Natalie Wood was assaulted by Kirk Douglas, sister alleges- Socially Keeda

NEW YORK – For a few years, it has been thought-about one among Hollywood’s darkest rumors: A teen-age Natalie Wooden was sexually assaulted by a chief movie star larger than twice her age when she met with him at a lodge in Los Angeles.

In a memoir coming out subsequent week, Wooden’s youthful sister identifies the long-suspected assailant: Kirk Douglas.

“I do not forget that Natalie seemed particularly lovely when Mother and I dropped her off that evening on the Chateau Marmont entrance,” Lana Wooden writes in “Little Sister,” alleging that the incident occurred within the summertime of 1955, throughout the time Natalie Wooden was filming “The Searchers.” The meeting had been organized by their mother, Maria Zakharenko, who thought that “many doorways is likely to be thrown open for her, with only a nod of his well-known, good-looking head on her behalf,” in step with Lana Wooden.

“It appeared like a very long time handed earlier than Natalie acquired again into the automotive and woke me up when she slammed the door shut,” she writes. “She seemed terrible. She was very matted and really upset, and he or she and Mother began urgently whispering to one another. I could not actually hear them or make out what they had been saying. One thing unhealthy had apparently occurred to my sister, however no matter it was, I used to be apparently too younger to be instructed about it.”

Based on Lana Wooden, Natalie Wooden didn’t speak about collectively along with her what occurred until every had been adults and Natalie, after describing being launched into Douglas’ suite, instructed her sister, “And, uh … he damage me Lana.”

“It was like an out-of-body expertise. I used to be terrified, I used to be confused,” Lana Wooden remembers her saying. Lana, now 75 and spherical 8 when the alleged incident occurred, remembered her sister and their mother agreeing it can smash Natalie’s occupation to publicly accuse him.

“Suck it up” was Maria’s advice, in step with “Little Sister,” loads of which focuses on Natalie Wooden’s dying in 1981, when her physique was found off Catalina Island in California. Authorities initially dominated the dying an unintentional drowning, nevertheless that has modified after years of scrutiny and further witnesses rising. Wooden’s husband on the time, Robert Wagner, has been often known as a person of curiosity and Lana Wooden is amongst people who keep him chargeable for her dying.Advert

In her information, she recollects promising her sister to not speak about her being assaulted by Douglas, nevertheless rumors had been so prevalent that when he died in 2020, at age 103, Natalie Wooden’s determine trended alongside collectively along with his on Twitter. Lana Wooden, whose private showing credit score embody “The Searchers” and the TV sequence “Peyton Place,” believes enough has modified since her dialog with Natalie that she is going to be capable of now inform the whole story.

“With nobody nonetheless round to guard, I am certain she’ll forgive me for lastly breaking that promise,” she wrote.

Douglas’ son, actor Michael Douglas, talked about in an announcement issued by technique of his publicist: “Might they each relaxation in peace.”

Kirk Douglas, in his late 30s on the time of the alleged assault, was acknowledged for such films as “Spartacus,” “The Dangerous and the Lovely” and “Gunfight on the O.Okay. Corral.” He moreover was one among many first most important actors to kind his private manufacturing agency and a excellent liberal activist who has been broadly credited with serving to to interrupt the Chilly Conflict blacklist in direction of suspected Communists when he employed Dalton Trumbo to place in writing “Spartacus” and listed him by determine for the 1960 launch. Douglas and his second partner, Anne, donated hundreds and hundreds of {dollars} by technique of the Douglas Basis they co-founded in 1964 with a mission to “serving to those that won’t in any other case be capable to assist themselves.”Advert

Douglas acquired a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981 and the Legion of Honor from France in 1985. He was given an honorary Oscar in 1996, when the film academy praised him as “a inventive and ethical drive.”

Douglas himself acknowledged that he was a womanizer and an unfaithful husband. Talking to The Related Press about Douglas in December 2016, decrease than a 12 months sooner than the #MeToo movement caught on, the actress and dancer Neile Adams lightheartedly talked about of her pal, “You may not sit beside him with out his hand crawling up your leg.”

In his memoir “The Ragman’s Son,” printed in 1988, Douglas writes briefly about Natalie Wooden. He remembers driving residence one night and stopping at a purple mild. The door of the automotive in entrance of him opened and “a fairly little woman sporting a suede jacket hopped out” and ran as a lot as him.

“’Oh, Mr. Douglas, would you please signal my jacket?’” he remembers her saying. “As I obliged, the girl who was driving acquired out and launched her. ‘That is my daughter. She’s in motion pictures, too. Her identify is Natalie Wooden.’ That was the primary time I met Natalie. I noticed her many instances afterward, earlier than she died in that merciless accident.”