The life of Hollywood actress Natalie Wood was truly a movie. Drugs, alcohol, her love triangle with Christopher Walken and her mysterious drowning death in a lake would mark the personal trajectory of an interpreter who had managed to shine with her own light in her work in Splendor in the Grass and Rebel Without a Cause. Wood died in 1981 and during these decades, rumors about her had dropped that she would also have suffered a rape by one of the most powerful men in the Hollywood industry . An open secret that could have been revealed now.
Little Sister : My Investigation Into the Mysterious Death of Natalie Woodis the book that collects the memoirs of Lana Wood , Natalie’s sister and also an American actress and producer, where she blames this sexual assault on none other than Kirk Douglas . In truth, it is not the first time that the name of the controversial actor had been pronounced in relation to this fact, but of someone so close to Natalie.
Rumors skyrocketed following Douglas’s 2020 death at age 103 and Lana’s statements on a podcast that someone powerful had used her privileged position to rape her.her sister, then 16, at the Chateau Marmont hotel. Some statements that listeners instantly spun with the name of the actor. “I remember Natalie looking especially pretty when Mom and I dropped her off that night on the front porch of Chateau Marmont,” recalls Lana.
A story that also points to Douglas as responsible for this rape in that summer of 1955 , at a time when both sisters were shooting Centaurs of the desert. His mother, Maria Zakharenko, scheduled that meeting between Douglas and Wood so that “many doors would open for her with a single nod of her famously pretty head on her behalf,” but the young woman was a long time coming back, and when she did, something had happened. gone wrong “She was very disheveled and very upset, and she and mom started whispering urgently to each other.I couldn’t really hear them or understand what they were saying,” says Lana, who was only 8 at the time. “Apparently something bad had happened to my sister, but whatever it was, apparently I was too young to be told. “
Despite all predictions, the matriarch decided to prioritize Natalie’s career and advised her to “hold on “. Lana would have promised her sister in life never to tell anything, but the rumors had intensified so much these years that she has decided justice.” It was like an out-of-body experience. I was terrified, I was confused.”
ThisThe first meeting was remembered by Kirk Douglas in his memoirs in a different way . His 1988 autobiography The Ragman’s Son recalled Wood in this chapter as “a pretty girl in a suede jacket who jumped at him.”
His son Michael has not spoken about it, although he has published an eloquent post on his networks: ” May they both rest in peace .”
The actress nominated three times for the Oscars suffered a really complicated life, which ended abruptly in the 80s. A decade ago the investigations were reopened to determine if her death had really been a possible murder caused by the jealousy of her husband, Robert Wagner. In 2020, HBO premiered the documentary Natalie Wood: Behind the Scenes, a look at Wood’s life drama. A perfect way to remember an actress who gave us great movies, despite all the drama that got in her way.
