The head of a trendy clothing company being sued by Woody Allen insists that lawyers won’t try to delve into the film director’s personal life at an upcoming trial.
“I have deep respect for Mr. Allen, who is a source of inspiration for me,” American Apparel Inc. founder Dov Charney said in a statement.
Allen sued the Los Angeles-based company for US$10 million after it used his image on its billboards in Hollywood and New York and on a website.
Allen claims he never gave permission for the displays, which were taken down after a week.
Company lawyers had signalled they were considering calling Allen’s former companion, actress Mia Farrow, and his current wife Soon-Yi Previn—Farrow’s adopted daughter—as witnesses to show that his image has already been devalued by scandal.
In papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Monday, Allen called it a “brutish attempt to smear and intimidate” him.
In his statement, e-mailed Wednesday night, Charney denied reports that Farrow and Previn would be summoned to the witness stand.
“The media has misinformed the public that American Apparel supposedly plans to make Woody Allen’s personal life the central focus of the defence,” he said. “This is false.”
Farrow and Allen’s relationship ended in 1992, when she discovered he was having an affair with Previn, then 22.
During a custody fight, Farrow accused Allen of sexually abusing their adopted daughter Dylan, then 7. Allen was exonerated of the abuse charges, but Farrow won sole custody.
One of the company’s billboards featured a frame from Annie Hall, a film that won Allen a best-director Oscar. The image showed Allen dressed as a Hasidic Jew with a long beard and black hat and Yiddish text. The words “American Apparel” were on the billboard.
Charney said the billboards “were intended to be a parody/social statement and comedic satire.”
Allen testified at a December deposition that he considered the advertising “sleazy” and “infantile.”
