HOLLYWOOD—Academy Award-winning actor Dustin Hoffman has been accused of sexual harassment by at least two women. Hoffman’s accusations are the latest in a string that have emerged in Hollywood after the ouster of producer Harvey Weinstein over rape and sexual assault allegations in October.
According to a column in The Hollywood Reporter, writer Anna Graham Hunter said that, as a 17-year-old intern working on the 1985 television adaption of “Death of a Salesman,” Hoffman groper her and discussed topics of a sexual nature in front of her. She maintains she has entries in a journal from that time period detailing specific incidents.
Hoffman responded, saying that the behavior he “might have” exhibited is not reflective of who he is as a person and that he was sorry to “put [Graham Hunter] in an uncomfortable situation.”
On Thursday, November 2, a second woman came forward alleging that Hoffman also harassed her. Television writer Wendy Riss Gatsiounis told Variety magazine that Hoffman implicitly propositioned her for sex during a 1991 meeting. He reportedly asked the younger woman if she had “ever been intimate with a man over 40.”
Gatsiounis also alleged that the actor invited her to come along with him to a nearby hotel for “clothes shopping.” When discussing the incident with her agent afterward, Gatsiounis relayed that she was nearly in tears.
Hoffman has not responded to the second set of allegations. He is known primarily for his Academy Award-winning roles as Best Actor in 1979’s “Kramer vs. Kramer” and the 1989 film “Rain Man.”
