I’ve just now become aware of a week-old article at USA Today where William Branon, chairman of the J. Edgar Hoover Foundation, and the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI are expressing some concern over the potential depiction of any kind of relationship between J. Edgar Hoover (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and his former top aide Clyde Tolson (played by Armie Hammer) in Clint Eastwood‘s J. Edgar.
The capture above from the film’s first trailer depicting Hoover placing his hand on top of Tolson’s is just one cause for the growing concern as Branon fired off a letter to Eastwood at his Warner Bros. production house, Malpaso Productions, writing:
“There is no basis in fact for such a portrayal of Mr. Hoover… It would be a grave injustice and monumental distortion to proceed with such a depiction based on a completely unfounded and spurious assertion.”
[…]
“These allegations spun by an author of questionable repute and sensationalize writings were ‘based’ upon information during a paid interview of an unreliable individual with past convictions for perjury. Not surprisingly, these falsehoods were picked up by the media and served to an uninformed public as ‘truth.’ … To discount the truth and portray a sexual relationship between Mr. Hoover and Clyde Tolson would truly be a miscarriage of the facts and overshadow the many contributions of Mr. Hoover.”
You can read the full letter right here, which includes Eastwood’s reply where he writes, “Please rest assured that we don not give any credence to cross-dressing allegations made by Susan Rosenstiel, nor do we intend to portray an open homosexual relationship between Mr. Hoover and Clyde Tolson.”
Of course, Eastwood doesn’t outright say there won’t be any kind of insinuations, which caused William Baker, a former agent and Hoover foundation vice president, to characterize Eastwood’s letter as “polite, but non-committal.” He then went on to tell USA Today, “We’re caught in a dilemma here… We don’t want to support something not based in fact, but we’re not against the new FBI and diverse workplace.”
The “unreliable individual” Baker is referring to is Susan Rosenstiel who was quoted by the referred “author of questionable repute,” Anthony Summers, in his 1993 biography “[amazon asin=”067188087X” text=”Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover”]” saying she’d seen Hoover in a black dress at an orgy on two occasions. Wikipedia says Rosenstiel would later serve “time at Rikers Island for perjuring herself in a 1971 case.”
As for the concerns over the film, there is talk of at least one scene in which Hoover and Tolson kiss. The scene caused the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI to respond to USA Today saying, “[It] caused us to reassess our tacit approval of your film.”
Of course, the E! Online report isn’t likely to calm their nerves as their source says, “[They did] more [takes] than Clint normally does… They wanted to make it right… It’s a more involved scene than just the kissing… It was so sexy.”
If anything, I guess the film’s debut at the Carmel Art and Film Festival this Friday, October 14, will make for some interesting headlines, especially as the detractors will have to walk the line of trying to defend their hero while also not appearing entirely homophobic.
J. Edgar hits theaters on November 9, you can get more information on the film here, and I’ve included the trailer directly below.
