Kirk Douglas...RIP

[Overseasmom100]

And iirc his wife married him the same year as it happened

It’s already come out. Hardly a secret!

Crikey, I didn't realise that!

What did he have to do with Natalie Wood, nothing I've seen said he was on the boat, just Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken ?

Its nothing to do with the murder. Just google their names together and it all comes up

Of course it will come out now, I bet his wife knew about it , and about time too, nasty man.

I don’t normally write things like this when someone has just died but he was a complete and utter wrong ‘un by all accounts.

Yes he was “Old Hollywood”; but in both the good and the very very bad way, I strongly suspect.

Well I'm assuming if Mumsnet people know about 'it' then his wife probably already does. As much as everyone here does have the inside track of course

103, what a good age

It's sad for his family, but He was 103 . He's had his life and a very good one.

He's had his life and a very good one

Well Awwlookatmybabyspider you might like to read the full thread and have a quick Google before posting that

This isn’t the kind of thing I find sad. He was 103!!! Kind of expected no?

I'm somewhat touched to see Natalie Wood trending on Twitter today.

This isn’t the kind of thing I find sad. He was 103!!! Kind of expected no?

When someone dies, it’s sad for their family and friends, whatever age they are, so most of us can manage a bit of sympathy and empathy

However in this case it’s an alleged rapist, so perhaps our sympathies are a litttle less forthcoming.

@nearlifeexperience

I don’t find it sad. I didn’t say his family and friends wouldn’t.

'Only the good die young'

classichollywoodactresses.blogspot.com/2017/12/did-kirk-douglas-rape-natalie-wood.html

Hopefully we wont have another eulogising of an alleged rapist

Can’t hear his name without thinking of poor Natalie Wood.

Ditto. Can everyone just stop putting celebrities on a pedestal and think.

I see Natalie Wood is trending higher on Twitter than Kirk Douglas.

There's Jean Spangler too. She went missing, presumed dead, her torn handbag was found with a note about visiting a doctor (possibly to be re an abortion) to a Kirk, and the only Kirk she knew was Kirk Douglas. He rang the police after she disappeared and said he didn't know her and it was just dropped. She was never found.

Nasty old bastard. He had a dreadful reputation above and beyond poor Natalie Wood.

I don’t think anyone (apart from friends and family) should be feeling too sad about a 103-year-old man dying after an astonishingly privileged and gilded life as a wealthy and worshipped movie star.

The Natalie Wood story (which i’d heads before) is utterly grim and shows how powerful bullying men were (and still are, to an extent) able to get away with appalling crimes.

I’d be amazed if that was the only time he crossed the line into criminality.

The eulogising makes me want to vomit and I've been calling people out on Facebook - to be fair to them, an awful lot were totally unaware of his reputation.

I can accept people saying "he wasn't charged and innocent until proven guilty". That's factually correct. He was never charged with raping Natalie Wood or with any involvement in Jean Spangler's disappearance.

But even if you take those two things off the table, his attitude to women stank as it totally clear from his autobiography. Admitted cheating on both wives repeatedly, admitted treating women like meat to be used as he saw fit and admitted he was a "sonofabitch".

That alone is enough to not lament his passing.

Natalie's sister Lana spoke of the rape on a podacst and daughter Natasha Gregson Warner was thought to have confided in Robert Downy Junior.
Wiki has been editing Natalie's entry today.

Suzanne Finstad's 2001 biography of Wood alleges that she was raped by a powerful actor when she was 16. Through the recollection of Wood's close friends, which included late actors Scott Marlowe and Dennis Hopper, Finstad summarizes:

Though her five close friends' memories of some details or timing differ after forty-five years, the essence of what each recalls Natalie confiding to them is the same: that the same married film star lured or tricked Natalie, raped her so brutally she was physically injured, and she was too frightened or intimidated to report it to the police. Natalie "hated" her former screen idol afterwards, "shuddering" if she heard his name. She would keep the horrible secret, and behave as if nothing happened whenever their paths intersected, too schooled by Mud [her mother] in the politics of Hollywood to cross a powerful movie star.

In 2018, Lana Wood said during a 12-part podcast about Wood's life that the attack occurred inside the Chateau Marmont during an audition and went on "for hours". According to professor Cynthia Lucia who studied the attack, Wood's rape was quite brutal and violent.

So some entitled old white dude reaches the ripe age of 103 without ever being investigated for alleged crimes of his youth while being lauded as a legendary rapist
I'll pass. And the Oscars would do well to mention him on the list of departed but not give him his own special fanfare if they have any sense.

As the last of the Old Hollywood giants pass away there is going to be more and more dirt emerging. Corey Haim, amongst others, has been very vocal about the laws blocking him from naming the men preying on child actors but once those men die it will all come out.

As for Kirk Douglas, there have been several blind items over the years suggesting that the apple did not fall far from the tree and that his son has similar attitudes towards women.

It talks about here too. gawker.com/5893793/did-robert-downey-jr-really-just-accuse-kirk-douglas-of-a-brutal-rape

Natalie was almost universally known amongst her peers as being “sweet” and well liked, the only person to ever have a bad word to say was Rita Moreno seemingly due to Natalie being cast as Maria in WSS despite not being Hispanic.

Natalie’s rape was well publicised and well known about even pre-internet. She could not name her rapist as she was the bread winner for her family, the rapist was a huge star and both her life and her career was threatened.

Natalie, again the breadwinner of the family with a great reputation amongst co-stars, turned down the opportunity to work with KD on a movie for “personal reasons”.

There was an account of her being blindsided and in shock at an award ceremony when she was forced to sit near her rapist. Footage of the event shows that the person who most fitted the rapist’s description and who was at that ceremony, sat in the place Natalie said her rapist was was KD.

Her sister said she would reveal who the rapist was when he died. Most of the old Hollywood stars are long dead and have been for quite some time.

I’m in my 30s and have been aware of these allegations since I was a teenager.

It was truly horrific and I suspect very much not the only story of its time or indeed since.