In the usual media-churned-ocean of post-Golden Globes buzz, I stumbled across a tweet by Mia Farrow’s son, Ronan: Missed the Woody Allen tribute – did they put the part where a woman publicly confirmed he molested her at age 7 before or after Annie Hall?
That, in turn, led me to the recent Vanity Fair article about Mia and her children. The sordid Woody/Soon-Yi spectacle hit while I was in college and largely oblivious to pop culture. Until this morning I had no idea that Woody had been investigated for molesting another of his adopted daughters, Dylan, who would later suffer from crippling depression:
The depression lasted all through college, exacerbated to high decibels twice when Allen succeeded in contacting her, Dylan said. The first time, she was bringing the mail in when she found a typewritten envelope addressed to her with a postmark from London. It was shortly before her 19th birthday, in 2004. Mia also saw the letter. According to Dylan, it said now that she was 18 he wanted to have a conversation. He was willing to meet anytime, anywhere, and would send a helicopter for her. He allegedly said he “wanted to set the record straight about what your mother has told you. Love, your father.”
Three years later, during her senior year of college, she said, a large stuffed manila envelope arrived at the school. “I should have recognized the handwriting—I didn’t. It had a fake return name: Lehman.” Inside she found “a four-inch-thick explosion of pictures of me and him—pictures, pictures, pictures everywhere. Some had tack holes in them. There was never anybody else in the pictures—there was definitely a theme going on.” None of them was inappropriate, but “it was scary.” According to her, the accompanying letter read, “I thought you’d want some pictures of us, and I want you to know that I still think of you as my daughter, and my daughters think of you as their sister. Soon-Yi misses you.” It was signed “Your father.”
“How do your daughters think of me as their sister?,” Dylan wondered. “How does that work?” She told me, “I held it together enough to get back to my room, and for three days I didn’t move. I wouldn’t answer my phone or answer my door.” She asked her mother to call her lawyers, and they were told that this did not constitute harassment. (When asked about the letters, Sheila Riesel, Allen’s attorney, called it a “private matter,” adding, “This is a man who loves all of his children and should be respected for that.”)
So this really fucking creeped me out. Not the helicopter part. The part about the package with the photos and the letter that reiterated his claim on her as a father. Creepy because my own father, Hank the Blank, sent me a similar package this past September. Despite my best efforts, the occasion sent me into a suicidal tailspin.
Before today I was a mild Woody Allen fan. Willfully oblivious, I think, to his private life scandals. I loved, and maybe still love, some of his movies. But after today, well, my entire body shivers in sympathy-pain for Dylan. There’s no question whose version I believe. I’ll be spending my entertainment dollars on other stories, with no regret.
Like me, Dylan later found a savior in a patient and compassionate husband. I hope one day to be a little less broken, so that I can give and receive the love that we humans need in order to deal with life on planet Earth.