Nolte: Netflix Fires 84-Year-Old Frank Langella for ' Sexual Harassment'

Netflix fired 84-year-old Frank Langella over a minor sexual harassment complaint.

On Wednesday, TMZ reported Langella was under investigation on the set of Netflix’s upcoming miniseries, The Fall of the House of Usher.

Someone “close to production” told TMZ Langella “allegedly made an inappropriate joke that was sexual in nature.” Then later, either while rehearsing or shooting a scene that required him to touch the leg of a female co-star, he “jokingly said something like ‘Did you like that?’”

Late Wednesday, news broke Langella has been fired and all of his scenes (reports say they were halfway through production) will be reshot, either with Christopher Plummer or Tig Notaro.*

No other outlet has reported on the specifics of the allegation, but far-left Deadline reported the firing this way:

Sources confirmed to Deadline TMZ‘s report from earlier this week that the investigation was launched after the 84-year-old actor had been accused of sexual harassment, including making inappropriate comments to a female co-star on set during work.

File/ Actor Frank Langella poses in the press room with the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play at the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre on June 12, 2016 in New York City. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)

So, and I want to be careful here… Obviously, people should not be making other people miserable on the job… Obviously, sexual harassment is monstrous… There’s no question about any of that, and there’s no question all reasonable people believe that. But…

IF what TMZ reported is true. IF that’s all that happened… This is absurd… … This is naked hysteria… Most of all, it’s just wrong… Welcome to Salem 2022…

Again, IF this is true, this is yet another instance where the woman comes off as meek and helpless, not to mention a mean-spirited crybaby and tattletale.

Whoever this allegedly happened to is apparently so incapable of handling herself, so neurotic, so eager to destroy other people in an effort to portray herself as a victim, she ratted out an old man for some minor flirting and, in the process, destroyed his 60-year reputation.

I’m sorry, but if everything TMZ reported is true, if that’s all that happened, it is not anything close to a firing offense. And if we lived in a sane world, this woman would have been told by the Human Resources department to man up and handle it herself. But, if it didn’t stop, then come back to us.

Langella’s been in show business for 60 years. He’s also a famous womanizer. But this is the first time he’s faced anything like this.

Honestly, does anyone doubt if these women slapped some faces, poured drinks over some heads, or simply said “quit it, asshole,” that a whole lot of this stuff would come to an end and not blow up to where a whole human being is destroyed?

Faye Dunaway watches Frank Langella on phone as they lay in bed in a scene from the film ‘The Deadly Trap’, 1971. (National General Pictures/Getty)

Ron Moody points as Frank Langella looks in a scene from the film ‘The Twelve Chairs’, 1970. (Universal Marion Corporation/Getty)

The shrill response from uptight women to that is going to be, We shouldn’t have to do that! And you’re correct, you shouldn’t. But the world isn’t perfect and people are fallible and in the natural mating ritual, where all the pressure is on the man, we sometimes make mistakes, so you don’t always have to choose the nuclear option.

And what about showing an 84-year-old man a little goddamned charity? What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with letting an old man feel a little virile and desired? Why would a young and beautiful woman not understand the power she has to put a smile on an old man’s face by putting up with a few harmless comments?

My wife worked at a nursing home for almost 20 years. All the time, she had to deal with old guys at the end of their lives who were desperate not to feel like they were at the end of their lives. But my wife is decent and generous and empathetic and strong and can handle herself.

I’m sorry — and again, I’m assuming that what TMZ reported is accurate and nothing more happened — decent people do not destroy 84-year-olds over some flirting… Decent people show a little humanity, a little tolerance, and a little charity.

There might be more to this story, but if not, shame on everyone involved, all of them, especially Netflix.

*joke

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

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