38 women have come forward to accuse director James Toback of sexual harassment

Writer-director James Toback attends the premiere of his latest movie, "The Private Life of a Modern Woman," at the Venice Film Festival last month. (Filippo Monteforte / AFP/Getty Images)

Writer-director James Toback attends the premiere of his latest movie, "The Private Life of a Modern Woman," at the Venice Film Festival last month.

He prowled the streets of Manhattan looking for attractive young women, usually in their early 20s, sometimes college students, on occasion a high schooler. He approached them in Central Park, standing in line at a bank or drug store or at a copy center while they worked on their resumes. His opening line had a few variations. One went: “My name’s James Toback. I’m a movie director. Have you ever seen ‘Black and White’ or ‘Two Girls and a Guy’?” Probably not. So he’d start to drop names. He had an Oscar nomination for writing the Warren Beatty movie “Bugsy.” He directed Robert Downey Jr., in three movies. The actor, Toback claimed, was a close friend; he had “invented him.” If you didn’t believe him, he would pull out a business card or an article that had been written about him to prove he had some juice in Hollywood. That he could make you a star. But first, he’d need to get to know you. Intimately. Trust him, he’d say. It’s all part of his process. Then, in a hotel room, a movie trailer, a public park, meetings framed as interviews or auditions quickly turned sexual, according to 38 women who, in separate interviews told the Los Angeles Times of similar encounters they had with Toback. I felt like a prostitute, an utter disappointment to myself, my parents, my friends. And I deserved not to tell anyone. — Adrienne LaValley, actress During these meetings, many of the women said, Toback boasted of sexual conquests with the famous and then asked humiliating personal questions. How often do you masturbate? How much pubic hair do you have? He’d tell them, they said, that he couldn’t properly function unless he “jerked off” several times a day. And then he’d dry-hump them or masturbate in front of them, ejaculating into his pants or onto their bodies and then walk away. Meeting over. The women’s accounts portray James Toback as a man who, for decades, sexually harassed women he hired, women looking for work and women he just saw on the street. The vast majority of these women — 31 of the 38 interviewed — spoke on the record. The Times also interviewed people that the women informed of the incidents when they occurred. As is often the case, none of them contacted the police at the time. When contacted by The Times, Toback denied the allegations, saying that he had never met any of these women or, if he did, it “was for five minutes and have no recollection.” He also repeatedly claimed that for the last 22 years, it had been “biologically impossible” for him to engage in the behavior described by the women in this story, saying he had diabetes and a heart condition that required medication. Toback declined to offer further details. The women interviewed during The Times’ investigation offered accounts that differed from Toback’s recollections. “The way he presented it, it was like, ‘This is how things are done,’” actress Adrienne LaValley said of a 2008 hotel room encounter that ended with Toback trying to rub his crotch against her leg. When she recoiled, he stood up and ejaculated in his pants. “I felt like a prostitute, an utter disappointment to myself, my parents, my friends. And I deserved not to tell anyone.” “In a weird sense, I thought, ‘This is a test of whether I’m a real artist and serious about acting,’” remembered Starr Rinaldi, who was an aspiring actress when Toback approached her in Central Park about 15 years ago. “He always wanted me to read for him in a hotel or come back to his apartment, like, ‘How serious are you about your craft?’” He told me he’d love nothing more than to masturbate while looking into my eyes. — Louise Post, guitarist and vocalist for Veruca Salt “And the horrible thing is, whichever road you choose, whether you sleep with him or walk away, you’re still broken,” Rinaldi continued. “You have been violated.” Like Harvey Weinstein, Toback, now 72, was a big, hulking man with a reputation, so much so that he titled his 1987 semi-autobiographical movie “The Pick-up Artist.” He has been a writer/director since 1974; his most recent film, “The Private Life of a Modern Woman” starring Sienna Miller, premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Media profiles often referred to him as a womanizer. Lurking underneath were darker rumors of creepy behavior, reported in 1989 by Spy magazine and, more recently, by Gawker. According to the 38 women who spoke to The Times, the scope of Toback’s behavior was far more serious. “He told me he’d love nothing more than to masturbate while looking into my eyes,” said Louise Post, who met Toback in 1987 while attending Barnard College. Post, now a guitarist and vocalist for the indie rock band Veruca Salt, added: “Going to his apartment has been the source of shame for the past 30 years, that I allowed myself to be so gullible.” In the wake of Oscar-winning producer Harvey Weinstein being fired after reports revealed decades of sexual misconduct, many women have been coming forward with tales of harassment, abuse and assault. On the Twitter hashtag campaign #MeToo, Toback has his own special universe. The Veruca Salt account tweeted on Monday: “Us too: by bosses, boyfriends, male babysitters, taxi drivers, strangers and movie director/pig #jamestoback #metoo.” “It’s a common thread among many women I know … after someone mentions they were sexually abused by a creepy writer-director, the response is, ‘Oh, no. You got Toback-ed,’” said Karen Sklaire, a New York drama teacher, actor and playwright who said a 1997 meeting with Toback in an office ended with him grinding against her leg. “The numbers are staggering.” Toback isn’t a household name. That’s why he always kept his credentials handy when he introduced himself to women. But Toback amassed a solid body of work over four decades: His 1974 debut, “The Gambler” starring James Caan, the three movies with Downey Jr., a sympathetic documentary about boxer Mike Tyson and, of course, that Oscar-nominated screenplay for “Bugsy,” the 1991 portrait of gangster Bugsy Siegel, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Beatty and Annette Bening. Toback’s movies often examine extremes — gambling, drinking, womanizing — that he says overlap with his own demons. "The idea is not to have a separation between my life and my movies," Toback said in a 2002 Salon interview. His characters are often on edge — Harvey Keitel’s pianist in “Fingers,” the teenagers infatuated with hip-hop culture in “Black and White.” I was shocked and frozen and didn’t know what to do. I thought if I resisted, it could get worse. He could overpower me. — Terri Conn, actress As a writer/director, Toback liked to push the envelope sexually. The widely panned 2004 drama “When Will I Be Loved” opened with a five-minute shot of Neve Campbell masturbating with a shower nozzle. Off-screen he constantly brought up those provocative scenes, say the majority of the women interviewed by The Times, to see how far they were willing to go, both during the audition process and, should they be cast, in his movies. “The more time you spend with him, the weirder it gets until it’s like just like one giant red flag,” said Los Angeles radio reporter Anna Scott.