LOS ANGELES – Oscar-winning producer Jon Peters, whose hits include “Rain Man” and “The Color Purple,” has been slapped with a blockbuster sexual harassment suit alleging he repeatedly tried to bed a female aide and exposed himself to her 3-year-old daughter.
Shelly Morita, 39, who worked as a personal assistant to the 61-year-old “Superman Returns” honcho last year, filed her bombshell complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court Tuesday.
The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, says the mogul repeatedly groped Morita’s breasts and buttocks and even crept into bed with her without permission during her one-year stint as his employee. He was also verbally abusive and intimidating, the suit says.
“Why don’t we just make love?” Peters, an ex-flame of actress Barbra Streisand and former co-head of Sony Pictures, asked Morita on multiple occasions as he pestered her with unwanted hugs and kisses, the lawsuit alleges.
“No, I work for you,” she replied, according to court papers.
In the suit’s most shocking charge, Morita says that during a visit to Peters’ Santa Barbara, Calif., ranch, in December 2005, the producer crassly exposed himself to her little girl and declared, “Do you want to see how boys go pee?…Look what boys have!”
Peters, who was Streisand’s hairdresser before he produced her 1976 film hit “A Star Is Born,” later joked about the child-flashing incident to other employees, the suit charges.
Peters could not be reached for comment yesterday and did not respond to messages left at two of his offices.
Morita could not be reached, but her lawyer backed her charges. “She is a competent and capable professional who was only trying to do her job. I am confident that we can prove the allegations in a court of law,” attorney Hillel Chodos told the Daily News.
Morita has worked as an assistant to other Hollywood stars, including actress Jennifer Connelly.
The suit says that while on location in Australia during production of “Superman Returns,” Peters “entered plaintiff’s hotel room and crawled into her bed and refused to leave when asked to do so.”
Another time, when Morita was working at his home, a stark-naked Peters, who was getting ready for a massage, “grabbed her in a bear hug and would not let go of her,” the suit says.
Peters’ reputed exploits as a Hollywood hairdresser were said to be the basis of the sex-filled film “Shampoo,” starring Warren Beatty. His big-spending stint as co-head of Sony Pictures was the subject of a book “Hit and Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood.”
The suit also names Peters’ companies, Outback Pictures Inc. and J.P. Organization Inc., as defendants.