Not everyone is thrilled about Quentin Tarantino taking over the New Beverly Cinema.
Longtime theater employee Julia Marchese says she was demoted and then forced to quit after she refused to sign a confidentiality agreement. Marchese posted about the situation on her blog Wednesday.
Marchese, who has worked at the L.A.-based arthouse theater since previous owner Sherman Torgan hired her eight years ago, says she was informed in July that Tarantino would be taking over ownership, at which point she was told she would be promoted to manager.
However, Marchese says she was asked to sign an agreement promising not to say anything about her job, the theater or Tarantino. She declined to sign the agreement, explaining on her site that she’s an “open person.”
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At that point, Marchese claims she was never given information about her new responsibilities and that her emails to the theater’s higher-ups went unanswered. “I was completely frozen out,” she writes.
On Monday, Marchese was informed by Julie McLean, Tarantino’s assistant and the theater’s new general manager, that she was not management material and was instead being demoted to the box office, although no shifts would be guaranteed. Marchese then quit.
“My last words to her were: ‘You’re going to turn this place into a f—ing multiplex, and it’s a goddamn drag,’ ” Marchese wrote on her site. She added that Tarantino is an “incredibly talented filmmaker with his heart in the right place,” but that he needs to “wake up and see” that his team does not have his interests in mind.
Marchese and Tarantino’s reps did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Email: Ryan.Gajewski@pgmedia.org
Twitter: @_RyanGajewski
