Word: allen
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When the time comes for British government leaders to recommend the next honors list to Queen Elizabeth II, they might consider bestowing titles of some sort on Mia Farrow and Woody Allen. After all, the noisy bust-up of the American film stars' 12-year relationship served the British monarchy handsomely by shoving off the front pages of frenzy-feeding tabloids the photographs of a topless Duchess of York, a.k.a. Fergie, cavorting poolside with her American boyfriend in the presence of her two royal daughters at a rented St.-Tropez villa...
Late last year Woody Allen made history. The epochal event was not his affair with Soon-Yi Farrow Previn, an adopted daughter of Allen's companion Mia Farrow. That sort of escapade is common enough in the long, tawdry life of this planet. But on Dec. 17, 1991, in the Surrogate Court of the State of New York in Manhattan, Allen became a separate but equal adoptive parent of Moses and Dylan Farrow, whom Mia had previously adopted. Each adult was given parental rights. Never before in New York, and perhaps in the U.S., had an unmarried couple been allowed...
...immediately appreciated. Reporting on the custody battle over Moses, Dylan and the couple's biological son Satchel, last week's tabloids trumpeted the more lurid aspects of the rumpus -- such as the offer by Farrow's lawyer to show the court a sheaf of "pornographic" photos that Allen had taken of Soon-Yi -- before Judge Phyllis Gangel-Jacob sensibly called the two stars into her chambers and told them to shut up. But the December ruling has consequences beyond the front page. It sets an implicit precedent for unmarried couples, including homosexuals, to adopt children. Notes Weltz: "Any two single...
...glare is on these families now because Farrow, who adopted three children when she was married to Andre Previn and added four more as a single mother, has been accused by Allen of manipulating and abusing her kids. "I hate to see large families get tarred with that brush," says Californian Bob DeBolt, who with his wife Dorothy adopted 14 disabled children and was the subject of a documentary that won an Oscar in 1978. "We can't generalize on large families any more than we can on family values...
...courts may not call it incest or child abuse, but the relationship is surely an abuse of power. "Does anyone really see Soon-Yi as a consenting equal?" asks West. "Would she feel free to say no to the great Woody Allen? Is she intellectually mature enough?" One reason the taboo of incest has endured so strongly is the understanding most people have that the complex emotional bonds and power relationships that exist within a family -- even an extended one -- should never be abused...