Affair Angered Allen’s Adopted Son, Letter Says

Woody Allen’s 14-year-old adopted son, enraged by the filmmaker’s affair with his older sister, wrote that he wished his father would kill himself if he tried to gain custody of the children he shared with Mia Farrow, according to a letter presented Tuesday as evidence in court.

“You have done a horrible, unforgivable, terrible, stupid, ugly thing. Those are my thoughts and feelings towards you,” the undated letter purportedly written to Allen by Moses Farrow said. “If you take us to court, you will be the one who will be so sorry. I hope you get so humiliated that you commit suicide.”

Allen charged that the letter was really written in large part by Farrow. He said he later played baseball with Moses after he received the note.

The producer and his leading lady exchanged charges of blackmail during their continuing custody trial. Under cross-examination, Allen said he had no present plans to marry Soon-Yi Farrow Previn, the 22-year-old adopted daughter of Farrow and her former husband, conductor Andre Previn.

He said that, after he started his relationship with Soon-Yi, a time came when Farrow “in a hysterical way” asked, “Would you marry me?”

“I said I would consider it,” Allen testified. “ . . . I said I was not seeing Soon-Yi. That was absolutely untrue.”

Allen said his real motive at the time was trying to control Farrow’s “eruptions” before the children. “There were threats of suicide and violence in front of the children,” he charged.

“There were threats of suicide and violence in fromt of the children,” he charged. “. . . I was walking a very thin line there. She was the one who proposed in a hysterical way.”

Allen and Farrow are fighting in New York State Supreme Court over custody of their 4-year-old biological son, Satchel, their adopted daughter, Dylan, 7, and Moses. Farrow’s lawyers seek to overturn the adoptions on the grounds that Allen at the time was having an affair with Soon-Yi. Allen says his relationship started later.

During her cross-examination of Allen on Tuesday, Eleanor Alter, one of Farrow’s lawyers, read aloud the six-paragraph letter addressed to “Woody.” It was not signed. Allen said that he thought Moses had handed the letter to him in the country one day but that he did not remember its precise contents.

“I know you can’t force me to live with you,” the letter said. “You have changed over the last months. You have become hostile and anxious.

“Everyone knows not to have an affair with your son’s sister,” the letter said. “I just want you to know, I don’t consider you a father anymore. It was a great feeling having a father, but you have smashed that feeling and that dream with a single act. I hope you are proud to have crushed your son’s dream.”

Later, Allen charged that Farrow had played a major role in drafting the note.

Allen and Farrow accused each other of blackmail after the relationship with Soon-Yi became known. Farrow’s lawyer charged that the filmmaker threatened to deny the actress future film roles if she did not cooperate with him. Allen alleged that Farrow threatened to leak stories to newspapers unless he met with her lawyer at the time, Alan M. Dershowitz.

At one point in the hearing when Alter was sharply critical of his parenting skills, Allen was asked when he started dating Farrow.

The familiar figure in his tweed sports jacket and rumpled brown corduroy pants paused for a moment on the witness stand as Farrow, seated with her lawyers, looked at him intently.

“It was the day Jean-Paul Sartre died--April, 1980,” Allen said.