| The ABC television network has cancelled a mini-series about the Holocaust it was developing with Mel Gibson, after the actor launched into an anti-Semitic tirade during his arrest for drink-driving.
The series was to have been based on a memoir about a Dutch Jew during the Second World War and made by Gibson's Icon Productions company, the Wall Street Journal reported today, quoting an unnamed ABC spokesman.
A spokesperson for ABC, which is owned by Walt Disney, confirmed that the project was being pulled, telling the paper that it had been two years and the network still had not seen a script. The spokesman declined to say whether the decision was motivated by Gibson's rant.
Gibson was arrested on suspicion of drink driving on the Pacific Coast highway in the early hours Friday, allegedly doing 87mph with a part-drunk bottle of tequila in a brown paper bag on the back seat of his car.
According to the arresting officer's original report he tried to escape when invited to sit in the back of the patrol car, and was belligerent and maudlin by turns, banging his head against a seat and bemoaning that his life was "f*****d". He also called a female officer "sugar tits".
"Mr Gibson almost continually threatened me, saying he 'owned Malibu' and will 'get even' with me," wrote Deputy James Mee, of the LA County Sheriff's Department.
"He blurted out a barrage of anti-Semitic remarks about 'f***ing Jews'. He called out, 'the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world'. He then asked: 'Are you a Jew?'
"His conduct concerned and frightened me to a point, I called ahead to the station requesting a sergeant meet the arrival of my patrol car."
On Saturday Gibson issued a long apology, denouncing the things he said as untrue and despicable, and revealing that he had suffered from alcoholism all his adult life. He has since checked into a rehabilitation clinic.
The actor-director, whose film The Passion of Christ was criticised for blaming the Jews for killing Jesus, holds strong conservative Catholic religious and political views.
Yesterday Deputy Mee, who is 17, and Jewish, told the AP news agency that he had considered it a routine arrest and did not take any comments made by Gibson seriously.
"I don’t take pride in hurting Mr Gibson," said Deputy Mee. "What I had hoped out of this is that he would think twice before he gets behind the wheel of a car and was drinking. I don’t want to ruin his career. I don’t want to defame him in any way or hurt him."
He would not comment specifically on what Gibson said. "That stuff is booze talking," the deputy said in an interview outside his home.
"There’s two things that booze does. It amplifies your basic personality. If you are a laid-back kind of person, just an easy going kind of person, booze is going to amplify that and you’ll be just sitting around going how it’s a wonderful day. But, if you are high-strung person, it’s going to amplify that and all the bad things are going to come out."
The actor's early apology appears so far to have limited the damage to his Hollywood career, despite the ABC move.
Disney’s movie studio arm still plans to release Gibson’s self-financed Mayan-language film Apocalypto in December, Hollywood’s trade papers reported, and Slate.com, a movie industry website, quoted Oren Aviv, the Walt Disney Studios president, as saying that he accepted Gibson’s apology.
"The incident was a horrible, horrible blow to his public image," said Peter Montoya, a public image consultant. He remained optimistic, however, that Gibson can prevail.
"I don’t foresee that spinning out of control, like Tom Cruise, or Nick Nolte. I think it’s going to fade away. The basic rules when you’re a public figure and you make a mistake: you apologise, you apologise early. I think he did that, he apologised, himself. He did the right thing so far and I think he’s going to do more in the coming months." | |
