Giancarlo Parretti, an Italian financier who has emerged as a major figure in the Hollywood and international entertainment industries, allegedly complained in a newspaper interview that “the Jews have ganged up on me.”
These and other anti-Semitic remarks are attributed to Parretti in the current issue of Business Week magazine, based on an interview that originally appeared in the Italian Communist daily L’Unita.
“The fact is that the Jews don’t like the idea that I represent the first Catholic communication network,” Parretti is quoted in the interview. “There doesn’t exist a single (media) holding company in the world that isn’t in the hands of Jews.”
Parretti got his first foothold in Hollywood two years ago when his Pathe Communications Corp. took over the ailing Cannon Group, headed by two Israeli-born cousins, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. Golan has since established an independent film company, but Globus stayed with Parretti and is now co-president of Pathe.
Globus rushed to his partner’s defense, telling the Los Angeles Times last Friday that Parretti is one of the most loving and generous people in Hollywood and has made large donations to Israeli and Jewish causes.
“Do you think I would have worked with him?” Globus asked. “It’s ridiculous that the media are trying to take the blood out of the man. There is not even an inch of anti-Semitism.”
Parretti, who now controls a diversified international conglomerate of film libraries, television and motion picture studios, and theatres, is currently in the midst of his biggest deal, an attempt to buy out the MGM/United Artists studios and holdings for $1.2 billion.
Time Warner Inc., another media giant, has offered to put up more than half of the financing, but Hollywood observers believe that the entire deal will collapse unless Parretti can convincingly refute the remarks attributed to him.
The alleged anti-Semitic remarks were denounced by Burton Levinson, national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, who called on the Hollywood community to “forcefully reject the anti-Semitic stereotyping and bigotry” implicit in the interview.
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