Natalie Wood Was Raped by Kirk Douglas, Her Sister Alleges in a New Book

When Kirk Douglas died in 2020, at age 103, it was Natalie Wooden’s title that trended alongside his on Twitter. In 2018, Natalie’s youthful sister, Lana, claimed on a podcast that 16-year-old Natalie had been raped by a “large star” on the Chateau Marmont resort. Rumors linking Douglas to Natalie’s assault endured, however her alleged abuser had gone unnamed—till now. 

“I do not forget that Natalie seemed particularly lovely when Mother and I dropped her off that evening on the Chateau Marmont entrance,” Lana writes in her upcoming memoir, Little Sister: My Investigation Into the Mysterious Dying of Natalie Wooden (out November 9), per the Associated Press. In keeping with the information outlet, Lana claims that Douglas raped Natalie in the summertime of 1955, across the time that each sisters had been filming The Searchers. 

Their mom, Maria Zakharenko, had reportedly scheduled Natalie’s assembly with Douglas, hoping that “many doorways may be thrown open for her, with only a nod of his well-known, good-looking head on her behalf.” Lana, then about eight years outdated, remembers “it appeared like a very long time handed earlier than Natalie acquired again into the automotive and woke me up when she slammed the door shut.”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 that Natalie “seemed terrible,” including, “She was very raveled and really upset, and he or she and Mother began urgently whispering to one another. I couldn’t actually hear them or make out what they had been saying. One thing dangerous had apparently occurred to my sister, however no matter it was, I used to be apparently too younger to be advised about it.”

In keeping with Lana, she and Natalie by no means mentioned what had occurred till they had been each adults. It was at that time that Natalie detailed her rape, telling 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.” In keeping with Lana, her sister and mom had determined that it could tarnish Natalie’s Hollywood standing to publicly accuse Douglas. “Suck it up,” had been Maria’s phrases of recommendation to her daughter, per Lana.

Douglas mentions Natalie in his 1988 memoir, The Ragman’s Son, detailing the evening “a fairly little woman carrying a suede jacket hopped out” of a automotive and ran to him. “‘Oh, Mr. Douglas, would you please signal my jacket?’” he remembers her saying, per the AP. “As I obliged, the girl who was driving acquired out and launched her. ‘That is my daughter. She’s in films, too. Her title is Natalie Wooden.’ That was the primary time I met Natalie. I noticed her many occasions afterward, earlier than she died in that merciless accident.”

The mysterious death of Natalie Wood has plagued popular culture—and authorities—for 4 many years. In 1981, Natalie drowned off Catalina Island after going lacking from the yacht she shared along with her husband, Robert Wagner. Suspicions surrounding the circumstances of Natalie’s drowning solid doubt on the way of her loss of life, prompting the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division to reopen its investigation in 2011. Natalie’s explanation for loss of life was later changed by the coroner to “drowning and different undetermined components.” By 2018, Wagner was named an individual of curiosity by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Division. Lana herself has publicly questioned Wagner’s doable involvement. (Wagner has lengthy denied any wrongdoing in his spouse’s loss of life.)

Up to now, Lana has shielded Natalie’s secret from the world. Now that Douglas and Natalie have each died, she believes the time is now to share it. “With nobody nonetheless round to guard, I’m positive she’ll forgive me for lastly breaking that promise,” Lana writes. Kirk’s son, Michael Douglas, responded to the allegation in a press release to the AP: “Could they each relaxation in peace.”

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