A lawsuit accusing actor Warren Beatty of coercive sex with a teenager five decades ago was dismissed Friday. The suit, lodged in Los Angeles last year, was one of a number of historic abuse claims filed under a California law allowing complaints that would otherwise have passed the statute of limitations.

Kristina Charlotte Hirsch alleged in the suit that she met the “Bonnie and Clyde” actor on a movie set in 1973 when she was 14 or 15 years old. She claimed he later invited her to the hotel in which he was living and took her for car rides.

Beatty -- who would have been aged around 35 at the time -- “used his position and status as an adult and a Hollywood movie star to coerce sexual contact with Plaintiff on multiple occasions with the minor child,” the suit said. Beverly Hills Superior Court Judge Edward Moreton Jr dismissed the case “with prejudice” at a hearing Friday meaning it cannot be refiled.—AFP

Moreton noted that Hirsch had not filed case management papers and was representing herself after her former attorney withdrew this year. Beatty, now 86, has long had a reputation as a lothario whose romantic entanglements have at times overshadowed his acting career.

He has in the past been linked to names including Jane Fonda, Brigitte Bardot, Diane Keaton and Britt Ekland. — AFP