Weinstein: Actress Lysette Anthony vows to do all she can

Hollyoaks star Lysette Anthony has vowed to do everything she can to bring movie mogul Harvey Weinstein to justice after claiming he raped her during the 1980s.

The actress, 54, said that she ‘had to stand up for the truth’ and is speaking out now because ‘he can’t hurt me any more’. 

It comes as a third woman contacted British police on Sunday with allegations of sexual assault against 65-year-old Weinstein. 

Ms Anthony claims that the American movie producer pounced on her at a flat in London. 

Metropolitan Police are now investigating five allegations involving Weinstein, sources have confirmed, dating back to the late 1980s. 

Ms Anthony told the Daily Mirror: ‘I had to stand up for the truth. I’m 54 and a successful soap actress, working in a world I’m fiercely proud of. He can’t hurt me any more.’ 

A source told the paper: ‘Lysette is adamant that there needs to be justice and she wants to see Weinstein in court and answering questions for what he has done.’ 

Earlier, Scotland Yard confirmed three allegations were made relating to sexual assaults in London in 2010, 2011 and 2015.

This followed another claim passed to Scotland Yard detectives by Merseyside Police this week, relating to an alleged sexual assault in the capital in the late 1980s.

Police in London were already probing three more allegations of sexual assault against Weinstein after Ms Anthony claimed he raped her in the hallway of her home.

British star Lysette Anthony (left in April this year, right in 1983) told police that Harvey Weinstein raped her at her London flat in the late Eighties

Ms Anthony, a mother-of-one, tweeted this image a few days ago before adding in a later message: ‘Defiled, Harvey Weinstein, how to report a historic rape’

And on Sunday a third woman contacted Scotland Yard to accuse the 65-year-old of sexual assault. It is not known who the woman is.

Specialist sexual offence investigators at Scotland Yard said they are looking into allegations which are said to have taken place in London between 2010 and 2015.

‘It is alleged that the man sexually assaulted a woman in Westminster in 2010 and 2011, and in Camden in 2015,’ police said in a statement on Sunday.

‘Officers from the Met’s child abuse and sexual offences command are investigating the allegations. There has been no arrest at this stage.’ 

Ms Anthony, a model-turned-actress, told police last week that she had been attacked by in London in the late 1980s.

She has now waived her right to anonymity to speak about what happened when she was a fast-rising star who was hailed as the ‘Face of the 80s’ by top photographer David Bailey. 

The actress described how the attack happened when Weinstein – who knew Ms Anthony socially – went to her London home one morning and she answered the door in her dressing gown.

She said: ‘He pushed me inside and rammed me up against the coat rack in my tiny hall and started fumbling at my gown. He was trying to kiss me and shove inside me. It was disgusting.’

Ms Anthony tried to resist but was unable to fight off heavily-built Weinstein. She said: ‘Finally I just gave up. At least I was able to stop him kissing me.

‘As he ground himself against me and shoved inside me, I kept my eyes shut tight, held my breath and just let him get on with it.’

‘He came over my leg like a dog and then left. It was pathetic, revolting,’ she told The Sunday Times. ‘I remember lying in the bath, crying.’

Her claims emerged as:

• Woody Allen spoke out to defend Weinstein, saying he felt ‘sad for everybody involved’ in the allegations
• Another English actress who worked at Weinstein’s Miramax studio anonymously claimed he abused her
• Courtney Love claimed she warned aspiring actresses never to attend a private meeting with Weinstein in 2005, and was blacklisted as a result
• Italian model Samantha Panagrosso said she was harassed by the mogul on a yacht in 2003
• Bob Weinstein, Harvey’s younger brother, said he was also ‘verbally and physically’ abused by his brother
• Bob’s former wife reiterated her claims that Harvey barged into her room and lay on the bed demanding a massage, saying the new claims make her feel ‘sick’
• The fiancee of Amazon Studios head Roy Price, a close friend of Weinstein who was suspended over sexual abuse allegations, announced the wedding is off

Ms Anthony had met Weinstein in the early 1980s, after which she would see him socially for lunch when he was in London.

She described Weistein as a ‘so-called friend’, adding that they met dozens of times and she never felt as if anything ‘untoward’ were about to happen. 

That was until she went for a drink at his rented house in Chelsea on one occasion and he started to undress and ‘grabbed’ her before she fled. Weinstein then began to ‘stalk’ her until the attack.

Ms Anthony (pictured left in soap opera Hollyoaks) said she went to Weinstein’s home for drinks when he ‘grabbed’ her but she managed to flee

Ms Anthony (pictured in Woody Allen film Husbands and Wives in 1992) said Weinstein later called at her home, barged his way in, then attacked her in the hallway

Ms Anthony lives in Liverpool, near the studios where the Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks is filmed. The actress currently stars in show.

On Thursday she went to a police station in London to give evidence. Although too terrified for decades to tell the authorities of the attack, she came forward after several other women, including actress Asia Argento, revealed how they had been raped by Weinstein.

‘I can’t stand by and see all these women tell the truth and not stand alongside them,’ she said.

A few days ago, Ms Anthony tweeted: ‘Have just reported an historic crime to @MerseyPolice… feel sick… so sad.’ Beneath she posted a photo of a heart-shaped pink note with a ‘crime number’ written on it.

She also tweeted what appeared to be a series of three search terms: ‘Defiled, Harvey Weinstein, how to report a historic rape.’

On Tuesday she retweeted a statement by Ronan Farrow, the New Yorker magazine journalist who broke the story that Weinstein had been accused of rape.

‘Face of the 80s’: Anthony’s career

Anthony (pictured as Miss Scarlet in series Cluedo) began acting aged 10 and was the youngest ever member of the National Youth Theatre when she joined at 14

Lysette Anthony was born Lysette Chodzko in Fulham, west London, in 1963 to a pair of impoverished actors who later divorced.

After the split Anthony lived with her mother, who took a service job in Harrods to make ends meed, recalling ‘we were broke most of the time.’

She made her first appearance on stage aged 10 at the Cambridge Theatre, in London, and became the youngest ever member of the National Youth Theatre aged 14.

Two years later she was spotted by top photographer David Bailey who declared her the ‘face of the Eighties’.

In 1983 she landed her first film role in Krull, a sci-fi adventure about the race to save a princess from a creature named only as ‘The Beast’. The film starred a young Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane.

The previous year she had appeared on television in an adaptation of Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.

In 1988 she starred alongside Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley in Without a Clue, before appearing with Hugh Grant in The Lady And The Highwayman the following year.

By the time the 90s rolled around she had made the leap to America, starring in Switch in 1991 with Blake Edwards and Look Who’s Talking Now in 1993 with John Travolta.

One of her most high profile roles came in 1992 Woody Allen film Husbands and Wives. 

Anthony began her career on the stage before moving to Hollywood in the late 80s and 90s where she worked with the likes of Hugh Grant and John Travolta (pictured here in Natural Affection in London in 2014)

She stopped appearing in films around 2002, when she says Harvey ‘finally let go of me.’

In 1990 she married Dutch artist and entrepreneur Luc Leestemaker, before later marrying American film director David Price.

She was in a relationship with composer Simon Boswell until 2010, and the pair have a son, James, who was born in 2004.

Ms Anthony currently stars as Marnie Nightingale, a scheming matriarch in British soap opera Hollyoaks. 

Farrow had written: ‘While Weinstein and his representatives have said that the incidents were consensual, and were not widespread or severe, the women I spoke to tell a very different story.’

Ms Anthony got her big break in the 1992 film Husbands And Wives – directed by Ronan Farrow’s father, Woody Allen.

Allen spoke out on Sunday to defend Weinstein, saying he feels ‘sad’ that the studio boss’s life ‘is so messed up’.

He told the BBC: ‘There’s no winners in that, it’s just very, very sad and tragic for those poor women that had to go through that.’ 

Born Lysette Chodzko, she is the only daughter of two actors – her mother Bernadette Milnes suffered from schizophrenia and manic depression. 

Ms Anthony starred in the BBC comedy Three Up, Two Down, and although not a Hollywood A-lister, she has appeared in various TV programmes and movies, including Look Who’s Talking Now, alongside John Travolta.

In 2014, the mother of one revealed that a toxic divorce battle had left her with mounting debts as she survived on £70 a week. But her role as ‘ice queen’ Marnie Nightingale in Hollyoaks has given her career a new lease of life.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘The Metropolitan Police Service was passed an allegation of sexual assault by Merseyside Police on Wednesday, October 11.

‘The allegation has been assessed and will be investigated by officers from the Met’s Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Command.

‘The allegation relates to an offence dating back to the late 1980s in the London area.’

Harvey Weinstein’s spokesman issued a statement saying: ‘Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr Weinstein.’

Weinstein (pictured left 1999, right last week) has lost his lifetime membership of the Hollywood Academy after dozens of women came forward to say he attacked them

Ms Anthony spoke out as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expelled Weinstein, who had possessed a lifetime membership.

The 54-member board of governors, which administers the professional group that hands out Oscars every year, voted to oust the disgraced movie mogul at an emergency meeting on Saturday.

Whoopi Goldberg, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are among the Hollywood power players who hold seats on the board.

Following the meeting, the Academy issued a statement saying the board had voted ‘to immediately expel him from the Academy,’ noting that the vote was ‘well in excess of the required two-thirds majority’.

‘He abused me too’: Harvey’s brother speaks out 

Bob Weinstein, the brother of embattled Harvey, has lashed out against his ‘liar’ older sibling.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, 62-year-old Bob said Harvey has promised to get help for years for his ‘sex addiction.’

But Bob said he failed to do so because ‘he feels no remorse’ for his alleged actions.

He also revealed he witnessed his brother’s dark side first hand, with Harvey becoming physically abusive on one occasion and verbally abusive on numerous others.

Bob Weinstein attends the premier of The Road with older brother Harvey in 2009

‘Harvey has no remorse whatsoever. I have spoken to him two times [since the news broke], hoping to hear ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’ I didn’t hear that. I don’t feel he feels anything to this day. I don’t,’ Bob said.

‘I was also the object of a lot of his verbal abuse — at one time physical abuse. And I am not looking for one bit of sympathy from anyone. I do not put myself in the category at all of those women that he hurt. But it’s a complicated situation when it’s your brother doing the abusing to you as well’.

Bob said until recently he had not spoken to his brother in five years after becoming alienated with his ‘dishonest’ character. 

It went on: ‘We do so not simply to separate ourselves from someone who does not merit the respect of his colleagues but also to send a message that the era of willful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behavior and workplace harassment in our industry is over.’ 

The claims of Weinstein’s attack in London emerged as staff at the city’s famous Savoy hotel claimed he auditioned women in his suite there, then abused female members of staff if they rebuffed his advances.

Speaking to the Sunday Mirror, a butler – who wished to remain anonymous – said: ‘He would use the room to audition girls. He always requested the most expensive room that overlooked the river.

‘When work wasn’t going the way he wanted, he would be in a foul mood and take it out on the female staff. He went up to the girls’ faces and told them they were useless and incompetent.

‘He called a couple of them ugly and really put them down.’

The butler also told how a member of staff once tried to help a female assistant of Weinstein’s after he found her crying in the hallway, but was accused of ‘interfering’ by the Hollywood boss. 

Kate Beckinsale and Sophie Dix, fellow British stars, have also told of how Weinstein attacked them at the hotel.

Dix said she was 22 and had just been cast in a film with Colin Firth when Weinstein invited her to the Savoy in order to practice scenes.

Once she was alone with him, she claims there was ‘talk of a massage’ which she thought was ‘pretty gross’.

He then showed her ‘his big back’ – something she found ‘pretty horrid’, she said.

She alleges that the evening then took a dramatic turn, explaining: ‘Before I knew it, he started trying to pull my clothes off and pin me down and I just kept saying ‘No, no, no’. But he was really forceful.

‘I remember him pulling at my trousers and stuff and looming over me and I just sort of – I am a big strong girl and I bolted … ran for the bathroom and locked the door.’

She added: ‘After a while I remember opening the door and seeing him just there facing the door masturbating, so I quickly closed the door again and locked it. Then when I heard room service come to the door I just ran.’

Beckinsale said in an Instagram post that Weinstein tried to assault her during a hotel room meeting early on in her career.

‘I was called to meet Harvey Weinstein at the Savoy Hotel when I was 17. I assumed it would be in a conference room which was very common. When I arrived, reception told me to go to his room,’ she wrote.

‘He opened the door in his bathrobe. I was incredibly naive and young and it did not cross my mind that this older, unattractive man would expect me to have any sexual interest in him. After declining alcohol and announcing that I had school in the morning I left, uneasy but unscathed.’