The Former Teenage Model Woody Allen Allegedly Dated in the 70s Speaks
In 1976, when she was 16 years old, Christina Engelhardt said she began a romantic relationship with..
In 1976, when she was 16 years old, Christina Engelhardt said she began a romantic relationship with Woody Allen, who was then 41. The former model, now 59, spoke about their alleged relationship in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, saying that it lasted for eight years.
“What made me speak is I thought I could provide a perspective,” she said. “Im not attacking Woody. This is not bring down this man. Im talking about my love story. This made me who I am. I have no regrets.” Allen declined to comment on the story to T.H.R.
Engelhardt, who now works as an assistant to film producer Robert Evans, said she first met Allen at the restaurant Elaines when she was in high school, writing him a note with her phone number on it. Allen allegedly called soon afterward, Engelhardt claimed, and they struck up a relationship that became physically intimate in a matter of weeks. As T.H.R. notes, the legal age of consent in New York is 17. She told T.H.R. that there were two key stipulations in the relationship: that they would never talk about his work, and that they would only meet at his apartment.
Four years into the relationship, Engelhardt said, Allen introduced her to his new girlfriend, Mia Farrow. The three of them would spend time together and occasionally have threesomes, she claimed. “It wasnt until after it was done when I really had time to think of how twisted it was when we were together . . . and how I was little more than a plaything,” she wrote in an unpublished memoir, per T.H.R. “While we were together, the whole thing was a game that was being operated solely by Woody so we never quite knew where we stood.”
She also said that she “felt sorry for Mia” after she heard that Allen had begun dating Soon-Yi Previn, Farrows adopted daughter who would go on to marry Allen. “It was total disrespect,” Engelhardt said. Farrow declined to comment on the story to T.H.R. as well.
In 1979, Allen released the film Manhattan, in which he played a middle-aged man in a frivolous relationship with a 17-year-old high-school girl (played by Mariel Hemingway, who was 16 when shooting the film). For Engelhardt, the story line was a complete surprise.
“I cried through most of the movie, the dawning of realization slowly settling in as my greatest fears crept to the surface,” she wrote. “How could he have felt this way? How was our partnership not something more than just a fling? We had shared such a special bond right from the start, something magical, and now here was his interpretation of me and us on the big screen for all to see in black-and-white. How could he deconstruct my personality and our life together as if it were just some fictional creation for art-house fatheads to pore over?”
Actress Stacey Nelkin, whom Allen also dated when she was 17, has also claimed that she was the source of inspiration for the character. Engelhardt told T.H.R. that may be true; the character could also have been based on a number of other young girls she met who were also involved with Allen, she claimed.
“I was a fragment,” she said. “Great artists cherry-pick.”
The alleged relationship ended after eight years, when Engelhardt left New York and fell in with Federico Fellinis creative crowd in Rome, T.H.R. writes. She last heard from Allen in 2001, when he sent her a letter, thanking her for sending him a copy of a documentary about the making of Fellinis final film, The Voice of the Moon.
“I hope youre happy and well,” he wrote, per T.H.R. “I recall our times together fondly. If youre ever in New York I would love you to meet my wife—shed like you. We get out to California every so often. If youd like Id call and perhaps we could all get together.”
Engelhardt was not interested. “I already had children then,” she told T.H.R. “I was like—not that Ive gone square, but my priorities were different. I just wanted to stay away from that.”
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Yohana DestaYohana Desta is a Hollywood writer for VanityFair.com.
