Drinkwater's traumatic experience resurfaced when the stories about Harvey Weinstein's abusive behaviour began to emerge in Hollywood. In a recent emotional Facebook post, she shared that she was "very badly damaged in [her] 20s by a director as famous as HW, more so. It took [her] years to get over it...[she] lost a mighty role because [she] would not play along, would not sleep with the director in question."
Drinkwater's latest novel, The Lost Girl, features a character named Marguerite, who is a victim of rape by a famous director with a Greek-sounding surname. The character's trauma is devastating and permanent, and Drinkwater believes that shame and secrecy are still pervasive in the film industry, even in the wake of the Weinstein revelations. That is why she has finally decided to tell her full story and speak out about her experience.
Drinkwater was a recent drama school graduate with only one minor film role to her credit when she was invited to audition for a major Hollywood movie adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon. The movie was produced by Sam Spiegel and had a screenplay by Harold Pinter. The prospect of working with her hero, the renowned director Elia Kazan, was particularly exciting for Drinkwater.
However, her first encounter with Kazan turned out to be traumatic. During a private meeting in his production office, Kazan pushed her up against the wall, pinned her there, and kissed her neck, saying that she needed to show him "passion" in order to get the part. This went on for a week, with Kazan continuing to push and pull at her.
When Drinkwater arrived for her screen test, Kazan forcibly tried to have s*x with her, which left her shaken and distressed. Even during the screen test, Kazan whispered obscenities in her ear and pushed her around in a way that couldn't be seen by anyone else.
The incident had a profound impact on Drinkwater's life, and she hopes that by speaking out about it, she can help to shed light on the ongoing problem of s*xual abuse and harassment in the film industry.
The story of actress Carol Drinkwater's casting couch experience in Hollywood in the 1970s is a painful one. She froze during a screen test and was humiliated and abused by the producer, who had set her up to fail.
Although her experience did not involve rape, it bears similarities to the revelations about Harvey Weinstein. Drinkwater has spoken out about her experience on Facebook to defend Matt Damon's assertion that he was unaware of Weinstein's behavior.
Her experience has been fictionalized in her novel The Lost Girl, which tells the story of Marguerite, a woman struggling to overcome her fear of intim*cy in retirement. Drinkwater has gone on to have a successful career in acting and writing, including the role of James Herriot's wife in All Creatures Great and Small and the children's novel The Haunted School.
She and her husband now live in France, where she continues to write and work on her olive farm. Although she is hesitant about being seen as jumping on the Weinstein bandwagon, she believes it is important to speak out about the abuse that has been going on for a long time.
