Armie Hammer

House of Hammer” is a dizzying new docuseries centered around actor Armie Hammer and the sprawling history behind his family. Here's what to know.

[We Just Got the Best Snapshot Yet of How Much Progress Students Lost in the Pandemic.](https://time.com/6210490/pandemic-learning-loss-naep/?utm_source=roundup&utm_campaign=20220902)The Results Are Staggering [Jackson, Mississippi Has No Safe Tap Water for the Foreseeable Future.](https://time.com/6209710/jackson-mississippi-water-crisis/?utm_source=roundup&utm_campaign=20220902)It's a Crisis Decades in the Making In the docuseries, Joseph Finder of the Harvard Russian Research Center says that the Russians funneled money through the Hammer family to fund the Communist party to “steal technology and trade secrets from the United States.” Armie has not made any statements regarding the docuseries, but he did respond via a lawyer to the allegations made by the women in January 2021. “Certainly behind the Hammer family, there were a great number of great crimes.” Casey says that Michael, Armie’s father, made his feelings about Casey airing out the family’s dirty laundry quite clear in a private letter to her. The farthest back the Hammer family timeline goes in the docuseries is to Armie’s great-great-grandfather, Julius Hammer. Casey, then a teen, didn’t visit her father for two years until her mom finally allowed her to, and she found herself in the middle of one of his lavish parties filled with cocaine, alcohol, and a number of young women—as young as 16 or 17, Casey says. Following that movie, Hammer took starring roles in [The Man from U.N.C.L.E.](https://time.com/3995795/guy-ritchies-rules-for-reimagining-spy-flicks/) and Luca Guadagnino’s [Call Me By Your Name](https://time.com/5042707/call-me-by-your-name-shape-of-water-fearlessly-display-love/), opposite [Timotheé Chalamet](https://time.com/6103203/timothee-chalamet-profile/), with many of his roles fitting into his pretty rich-boy persona. But I’m here to say, my family is real and it’s a million times worse.” In the three episodes, Hammer’s ex Courtney Vucekovich details her experience with him in detail for the first time; Casey Hammer unearths the misdeeds the men in her family allegedly attempted to bury; and the Hammer web is untangled in great detail. The documentary purports that Hammer shared his fantasies and coerced women into uncomfortable situations in which they felt they could not say no. [Discovery+](https://time.com/6203940/hbo-max-streaming-wars-future/) and counts among its producers Armie’s aunt Casey Hammer, seeks to “reveal the dark, twisted secrets of the Hammer family.” As Casey Hammer tells TIME, “With [Succession](https://time.com/6127997/succession-season-3-finale-what-happens-next/), people can say, ‘Oh my god, it’s such a powerful series and the acting is fabulous,’ but it’s all made up. Instead of telling the story chronologically, the series jumps between decades and the different men of the Hammer family, attempting to connect it back to Armie, though not always seamlessly or smoothly.

"House of Hammer" details recent criminal allegations against actor Armie Hammer, as well as the history of the embattled men in his mega-wealthy family.

As a young man, he worked for Occidental Petroleum, and after Armand died in 1990, Casey tells the documentarians that Michael entered Armand’s home before his body was even taken away to remove several cars’ worth of At Armand’s funeral, Michael’s father-in-law father declared that Armand became a Christian on his deathbed, despite the funeral being facilitated by Jewish rabbis; Michael and his then-wife Dru (Armie’s mother) donated much of the $40 million they inherited from Armand to Christian groups, including Jews for Jesus and Italy for Christ. Joseph Finder of the Harvard Russian Research Center explains in the docuseries that the CIA concluded that Armand Hammer was brought into the fold, too; Armand was used to collect information for the KGB and therefore was considered to be an agent of the Soviet Union. He named his son Armand, born in 1898, for the symbol of the Communist Party in Russia (“arm and hammer”). He often lounged around in luxury pajamas, earning the nickname “the Hugh Hefner of Pacific Palisades,” and allegedly sometimes helped his father, Armand, bug telephones. [Armand](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/12/27/armand-hammers-afterlife/d7b7a47b-d486-4ea9-b151-fb1278e97307/?itid=lk_inline_manual_19), Armie’s great-grandfather, later became a mega-wealthy oil tycoon — and, according to the docuseries, was known to be abusive toward his wives and mistresses, involved in corruption schemes and disturbingly ruthless with his business interests. When Frances discovered the affair and told her husband to get rid of Kaufman, Armand ordered Kaufman to change her name to Hilary Gibson and dye her hair platinum blond. “House of Hammer,” a three-part docuseries that premiered Friday on Discovery Plus, starts with the Armie Hammer storyline, then climbs up five generations of his family tree. But a new documentary digs in to find that the allegations against Hammer are much broader and more disturbing — and concludes that they are part of a dark family tradition. Courtney Vucekovich, a Dallas business owner and a former girlfriend of Armie’s, alleges on-screen that he tied her up with ropes with only her vague consent, disregarding the common BDSM rule requiring consistent, reaffirmed mutual consent. For decades, it argues, the men of the mega-wealthy Hammer dynasty have been up to no good — living lawlessly and greedily, and harming others. [that went public](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/03/the-fall-of-armie-hammer-a-family-saga-of-sex-money-drugs-and-betrayal) in early 2021 may have seemed to be about some creepy text messages, a rope fetish and something about cannibalism.