Melissa Gilbert & Melora Hardin – The Perverse Case Of Oliver Stone The Auditioner

Actress Melissa Gilbert revealed on Andy Cohen’s satellite radio show on Monday how she was sexually harassed by the director while auditioning for his 1991 film The Doors.
The 53-year-old actress, best known for her role on the long-running television series Little House on the Prairie, said the ‘humiliating and horrid incident’ happened when she was auditioning for the role of Pamela Courson, girlfriend of Doors frontman Jim Morrison.
‘I had auditioned and then he said I have written this special scene for you, I’d like you to do it with the actor, I want to see the chemistry with the two of you.
‘And the whole scene was just my character on her hands and knees saying, “Do me, baby”‘ Gilbert recalled.
While actors usually only read lines in auditions, Gilbert says that Stone wanted her to physically act out the compromising scene.
Gilbert refused and left the casting room in tears. The part eventually went to Meg Ryan.
Critically-acclaimed director Oliver Stone has been accused by yet another woman of sexual harassment.

Actress Melissa Gilbert revealed on Andy Cohen’s satellite radio show on Monday how she was sexually harassed by the director while auditioning for his 1991 film The Doors.
The 53-year-old actress, best known for her role on the long-running television series Little House on the Prairie, said the ‘humiliating and horrid incident’ happened when she was auditioning for the role of Pamela Courson, girlfriend of Doors frontman Jim Morrison.
‘I had auditioned and then he said I have written this special scene for you, I’d like you to do it with the actor, I want to see the chemistry with the two of you.
‘And the whole scene was just my character on her hands and knees saying, “Do me, baby”‘ Gilbert recalled.
While actors usually only read lines in auditions, Gilbert says that Stone wanted her to physically act out the compromising scene.
Gilbert refused and left the casting room in tears. The part eventually went to Meg Ryan.
‘It was humiliating and horrid and he got me…it hurt,’ she said.
Gilbert believes the audition was revenge for embarrassing Stone at a club some time before that.
‘He was ragging on television… he was telling everyone how television was c**p and he’d never do it,’ she recalled.
‘And then all these girls came running up to me because they had seen me on Little House on the Prairie. And they left and he was dumbfounded, and I said, “You see, a**hole? That’s television!” And I guess he never forgot it,’ she said.
At first, Gilbert seemed reluctant to name her harasser, but halfway-through telling the story she said, ‘Oh f*** it, it was Oliver Stone, and it was “The Doors.”‘
DailyMail.com reached out to Stone for comment but did not immediately receive a response Monday afternoon.
This isn’t the first sexual harassment allegation that the director has been hit with.
Last month, after Stone issued a statement in support of Harvey Weinstein, a Playboy playmate accused Stone of once honking her breasts ‘like a horn’.
Actress Patricia Arquette also said that Stone tried to audition her for a movie that was ‘very sexual’. After a ‘very professional’ meeting, she said that he sent her ‘long stem jungle roses’ and invited her to a screening of his film Natural Born Killers.
Arquette said she found his behavior ‘weird’ so she decided to bring her boyfriend to the film screening with her, and Stone was visibly displeased.
‘Oliver stopped me coming out of the bathroom. He said ‘Why did you bring him?’ I said “Why is it a problem I brought him? It shouldn’t be a problem. Think about THAT Oliver,”‘ she tweeted about the incident. ‘Anyway never heard about the movie again & didn’t care to.’
Melissa Gilbert

Melora Hardin

Oliver Stone denies he sexually harassed Melissa Gilbert during audition

Oliver Stone has responded to claims made by Melissa Gilbert that the Oscar-winning filmmaker sexually harassed her during an audition for The Doors.
“We auditioned dozens of actors for roles in The Doors and it was made clear from the outset that our film was going to be a raunchy, no-holds-barred rock ‘n’ roll movie,” Stone said in a statement to THR. “Anyone auditioning was told the scenes would be rehearsed and performed from a script, with my casting director, Risa Bramon Garcia, present throughout the process to ensure a safe environment for all actors who auditioned.”
Garcia echoed these sentiments in her own statement, saying, “Every actor who auditioned came in voluntarily and was aware of the provocative material prior to engaging in their scenes. No actor was forced or expected to do anything that might have been uncomfortable, and most actors embraced the challenge, recognizing Oliver Stone’s vision and the creative process. In my experience, there was no attempt to personally offend any particular actor. I always have and still do go out of my way to create a safe and creative space for actors in the audition room. It was no different on The Doors.”
Stone has already come under fire this fall for refusing to condemn Harvey Weinstein in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against the disgraced movie mogul. He later clarified the remarks. “I’ve been traveling for the last couple of days and wasn’t aware of all the women who came out to support the original story in the New York Times,” Stone wrote on Facebook. “After looking at what has been reported in many publications over the last couple of days, I’m appalled and commend the courage of the women who’ve stepped forward to report sexual abuse or rape. I’ll, therefore, recuse myself from the Guantanamo series as long as the Weinstein Company is involved.”
This is the second time the audition process for Stone’s The Doors has come under fire. In October, actress Caitlin O’Heaney claimed Val Kilmer hit her — an allegation Garcia denied. “It was way blown out of proportion,” she said. “I am not somebody who takes this stuff lightly. I can tell the difference between something that’s abusive and a moment that got carried away … but it was all in the context of the work. [O’Heaney had] a very extreme reaction to a situation that to me was not extreme at all.”

My worst moment : Melora Hardin

 

Cool under pressure and dressed to the nines, Melora Hardin’s magazine editor on Freeform’s “The Bold Type” puts a human face on high-powered but unknowable figures such as Anna Wintour of Vogue.
As Jacqueline, Hardin’s editor in chief knows who she is and what she values. She’s willing to push her young charges to up their game, while remaining serenely confident when her authority is challenged from outside forces.
It’s a character worlds away from the perpetually annoyed Jan Levinson, the boss she played on “The Office” for so many years.
“I think I am kind of a natural leader, I think that’s something that’s true about me,” Hardin said of being cast in these roles. “I think that Jacqueline is probably closer to me than Jan was, in the sense that I think I work pretty hard to be grounded and a more evolved person — Jan had fewer resources at her fingertips in Scranton, Pa., trying to climb that ladder in a man’s world. And she had all those knuckleheads around her too.”
When asked to recall a worst moment for this column, it was an experience auditioning for a certain well-known director that came to mind — and Hardin got to have the last word.

My worst moment …

“I read for Oliver Stone for ‘Wall Street’ when I was 18 or something, I was really young. It was the role that went to Daryl Hannah, so it was a significant role. I walked in, he looked at me, told me to start — and then he spent the entire time flipping through other people’s photos. He didn’t even look at me. And I remember thinking, ‘What’s the point? Why am I even here?’ He had already made up his mind before I even started reading.
“I actually auditioned for him again for ‘The Doors,’ which was also humiliating, because the way he conducted it was really gross. It was the role that Meg Ryan ultimately ended up doing (as Jim Morrison’s girlfriend) and the audition was for an orgasm scene. It was this whole sex scene in the bed where they’re high and I was like, ‘Really? Out of all the scenes, this is the one that you’re going to have women do for an audition?’
“So I really went for it, full of ecstasy. And I remember him saying, ‘Yeah, that was good. Sit down, let’s talk about this.’ And then he directed everything to the guy (who was reading Morrison’s lines), talking to him about his purpose and his motivation and didn’t say anything to me. And then he wanted us to do it again. They already knew that they were going to cast Val Kilmer, so this guy was like a reader-actor guy who I’m sure was thrilled to just be in the room. But it all just felt disrespectful.
“Many years later, I saw (Stone) at a party. He’s friends with a friend of mine and it was a quiet, small party, it wasn’t like a big Hollywood party. And when she introduced me to him, he said, ‘Oh, I don’t think we’ve met.’ And I said, ‘We have met.’ And he said, ‘Oh. Was I nice to you or was I an a——?’ And I go, ‘You were a total a——.’ And he blushed and he goes, ‘Oh. Oh, I’m sorry.’ And I said, ‘You should be. You were a total a——. Both times.’

Did Hardin debate whether to answer Stone’s question honestly?

“I just personally don’t think you can ever make moves from fear or shame. You gotta be straightforward. And he was really, really quite rude both times. And in fact, not only rude — that audition for ‘The Doors’ was really gross.
“I just think he’s so checked out. He’s a jerk. And he should know he’s a jerk. Every single person I know who’s read for him thinks he’s a jerk! I just don’t think it’s OK to be such a jerk, I just don’t.
“So yeah, I spoke up. I was already further along in my career at that point and I always kind of regretted that I wasn’t able to say that to him when I was (auditioning) in the room. You know, slam my fists on the desk and say, ‘You’re being really rude! I’m trying to do a reading for you. If you’re totally disinterested in me and you’ve already made up your mind, I’m just going to leave.’ I always wished I had been able to do that.
“And that’s one of the things that I love about Jacqueline (on ‘The Bold Type’) because she does those things in the moment. Sometimes in real life, you can’t process things quite as quickly as your characters can, that’s the genius of having writers that are working on these great perfect moments for your character — you can’t always do that for yourself.
“When you walk into an audition, you’re there to do a job. And the job is to do the scene the best you can. That’s your job — and their job is to assess whether this is the person they want to play this character. And that’s the deal you make when you walk into an audition room. And when they don’t do their part, you’re kind of flummoxed and a little bit shocked and you do get thrown for a loop.”

Did she have any concerns he might try to blackball her afterward?

“Oh God, no! I’ve been in the business since I was 6 years old. I did, like, every guest starring part on every show you could think of from the ’70s, like ‘Police Story’ and ‘Quincy’ and ‘The Love Boat’ and all that stuff. And my point in bringing that up is, I have a lot of confidence about the way that I’m perceived. I’ve been in this business so long — if you want to call anybody in this town and ask, ‘What’s Melora Hardin like to work with?’ there’s nobody that’s going to tell you that I’m a pain in the (rear) and that I’m a (jerk), because I’m just not, you know?
“So I wasn’t fearful about confronting Oliver Stone at a party. If he hadn’t asked me that question, I can’t say for sure if I would have said anything. But he asked it outright. And it would have been a lie to say, ‘You were great!’ And I’m not a liar. (Laughs) I may be some things but I’m not that! And he was kind of saying it in a flirtatious way, too. I don’t know what he thought I was going to say! But I was like, ‘Dude, you were a total jerk in every way.’
“This is the thing: He wasn’t mad and he wasn’t upset that he was an a——. He knew he was an a——, that’s why he asked the question! So it wasn’t awkward between us. He just said, ‘Oh God, I’m sorry! I need to work on that.’ And that was it, the party continued. I was a grown woman at this point, I wasn’t a newbie in the business. Also, I don’t hold a grudge.”

Would she audition for Stone again?

“Yeah, I’d go! If it was a part I wanted, of course I’d go! Because he makes good movies. (Laughs) I would totally go. And I would walk in the room and go, ‘Hey, remember I met you at our friend’s house and you asked me if you were nice or an a—— and I told you you were an a——? OK great, now I’m going to do this scene for you.’ (Laughs)
“But also, I’m in a different place than I was when I was 18. I’m a 50-year-old woman now and I have a lot of experience behind me and you can’t do that to me anymore — because if you do, I’m walking out. I don’t mind difficult people or people who are eccentrics — I like creative people and I’m OK with that, if there’s a way for me to work with them. And if there’s not, I’m totally fine not working with them. I’m totally fine just going, ‘I’m out!’ I’ve gotten to where I’m really good with that!
“As I’ve gotten older and with maturity, I’ve realized that if you think something’s happening, chances are it is happening. So if you think someone’s a jerk, they probably are a jerk. If someone is coming at me with something that’s feeling weird, then something’s weird. And I don’t even have to know what it is or get inside it, as I used to as a young woman. I used to have to figure it out. And now I’m like, ‘Nah.’ Because I know how I am with people. If someone is a jerk, they’re a jerk. If they seem like they’re shut down, they’re shut down. If they seem like a bully, they’re a bully. And I don’t really have the time or the bandwidth to spend time on those people.
“So I’d walk into the room with Oliver Stone and see where he is now. Because everyone should have the opportunity to change and show up differently for you. If he shows up differently for me, then I want to be available to that. Maybe it would totally different. And maybe it would be exactly the same. And I’m open to either of those options.”

The takeaway …

“Stand up for yourself. It’s OK to say, ‘Hey dude, I’m here to do a job for you — if you don’t want it, I can leave!’ I’ve got a lot going on! I can go home and clean my freaking house! (Laughs) I don’t need to be standing in front of you wasting my time.”