Filmmaker Faces Jury

Woody Allen performed live before one of the most important audiences of his long show business career -- 10 New York jurors who could award him a multi-million dollar judgment in a bitter lawsuit.

Allen is suing Jean Doumanian, her boyfriend and their production companies for more than $10 million. The key issue is over money he believes the former backers owe him for eight movies they made together.

Allen, 66, testified Tuesday that he resented Doumanian lawyer Peter Parcher's reference to his advisers as a group of "Hollywood Harrys."

"These are highly respected members of the show business community," Allen said. "I regard it as an attempt to smear them. I don't associate with Hollywood Harrys."

Parcher said last week that Doumanian saved the comic's film career. He said his client was a "heroine" for what she did for Allen, a friend for more than 30 years.

"Jean Doumanian was the best friend Woody Allen ever had, no ifs, ands or buts about it," he said.

In 1993, TriStar Pictures dropped Allen "without a boo hoo" after the scandal over his affair with Soo-Yi Previn, the daughter his then-lover, Mia Farrow, had adopted while married to pianist Andre Previn, Parcher said.

Down and almost out of the movie business, Allen asked Doumanian whether she would get Safra, an international financier, to back his films, Parcher said.

This was the assertion Allen denied.

"I primarily make movies. I'm in show business," Allen told the jury after being sworn in by Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Ira Gammerman. "I've written and directed 33 movies and have appeared in a few others."

Allen was explaining why he has often skipped the morning court session because he is filming a movie when the judge abruptly cut him off.

"You mean I have to stop talking?" a perplexed Allen asked.

"I'm the director here," Gammerman told him as the courtroom broke out in laughter.

Allen, outlining his career and the film-making process, said he made his first movie in 1968.

"I assume that was 'Take the Money and Run'," the judge chipped in.