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(WTXF) - It's no shock to Adam Ratcliffe that Harvey Weinstein's in trouble based on what Adam has seen.
The veteran film and TV actor says that when he was just starting out, he was offered a cash-for-companionship proposition by a powerful producer, though it wasn't Weinstein.
"The room got heavy, and the temperature was rising, and I felt that there was a need for me to leave at the time, and he asked me to take my shirt off," Ratcliffe says.
Adam followed his gut and left, adding that his career never suffered any negative repercussions as a result. He's okay seeing Weinstein go down and considers it a positive indicator.
Adam and I took acting classes together back in the day (I was an actor once). We both knew teachers who slept with students. It was no secret.
For a much-needed woman's perspective, we sought out Jenny Lee Stern in Doylestown.
"Things that go on in a normal office, in a normal workplace, that would obviously be so over-the-top inappropriate," she says, sitting at Villa Capri restaurant. "In a dressing room situation, it might just come across as 'funny,' or a joke, or 'he's just like that or 'he's a little weird, just don't be alone with him.'
Jenny's big league on Broadway, and she's right. Film, TV,and theater are not like other businesses at all. There's no love scenes or dressing rooms at an insurance office. Jenny says it's an everyday dynamic when a lot of actors and actresses want a role. Powerful people, like Weinstein, can take advantage.
"I could say no, and she could say no, and she could say no and she could say no. And then she could say yes," she says, "And it feeds this beast. It, you know, feeds the predator. And it just keeps going on and on and on."
So what does Weinstein's downfall mean? It's the end of the career of a guy who is alleged to have leveraged his position to use and abuse scores of women. But what's changed about Hollywood? Broadway?
"Until we all unite as women, as men to not have this, stand for this… nothing's going to change," she says.
Jenny adds that we all need to do a better job of listening when someone raises a red flag. instead of blaming the. But there are a million and one ways to become a star, and entertainment is largely unregulated. Harvey Weinstein's finished. But other than his company, the business he worked in won't feel a thing.
I'm Hank, and that's my take.