Lasser was seriously insane, but he still loved her. Mia Farrow was seriously insane, but he’s careful not to singe her personally but only through the damaging effect he claims she had on her children. Soon-Yi had a childhood that Dickens would have rejected but became a sane, intelligent, wonderful love of his life. (Remember the childhood invented for Angela Abar in _The Watchmen_ tv series? That’s Soon-Yi.) What we get instead are pages and pages of “I filmed X, Y, and Z with a great cast and then I never watched it again. Never. I kept no papers or mementos. I never talk to anybody while I’m not filming. I have nothing to say on any subject despite the obsessions that occur repeatedly in my films.” _Apropos of Nothing_ is the perfect title. Nothing is at the book’s core. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028/180 "2020-05-31T19:01:04Z")
Since he’s 84 maybe he cannot remember those funny stories others told him . [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woody-allens-autobiography-cancelled-by-publisher/849028.md?page=10)