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By Krash

Enigma or a nigra? You decide!
    “...the true sexual outlaw and source of power in America was not the Jew but, once more removed, the boo..”
    Thus wrote film director James Toback in his long-out-of-print hagiography “JIM: The Author’s Self-Centered Memoir on the Great Jim Brown”: “...I had been posing all along, posing as a spook, the personification of whose world I had now gone to face....”
    Twenty years later, SPY’s rib-splitting, finger-licking investigative assault, “Squirm-O-Rama: James Toback’s Guide to, uh, Casting Actresses”, dated March 1989, backgrounds the racially and sexually obsessed Hebraic hedonist as follows:
    “...Even before he became a somewhat visible tax-write off for friend and producer Warren Beatty, Toback had captured a portion of the public’s attention by writing a book...about the orgies in which he participated while hanging out at alleged girlfriend beater-football legend Jim Brown’s home. The most salient piece of advice Beatty is said to have given Toback is always to include some small part for a pretty young actress in every motion picture--and to schedule auditions for
that part late in the day...”
    Wrote Toback in his self-referentially titled tome: “...Jim, informing me that he goes to a discoteque nearly every night, no matter what city he’s in, takes me there, wearing a black dashiki with yellow-and-red embroidery, tight, sharply flared pants, and a heavy gold medallion with
a naked woman on it...
    ....Warren Beatty, sitting with twins in identical dresses, jumps up to shake hands...
    ...the next recollection I have of that evening finds me in my room with one of the girls... transported for celebration... The time quickens, hardens, into long solid clouts, thuds. Tossing, throwing, pinning her legs. Whooping. Riding...
    “Boom-Boom [Brown’s procurer] and I meet two girls from UCLA at Chicken Delight. ....we take them to Jim’s, eat, dance, make love...”
    Cluck to the future, and the New York Post, dated today, September 16, 1999, for this look at Toback’s esthetic evolution: “...his [latest movie] opens with two teenage white girls in a sexual sandwich with an African-American fellow. Later, we see a white kid in a sexual sandwich
with two African American women...”
    Does that come on whitebread? And can you hold the balls?
    According to Toback’s “Jim”: “...[Sez Boom-Boom] ‘What makes the ladies love Boom-Boom, want his mouth on their pussy, their mouth on his dick, his dick in their cunt?...It’s because of his big, fleshy, black lips, his deep, dark skin and the fat length of his big thing..’
    Just so long’s they don’t mess with Jim:     
    “....[Sez Brown] ‘I take my ladies, and then I send them off [a balcony] when the time comes....’
    “...Jim is making his rounds...Jane Fonda is there and [soon-to-be Manson Family homicide victim] Sharon Tate...I drift into an old friend, a delicate girl of angled, Nordic beauty...and embark with her on an orgy... Jim joins.
    “...as we head out, Jay Sebring [soon to perish with Sharon Tate] stops Jim... Roman [Polanski, husband of doomed Sharon Tate] wants him to stay...
    “...[Later at Brown’s Hollywood Hills house] a group of BEU [Brown’s now-defunct Black Economic Union] staff workers...have been working day and night for a week on a poverty program for the South...I see a lush mural, bodies disrobed, several hard black male forms, hers [another
white college girl Toback had earlier f---ed], seated, supine, curled, contorted. Laughter, smiles; grunts and groans of delight..”
    Additionally, this scene of orgiastic miscegnation prompted Toback to reflect on other literary moments of black/Jewish erotic angst: from Saul Bellow’s “Mr. Sammler’s Planet”--"...The black man had opened up his fly and taken out his penis. It was displayed to Mr. Sammler with great oval testicles, a large tan-and-purple uncircumsized thing...”; and from Norman Mailer’s “American Dream.”

Clearly Toback was under the spell of, among other things, 1968’s quasi-fictional masterwork ‘A Fan’s Notes’--Frederick Exley’s worshipful, alcoholic ode to famed footballer Frank Gifford, which, for all the author’s groupie-like fixation on Gifford, is cold and clinically distant when compared to the heavy-breathing interracial suckjob that is “Jim”.

And although Exley would expire of multiple alcohol-related diseases--almost 30 years later, an astonishingly Tobackian scenario would unfold as Frank Gifford found himself entrapped by The Globe tabloid with his hand in the nookie jar--followed asynchronistically by Norman Mailer’s son’s betrothal to Donald Trump’s former mistress in what the New York Post, dated April 8, 1999, summarized thusly: “...Marla Maples has a new man in her life... Michael Mailer, [wife-stabbing] author Norman Mailer's filmmaker son. The pair met a few months ago when Marla was shooting James Toback's ‘Black & White,' which Michael Mailer is co-producing. Since then they've been nearly inseparable, and can frequently be seen canoodling....”
    And when it comes to canoodling, Toback wrote the book: “...Jim ...leads us [Toback and a “date”] all into his room. Jim comes in with a girl he’s met dancing...a dark low room, a wide low long bed, all of us on it, naked. Mixed doubles. Mounting, I serve first...The bed sways, swings, bounces...Two become one, four become two, then four one; blending, melding. Black and white...”
    Fade to Spy: “Toback can frequently be spotted casting future motion pictures in the Fairway market at Broadway and 74th Street whiling away entire afternoons importuning females asa they shop for fresh fruits and cheeses....Many... were offered.. parts in major motion pictures to be
directed by James Toback...
    “Toback offered us no movie roles... he became agitated. ‘I am going to be dangerous--I don’t care what the consequences are,’ he told an editor, adding unnecessarily, ‘I am not a normal human being...’
    “...He went on grimly, ‘If you print this piece, I promise it will be the single thing you regret most in your life.’ When pressed for details, he said, ‘Think of your very worst nightmare...’”
    “... ‘Two Girls and a Guy’ [stars] Robert Downey Jr. in a performance that should get as much notice as his off-screen antics... ...Warren Beatty, best friend of the movie's director, James Toback, is one of the hosts of the April 22 screening ... Another of the evening's hosts is [wife-stabbing novelist] Norman Mailer, whose son Michael is an executive producer.. Then there's Harvey Keitel, also one of Toback's bosom buddies [who stars as a multiple rapist in Toback’s 1978 ‘Fingers’
--also starring Jim Brown as a glamorous, woman-beating pimp]...Downey... apparently needs his probation officer's permission to attend... [April 6, 1998: New York Post ]    
    "‘All addicted people— be it drugs, alcohol, gambling — are drawn to each other because of a kindred spirit, a love not so much of self-destruction as a need for turmoil,’ says Toback.” [February 2, 1997: Daily News:]    
    "‘Hi, honey,’ Toback says to Downey.
    ‘Hi, sweetie,’ Downey says, the two of them joshing their way into Downey's character as Shields' gay husband.
    ...Downey had been sent to the clink by a Los Angeles judge after admitting he used drugs while on probation. But tonight he looks healthy, handsome and as sober as the judge who sentenced him.... [November 11, 1998: Daily News]
    “[Convicted rapist] Tyson, portraying himself, has agreed to appear in the film as a guru-like figure who's there to lend a hand — I didn't say fist.” [September 18, 1998, Daily News   
    “...Tyson nearly strangles a homosexual (played by Robert Downey Jr.) who starts hitting on him. "Please, please, friend, I'm on parole," Tyson says, as he backs up against a window before exploding into violence. [New York Post, September 16, 1999]
    “It's Back Behind Bars for Downey” [August 6, 1999: Daily News hed]
    “... Tyson has been incarcerated for assaulting two motorists..." Aug. 31 [Daily News, March 14, 1999]
    More from the Jim playbook: “...What, moreover, is the psychological and significance of the triangular relation of pimp, hooker and john in contemporary America if not the realization of black revenge? The white prostitute, f---ed, and so won, possessed, by the black man, will allure, nail, white men....”
    Claudia Schiffer and Mike Tyson... were shooting for ‘Black & White’.... In the scene, Schiffer and Tyson were having a drink, and Schiffer was musing on how, during paleolithic times, people thought that women became pregnant without the help of men. "They believed that women were everything," said Schiffer... "They still are, baby," said Tyson... [October 20, 1998, Daily News ]
    “William Lee Scott may have trouble getting work in Hollywood again after what he said about his co-stars -- including Mike Tyson ...and Claudia Schiffer in her acting debut....'Claudia does not have the brains to actually figure out a way to sleep with that many people. She looked like she could barely get herself from here to the door, man.....’ [Scott] knows just how big a pain in the ass Mike can be..." [February 3, 1999 New York Post]
    “....Brooke Shields says Mike Tyson came on to her when he played himself in a scene for their new movie, ‘Black and White.’....Shields...described her improvised on-camera exchange with Tyson as ‘one of the most interesting, devastating experiences I've had in film. ‘Every emotion was tapped into, and they never cut the camera,’ she says. ‘Mike came on to me. I tried to nurture him out of his anger [from a previous scene] and he got insulted by that. Then I tried to seduce him slightly because that was where I thought I had him most.’ The moment the scene ended, Shields says the ex-champ became furious and shouted that she was crazy.” [May 10, 1999: Daily News]    

Concluded Toback, according to the New York Post, dated September 28, 1998, "This is the most original movie ever made.” Either that--or an egregious instance of Jim Crow. Is the jig up for Toback? Stay tuned.

Brandy's Fling With James Toback

Brandy Alexandre writes: Since you mention Jim Toback on your site, here's a heavily edited excerpt from my book "Shot-on-Video: Everything You Wanted To Know About a Life in Porn and a Few Things You Didn't." Remember this is before porn...

______ I didn't have sex with Jim Toback in the traditional way. He was the writer and director for Beatty's rotten movie, The Pick-up Artist. I struck up a conversation with him and mentioned I wanted to be a production assistant. He invited me to the Shangri-la in Santa Monica to "discuss" the possibility. Always willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt, I went.

He talked about actresses who f--- their way into the work they get, using Tanya Roberts, as an example. (Of course I don't know if that's true, but having seen her work I can believe it.) He was apparently leading up to the suggestion I take the same approach, even if I was only looking for grunt work. It wouldn't have been entirely out of the question; there were many directors I had met with whom I would gladly have a quickie--like John Landis, Peter Weir, Taylor Hackford, Sydney Pollack--just not Jim Toback.

He started to get a little touchy-feely, but, sensing my unease, told me he wasn't interested in sex. All he wanted was for me to pinch his nipples while he played with my boobs and ground his crotch against me. I obliged; it was all pretty harmless. Besides, if that's all he wanted, and if it would get me some work, why not? Messy for him, clean for me. The guy got off in his undies and I never even took off my clothes.

I left my phone number with him and he promised to keep me in mind when his next project came around. I bet you can guess how that turned out.

XXXInsider: Hey--I've got something for you on that Brandy Alexandre-Jim Toback story. I don't know if you are getting this, but I have hard her tell the exact same story aobut Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters, Twins, Dave) and John Sigleton (Boyz N The Hood). I seriously doubt that all three of these guys wanted to have their nipples clamped or whatever.

Writer Joanne Parrent writes in the editor's introduction to the book "You'll Never Make Love in This Town Again":

"...A year or so later, I was coming out of the Writers' Guild building when James Toback, a writer-director (Gambler, Bugsy), approached me, introduced himself, and asked if I was an actress. I said I had studied acting. (I had started to write dramatic films now and thought studying acting would be helpful.) He asked me if I was free for lunch. He wanted to talk to me about a role in a script he had just written. He thought I would be perfect for it...

"At lunch, he asked me a "philosophical" question--would I sleep with someone for a million dollars? I later learned that this question preoccupies many men in Hollywood--the glamorized male-fantasy film "Indecent Proposal" was certainly a product of this widespread preoccupation. I was also later to hear the joke that when a woman answers "yes" to the million dollar question, then the guy says, "Well, will you sleep with me for five dollars?" Indignant, the woman says, "No! I'm not a whore!" He smiles and, in typical Hollywooddeal-making style, says, "We already established that you're a whore. Now, we're just negotiating the price."

"Back to my lunch with Toback, I didn't take the bait. I told him I wouldn't sleep with a guy I didn't want to sleep with even for a million dollars. I wondered what this stupid question had to do with his script. Nothing, it turned out. But he did ask me to read the script he'd written and meet with him later. It had to be today because he was going back to New York tomorrow. That bait I took. I read the script....

"I met Toback again later that afternoon...Toback told me I was perfect for the lead in this movie. If the studio wouldn't agree to let me play the lead, he promised, then I could at least have the role of the second female lead...I agreed to go back to Toback's house to "run lines" from the script with him. It wasn't long, however, before this "audition" became more like a scene from a soft-porn movie. Toback suddenly grabbed my thigh and stuck his other hand into his pants, clutching his little hard thing, moaning and pulling it out. I jumped up and told him I was leaving. He reluctantly put his penis back in his pants, apologized, and then tried to get my sympathy by telling me that he was sexually abused as a child by an older man. I suggested that he see a therapist and was soon out of there, grateful that he hadn't tried to use force."

Tim Evanson writes on RAME 04/00: James Toback's "Black and White" just opened in theaters. It's a film about race relations in America (broadly). However, according to the April issue of "Brill's Content" magazine (http://www.brillscontent.com), the film has been censored because it contains an inter-racial sex scene. In one scene, a black man, black woman and white woman are in a park.

The black man -- a rapper (he's played by a rapper, but I don't know which one) with a muscular body -- has no shirt on, and he faces the black woman. The black woman opens her shirt, exposing her breasts and rubbing them against the black man's chest. As the two black people kiss, the black man plays with the black woman's breasts and nipples. The black man undresses the black woman, so her pants fall around her ankles. The white woman stands behind the black woman. The white woman opens her shirt, too, and rubs her breasts against the black woman's back. (Notice the lesbian theme.) Suddenly the white woman reaches down (just below the frame), and her hand and arm begin moving back and forth suddenly.

The idea is that the black man's huge penis has been thrust between the black woman's legs, and is sticking out behind the black woman. The white woman is masturbating him. After more kissing, more breasts rubbing on backs, and more masturbation, the black man cums. According to "Brill's", the MPAA demanded that the scene be re-cut so that the white woman's arm and hand movements are not conspicuous. The idea is not that sex in a public place is bad. The idea is not that lesbian sex is bad. The idea is that black people having sex is bad.

The MPAA found it objectionable that a white woman "submit" and be "forced" to masturbate a black man to orgasm in a public place. Toback fought the MPAA, says the magazine, but eventually gave in. The frame of the movie has been cut and blown back up to fill the screen. The white woman's arm movements are not very noticeable now. (It is, however, obvious that the black man cums. Of course, now viewers will be left with the impression that he's f---ing the black woman and came inside her.)

JonLee replies: I saw that movie, and I'm black. Whether that scene was censored or uncensored, I don't give a damn. It sounds like you're just trying to create hype to get people to read that magazine or see that movie. All I know is that I don't recommend anyone wasting their time or money going to see that flick, unless they want a cure for insomnia. Boring stuff.