Dustin Hoffman has been called a “predator” by a writer who claims he sexually harassed her while she interned on the set of TV movie Death of a Salesman as a 17-year-old in 1985.

“He asked me to give him a foot massage my first day on set; I did,” Anna Graham Hunter wrote in a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter. “He was openly flirtatious, he grabbed my ass, he talked about sex to me and in front of me. One morning I went to his dressing room to take his breakfast order; he looked at me and grinned, taking his time. Then he said, ‘I’ll have a hard-boiled egg … and a soft-boiled clitoris.’ His entourage burst out laughing. I left, speechless. Then I went to the bathroom and cried.”

Hunter recorded Hoffman’s alleged behaviour in a diary at the time, one reading: “Today, when I was walking Dustin to his limo, he felt my ass four times. I hit him each time, hard, and told him he was a dirty old man.”

“At 49, I understand what Dustin Hoffman did as it fits into the larger pattern of what women experience in Hollywood and everywhere,” she reflected in the column. “He was a predator, I was a child, and this was sexual harassment. As to how it fits into my own pattern, I imagine I’ll be figuring that out for years to come.”

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In response to the article, Hoffman apologised, saying in a statement: “I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation. I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am.”