The daily dish... a spicy serving of celebrity news
Unexpectedally…
Roman Polanski’s arrest has caused his victim health problems and job worries, and she just wants to be left alone, her attorney wrote in a court filing.
Attorney Lawrence Silver says Samantha Geimer is urging a California appeals court to dismiss the criminal case against the “Chinatown” director.
The filing with the 2nd District Court of Appeal on Friday said Geimer and Silver have received nearly 500 media calls seeking comment since Polanski was arrested in Switzerland on Sept. 26.
Geimer, who long ago identified herself publicly, and her family have to contend with such pressure whenever Polanski is in the news, the six-page filing said.
“The pursuit has caused her to have health-related issues,” it said. “The pursuit has caused her performance at her job to be interfered with and has caused the understandable displeasure of her employer and the real possibility that Samantha could lose her job.”
The filing seeks dismissal of the case against Polanski and ends with a request: “Leave her alone.”
Geimer has frequently lobbied for an end to the case.
The latest statement filed on her behalf asks a Superior Court judge to rule on a previous motion to dismiss the case.
The Academy Award-winning director is resisting efforts to return him to Los Angeles.
Taking a stand…
“Crash” director Paul Haggis has severed his ties with the Church of Scientology, in part because of the organization’s stance against gay marriage.
Haggis wrote a letter addressed to Tommy Davis, the head of Scientology’s Celebrity Centre. In it, Haggis said he was disappointed by the church’s tacit denial of gay rights and its backing of California’s gay marriage ban.
The 56-year-old Haggis, who won an Oscar in 2005 for co-writing “Crash,” said he was quitting the church after 35 years.
“I could not, in good conscience, be a member of an organization where gay-bashing was tolerated,” Haggis wrote.
The filmmaker said that he was promised that action would be taken but that he was frustrated after time passed.
“Silence is consent, Tommy,” Haggis wrote. “I refuse to consent.”
View from the stage…
Scarlett Johansson will star opposite Liev Schreiber early next year in a Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge.”
Producer Stuart Thompson says the production will open Jan. 24 at the Cort Theater. Previews begin Dec. 28.
Schreiber will portray a Brooklyn longshoreman who is obsessed with his 17-year-old niece, played by Johansson. The revival will be Johansson’s Broadway debut.
Schreiber won a Tony Award for his performance in the 2005 revival of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross.”
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