The sister of a famous actress clarifies the mystery about one of the darkest incidents of sexual violence in Hollywood

By Hillel Italie -

For decades it has been one of the darkest rumors in Hollywood: Actress Natalie Wood was sexually assaulted as a teenager by a movie star twice her age during a meeting in a Los Angeles hotel.

In a memoir due out next week, Wood's younger sister identifies the long-suspected assailant:

" I

remember Natalie was especially beautiful when Mom and I left that night at the entrance to the Chateau Marmont ,

" writes Lana Wood in

(

), claiming that the incident occurred in the summer of 1955, more or less when Natalie Wood was shooting

.

Actors Robert Wagner and his wife Natalie Wood at the academy party on June 20, 1961. Elizabeth Taylor is in the background on the left. DFS / AP

The meeting was arranged by her mother, Maria Zakharenko, who thought that "many doors could be opened for her with just a movement of her famous and attractive head," according to Lana Wood.

["Manipulated into submission": several women accuse rocker Marilyn Manson of sexual and psychological violence]

“It seemed like a long time before Natalie got back into the car, waking me up when she slammed the door,” she writes.

“He looked horrible.

She was very disheveled and very upset, and she and Mom began to whisper urgently.

I couldn't hear them or understand what they were saying.

Apparently something bad had happened to my sister, but whatever it was, I was apparently too young to be told, ”he adds.

According to Lana Wood, her sister did not talk to her about what happened until they were both adults and the actress told her:

“It was like an out-of-body experience.

I was terrified, I was confused, ”Lana remembers her sister telling her.

Lana, who is now 75 years old and about 8 at the time, recalls that her sister and mother agreed that it would

[Prince Andrew sued for sexual abuse in a New York court]

"Hang in there"

was her mother's advice, according to the book, which focuses largely on Natalie Wood's death in 1981, when her body was found off Catalina Island, California. 

New York sheriff says overwhelming evidence of sexual abuse against Andrew Cuomo

Oct. 30, 202100: 28

Authorities originally ruled the death an accidental drowning, but this has changed after years of scrutiny and the emergence of more witnesses.

Wood's then-husband,

and Lana Wood is among those who hold him responsible for her death.

[Gloria Estefan reveals that she was sexually abused at age 9 while studying music]

In his book he remembers that he promised his sister that he would not talk about having been attacked by Douglas, but rumors were so frequent that when the actor died in 2020, at 103 years old, Natalie Wood's name was a trend along with his On twitter.

Lana Wood, who also starred in

and the television series

believes that too much has changed since her conversation with Natalie to be able to tell the whole story.

"With no one yet to protect,

wrote.

Douglas's son, actor Michael Douglas, said in a statement issued through his publicist: "May you both rest in peace."

Kirk Douglas, in his 30s at the time of the alleged assault, was known for films such as

He was also one of the first major players to form his own production company and a prominent liberal activist who is credited with helping to break the Cold War blacklist against suspected communists when he hired Dalton Trumbo to be wrote Spartacus and included him by name in the 1960 premiere.

Douglas and his second wife, Anne, donated millions of dollars through the Douglas Foundation which they co-founded in 1964 with the mission of "helping those who could not otherwise help themselves."

"I'll kill her if you tell her."

Gloria Estefan reveals the threats a man used to abuse her

Oct. 1, 202102: 54

Douglas received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981 and the French Legion of Honor in 1985. He received an honorary Oscar in 1996, when the film academy praised him as "a creative and moral force."

Douglas himself recognized that he was a womanizer and an unfaithful husband.

In an interview with news agency The Associated Press on Douglas in December 2016, less than a year before the

triumph #MeToo movement, actress and dancer Neile Adams said in tone unabashed about his friend:

.

In his

1988

memoir,

, Douglas writes briefly about Natalie Wood.

You remember driving home one night and stopped at a red light.

The car door across the street swung open and "a pretty girl in a suede jacket jumped out" and ran toward him.

"'Oh, Mr. Douglas, could you sign my jacket?" He remembers her saying.

“The woman who was driving got out and introduced her: This is my daughter, she also acts in the movies, her name is Natalie Wood.

I saw her many times after, before she died in that cruel accident. "