Weathering the Storm

This has nothing to do with inclement weather. What we're talking about here is how the noteworthy and the famous overcome, or fall victim to, sex scandals.

Flamboyant and outspoken, Dublin-born Oscar Wilde was a novelist (The Picture of Dorian Gray), playwright ("The Importance of Being Earnest"), poet, and essayist who, at the height of his popularity in Victorian England was arrested and tried for "gross indecency," a term meaning homosexuality acts shy of buggering, bringing to a head the famed wit's indiscreet association with working-class male prostitutes, cross-dressers, and homosexual brothels.

Lord Alfred Douglas (right), Oscar Wilde's
friend and lover, called what they shared "the
love that dare not speak its name." It was
Alfred's father, the Marquess of Queensberry,
who first publicly accused Wilde of being
a "posing sodomite."

Wilde was found guilty of gross indecency and sentenced to two years of hard labor, which consisted of hours of walking a treadmill and separating fibers in scraps of old naval ropes. Wilde was jailed from May 1895 to May 1897 at two London prisons, where the inmates were forbidden to talk to each other and were allowed to read only the Bible and the Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress.

The regimen of "hard labor, hard fare, and a hard bed" took its toll on Wilde's delicate health. Physically and artistically, he would never recover. After his release, he spent the last three years of his life in impoverished self-exile in France, spending what little money he had on alcohol. "I am dying beyond means, I can't even afford to die," he said. "I can write, but have lost the joy of writing." Before his death in Paris from cerebral meningitis in 1900 at age 46, he joked, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go."

Particularly because this is called the Moviehouse, we're going to look at how some significant filmmakers contended with personal scandals. This investigation is spurred by the recent premiere of "The Birth of a Nation," a stirring drama based on the 1831 slave revolt led by Nat Turner, written, produced, and directed by its star, Nate Parker. The movie's reception, which had been preceded by rumors of Oscar certainty, was tainted when details of a 1999 sexual assault trial involving Parker and Jean Celestin (the film's co-writer) surfaced.

According to Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan, Nat Turner "dreamed of ending the institution of slavery once and for all." Nate Parker, Turan said, "dreamed of making a historical epic that portrayed a black man as a universal revolutionary hero who stood up for freedom and liberty, very much like William Wallace in Mel Gibson's 'Braveheart.'" In his review for The New York Times, A.O. Scott noted that Parker wanted to depict Nat Turner "as a prophet and a political thinker, a mystical visionary who is also a canny tactician and theorist, an amalgam of Malcolm X and William Wallace, the hero of 'Braveheart.'" (Less than three months after the slave revolt, Nat Turner was hanged, and not unlike Scotland's William Wallace, his body was defiled, as an example to deter future rebels.)

Turan said Parker hoped his movie would help foster a national discussion about its "still festering legacy." Scott commented, "'The Birth of a Nation' presented itself as an indispensable document not only of the country's brutal past but also of its inflamed and polarized present."

Kenneth Turan found Nate Parker's acting "convincing," but "by taking on directing, producing and writing, as well, he may have stretched himself too thin. 'The Birth of a Nation' certainly has the power of conviction, but the grace of art escapes  it." Similarly, A.O. Scott wrote, "As the movie progresses toward its bloody climax, Mr. Parker's gifts as an actor...are undermined by his choices as a director. He occupies the center of the frame and strikes a series of poses, bellowing exhortations at his followers."

The Los Angeles Times review by Kenneth Turan bore the
headline: "'The Birth of a Nation' wields its emotions like
a blunt instrument when subtlety is called for."

Turan, who noted that "emotional filmmaking runs the risk of being overdone, and that is a problem here," called "The Birth of a Nation" a picture that is "in some ways at war with itself, a film where execution clashes with its intentions." However, he added, "'Birth of a Nation' is admirably ambitious...You have to admire the passion and emotionality Parker brought to 'Birth of a Nation.'" Scott likewise remarked that Parker "has attempted something grand and accomplished something very real. The movie, uneven as it is, has terrific momentum and passages of concentrated visual beauty."

After the movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in August, details re-emerged about the sexual assault case against Nate Parker and Jean Celestin when they were roommates and wrestling teammates at Penn State in 1999.

College wrestlers Jean Celestin (left) and Nate Parker (right)
pose with Olympic freestyle wrestler Kerry McCoy.

The two young men were accused of raping a fellow student. The unnamed victim said that she was raped while she was intoxicated and slipping in and out of consciousness. She said she was unsure of how many people had been involved, although it was alleged that Parker, as he was having sex with her, invited Celestin and another male to join in for a four-way; Celestin complied, while the other student left. The accuser stated that Parker and Celestin harassed her after she pressed charges.

Nate Parker, who maintained the encounter was consensual, was acquitted. Jean Celestin was initially convicted, but the charges were dropped after he appealed. Sadly, in 2012, the accuser committed suicide. When he only recently had learned that the victim had killed herself, Parker posted on Facebook that he was "devastated" and "filled with profound sorrow" over the news. While still insisting he was innocent, he shared his regrets over he handled the case. "I look back on that time," he wrote, "my indignant attitude and my heartfelt mission to prove my innocence with eyes that are more wise with time. I see now that I may not have shown enough empathy as I fought to clear my name."

The week before "The Birth of a Nation" was released to theaters, Parker, in the words of The New York Times, "generated one damaging headline after another," prompted by his apparent cavalier attitude toward the legal case as he appeared on "60 Minutes," "Good Morning America," and "The Steve Harvey Show."

Nate Parker is interviewed by Steve Harvey. (Apparently, that
huge sign is there to remind the audience what they got their
free tickets for.)

"The Birth of a Nation" contains a scene depicting the violent rape (albeit historically inaccurate) of Nat Turner's wife, portrayed by Aja Naomi King (pictured below, with Nate Parker), by white men. The scene is there to help justify Turner's rebellion. Writing in Variety, the sister of Parker's alleged victim, reflecting on the immense pain that the release of Parker's film brought to her and her family, said, "I find it creepy and perverse that Parker and Celestin would put a fictional rape at the center of their film, and that Parker would portray himself as a hero avenging that rape...I find this invention self-serving and sinister, and I take it as a cruel insult to my sister's memory."

In the "60 Minutes" interview, the filmmaker maintained his innocence, saying he did not feel guilty about the incident while backhandedly conceding that, from the perspective of a now 36-year-old man, he had done something morally wrong. However, he declared, "I was falsely accused...I went to court...I was vindicated. I feel terrible that this woman isn't here...Her family had to deal with that, but as I sit here, an apology is - no." The Hollywood Reporter regarded his promotional rounds as "Nate Parker's Failed Media Tour."

Inevitably, as stated by A.O. Scott in The New York Times, "The ugliness of the episode...triggered public rejections of the movie." Two days after the picture's October 7 release, The New York Times reported, "Any lingering hope that 'The Birth of a Nation' could push past a controversy surrounding its star, Nate Parker, to become a financial success and an awards contender appeared to end over the weekend, when it arrived to an estimated $7.1 million in ticket sales - flop territory, especially since the film was backed by an aggressive marketing campaign."

Fox Searchlight Pictures (which distributed the acclaimed "12 Years a Slave" in 2013) paid $17.5 million, the highest price in its history, to acquire "The Birth of a Nation" for distribution, along with an additional $10 million spent on marketing.

"Given its start," The New York Times reported, "Mr. Parker's film - even with strong word of mouth - will be lucky to collect a total of $30 million at the domestic box office." Analysts predicted low interest overseas, based on the premise that the picture tells an exclusively American story with a cast not well-known outside of North America.

Los Angeles Times reported, "Moviegoers weren't the only ones ignoring 'The Birth of a Nation' this weekend." The screening for the Motion Picture Academy drew a mere 250 of 1000 seats at Samuel Goldwyn Theater on Wilshire Boulevard. Excuses for no-snows ranged from distaste over details of the rape case, disdain for Parker's indifference concerning questions about his past while promoting the movie, and "a general fatigue with movies about slavery," which included 2012's "Django Unchained," the 2016 reboot of the "Roots" miniseries, and 2013's "12 Years a Slave."

At one time hailed as an immediate Oscar front-runner and an almost certain guarantee that the 2017 Academy Awards wouldn't be a white-wash like 2016's, "The Birth of a Nation" was basically "anointed out of Sundance," in the words of one Academy member, "with the media telling us that if we didn't vote for it, we would be again considered racist." Another Academy member carped, "This guy ruined a woman's life and then complains how hard it's been for him. (Forget) him. There's no way I'm going to support that."

Nat Turner himself (pictured above) was a historical figure who invited criticism. The Confessions of Nat Turner, a fictional narrative by the enslaved rebel written by novelist William Styron (author of Sophie's Choice), was published in 1967, in the midst of a turbulent decade of racial tension, civil unrest, and counterculture revolution. The book was criticized for racist stereotyping. According to The New York Times' A.O. Scott, Styron depicted Turner as a "psychopath."

Styron's friend, African-American writer James Baldwin, endured criticism for his 1962 novel Another Country, igniting outrage over his choice of a white woman as the protagonist who becomes involved with a black jazz drummer. Following the publication of The Confessions of Nat Turner, Baldwin told an interviewer that Styron was "going to catch it from both sides."

Particularly controversial in Styron's faux memoir was a passage in which Nat Turner fantasizes about raping a white woman. The author also included a homosexual encounter between Turner and another slave boy. Despite the controversy, the novel was a runaway best seller and critical success, garnering the author the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Time magazine included it in its 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

But we digress. In respect to the off-screen controversy, The New York Times critic A.O. Scott called "The Birth of a Nation" "simultaneously the must-see and the won't-see movie of the year." Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan noted, "Like any artistic endeavor...the film deserves to stand on its own merits."

Scott commented, "People stay away from Woody Allen and Roman Polanski's movies because they believe that to do otherwise would be to condone - or at least not to condemn strongly enough - the sexual crimes of which those directors have been accused."

Which brings us to Fatty Arbuckle (pictured above). Silent film actor-writer-director Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was one of the most popular stars of the 1910s. He mentored Charlie Chaplin and discovered Buster Keaton and Bob Hope. One of the highest paid actors in Hollywood, he signed a contract in 1920 with Paramount Pictures for $1 million (approximately $13 million in 2016 dollars). Arbuckle disliked his screen nickname "Fatty," a sobriquet he had borne since his schooldays. In his comedies, he never used his weight to get laughs. Offscreen, he discouraged people from addressing him as "Fatty," reminding them, "I've got a name, you know."

A rare photograph captures Buster Keaton smiling - almost -
standing alongside Roscoe Arbuckle.

In September 1921, Arbuckle hosted a three-day bacchanal at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, at which a 25-year-old bit player named Virginia Rappe (pictured below) fell ill allegedly after disappearing into a bedroom with Arbuckle. She died four days later of a ruptured bladder.

Believing her death was a result of rape, authorities charged Arbuckle with manslaughter. After three separate trials, from November 1921 to April 1922, Arbuckle was formally cleared of any wrongdoing. No evidence of a rape was found or entered into the trials. The third trial was followed by a statement of apology from the jury for the "great injustice that had been done him."

Roscoe Arbuckle (third from right) appears pensive
in the courtroom. (We love those hats!)

Despite the acquittal, the scandal ruined Arbuckle's career. His films were banned from theaters for a year. He managed to direct numerous comedy shorts using the alias William Goodrich before returning to acting (as Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle) in the early 1930s.

Longtime comedy sidekick Al St. John and Roscoe "Fatty"
Arbuckle star in 1933's "Buzzin' Around."

Roscoe Arbuckle died in his sleep of a heart attack in 1933 at age 46, on the same day he signed with Warner Bros. to make a feature film.

During Arbuckle's first trial, his friend, Charlie Chaplin, who was in England at the time, spoke up in his defense, telling reporters that he neither could nor would believe Arbuckle had anything to do with Rappe's death. Chaplin said he knew Roscoe to be "a genial, easy-going type who would not harm a fly."

Roscoe Arbuckle and Charlie Chaplin play inebriated
neighbors in "The Rounders" (1914), produced by Mack
Sennett and written and directed by Charlie Chaplin.

London-born Charlie Chaplin himself was no stranger to scandal. His first wife, Mildred Harris, a former child star transitioning into leading roles, was 16 and purportedly pregnant when the 29-year-old Chaplin married her in 1918. The pregnancy was a false alarm, but she later gave birth to a son, who died in infancy. They separated in 1919 and divorced a year later.

Charlie Chaplin felt the teenaged Mildred
Harris wasn't his intellectual equal; she
later said, "I couldn't live with a genius."

Wife number two,  actress Lita Grey, was 16, as well, when she she started dating the now 35-year-old Chaplin in 1924. He insisted to the press that she was 19. When he learned she was pregnant, he urged her to get an abortion. To evade a threatened statutory rape charge, Chaplin married the starlet. The unhappy union, which produced two sons, lasted three years. According to Grey, Chaplin's "revolting" and "inhumane" abuse included his demand that she take part in a threesome.

As part of the largest divorce settlement at the time, Charlie
Chaplin (pictured above with Lita Grey) was ordered to pay
over $700,000 for their two sons.

In 1932, 22-year-old actress Paulette Goddard (pictured below, with Charlie Chaplin), who would later costar in Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" and "The Great Dictator," started a relationship with him. Reportedly, they were married in secret in Canton, China, in 1936. Near the end of their six-year marriage (she was granted a Mexican divorce in 1942), the 52-year-old Chaplin started seeing aspiring actress Joan Barry, who was 22 at the time. The affair lasted intermittently from summer of 1941 to fall of 1942.

This is where the FBI entered the picture. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had long been obsessed with the leftist leanings of Chaplin, who was often deemed a communist. He was admittedly pro-Soviet Union but denied being a communist, preferring to call himself a "peace-monger."

Nevertheless, the FBI wanted Chaplin out of the country. Hoover used the Barry affair to launch a smear campaign against Chaplin as the FBI named him in four indictments related to the Barry case, the most serious of which was an alleged violation of the Mann Act, which prohibits the transportation of women across state borders for sexual purposes. If found guilty, the filmmaker faced the possibility of a two-decade prison sentence. Three of the charges lacked sufficient evidence to pursue in court, but Chaplin did go on trial for violating the Mann Act. Newsweek called it the "biggest public relations scandal since the Fatty Arbuckle murder trial in 1921." Within two weeks, Chaplin was acquitted.

Following two physician-assisted terminated pregnancies, Joan Barry gave birth to a daughter, Carol Ann. In October 1943. Barry's mother, who had custody of the child, slapped Chaplin with a paternity suit. Two weeks later, it was announced that he had married his 18-year-old protegee, Oona O'Neill, the daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill. The 36-year age difference caused a scandal, moving her father, who already disapproved of her desire to be an actress, to sever his relationship with her. In his autobiography, Chaplin called meeting her "the happiest event of my life," claiming to have found "perfect love."

Charlie Chaplin confers with an attorney
during his paternity trial.

The paternity suit went to trial in February 1945. Evidence from blood tests which proved that Chaplin was not the father was ruled inadmissible, and the judge ordered Chaplin to pay child support until Carol Ann turned 21.

Joan Barry sits alongside daughter Carol
Ann. Barry married in 1946. She had two
sons before suffering mental illness. After
her mother was committed, Carol Ann lived
with a legally appointed guardian and
changed her name.

Chaplin claimed that the paternity case "crippled" his creativity. In 1947, he produced, directed, and starred in "Monsieur Verdoux," a dark comedy about a jobless bank clerk who marries and murders wealthy widows. The film provided him with the opportunity to express his political views, which criticized capitalism while arguing that the world encourages mass killing. He was booed at the premiere, and there were calls for a boycott. It was the first Chaplin release that failed both critically and financially in the U.S.

Chaplin decided to hold the world premiere of his next film, 1952's "Limelight," in London, since that was the setting for the story (although it was shot in a Hollywood studio). The movie was boycotted in the U.S. and wouldn't be released in America until 1972, at which time the music score (co-composed by Chaplin) won an Oscar.

Wed in 1943, Charlie Chaplin and Oona remained married until
his death in 1977. They had eight children. (Oona's like-named
granddaughter, Oona Chaplin, portrayed Queen Talisa Stark on
the HBO series "Game of Thrones.)

As he left Los Angeles for London, Chaplin said he had a premonition that he would not return. "Whether I re-entered that unhappy country or not was of little consequence to me," he wrote in his autobiography. "I would like to have told them that the sooner I was rid of that hate-beleaguered atmosphere the better, that I was fed up with America's insults and moral pomposity."

Chaplin made only two more movies after "Limelight." "A King in New York" (1957) was his last starring role. The satirical take on the communist witch hunt in the McCarthy-era U.S. took potshots at American commercialism, popular music, and celebrity culture. British playwright John Osborne ("Look Back in Anger") called it Chaplin's "most bitter" and "most openly personal" film. Chaplin banned American journalists from attending the movie's premiere in Paris and decided not to release it in the U.S. It would not be shown in America until 1973.

The last film Chaplin wrote, scored, produced, and directed was the 1967 romantic comedy "A Countess from Hong Kong," starring Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren. Sydney Chaplin, the son of Charlie and Lita Grey, had a major supporting role, while three of Chaplin's daughters with Oona (including Geraldine, the mother of "Game of Thrones" costar Oona Chaplin) also appeared in the film. Chaplin himself had a cameo as an elderly, seasick ship's steward.

In 1972, Charlie Chaplin returned to the U.S. (albeit hesitantly) for the first time in 20 years to accept an honorary Academy Award, presented by Jack Lemmon (pictured below). He received a 12-minute standing ovation, the longest in the Academy's history.

"Rosemary's Baby" (1968) marked a change of pace for producer William Castle, a sensationalistic showman known for producing and directing a number of gimmicky B-movie thrillers in the late '50s and '60s, including "House on Haunted Hill," "The Tingler," and "13 Ghosts." Castle was hoping for the opportunity to finally direct a prestigious A movie, but the studio insisted on hiring Roman Polanski to direct the picture from his script, based on the best-selling novel by Ira Levin.

Roman Polanski has star Mia Farrow in his sights
on the set of "Rosemary's Baby." 

"Rosemary's Baby," regarded as one of the best horror movies ever made, was the first American production for Polanski, already a renowned filmmaker in Europe. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay. (Ruth Gordon won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.)

Roman Polanski met Sharon Tate on the set of "The Fearless
Vampire Killers," a 1967 horror comedy Polanski co-wrote,
directed, and costarred in as an apprentice vampire hunter.
They were married on January 20, 1968.

Shortly after midnight on August 9, 1969, Roman Polanski's pregnant, 26-year-old wife, actress Sharon Tate, and four others were brutally murdered in her Benedict Canyon home by members of the Manson Family. Polanski, who was in London at the time, blamed himself for the horrific killings and sank into a deep depression.

He returned to filmmaking in 1971 with a gloomy, bloody adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy "Macbeth." Three years later, Polanski received a Best Director Oscar nomination for "Chinatown," a nihilistic film noir starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston.

"Hello, Claude, where'd you get the midget?" Roman Polanski
(left) makes an impression on Jack Nicholson in a memorable
cameo in "Chinatown."

In March 1977, Roman Polanski was hired to photograph for the French edition of Vogue magazine. He arranged for a private poolside photo shoot with 13-year-old Samantha Gailey - with her mother's permission - at the home of his friend, Jack Nicholson.

After being plied with champagne and Quaaludes, Samantha realized what Roman's real intentions were. To make a sordid story short, a grand jury charged Polanski with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor. Ultimately, he pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful sex with a minor.

Polanski was released from custody after serving 42 days when he was told that prosecutors had agreed to ask the court for probation on his behalf. Told that the judge intended to reject the plea bargain, the filmmaker promptly bought a one-way ticket to Paris and fled the country. He publicly offered an apology to Gailey, telling her he regretted the episode.

Nastassja Kinski, the star of Roman Polanski's "Tess," accompanies
the director to the Cannes Film Festival in 1979. Despite rumors of
a romance, Kinski insisted their relationship was a "flirtation."

Polanski continued making movies in Europe, some to much acclaim, like "Tess," which garnered him an Oscar nomination as Best Director, and "Frantic," starring Harrison Ford and Emmanuelle Seigner, a French actress whom Polanski married and featured in a number of his films.

Another Cannes, 34 years later...Roman Polanski
looks up to wife Emmanuelle Seigner at the 2013
festival. Emmanuelle is 33 younger (and four
inches taller) than Roman. They have two children:
Elvis Polanski and older sister Morgane Polanski,
an actress best known for her role as Princess Gisla
in The History Channel series "Vikings."

In 2003, Polanski was awarded the Best Director Oscar for "The Pianist," based on the memoir by Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew who survived the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto by Nazi troops in World War II. The heralded motion picture also garnered Academy Awards for star Adrian Brody and screenwriter Ronald Harwood.

Harrison Ford, the star of Roman Polanski's "Frantic," presents
the filmmaker with his Academy Award for directing "The Pianist"
in Deauville, a posh seaside resort in northwestern France.

In September 2009, Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland but was released after Swiss authorities denied a U.S. request for the director's extradition to face sentencing for the statutory rape of Samantha Gailey.

The now 49-year-old Samantha Geimer (pictured below) wrote a book about the incident in 2013, titled The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski, in which she admitted that she felt more wounded by what she called the "victim industry" of lawyers, judges, and journalists, all of whom, she felt, sensationalized her case for their own interests, than by the episode itself.

When Polanski was nominated for the Oscar for directing "The Pianist," Samantha wrote an editorial for the Los Angeles Times, arguing that the film ought to be judged on its own merits.

In October 2015, on the heels of another American request for extradition, a judge in Poland refused to comply. Geimer supported the judge's decision, saying that Polanski "said he did it, he pled guilty, he went to jail. I don't know what people want from him."

In a letter to Geimer that she reprinted in her book, Roman Polanski, who, to this day, remains in self-exile overseas and has lived mostly in France, stated, "I want you to know how sorry I am for having so affected your life."

Storm clouds gather as Woody Allen accompanies longtime
partner Mia Farrow (star of Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby")
and one of Farrow's many adopted children, Soon-Yi Previn. 

On the topic of Woody Allen and his so-called sex scandal involving Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow and former husband, composer Andre Previn, let's make one point clear from the onset: Because Allen and Farrow had never married, Woody was never Soon-Yi's legal stepfather.

Around 1980, Woody Allen began a 12-year relationship with Mia Farrow, who would star in 13 of his films, from 1982 to 1992. They never lived together, preferring separate residences on opposite sides of New York City's Central Park.

The first movie Woody Allen made with Mia Farrow was 1982's
"A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy," costarring Jose Ferrer,
Tony Roberts, and Mary Steenburgen. Mia Farrow was nominated
for a Razzie Award as Worst Actress.

Soon-Yi, born in Korea, was a child when her mother abandoned her in the slums of Seoul. She was adopted by Andre Previn and Mia in 1978, at which time a bone scan determined she was between six and eight years old.

In December 1987, Farrow gave birth to her and Woody's son, Satchel O'Sullivan Farrow, later known as Ronan. Mia told Vanity Fair magazine in 2013 that Ronan could "possibly" be the biological child of her first husband, Frank Sinatra, whom she claimed she "never really split up" with. In December 1991, a New York City court allowed Woody Allen to co-adopt two of Mia's adopted children, Dylan and her brother, Moses.

In January 1992, Mia Farrow was at Woody Allen's home and came across nude photos he had taken of Soon-Yi. Needless to say, this precipitated a bitter end to the long-term relationship between Allen and Farrow. Later that year, Mia said that seven-year-old Dylan told her she had been sexually abused by Allen, who denied the allegation and sued for full custody of Ronan, Dylan, and Moses. A police-appointed medical team gave sworn testimony in a deposition that either Dylan invented the charge or Mia planted the story in her mind. Nevertheless, a judge rejected Allen's custody bid and denied him visitation rights with Dylan.

Dylan (pictured above) publicly renewed her allegation of abuse by Allen in February 2014, while Moses earlier asserted that Mia had abused him, adding that Mia coached the children into believing allegations she made up about Woody.

After the acrimonious split, Allen continued seeing Soon-Yi, and she moved in with him. They were married on December 23, 1997. They have two adopted daughters.

Soon-Yi and Woody Allen attend the premiere of "Irrational
Man" (2015), written and directed by Allen. "The heart wants
what it wants," Allen famously said. "There's no logic to these
things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that's that."

As of September 2016, Mia has 11 surviving children, four biological, seven adopted. Three of her adopted children are deceased, two after long illnesses and one an apparent suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot. Unsurprisingly, Mia remains estranged from Soon-Yi.

Professionally, Woody Allen emerged from the controversy unscathed. His first film following the breakup, 1993's "Manhattan Murder Mystery," reunited him with his former live-in lover and frequent pre-Farrow costar, Diane Keaton (who had previously appeared in seven of this pictures). Since then, Allen's films have earned him two Oscar nominations as director and five nominations for his screenplays, resulting in a win for writing 2011's "Midnight in Paris" (as has been his practice for years, he skipped the ceremony).

Equally impressive, Allen's movies have elicited Academy Award-winning performances from actresses Dianne Wiest ("Bullets Over Broadway"), Mira Sorvino ("Mighty Aphrodite"), Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona") and Cate Blanchett ("Blue Jasmine").

On the other hand, in 2001, when the 66-year-old Allen wrote, directed, and starred in "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" with the 38-year-old Helen Hunt, The Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, a now-defunct rival of the Golden Raspberry Awards, "honored" the film with a Worst On-Screen Couple nomination for "Woody Allen and any actress decades younger."

Possibly the most curious episode in our Moviehouse casebook of scandals involving filmmakers is the story of the man who wrote and directed the 2001 horror hit "Jeepers Creepers" and its equally successful sequel, 2003's "Jeepers Creepers 2," Victor Salva.

"There's nothing scarier than a clown after midnight." - Alfred
Hitchcock..."Clownhouse" writer-director Victor Salva poses
with his cast of killer clowns.

In 1986, Victor Salva's 35-minute short "Something in the Basement" won first place in a video competition at the American Film Institute. One of the judges, Francis Ford Coppola, was so impressed he offered to produce Salva's first feature, "Clownhouse," a low-budget thriller about a trio of escaped mental patients dressed up as clowns menacing a household of three young brothers.

When "Clownhouse,"  which was allegedly the first horror picture shown at the Sundance Film Festival, premiered in 1989, writer-director Salva was behind bars. In 1988, Salva had been charged with sexual misconduct with the 12-year-old star of "Clownhouse," Nathan Forrest Winters, during production. Salva allegedly videotaped one of the encounters. Commercial videos and magazines containing child pornography were seized at this home.

Nathan Forrest Winters (center) shares a scene in "Clownhouse"
with Sam Rockwell (right). This was the first film for Rockwell,
whose subsequent roles included Chuck Barris in "Confessions
of a Dangerous Mind" and "Wild Bill" in "The Green Mile."

Salva pleaded guilty to lewd and lascivious conduct, oral sex with a person under 14, and procuring child pornography. He was sentenced to three years in a state prison. He served 19 months and completed his parole in 1992.

Now a registered sex offender, Salva waited a few years to return to filmmaking in 1995, writing and directing "The Nature of the Beast," a direct-to-video supernatural thriller starring genre actors Lance Henriksen, Eric Roberts, and Brion James.

Then, Disney, seemingly oblivious to the filmmaker's lurid criminal past, distributed Salva's theatrical release, "Powder" (1995), a drama about an albino youth with an incredibly high IQ and telekinetic powers that make him an outcast at his high school. Sean Patrick Flanery, who starred in the TV series "Young Indiana Jones," played the troubled pariah in a cast that featured Mary Steenburgen as a sympathetic child services psychologist and Jeff Goldblum as a sensitive physics teacher.

Jeff Goldblum, Sean Patrick Flanery, and Mary Steenburgen
act out a scene in "Powder."

When "Powder" was released, Salva's former abuse victim, Nathan Forrest Winters, now 20, emerged in an attempt to urge others to boycott the picture. He led a small group of protesters outside an industry screening of the movie, passing out leaflets that read, "Please don't spend your money on this movie. It would just go to line the pockets of this child molester." One sign proclaimed, "Support the Victim, Not the Victimizer." Winters' mother called Salva's return to filmmaking "absolutely outrageous...It just makes me sad...He should not be allowed to live his life as if nothing happened."

Mary Steenburgen, who didn't know about Salva's past and had nothing but respect for him as a proficient filmmaker during the shooting of "Powder," later issued a statement in the belief that an ex-felon has the right to work. "I am saddened for everyone involved," she said, "but one aspect of America is that if someone pays for their mistakes, they have the chance to redeem themselves."

Victor Salva relaxes with Mary Steenburgen and
Jeff Goldblum on the set of "Powder."

Victor Salva told an interviewer, "It's not like I don't know the terrible ramifications of my actions. I've been very upfront with the family. I've been very upfront with everybody about what happened. I've done my time. I paid restitution. I've done everything possible." In another statement, he declared, "I paid for my mistakes dearly. Now, nearly ten years later, I am excited about my work as a filmmaker and look forward to make a positive contribution to our industry."

All this isn't to say that "Powder" is not without scenes of unsettling homoeroticism, including recurring shots of Flanery's naked or semi-clad physique and an extended moment of squirm-inducing tenderness between Goldblum and Flanery as the latter strokes the young man's ashen face and bald pate, cooing, "I need a friend - did you ever have a friend?"

There's no denying that Victor Salva's subsequent pictures contained elements that would bring back to mind the filmmaker's questionable private life, particularly "Jeepers Creepers" and "Jeepers Creepers 2." Both movies (executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola), presented in a back-to-back time frame, concern a winged demonic figure in a flowing duster coat known as the Creeper who resurrects himself every 23rd spring for 23 days to feed on humans and harvest their body parts for its own body.

Victor Salva directs Jonathan Breck as the Creeper
in "Jeepers Creepers 2."

Victor Salva was a monster movie fan since adolescence, yet he always identified with the creatures. Like himself, as he saw it, they were the tortured victims. "The monster is the most interesting thing about the movie," he once noted. "I wonder what he's thinking and feeling."

From the onset, "Jeepers Creepers" presents an odd couple of protagonists by pairing Justin Long 

("Waiting," "Accepted," "Drag Me to Hell") and Gina Philips ("Ally McBeal," "Boston Public") as siblings - not the typical horror flick pairing of boyfriend-girlfriend - which leads to a degree of eyebrow raising over their relationship.

In "Jeepers Creepers," the hideous ghoul becomes obsessed with Justin Long's character after smelling his underwear. The sequel features lingering photography of a busload of shirtless high school jocks terrorized by a window-sniffing Creeper. According to Roger Ebert, "Jeepers Creepers 2" "has a healthy interest in the male physique, and it's amazing how many of the guys walk around bare-chested. The critic John Fallon writes, 'At a certain point, I thought I was watching soft gay erotica.'"

Sure, the driver and your basketball coaches have been
snatched off the country road like field mice in the talons of
a barn owl, but why would that stop a busload of stud-bench
warmers from catching rays on the bus top.

The original "Jeepers Creepers" was one of the year's surprising breakout hits and set a world record for the largest Labor Day weekend box offices ever. "Jeepers Creepers 2" broke its predecessor's box-office record and established another Labor Day weekend milestone.

In 2006, Victor Salva directed "Peaceful Warrior," based on the semi-autobiographical novel The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by gymnast Dan Millman and featuring lingering shots of the musculature of star Scott Mechlowicz (as Millman). Nick Nolte handily steals the picture as a mystical service station mechanic called Soc, short for Socrates.

Victor Salva (left) attends the premiere of "Peaceful Warrior"
with the real-life Dan Millman and actor Scott Mechlowicz.

Obviously remaining a supporter of Victor Salva, Francis Ford Coppola will be executive producing "Jeepers Creepers 3: Cathedral," written and directed by Salva. The film, which got the green light to go into production in September of last year, is planned to be released in 2017.

In a 1999 interview, Nathan Forrest Winters, then 23 and delivering newspapers in Clinton, Washington, carped, "It's just ridiculous that (Salva) served 19 months. I deal with what he did every day. It makes it hard for me to function normally. I have problems with depression, like really getting down on myself...feeling really bad."

At the California Training Facility in Soledad, California, Salva, in his words, was beaten "beyond recognition." He recalled, "I was never more scared or closer to death than I was in prison. I received no therapy there. Prisons are not places for rehabilitation or learning to understand yourself or your actions. They're monster factories."

"As far as the law goes, he's paid his debt," Winters' mother said in resignation about the man who was once a family friend. "But I don't think he should be around children. Ever." Nathan and his mother do not have any future demonstrations in mind. "We told the world," she said." If any parents allow their children to work with him, that's on  them."

The last word goes to Victor Salva: "I don't choose my subject matter, it chooses me...Would I tell a story about a child? I probably would."

...and the storm, not unlike Sonny & Cher's "beat," goes on...