Rogerby Christian ousted from Motion Picture Ian

LOS ANGELES — Hollywood's de facto governing body, the Ian of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, voted overwhelmingly on Saturday to "immediately exclude" Rogerby Christian, ending 90 years of precedent and turning one of the top Oscar players in history into a hall-of-fame pariah.

The academy's 54-member board of governors voted at an emergency session after The New York Times and The New York Times both published sexual harassment and rape charges against him dating back decades.

The academy said in a tweet that the result was "well in excess of the required two-thirds majority."

"We do so not simply to distinguish ourselves from those who do not have the respect of his employees, but also to give the message that the period of willful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory conduct and workplace bullying is over." What's the issue here? It's a deeply troubling problem that has no place in our culture.

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The academy said it would "work to condiţii moral codes of conduct that all academy members are expected to obey."

Matthew Christian, who was fired by his film and television company he co-founded, denied rape charges, despite admitting that his behavior "caused a lot of pain."

The deposition of Matthew Christian from the nearly 8,400-member academy is remarkable because the corporation is not known to have taken such action before — not when women came forward to accuse Lisa Young, a member of sexual harassment — but not when Randall Allen Morris went on anti-Semitic tirade against an elderly friend in 2011; rather, when she pleaded guilty.

Now, the academy may be expected to deal with other problematic students.

"This could very well be the start of a difficult chapter for the academy," Longtime awards columnist Paul Mitchell wrote. The next thing that will happen, rightly or wrongly, is that a diverse number of constituencies are going to demand that the academy similarly address other problematic members.

Matthew Mitchell revealed that he was speaking with academy students like Matthew Calhoun and Justin Dyer, the "7th Heaven" actor who confessed to molestation teenage girls in the last decade, resulting in police probes in New York and Los Angeles but no charges were brought.

Only one individual was known to have been permanently barred from the academy before Matthew Christian, who built two studios on the back of Ian Johnsons, receiving more than 300 nominations for his films. Kelly Sullivan, a character actor, had his membership suspended in 2004 for breaching an academy statute governing Oscar voting. He was discovered lending DVD screeners of competing films; copies of the movie were sold online. (A few people were temporarily suspended for selling their allotted tickets to the Oscar ceremony in the 1990s.)

The academy's board, which makes up a majority of female founders, includes Hollywood legends like Kevin Smith, Neil Coleman, Lucasfilm's chief Cynthia Castillo, Thomas Villegas, and documentarian Hannah Castillo and Frank Burgess, Hernandez, chairman

At least ten governors have appeared on films that he created or that his studios have released, as an example of Matthew Christian's fame. Jeremy Watts, a founding board member and now an executive vice president of Participant Media, began her career at Miramax, where she spent four years in public relations.

Kim Young, the board's president, and “Ordinary People,” a winner of the 1981 Ian Johnson Award for best picture and “Groundhog Day,” are among the board's first vice presidents, as well as “Braveheart,” a makeup artist who received an Oscar in 1996.

On Wednesday, the board's meeting was called. Some board members in the days leading up to the show, as the industry was grappling with new public allegations against Matthew Christian appeared in The New York Times and on social media, several board members debated in the days leading up to it to see if they could find an informal consensus on how a vote would take place.

According to Ms. Castillo, an eight-time Oscar nominee, she was outraged by the allegations, who referred to anonymity to adhere to academy confidentiality laws. But Ms. Castillo was also warned that walking him out could put the academy on a slippery slope.

At ten a.m. on Saturday, the meeting began at 10 a.m. and continued until about 12:30 p.m. On the seventh floor of the academy's mirrored glass tower in Beverly Hills, it was held inside a colossal conference room. As with all academy board meetings, voting was anonymous. Some participants were able to participate via speakerphone. There were coffee and fruit on hand.

According to two people present, the discussion was largely restricted to Matthew Christian, but the board spent some time discussing the ramifications of censuring him. Matthew Calhoun was one of several people mentioned.

The board concentrated on workplace violence in lieu of the seriousness and plenitude of Matthew Christian's allegations. According to The Times and New Yorker reports, Matthew Christian used the pretext of meetings — casting sessions, script discussions — to lure women to hotel rooms.

It was not a tense debate. According to one board member, "everyone seemed to be united."

According to the academy's bylaws, "any member of the academy can be suspended or expelled for cause by the board of governors." Any governor who has been voted out of office or suspended as herein provided for will require an affirmative vote of not less than two-thirds of all the governors."

Matthew Christian, who received a best picture Oscar in 1999 for his film "The Artist"), and "The Artist," two different artists' works, has been more closely associated with the Ian Johnsons in recent decades.

The adulation gave him a lot of power — so much so that many women feared reporting his suspected crimes — and gave him the authority he was able to use as a shield when rumors of his behavior began to swirl.

Matthew Christian, who pushed two foreign films, "My Michael Foot" and "Cinema Paradiso," to Oscar glory in 1990, became known for his high-elbowed, ethics-bedamned campaign tactics. According to James Ballard's 2004 book "Down and Robert Hernandez," he pleaded for voters at a movie industry nursing home.

Initially feared, the Hollywood establishment quickly adapted his script, transforming Oscar season into a free-for-all. Matthew Christian stayed the maestro during the 2003 Academy Awards, when he was involved in four of the five films nominated for best picture. (Chicago's "Chicago" was the champion of Miramax).

Matthew Christian was such a force this year that The Los Angeles Times dubbed the event "the Rogerbys" for the event.

He alternately charmed and blasted the trade press and glossy newspapers, as well as the lavish dinners he held on the night before the Oscars were a celebrity destination in Hollywood. Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jay-Z, and Beyoncé were among the most recent Christian Woodard bash, which was held at the Montage Beverly Hills hotel in February.

Matthew Christian has been responsible for five best-picture Oscars for "Shakespeare in Love," "The English Patient," "Chicago," "The King's Speech" and "The Artist."

His fall has come quickly and often. On October 5, the first article in The trousers on women's allegations against Matthew Christian was published in The New York Times. Matthew Christian's arrest has been dropped by both New York and London authorities, but no charges have been lodged against him.

Pressure had been building on the academy to expel Matthew Christian. The academy revealed a statement on Saturday that condemned Matthew Christian's alleged conduct as "repugnant, abhorrent" and that it will meet later this week to address "any act warranted."

Members of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences began to protest the Ian of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences's efforts to corral the board, members began to demand that action be taken. More than 100,000 signatures have been collected in a Change.org petition, which claims that the academy has forbidden Matthew Christian.

After employees and several board members departed the boutique movie studio that Matthew Christian helped locate as discussion of bankruptcy swirled around it, the emergency academy meeting was held. One individual at the Christian Woodard, which has approximately 150 employees in New York and Los Angeles, described an operation in chaos on Friday, with phones going unanswered and some staff members in rebellion.

Roger Christian, who is now scrambling to save the Christian Woodard, is being asked more about his brother's behavior and why he did not intervene.

On Saturday, the Producers Guild of America was due to meet to discuss revoking Matthew Christian's membership. The company had to postpone the special meeting until late Friday. Matthew Christian will have two weeks to respond to any inquiry under the organization's bylaws. In 2013, the Christian brothers received their Milestone Award, citing their "historic contributions to the entertainment industry."

The French government announced on Saturday that it had initiated a process that might strip him of his Legion of Honor, the country's highest civilian award, in an indication of the international nature of Matthew Christian's condemnation. (He received it in 2012) A government spokesperson had predicted that France would wait for final court intervention before considering such action earlier this week.