“The calls came in a badly disguised voice and said some version of, ‘I’m going to fucking kill you.’ I don’t remember them any better than that,” Maslin said. “I was just this writer and he had been my hero, and it stayed with me for a long time.” She recalled the self-doubt that she experienced in the “months and months and months” that followed, as she wondered whether she had blown an opportunity to advance her career by rebuffing Hoffman: “It was one voice in my head saying, ‘I was such an idiot. Why don’t you just realize he just wasn’t interested? “I’m just completely flustered,” Riss Gatsiounis said. Riss Gatsiounis said that she chose to speak now about her experience with Hoffman and Schisgal in light of the recent allegations to surface against disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein and others in the entertainment industry, including Hoffman, and to support other alleged victims who have spoken out. “I’m in this crazy universe, and I don’t even know what what the rules are because this guy is so weird.” 
 
 She realized their rendezvous wasn’t about a starring role. He then convinced Farrell to come to his room to see examples of his work. The late ’80s and early ’90s were a prolific time in Hoffman’s career, in which he appeared in several large studio films including “Rain Man,” “Billy Bathgate,” and “Hook.” In addition, Punch — where Schisgal served as a creative executive — developed several projects in which Hoffman starred, including “Tootsie,” “Death of a Salesman,” “American Buffalo,” and “Moonlight Mile.” 
 
 Riss Gatsiounis said that she left the meeting and, “close to tears,” called her agent Mary Meagher from a payphone and recounted the meeting to her. “You’re also just like, ‘I can’t believe it’s all happening.” Unsure of how to react, her defense mechanism was to be smart-alecky. “Dustin Hoffman was playfully like, ‘Murray, shut up. “And then Murray Schisgal says, ‘Look, we’re not really interested in your play, because it’s too film noir-ish.’ And that was it.” 
 
 Punch Productions at the time carried a staff of 10-12 people in an office at 75 Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. “I’m trying to go back to my pitch, and I’m trying to talk about my play. Then Toback boasted of “the cruelest thing I ever did in my life... the most sadistic thing.” 
 
 Years later, when Toback heard Canby was dying of cancer, he called him at Mt. But she never got to discuss the new idea with them. '” 
 
 Riss Gatsiounis added that Schisgal, who was also present, encouraged her to go with Hoffman.
– The harassment accusations set off by the Harvey Weinstein scandal continue to reverberate in Hollywood and beyond. A rep for one of the big new targets, Kevin Spacey, announced he was seeking "evaluation and treatment," but Spacey's was far from the only name making headlines. Here's a look at the latest: Death threats: Renowned film critic Janet Maslin tells the Daily Beast that she's positive director James Toback is the man who called her home with "a badly disguised voice" in 1978 and threatened to kill her after she'd written an unflattering review about his first film, Fingers. She got about 10 calls in all, at home and at the office, resulting in the one and only time in her career she filed a police report. Literally hundreds of women have accused Toback of sexual misconduct. Another for Hoffman: "Wendy, have you ever been intimate with a man over 40?" Producer Wendy Riss Gatsiounis recounts to Variety a pitch meeting with Dustin Hoffman in 1991 when she was a young playwright in her 20s and he a 53-year-old Hollywood star. She declined his request during the meeting to go shopping at a nearby hotel, and his suggestion that his "would be a whole new body to explore." Her play was declined. She's the second woman to come forward about Hoffman.