Hollywood legend Julie Newmar has said that men should run the entertainment industry, as she believes they do it better than women.
The 96-year-old star of stage and screen, who played Catwoman in the 1960s Batman TV series opposite Adam West, launched her career in the 1950s, working with male stars ranging from Fred Astaire and James Mason to Gregory Peck and Omar Sharif.
Her legendary status was immortalised with a cameo in the cult 1995 comedy To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, starring Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo as drag queens.
Newmar, whose other credits include raunchy comedy The Marriage-Go-Round (1961), was regularly cast in sexualised roles, with her characters often sought after by men, and she’s reflected on the attention this brought her in a new interview.
“Luckily, I liked it,” she told The Guardian. “It was good. I’m… not the first in line in the #MeToo class.”
Newmar, explaining her comment, said: “I love men too much. I understand them. And the heads of studios, yes, they break a door down and they do this or they do that – that’s how they act.
“You think you’re gonna change things? Not a whole lot. And you know what? It works. It works beautifully because men are very good to women.”
Upon being asked if men should be leading the studios, she continued: “They should be. They do it best.”
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The #MeToo movement occurred after the investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against producer Harvey Weinstein, which emboldened survivors of sexual harassment and violence – including many Hollywood stars – to share their personal accounts.
In the wake of the movement, Oscar-nominated French actor Catherine Deneuve led a group of 100 prominent women with an alternative take on the Weinstein scandal.
An open letter, published in France’s Le Monde newspaper shortly after the Weinstein investigation became public knowledge, read: “Men have been punished summarily, forced out of their jobs when all they did was touch someone’s knee or try to steal a kiss.
“Rape is a crime, but trying to seduce someone, even persistently or clumsily, is not – and nor is men being gentlemanly a chauvinist attack.” In 2020, Weinstein was convicted of rape, but had the conviction overturned in 2024. Jurors are now deliberating on whether the case will go to a retrial; Weinstein is charged with one count of rape in the third degree.
Elsewhere in the Newmar interview, the actor, who was known for her towering height of 6ft, cited frustrations at once having to stoop her shoulders and crouch while dancing with Astaire in 1953 musical The Band Wagon.
“I once got to dance with Fred Astaire. I just did a pirouette with him, but in a long skirt with bent knees, because he’s 5ft 8in, or something like that,” she said, adding: “Yes, I think it was difficult to cast me, because of my … differences. I’m not ordinary enough.”
