James Toback vs. Robert Downey Jr.

And from a different interview with Indiewire:

"I wanted to make a movie. I hadn’t made a movie in a while and was getting restless. Downey [was just] getting out of prison and knowing most of those guys—it’s true of Mike Tyson too—when they’re getting out of prison is the best time to get them....right after 11 months of prison with about 200 dicks sucked in return for a lot of crack, you know there’s a totally different reality and that Downey is fascinating to watch."

I guess Toback goes looking for woman to date just outside rape crisis centers and battered women's shelters.

And somehow the most brutal.

All of this shit sounds like a spurned lover talking. It's beyond possessive and creepy. "I made them" has never been true about anybody worth boasting about. And the person who says such a thing never did it anyway.

No wonder Molly Ringwald ran for the hills.

Funny thing is Downey has a way of staying loyal to his supporters even when they pull some rank shit. Given that Toback has since been dropped down the Oompa-Loompa garbage chute, I wonder if he regrets burning this particular bridge?

The Pickup Artist was a flop.

Downey made a bigger splash in Less Than Zero. That was another flop, but at least people talked about it, and it made a little bit more money beyond its reported budget.

My thoughts exactly. Less Than Zero, whatever its merits as a film, was certainly the larger-profile project and arguably the better performance out of RDJ (although he was quite good in The Pick-Up Artist). Back to School was a wildly successful comedy and led to Weird Science, more of a cult film, but not nothing.

Toback is a possessive and envious creep.

I just am taken aback that he'd shit all over his arguably most successful "protégé".

Methinks Mrs. D. shut a door or three in James' fat face.

Toback was able to pull a lot of people into his orbit for a while. Pauline Kael and Warren Beatty were two others. He must have been able to turn on the charm at times. Though according to his Wikipedia article, *395* women contacted the Los Angeles Times and reported that he sexually harrassed them. That's a lotta smoke.

Didn't Molly Ringwald say Beatty had actually directed The Pick-up Artist?

I was surprised that Kael, who was pretty inured to such behavior, fell for his schtick.

Screw that guy.

James Toback is a piece of shit. A predator.

At first I thought you all were talking about the producer of The Courtship of Eddie's Father and Welcome Back, Kotter. I was surprised his career had such longevity and extended to film, so I googled him.

Komack. James Komack.

Kael's reviews of "Fingers" and "The Pick-Up Artist" are desperately unconvincing attempts to hype her friend's crappy movies.

I think Kael was genuinely impressed by Downey, who keeps the mostly-repellant concept of The Pick-Up Artist charming. He puts across a chatty vibe that seems eager without being sleazy. The idea that Toback somehow invented this for him or that Downey was simply raw material is absurd. Downey's ingratiating persona is his own. He could make a sudden audit of your taxes seem like a fun slightly sexy romp.

Interviewer: Can we go back to “200 dicks sucked”, please?

Good thing it was 200 dicks. 199 and Toback would be all like: "Downey, I'm just not feeling the commitment from you." 201 and it's "Robert, you're over-egging the pudding."

This is BS. RDJ always had some cache being the son of RDS and coming from an arty, alternative background. It’s not like he was an unknown that Toback picked off the street and made into a star.

As said above, RDJ won great reviews for his performance in Less Than Zero, and again for Chaplin a few years later.

I looked up what RDJ had to say about working with Toback.

Nothing but how much he enjoyed it.

Wonder if he'd give a different answer now.

What brought this on? RDJ turned him down? Too big for Toback now? Whatever, toback sounds a real shit.

I don’t know him.

Given the depths of Downey's addiction he is probably entirely sober now. In cases like that it's all or nothing.

I wouldn't be surprised if he is on prescription drugs, etc., though.

He might have to be, given what he has been through mentally and physically. Toback blows it off, but sometimes these are necessary things.

That said, if he's on them, I don't see them as slowing him down mentally.

Hard pass, R7

For what it's worth, Kael also praised Downey in Back to School, which she found otherwise infantile (which it is, but I love it anyway).

Toback is rewriting history to suit his own ego.

Another Toback/Downey story, this one from Vanity Fair, 2014.

"The collaboration with Downey on The Pick-Up Artist had its exciting moments, some of them occurring when the camera was rolling, others when it was not. The final one took place on what was to be the last of three extra shooting days we had been granted by Fox to fill in some holes which had emerged during editing. Cast and crew were assembled at the designated location in downtown Los Angeles, but Downey was missing. Frantic calls were made everywhere. Production assistants were sent to check out the house in Beverly Hills he had rented from Desi Arnaz Jr. By early afternoon, the decision was made to take an insurance claim. We would have to do without the new scenes. So extreme was my rage that I switched back and forth between fear and hope that something awful had befallen him. I decided to examine the house for myself. I drove to it and rang every bell and pounded on every door. There was no response. I found a rock and smashed the window of the kitchen door, reached around, and let myself in. I moved quickly, calling out Downey’s name, to no effect. Then, suddenly, I found myself standing three feet from his naked body, lying flat on the living-room floor. I shouted his name and tried to rouse him but got no response. I called a doctor, who arrived promptly, examined Downey, and then administered medication.

“Five minutes later and he would have been dead,” the doctor said dramatically.

After effusive thanks and receiving instructions for Downey’s care, I saw the doctor to the door. Then I approached Downey, who was now sitting on the sofa in his underwear, gazing at me with a look of displeasure.

“I’m disappointed in you,” he said.

“You’re disappointed in me! Are you out of your fucking mind!”

“No. Because I know what you’re thinking. You’re assuming the worst—that I was into some drug thing and that’s what made me late.”

“Late! You didn’t show up at all!”

“Do you want to know the truth?”

“Oh Jesus fucking Christ!”

“You know what? Now I’m not even going to tell you.”

“O.K. What’s the truth?” I asked, perversely curious to see what Downey would invent.

“I had dinner at Carlos and Charlie’s last night and they served bad chicken and I got food poisoning.”

I tried—unsuccessfully—to suppress a laugh.

“You see? I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” he said. “O.K.—I insist that you call the restaurant right now and ask the manager how many people called in this morning to complain about the bad chicken. And I want to hear his reaction.”

Dutifully, I called Carlos and Charlie’s and asked to speak to the manager. “Excuse me. I have a friend who got food poisoning from the chicken you served last night and I’d like to know how many other people have called in to complain today.”

“Who the hell is this?” the manager screamed. “What are you talking about! No one has ever gotten sick from our food!”

I hung up and looked at Downey, whose expression could be charted somewhere between satisfaction and triumph.

“Well?”

“Well, what?” I said. “He denied it categorically.”

“Of course he denied it,” Downey exclaimed with exasperation. “What did you think he was going to say? He has to deny it.”

I waited for a few moments to see if Downey would crack up in the hope of an eyelash of empathetic camaraderie but—stone-faced—he was determined to play out the scene to the hilt."

I read this before I read the other stuff and was inclined to believe it. Now, I'm not so sure. Downey has been so open about his drug life that it seems hard to believe that a near-death experience like this wouldn't be something he'd mention at some point. And the whole anecdote has a weird salacious feel to it. Plus, we're supposed to believe that a doctor would arrive for a life-threatening condition - but then not send for an ambulance? That he'd give some random dude and not a family member instruction for the care and feeding of a nearly-dead naked kid?

Bullshit.

If I were Downey I'd sue this lardy bitch.

When you find an unconscious person and call 911, they send an ambulance, not a doctor.

No doctor who wants to keep their license will allow a patient who was near-death to remain on site. The person would be taken to a hospital for further observation, regardless of how they responded to initial treatment.

This is true now. It was also true in the 1980s.

Toback is full of shit.

[quote]*395* women contacted the Los Angeles Times and reported that he sexually harrassed them. That's a lotta smoke.

Jesus! That's prolific. And yet another abuser who's ugly and trying take his revenge on women for slights, real or perceived, exacted on him decades ago.

Wonder if he wanted a piece of Robert and never got it. He evidently boasted of sleeping with men as well when he was younger. Maybe he was good-looking at some prior point but egad, not with Bea Arthur's dick.

Even drug addled Robert had standards.

Standards? I had eyeballs!

RDJ is pretty powerful. Can’t he have this lowlife taken out?

Do RDJ and Molly Rungwald ever discuss each other in press?

Less Than Zero may have done better at the box office, but was the subject of much ridicule. The Pick-Up Artist was a flop, but it did do more for Downey than LTZ.. Downey was said to be better than the rest of the film--and was compared to what he did in PickUp.

His performance in PickUp is what got him talked about and anointed as the new hot thing. Less was seen more as confirmation

R30, the only thing I remember about RDJ and Molly discussing each other is that RDJ said he tends to sweat under studio lights and felt that he couldn't have been very attractive to her as far as kissing scenes went. He may have been mistaken as Molly said that she pushed for RDJ to be Duckie in Pretty in Pink in part because the script at the time had her character pair off with him at the end and she said that felt "realistic" to her.

R31, that may be the case, but LTZ was already a done deal by the time The Pick-Up Artist came out - in other words, Toback's movie didn't lead to RDJ getting the role in LTZ. And John Hughes had already become interested in RDJ because of Back to School.

Toback's "I created/invented him" is insulting bullshit.

Now Toback's subliminal message of "I attempted to sleep with him and it never worked" is entirely believable.

R29, I assume you're joking. However it's worth pointing out that RDJ has a blind spot for those he feels helped him when he needed, sometime to the point where it surpasseth human understanding (Mel Gibson, anyone?) and that his loyalty is pretty remarkable (whether the people he is loyal to deserve it is another thing). He is a good person to have on your side. That Toback would basically take a shit on that in as obnoxious a way as possible is either testament to his own hubris or actually kind of ballsy in a twisted way.

Toback said all this stuff prior to nearly 400 women accusing him of sexual impropriety so my guess is that if RDJ is aware of it, he simply thinks Toback's life is ruined enough and doesn't need to add insult to injury - or spotlight Toback's claims a la the Streisand Effect.

Personally, if Toback said that shit about me I'd nail his nuts to the sidewalk, but I'm not Iron Man.

SPOILERS!!! READING THIS WILL CAUSE YOU TO VOMIT!

R29, ironically, it appears that Toback used to boast of being able to do precisely that.

He approached my (attractive female) friend at a party once in the 90s with a preposterous line like "you're fascinating, I want to make a movie about your life." She blew him off.

I take it RDJ never responded in any way? I can't imagine an interviewer not bringing it up.

Ugh. Toback is obese, diabetic, and 77 years old.

Covid, do your thing.

That “Two Guys and a Girl” movie is extremely “off.” It just has a weird, sinister vibe. I noticed it the first time I saw it back in the 90s.

RDJ seems pretty sweet and sensitive in most interviews. Hard to imagine what he could have done to piss off Toback. So he was a junkie. That’s more a reason for pity than anger.

Toback, on the other hand practically reeks of douchebaggery and trash.

R38, the only thing I can think of is where RDJ gave a couple of wise-ass comments about how he was glad he was no longer making independent films. I read that as him confessing that working with his dad had not been a positive experience (he said he felt coerced into it most of the time). But maybe it was a way of warding off further projects with Toback.

Either he or his wife must have started hearing the stories and decided "this me no likey" and started the distancing process. I assume this in turn set off Toback.

I think shitting on your colleagues is generally a bad idea. Dry-humping their leg is probably also the wrong thing to do.

Thanks, r42. I searched and could find nothing. I think it speaks well of him and his recovery that he's let it go and let karma/the universe take care of it. Toback is beyond creep and beyond redemption.

R43, here's a link to an interview Toback conducted with Downey back in 1997 for Movieline. It's interesting because both are quite complimentary to each other and Toback actually delivers a good interview.

You can kind of see the line between them. I think it's a shame we lost so much of this version of Downey (he was not the same post-jail) so some small part of me understands why Toback is so fed up with the current incarnation. But to frame your feelings the way he did is disgusting. Downey's life is his own and he came pretty close to losing it. Rotting in the ground so Toback can spit-polish his own legacy is not an acceptable compromise.

I miss Movieline.

My favorite RDJ is “Short Cuts” RDJ. He’s so delightfully weird.

That interview at r44 is fascinating.

"The Last Party" is fascinating. RDJ right when Chaplin came out, presenting some weird half-private version of himself, bouncing through Central Park as "goat boy," acting cringy with other A-list guys his age at the Democratic convention, engaging cagily with his family ...

R47, I read it and thought "wow - he really is completely unlike the other actors of his time." Not that some of them weren't talented, but RDJ is simply sui generis in how he expresses himself.

Or rather - he was. I think he's more wary now.

Goat-Boy hit a couple of bear traps and ain't quite the bouncy critter he was.

RDJ does a lot of interviews and podcasts in which he’s still pretty open— though not as open as he was in the 80s snd 90s.

He’s smart and intuitive in an almost scary way. His most interesting exchanges are when he (usually incredibly artfully) avoids answering a question he doesn’t want to answer.

I think he really hit it off with fellow eccentric Val Kilmer when they made Kiss Kiss together.

I get a creeping feeling that RDJ’s dad was physically abusive. RDJ has all the signs, but has never really talked about it. A number of his interviews bring up the subject but then avoid it or dismiss it.

His level of self-doubt, craving for approval, and sort of frantic ingratiation when he was younger comes from somewhere, and it isn’t a good place.

I think “Less Than Zero” deserves a reevaluation. It’s valuable as a time capsule and for RDJ and Spader’s performances.

It’s easy to forget (or just not believe) the extent to which teenagers were completely abandoned by their parents in the 80s. It was such a sinister, soulless time to be a teen/young adult.

I rewatched it recently and was struck by how the 18-year-old kids assumed responsibility for “saving” Julian. It never occurred to them to get any parents or other adults involved. But, that really is how it was. I lived through several similar situations myself.

He's mentioned his father smacking him for talking back on film sets a couple of times. I assume you meant that and not anything sexual. I never quite got that vibe.

But yes, RDJ when young pretty much stood for "Really Damaged Jeune homme"

R54, that would explain a lot. Hitting your kid— especially in front of other people, especially for asserting himself— is enough to destroy a kid. No wonder he had drug issues.

The RD Sr had the balls to make snarky comments to the press about RDJ’s drug problems.

What a piece of shit his father was.

R55, not sure if you're aware, but RD Snr got RDJ using pot at the age of six. That is a bit different from getting hooked in your teens.

It was his father who gave him the pot which he later admitted was probably a bad idea.

I did know that. It’s the thing people always point out about RDSr’s “shortcomings” as a father. But compared to hitting and exploiting him on sets (RDJ has mentioned being overworked and not having a choice re being in his dads movies, etc) the drugs are probably the less serious issue, honestly.

His dad sounds like a typical shitty, abusive parent of that era. Some kids survived that with only a little damage, and more sensitive and smarter kids knew how fucked up it was. They didn’t fare so well.

There's an interview where someone asks Downey Sr. if he feared for his son's life. He says something like "Well, I suppose that happens". RDJ is standing beside him and looks devastated.

RDJ probably could have benefitted from cutting his father out of his life a long time ago. (RDSr is dead now, of course.)

RDJ is sweet and loyal, however, so that probably explains why he didn’t cut him off.

Back to Toback. Based on his slimy comments about Susan, I agree she was probably involved in some line drawing wrt Toback. Much to RDJ’s benefit, I’d guess.

I’m too old to have a “fix him” complex, but I really do feel for RDJ.

I wonder if his relationship with Toback replicated his relationship with RD Sr. RDSr and Toback seem to have a lot in common. Iconoclastic writer/directors, claim to eschew mainstream success, inappropriate behavior, boorish, harshly critical of RDJ while claiming to be his friend.

If you read the linked interview Toback acknowledges - and RDJ agrees - that the director is a "father figure".

The interview is disturbing in light of several things, but also really puzzles me because Toback seems very smart and self-aware and I find it difficult to link his seeming intellectual sophistication with the horrid, crass, immature behavior and abusive sexual lechery he was later famed for (and was no doubt perpetrating during this period as well).

If he started drug use at age 6 as a parental activity then that means that he has few to no memories of a time when he wasn't using drugs. How many of us remember our very early childhoods that well?

How could someone do that to a child?

I’m glad RDJ became successful. He was a lost soul for so long—through no fault of his own.

His father probably resented his success.

R59, I saw that scene and the look on RDJ's face was horrifying. He also flared up at the interviewer immediately.

R40, I've never seen the film, but evidently there was a fairly intense sex scene between Downey and Heather that Toback wanted a third female character (not one of the two female leads) to masturbate to while watching and the producer and the actress made him cut that detail out. Given that this watching and wanking was evidently one of Toback's sexual modi operandi*, it makes the whole thought of it even more gross.

I read a couple of accounts of how Toback pursued young women and guess who he used to name-drop to get their attention? Yeah - RDJ.

I think if you use an unknowing colleague as a pussy-ticket you don't get to snap at their personal lives down the line.

The first time I ever heard of Toback was when he gave some interview in some magazine back in the 90s (I wanna say Entertainment Weekly). He was so obnoxious and clearly lying.

Toback is standard issue guido hack. He’s never been any more or less than that.

He needs to schlepp his fat ass back to Jersey.

The only thing I remember from *Two Girls and a Guy* is that it gave RDJ a (fairly gratuitous) opportunity to play Hamlet on the big screen, i.e. recite soliloquies. "Playing Hamlet" is such a cliché for an actor; RDJ would have given LIFE to Edmund or Iago. Maybe still could.

R61, I hear you. I still feel a kind of parental tug when I see pictures of him when he was very young. The whole "it's going to be all right" impulse.

[quote]when they’re getting out of prison is the best time to get them....right after 11 months of prison with about 200 dicks sucked in return for a lot of crack

That line alone IDs him as a sociopath, and when you add in what he did to so many women it's enraging that he's not locked up.

I can't imagine anyone sane gloating over the idea that a valued long-time colleague has sexually abused themselves for drugs in prison.

He is beyond vile.

He is a monster and a shitty filmmaker. I bet RDJ’s success eats him alive.

Anyway, I hope RDJ has some peace and contentment in his life now.

James Toback is a very minor figure with only a very few titles that people remember (and no one respects), whereas RDJ is an acknowledged STAH of the silver screen.

Well, I remade him then.

I wonder why Favreau never threw Vince Vaughn a bone in the Iron Man movies. Maybe RDJ hates VV.

I never heard of RDJ disliking anyone except for Hugh Grant and he seems to have patched that up recently. I also think he hinted that Zodiac was not a fun set.

Belated thanks, r44. This thread fell off the watcher and I completely forgot about it.

You're welcome, R78 - I think it's actually a great interview and shows that Toback has a brain - but if you read it carefully, you can see him attempting to dominate Downey throughout and Downey pretty much seeming oblivious to this.